"True" berries. Clockwise from upper left (size not to scale):

red gooseberries (Ribes uva-crispa L. ), redcurrants (Ribes rubrum L.),

Concord grape (Vitis labrusca) and persimmon (Diospyros kaki)

 

[follow the Wikipedia links]

Over years as shoppers and consumers, we think of berries as one class of fruit, but botanists do not. They define 5 different kinds of fruits thought to be "berries", some of which don't qualify botanically as true berries.

Click on the berry names in red to read a report from The Berry Doctor's Journal

Botanical classifications	"True" berry	"False" berry +	Aggregate fruit	Accessory fruit	Multiple fruit
Berries as we know them	blackcurrant, redcurrant, gooseberry, grape, goji (wolfberry)	blueberry, cranberry	blackberry, raspberry, loganberry, boysenberry	strawberry	mulberry
A berry by botanical definition ?	Yes	No	No	No	No
Related fruit	tomato, eggplant, chili pepper	banana		açaí, apple, peach, cherry	pineapple

+ botanists call this berry epigynous

 

"The gardener couldn't put in any of his plants because he hadn't bot-any" ;>)

 

Botany is the "branch" of science dedicated to plant life, so tends to use specific terms often unfamiliar to general consumers of berry products.

Two principles for orientation -- [follow the Wikipedia links]

• below the above picture of "true" berries are fruit names followed by Latin-like names in italics highlighted by yellow. What are those italicized names and how did they get assigned?

The scientific naming of plants is called taxonomy developed by the Swedish botanist, Carolus Linnaeus, who published a detailed monograph in 1753 covering all the known plants at that time. A name followed by an "L." means it was described and named by Linnaeus. Names without an L were devised after Linnaeus' time, but follow his taxonomy rules to maintain consistency.

The first word in 2-name taxonomy (example, Vitis labrusca, for Concord grape) is the genus and the second word is the species. Go here to see a simple graph used to classify plants and animals.

• botanists use a similar anatomy for describing a plant's components as animal biologists use -- this is called plant morphology. In bearing fruit, a plant's ovary is the source of the "true" fruit like a berry.

What this description means in botany is that a "true" berry can only derive from the plant's ovary. if it doesn't (it may grow from other parts of the plant's flower), then it is a "false" berry.

How many kinds of berries are defined by

botanical rules?

1. True berries that derive from the plant's ovary. Examples in the picture above.

2. False berries that derive from other parts of the plant's flower, such as the petals or sepals at the base of the flower. Examples: blueberry and cranberry shown by the star on the bottom of these berries, see below

Blueberries (Vaccinium corymbosum L.) that grow from the sepal at the base of the flower,

so are not "true" berries (not derived from the plant ovary).

The star-shape at the base of the fruit is where the berry detached from the sepal.

3. Aggregate fruits. These plants are not really berries but rather are defined in botany as "aggregate". This means they collect together as many individuals grouped as one. Raspberry, blackberry and boysenberry are examples.

Marionberry, a cultivar of blackberry (Rubus ursinus cv.), demonstrating the

many drupelets collectively called an aggregate fruit by botanists.

In this case, each drupelet is a berry.

 

4. Accessory fruit. Example: strawberry. One of the most curious creations of Nature, the flesh of a strawberry is not the "berry", the seeds are!

5. Multiple fruit. Example: mulberry. A multiple fruit is formed from each flower in a cluster joining into a single mass when the fruit matures to make a "compound" or multiple fruit. A pineapple is also a multiple fruit.