Why does vitamin-rich fruit form around a seed?
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In order to make someone eat the fruit and spread the seeds. Many seeds have hard shells so that they can pass undigested and be pooped out in a pile of fertilizer.
And vitamins aren’t made by the plant specifically in order to nourish the eater, instead the eater evolved to be dependent on the substances it eats every day.
Vitamin C is a good example of the mechanism in action, because it’s actually only vital for primates and humans, because other animals make their own. We have the genes for it, but they’re broken. That wasn’t noticeable when it happened to our ancestors way back, because they got enough of it in their food anyway, so our species branch didn’t die out as a consequence.
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