Botanically, a banana is a berry but a strawberry is not. Berries develop from one ovary and have a specific structure. Strawberries are aggregate fruits.
It sounds like a joke, but it is a scientific fact: a banana is a berry, while a strawberry is not. In botany, the word "berry" has a very specific definition that often surprises people. Here is how it works and why common names can be so misleading.
To a scientist, a berry isn't just a small, juicy fruit. To be a true berry, a fruit must meet these rules:
If you look closely at how a banana grows, it fits the description perfectly:
Strawberries fail because of how they start. A strawberry flower has many ovaries, not just one.
In the world of science, botanical definitions care about how a fruit grows, not how it tastes. This means bananas, watermelons, pumpkins, and even tomatoes are technically berries. Meanwhile, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries - the fruits with "berry" in their name - are not berries at all!