Each Berry is an Aggregate Fruit or Tiny Fruit Cluster that
Grows on the Receptacle of the Plant
This research started when I discovered that the avocado can be spread almost like butter or jam on a cracker and tastes good sprinkled with salt. “Is this a vegetable?” I asked myself, since I had thought of it as a fruit when I bought it at the store. For me, it’s an exotic food. This article on Healthline told me the avocado is a fruit, a “single-seeded berry that grows on trees in warmer climates and is native to Mexico.”
Because the article had promised to establish once and for all that it really is a fruit, I continued reading How to distinguish between fruits and vegetables, and came to this:
Fruits originate from plant parts that develop from flowers and contain seeds. Vegetables originate from plant stems, leaves, and roots, though certain fruits can also be categorized as vegetables.
Root of Plant
But so do peas and beans. I’ve been gardening all my life, ever since “helping” my mother as a toddler sticking large bean seed into the shallow furrow she made with her hoe. As I got older, it was part of my job as part of the family to help picking strawberries, peas and beans for the table and cellar. Peas, string beans, corn, and carrots are the quintessential vegetables. As an adult, I’ve raised them myself for decades. I just know from life experience how these plants grow, what part we harvest and eat.
Though I have no formal education on the topic and no idea where to find the information, I knew there might be people on Quora who do. With a link to the article above, I posted my question and also found a related answer. Two excellent informative answers on why we call different foods fruits or vegetables,and why botanists and chefs use different labels.
Lettuce, whether loose leaf or head lettuce, is the leaves of the plant.
The following text is taken from Quora; photos are my own.
By Tim Laughlin: pre-ambulatory interest, education, career and passion for plants and animals.
What constitutes “vegetables” in the produce section of the supermarket does not equate with the technical, botanical definitions, but rather to “sweet” or “not sweet.” To be considered “vegetable” botanically, the item would not contain any reproductive parts, i.e. flowers, or anything that surrounds or develops from them. Celery yes, cucumber no. Lettuce yes, squash no. Onions yes, peas no. Spinach yes, bell peppers no.
Specifically, in the world of botany, a fruit is derived from the ovary or ovaries within a flower. Beans, peas, squash, etc., all develop from flowers. It can get even more interesting. To wit: a strawberry is not actually a fruit. The fruits of a strawberry are the thin skins surrounding the seeds on the surface, called achenes (uh-keenz). The part we like to eat is actually a receptacle, derived from the calyx (sepals) of the flower that begat the whole thing.
Then of course, there are the artichokes; neither vegetables nor fruits as we might commonly think of them. They are the specialized leaves surrounding the unopened inflorescences (groups of flowers), which would precede the development of fruits. The parts we eat are in the bracts (specialized leaves, which enclose/surround the flowers, and the base, called a peduncle which would be considered vegetable, or at least non-floral. The flowers, if they had been allowed to develop would be in the “choke” at the center—the part we cut out and dispose of.
Grow from Flowers of Plant
——————–
By Haleigh Whitlock: I Like to Eat, so I Learned to Cook
This is because the language we use to categorize fruits and vegetables came about before the exact botanical definition became widely known (and quite frankly, many people today don’t know the botanical difference between fruit and vegetable.)
You’ve probably heard the adage ‘Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad’
When people think of fruits, they think of something sweet and brightly colored. Beans, peas, and corn, have much less sugar than other fruits, they are used in savory dishes like vegetables would be. Therefore, people called them vegetables.
Grow from Flowers of Plant
——————–
What I’m taking from this, especially Tim McLaughlin’s answer, is that humans picked the part of the plant they liked to eat and bred plants to develop to specialize in that part of the plant, like the strawberry. Wild strawberries certainly don’t have such a big red part. Very interesting!
This plant sprouted on its own,
and produced black raspberries every July.
Looks like I picked all the ripe ones before taking this photo.
Life Lenses 