Plant Knowledge - Fruit of Strawberries
August 21, 2008 by Greg
Here’s a sweet guest post from my brother. Happy Birthday Chris!
The actual fruit of a strawberry are the little yellow things on the outside.
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7 Responses to “Plant Knowledge - Fruit of Strawberries”
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mmmm..strawberries
I beg to differ….. Do you know what they use to plant strawberries? The little yellow things on the outside, which are the seeds. The seeds are surrounded by the red part, which is the fruit.
Oooh! Greg, Chris best be steppin up here or I don’t know who to believe.
Let me direct you to 2 links and a bit of interpretation:
From Purdue University: http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/senior/fruits/strawbe1.htm
From TN Exotic Pest Council: http://www.tneppc.org/Manual/glossary.htm
Botanically speaking, a fruit is the mature ripened ovary. In the case of strawberry, the fruits are somewhat unique. Since the fleshy part that we all love to eat is not reproductive, it’s technically NOT a fruit. The actual fruit are the small, dry, hard, one-seeded “achenes”, which are the outside yellow dots. There is a seed in that “dot”, but it is also the fruit.
Okay, but wouldn’t that apply to every fruit we eat? Bananas, oranges, apples, peaches all have the “fleshy part we eat’” around seeds. Saying that part is not the fruit goes against the definition of the word. Besides, the definition you link to does not actually decry the fleshy part of the strawberry as fruit.
The fleshy part of most “fruits” is a mature ripened ovary. The ovary surrounds the seed. It’s evolved to do this so animals will eat and thus disperse the seeds elsewhere. Strawberry “fruits” are not fleshy. They are achenes (achene: A small, dry, hard one-locular, one-seeded closed fruit with a thin pericarp, derived from a one-carpellate ovary).
Think about an apple. INSIDE of its flesh (or ovary) you will find the seeds. If you were to ignore the red portion of the strawberry, the yellow dot (which contains the seed) is actually the fruit. Also note that these are OUTSIDE the red portion.
The fleshy part of a strawberry is actually stem material. It IS sweet and delicious, but botanically speaking it is not an ovary, and therefore not a fruit.
I can tell you are a botany master, and I respectfully bow to your fruit knowledge.
One last thought, perhaps strawberries also evolved with a sweet fleshy part so that the achenes could be dispersed by animals?