Home Berries Berry Articles Banana berry?? Is that a REAL berry?
Banana berry?? We’re guessing you’re not familiar with these. Well, believe it or not, they do exist. Crazy, eh! That’s right – the banana is actually a berry. Scientifically speaking that is. You’d be amazed to know that grapes, oranges, and eggplants are berries too.
That’s right. In everyday language, a berry is a small, pulpy, and often-edible fruit. In the world of science and botany, however, a berry is only a berry when the fruit produced from the ovary of a single flower in which the outer layer of the ovary wall develops into an edible fleshy portion.
Therefore, technically (or scientifically) many fruits are not commonly known as berries, such as cucumbers, grapes, eggplants, tomatoes, and bananas actually ARE berries. Who knew? And the fruits we know as berries, but that are excluded from the botanical definition include strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries, which are by proper definition actually aggregate fruits, and mulberries.
We’re as shocked as you. But don’t worry. Here at the Berry Godmother, we’re sticking with the berries we know. Science is damned.