• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

These White Dots On Strawberries Are Not Strawberry Seeds

July 21, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

You might already be aware that the name “strawberry” is a misnomer, as strawberries aren’t really berries at all. Well, it seems strawberries are full of surprises, or rather covered in them because those seedy-looking white dots aren’t actually seeds.

The strawberries’ pitted accessories are called achenes, and they are in fact the plant’s fruit, with each containing a single seed inside. The term “achene” actually refers to the simple dry fruit produced by many different flowering plant species, including quinoa, buckwheat, and cannabis.

Advertisement

So, if the strawberry isn’t the fruit of the plant, and it’s not a berry, then what is it?

Strawberries are technically aggregate fruit, from the family Rosaceae. Raspberries and blackberries also fall into this category, and they all belong to the same family as roses. 

The term “berry” is vague in the sense that any edible, fleshy fruit containing seeds can be referred to as a berry, but there is actually a scientific classification. To be classed as a berry, the fruit must contain more than one seed and be made up of an outer skin (exocarp), a fleshy middle (mesocarp), and an inner casing that holds the seeds (endocarp).

Berries are derived from a single ovary of an individual flower and are made up of two distinct groups. Citrus fruits belong to the taxonomic group hesperidium and are classified as modified berries, while the Cucurbitaceae family (including gourds, cucumbers, and watermelon) comprise the pepos group of berries.

Advertisement

That’s right, grapefruit, lime, and pumpkin are all technically berries.

Strawberries, unlike the true berry group, are actually the swollen receptacle tissue that holds the seed-carrying fruit on its surface. Unlike other fruits, when the strawberry flower is pollinated the fruit doesn’t swell; instead, the receptacle tissue swells, while the true fruit separates into small, dry achenes. And since achenes contain only one seed, they can’t be classified as a berry either!

To add insult to injury for the poor tasteless achene fruit, most strawberry plants aren’t even grown from their seeds. Strawberry plants send out what’s called “runners” as they grow, essentially little strawberry clones that will take root and begin growing when they reach the ground.

The unusual life cycle of these berry imposters means they’re lumped in with the rest of the fruity outcasts in the aggregate fruit category, along with the drupe classification of one-seeded freaks.

Advertisement

An earlier version of this article was published in January 2023.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Strong Acapulco quake aftershocks unnerve Mexican resort’s residents
  2. Workhorse Group suspends deliveries, recalls C-1000 electric delivery van
  3. Biblical Battle Tales Confirmed Using Variations In Earth’s Magnetic Field
  4. The US Army Once Spent Billions On Pixel Camouflage That Didn’t Work

Source Link: These White Dots On Strawberries Are Not Strawberry Seeds

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • “I Am The Allergen”: The Super-Rare Condition That Makes Everyone Else Allergic To You
  • 42,000-Year-Old Yellow Crayon Suggests Neanderthals Created Art – And It’s Still Sharp Too
  • IFLScience Investigates The Loch Ness Monster: A Round-Up Of Our Spooky Season Nessie Deep Dive
  • Why An Eastern Pacific Tear In Earth’s Crust Could Spare The Pacific Northwest… Eventually
  • JWST Reveals Never-Before-Seen Details Of The Red Spider Nebula And It’s Spectacular
  • “Breaking Records By Extraordinary Margins”: 22 Of Earth’s 34 Vital Signs At Record Levels
  • “The Most Important Unsolved Problem In Pure Math”: Where Is Humanity At With Prime Numbers?
  • The “Great Halloween Solar Storms”: 22 Years Ago, One Of The Most Powerful CMEs Ever Hit Earth
  • IFLScience Investigates The Loch Ness Monster: A Documentary On The Science, The Story, And The Power Of Belief
  • Remarkably Preserved 23-Million-Year-Old “Frosty” Rhino Discovered In Canadian Arctic
  • Want To “Time Travel” Back To Your Childhood? Baby Filter Image Illusion Could Unlock Lost Memories
  • The Sun Is Giving Us A Spooky Grimace Just In Time For Halloween
  • Comet 3I/ATLAS Reaches Perihelion Today – “Alien Spaceship” Hypothesis To Be Tested Once And For All
  • Search For Shackleton’s “Lost” Ship Uncovered 1,000 Dimples On The Antarctic Seafloor – What Are They?
  • Your Banana Smoothie Might Be Kind Of Self-Defeating, Health-Wise
  • What Are Those Zigzags You See In Spiders’ Webs? Study Finds They Could Be A Kind Of Alarm System
  • The Deepest Fish Ever Filmed Was Found 8,336 Meters Below The Surface In A Vast Ocean Trench
  • Supersonic Flight Without The Boom: NASA’s X-59 Experimental Aircraft Takes Flight For First Time
  • The Oldest Ice Ever Recovered Contains Antarctic Air Bubbles From 6 Million Years Ago
  • Freaky “Frankenstein” Worms Can Get Reproduction Wrong And End Up With Two Heads
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version