The banana is scientifically a berry, whereas the strawberry is not. As per the classification of a berry, it must contain seeds inside the flesh, not outside. Did you know that each cluster of bananas is called a hand and the individual bananas on the hands are called fingers’?
The same layered structure appears in other berries, including the banana and watermelon, although their exocarps are a bit tougher, taking the form of a peel and a rind, respectively. (The suffix “carp” comes from the word “carpel,” which refers to the pistil, the female organ of the flower, Jernstedt said.)
In addition, to be a berry, a fruit must have two or more seeds. Thus, a cherry, which has just one seed, doesn’t make the berry cut, Jernstedt said. Rather, cherries, like other fleshy fruit with thin skin and a central stone that contains a seed, are called drupes, she said.
Moreover, to be a berry, fruits must develop from one flower that has one ovary, Jernstedt said. Some plants, such as the blueberry, have flowers with just one ovary. Hence, the blueberry is a true berry, she said. Tomatoes, peppers, cranberries, eggplants and kiwis come from a flower with one ovary, and so are also berries, she said.
Other plants, such as the strawberry and the raspberry, have flowers with more than one ovary.
“Raspberries have those little subunits,” Jernstedt said. “Each one of those little subunits comes from an individual ovary. And those subunits are actually [called] drupes.”
Each drupe contains a seed; that’s why wild raspberries and blackberries are so crunchy, according to Jernstedt. Because these types of fruit consist of so many drupes, they’re called aggregate fruit, Jernstedt said. A strawberry is also an aggregate fruit, but instead of having multiple drupes, it has multiple achenes, the little yellow ovals on the fruit’s surface, which each contain a seed.
Credit : Live Science
Picture Credit : Google
