Berry Classification:  Nature is a fascinating phenomenon, especially fruit and vegetables. Each of the fruits are vegetables comes under a specific category, according to their characteristics and origin. A lot of people, many times, wonder why bananas are technically berries and, unlike their name, strawberries are not berries. All because of the strict scientific definition, which is used to determine what a real berry is.

What Is Classified As A Berry? 

Botanically speaking, a berry is a simple fleshy fruit that grows from a single flower's ovary, where the seeds of the fruit are found inside the fleshy component of the fruit. Bananas meet all of these specifications. They grow from a flower with a single ovary, possess a soft rind (exocarp), a fleshy interior (mesocarp), and have small seeds within their flesh. On the other hand, strawberries do not fall under the botanical specification of a berry.

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Why Strawberries Are Not Berries? 

Strawberries are aggregate fruits, as they come from flowers with many ovaries. Every small seed on the surface of a strawberry is technically referred to as an Achene, and each achene is a small fruit with a seed. The fleshy red part that is eaten is the swollen base of the flower, but not of the ovary of the plant. This simple explanation makes strawberries aggregate fruits, which develop from more than one ovary as opposed to a single ovary.

Why Bananas Are Berries But Strawberries Are Not?

The confusion between the two fruits mainly occurs due to the term Berry, which is used differently in informal language and by botanists. For all practical purposes, berries are small sweet fruits usually consumed raw, but when it comes to botanical classification, most fruits known as Berries, like strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries, do not meet the criteria, while some fruits, like bananas, kiwis, and even cucumbers, do fall in this criteria.

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This random confusion between banana and strawberry highlights the fact that scientific classification is determined by plant development and structure, rather than looks or taste of the grown crop, which all give rise to our common confusion regarding what a real berry actually is.