# What is the purpose of the "grit" in pears

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-grit-in-pears/197650>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 26, 2003, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-grit-in-pears/197650 "2003-08-26T01:17:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Tatsu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/22d042/32.png) [@Tatsu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatsu)\
**Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-grit-in-pears/197650/1 "2003-08-26T01:17:50Z")

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I was browsing through the produce section in the supermarket and had the sudden urge to buy some fresh pears to munch on. After waiting for them to soften from their rock hard, fresh from the store state, I was sinking my teeth into the sweet, juicy goodness, and quickly thought up my first question: What is this gritty stuff crunching between my molars? A quick search of the web turned up the answer to that. Sclerosomes or scleroids, aka “stone cells.”

[The flesh of some varieties tends to contain scleroids, or stone cells. Scleroids are groups of cells whose walls are thickened with lignin, which gives some pears their gritty texture.](http://weeklywire.com/ww/05-18-98/chicago_chow.html)

Which leads to my new question: Why would a fruit that doesn’t form a stone/pit, be cluttered up with “stone cells?” I see that they also form the casings for seeds, but a pear has those already in it’s core.

Any botanists want to take a crack at this one? How could this be a useful adaptation?

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**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-grit-in-pears/197650/2 "2003-08-26T01:29:37Z")

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Apparently sclerids are formed from sclerenchyma tissue whose primary function is to provide strength and support:

> [@](#):
>
> SCLERENCHYMA  
> Sclerenchyma cells have thick, lignified secondary walls, lack cell contents at maturity, and occur throughout all plant tissues. These features make sclerenchyma tissues hard, rigid, and somewhat brittle. Sclerenchyma cells can occur as aggregates within ground tissue (sclereids or stone cells or as elongated fibers. In this context, sclerenchyma provides mechanical strength to stems (fibers in hemp and flax) and reproductive structures (the texture in pear flesh, the stony shells of nuts and cherry pits).

From [here.](http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/IB181/VPL/Ana/Ana1.html)

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**Author:** ![Tatsu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/22d042/32.png) [@Tatsu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tatsu)\
**Post date:** [August 26, 2003, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-grit-in-pears/197650/3 "2003-08-26T01:58:19Z")

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Many thanks Q.E.D. 🙂

Tatsu