On Tue, 09 Jan 2007 18:19:41 -0500, Julia Altshuler
wrote:

jmcquown wrote:
Surprising! considering the fruit is sweet
and mild tasting. I gather it's sort of a natural defense mechanism (maybe
to save it from the monkeys).


Generally flowering plants evolve sweet smelling and sweet tasting fruit
in order to encourage animals to eat them and dispel the seeds. (Or
rather, that's the way it happens, not that the plant thought out the
strategy and did it on purpose.) I can't figure out what a sweet taste
but a putrid smell would work for.


--Lia

Read David Quammen's essay on durian.