What fruit is not a berry?

Many fruits we call “berries” — like strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and cherries — aren’t true berries in botanical terms.

In botany, a true berry forms from a single ovary and has fleshy pulp with seeds inside. The fruits we often call berries are actually aggregate fruits (formed from multiple ovaries) or drupes (with a hard pit).

Fruits Commonly Mistaken for Berries (But Are Not)

• Strawberry: An accessory fruit — it’s actually a swollen stem (receptacle) with many tiny “true fruits” (called achenes) on its surface.
• Raspberry and Blackberry: Aggregate fruits made up of many small individual drupelets, each with its own seed, all formed from one flower.
• Cherry: A drupe — it has a single hard pit (stone) inside that protects the seed.

Examples of True Berries

• Banana: A true berry formed from a single ovary, with soft flesh and small seeds inside.
• Grape: A classic true berry — seeds are embedded in the juicy pulp of a single-ovary fruit.
• Avocado: Surprisingly, it’s a large single-seeded berry with fleshy pulp.
• Eggplant: Botanically a berry, though it’s treated as a vegetable in cooking.