Is banana a kind of berry?

Social media users have been discussing how to classify fruits including bananas, and some people’s answers are surprising.

Claim

Google Trends data shows that in the past day, the number of people searching for the answer to whether a banana is a berry has surged.

Searches include “Why bananas are berries” and “Why bananas are considered berries”.

Social media users have also been discussing this, which may lead to an increase in search volume.

search Twitter There have been many claims about bananas as berries on this topic, and some users have also pointed out that strawberries are not berries, and hinted that these claims seem counterintuitive.

In a post that received more than a thousand likes earlier this month, a Twitter user said: “Bananas are actually a berry, and strawberries are not.”

Lex Fridman, an artificial intelligence researcher and popular podcast host with nearly 750,000 Twitter followers, tweeted in June: “Strawberries are not berries. On the other hand, bananas and eggplants are berries.”

There are also TikTok videos where users claim or respond to the claim that bananas are berries. Like this.

fact

According to an article published by McGill University in Canada, from the perspective of science and botany, bananas are indeed berries.

The confusion in the classification of some fruits stems from the fact that some fruits with “berry” in their names are not scientifically classified as berries.

For example, people usually call raspberries and Strawberry Berries, when they are not technically berries.

The berry is divided into three layers-the exocarp, which is the outer layer; the mesocarp, the inner layer we usually eat; and the endocarp, the part that contains the seeds in the middle.

According to Ada McVean and Cassandra Lee of the McGill Office of Science and Society, for a fruit to become a berry, it must have seeds and pulp from the flower ovary.

This Great Britain The encyclopedia states that a berry is a fleshy fruit, usually with multiple seeds, from a single ovary of a flower.

Bananas meet the above criteria.

Great Britain It also distinguishes between berries and stone fruits.

A stone fruit is a fruit similar to a berry, but with a hard endocarp around the seed. They may also have stones or pits instead of seeds as people usually call them.

Finally, there are aggregate and accessory fruits such as strawberries and raspberries. According to Aly Baumgartner, paleobotanist and collection manager at the Sternberg Museum, these are either from multiple parts of a flower or from non-ovary parts of a flower.

ruling

real.

Newsweek fact check

According to the definition of botany, banana is a kind of berry.

The berry has an outer layer called the exocarp; the mesocarp, the inner layer we usually eat; and the endocarp, the part that contains the seeds in the middle.

A berry is a fleshy fruit, usually with multiple seeds, from a single ovary of a flower.

Bananas meet all these criteria and can therefore be classified as berries.