It is fairly well known that tomatoes are culinary vegetables but botanical fruit. Somewhat less well known is that fruits like raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries are not berries, because they do not develop from a single flower containing one ovary. (For example, the yellow “seeds” on the exterior of the strawberry are the true fruit of the plant.) This article by Ada McVean and Cassandra Lee for McGill’s Office for Science and Society relays an even less well-known fact: bananas are berries, botanically speaking, since they are fleshy fruits developing from a single flower containing one ovary. As are cucumbers, pumpkins, lemons, avocados, watermelons, and grapes.
At least blueberries are, in fact, berries.
Apparently all of this recently came to a head when one angry Tesco shopper in the UK was denied his or her bonus points for purchasing berries. Reportedly, neither bananas nor strawberries were valid for the offer, meaning the store was applying neither the common definition for berries nor the botanical one.
Taxonomy is always interesting. As a biology major, I especially enjoyed cladistics, which offers up surprising conclusions like “birds are reptiles”, “birds are also dinosaurs”, and “fish are not a coherent group”. It reminds us that the categories we use to navigate the world are often practical rather than natural—and that nature, when asked to sort itself neatly, tends to shrug.
Hat tip to Rob Heighton on Twitter for the Tesco story.