We usually think of berries as a small, squishy type of fruit that can be picked off plants, but the scientific classification is far more complicated than that.
Berry nomenclature is so confusing “because people called certain fruits 'berries' thousands of years before scientists came up with a precise definition for the word,” believes Judy Jernstedt, who’s a professor of plant sciences at the University of California.
An interesting fact about berries is that in order to be one, it must bear two or more seeds. “Thus, a cherry, which has just one seed, doesn't make the berry cut,” Jernstedt explained. "They’re called drupes.”
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And when it feels like berries can't be more confusing, it turns out, yes, they can. Linda Ly, a botanist and blogger at Garden Betty, explains another bizarre botanical fact, which is that a banana is, in fact, a berry.
“During the flowering stage, an inflorescence, a banana heart, appears on the end of the stem. It is usually a long, tapered, tightly wrapped, deep purple bud.” As the buds open, “they reveal double rows of nectar-rich blossoms that make bees and hummingbirds go wild over them.”
Linda concludes that “Because the fruit is produced from a single ovary on the flower, a banana is actually classified as a berry, botanically speaking.”
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