Difference Between Berry and Fruit

Difference Between Berry and Fruit

Many people enjoy a juicy piece of fruit as a quick snack. There are so many types of fruits to pick from that it can be hard to choose just one. Citrus, berries, apples, grapes or pears are all good but a quick examination of the different types of fruits and how they are identified from each other can be surprising.

What Exactly is Fruit?

The pulpy fruit that you eat and find pleasurable is actually the matured ovary of the plant from which the fruit was picked. A basic plant consists of the stalk, leaves, blossoms and roots. The pollen that is required to fertilize the seeds is found within the blossom of the plant.

The blossom itself is comprised of the petals, the stamen and the pistil. The stamen produces the pollen. Once the pollen is introduced to the pistil at the top and flows down the central core to the ovary that contains the seed, it is pollinated and begins to grow. As the ovary grows and matures, in most cases the outer portion then transforms into the fruit that you eat.

The term fruit describes the portion of the plant that contains the seeds. Evolution has allowed the fruit to be pleasing in taste to animals so that the animals, by eating the fruit, will carry the seeds into new areas, thus disseminating the seeds and spreading the area the plant can cover. This is why seed is almost always a non-digestible part of the fruit that is passed through the body of the animal and left in its feces. The plant can be propagated over hundreds of miles in this manner. Fruit has been classified into seven broad groups all based on particular characteristics of the development process or origin of the fruit within the plant. Four of these groups are berries, but every group possesses at least one fruit that is often considered a berry.

What is a Berry?

True Berries are simple fruits and seeds that grow from a single ovary in the plant. Berries that have a hardened shell belong to the group Pepo and those that have a rind to the group called Hesperidium. The fruit produced by each of the plants in these catagories grow from a single ovary for each piece of fruit.

Examples of fruits that belong to the Hesperidium group include lemons, limes, grapefruits and oranges. Pumpkins, gourds, melons and cucumbers all belong to the Pepo group. Most of the members of the True Berry group are recognizable as berries. They include gooseberry, currants, eggplant, kiwi and grapes.

Although berries are fruits, there are many fruits which are considered berries by most people that may not actually be classified as berries.

For example, epigynous is another group of fruits. Epigynous means false berries. Bananas, cranberries and blueberries all are part of this group. These fruits are made from another part of the plant than the ovaries. The next group of fruits is called Aggregate Fruits. These fruits are what most people recognize as berries. The group includes blackberries, raspberries and boysenberries. These fruits are collections of seeds that have formed from different ovaries within a single blossom. Each of the seeds has a matured ovary around it, which is the juice filled portion that animals enjoy. Multiple fruits is a group that consists of a large number of individual fruits that have formed from separate blossoms. The fruit are closely packed together on the plant. Pineapple, figs and mulberries all belong to this group. The final group of fruits is termed Other Accessory Fruits. The distinguishing factor in these fruits is that the ovary does not generate the edible part of the fruit. Most pitted fruits such as plums, peaches, apricots and cherries belong in this category. Apples, pears and strawberries are members of this group as well. As you can see, there are many types of fruits and many different ways they grow. The term berry is merely a small subset of the types of fruit that grow in the world. You can also see that berries as most people think of them belong to many different groups of types of fruits and develop in vastly different ways.