Everyday
Is a banana a berry, and is a strawberry not one?
The short answer
Botanically, yes on both counts. A berry develops from a single flower with a single ovary and contains seeds inside its flesh — which describes a banana. A strawberry grows from a flower with many ovaries, making it an aggregate accessory fruit.
The word berry does two jobs and they do not agree. In a kitchen, a berry is small, soft and sweet. In botany, it is a fruit that develops from one flower with one ovary, with the seeds embedded in flesh rather than in a stone or a core.
Bananas qualify. So, more uncomfortably, do tomatoes, grapes, avocados, cucumbers and chillies. Strawberries do not: the red part is not fruit at all but a swollen receptacle, and the real fruits are the tiny specks on the outside, each one grown from a separate ovary. Raspberries and blackberries are also out, on similar grounds.
Neither definition is wrong. They are answers to different questions — one about how the fruit is built, the other about what it is like to eat. It is only a paradox if you insist both words mean the same thing.
Sources
- Bananas are Berries. Raspberries are Not.McGill Office for Science and Society
- Is a banana a berry, and what about strawberries?Live Science