The plant kingdom is full of oddities that sometimes defy logic with some bizarre and outrageous looking flowers, fruits and other plant parts.
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In many cases these rather ugly, deformed looking structures are the result of disease or disorder, but there are those plants that produce some unusual fruits and plant parts that make an interesting conversation piece to say the least.
Buddah's hand is one unusual fruit that belongs to the citrus family.
This rather unsightly fruit looks like a lemon gone wild. It has splayed finger-like segments that look more like an octopus than a hand.
The horned melon or kiwano is another fruit that has an odd appearance. But despite its prickly appearance the green jelly-like flesh tastes like a combination of banana, melon, cucumber, and lime.
Celeriac is a vegetable that is big on ugliness, but gorgeous in the flavour stakes. It is related to celery and unlike its relative it's the swollen roots that are eaten not the stems.
There are also plants that sometimes throw an unexpected oddity. Tomatoes will often produce deformed fruits referred to as cat face where the fruit develops indentations and scars at the blossom end.
It's often the result of low temperatures during flowering due to poor pollination or damage in the fruit set stage of development.
The result is some very odd-looking fruits. The deformity occurs when unaffected parts of the fruit continue to expand.
Fasciation is another disorder that can show up in plants which depending on the observer can be attractive or ugly, either way it is always interesting.
Fasciation can occur in stems and flowers and has been exploited to produce some interesting flowers such as the celosia used by florists, affectionately called 'brains' due its appearance.
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Many root crops can form abnormal appearances and despite their unusual looks still be eaten.
Carrots, turnips and swedes are often dug up with multiple branched roots that look like all manner of things such as animals, people, feet, hands and faces.
These distortions can result from growing in soils that have too high levels of organic matter, heavy clay soils or clumping rocky soils.
When it comes to ugly fruits and vegetables, never judge a book by its cover as looks can be somewhat deceiving.