Patrick Elvander wrote:
>I never
>cease delighting in letting my students know that "strawberries" are not
>only NOT berries but aren't even a fruit (in the technical, scientific
>sense) but VEGETABLES-defined as any edible non-reproductive or vegetative
>part of the plant. Thus, a strawberry is also a FALSE fruit.
I would NEVER call a strawberry a vegetable. Receptacle is strictly
reproductive tissue,
not vegetative. Strawberry is, as Elvander also indicated, an aggregate fruit,
an aggregate of achenelets connected by a swollen receptacle. It's only
"falseness" is that it contains lots of non-ovary tissue, and in the strictest
sense a fruit is a ripened ovary.
Kathy Schmid
schmid at butler.edu
