The fruits of summer’s labor
Not all blue berries are blueberries, like these fruits of Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides).
Adam Bigelow photo
Among my favorite things is to be walking in the woods and come across a patch of wild edible fruits. How quickly a leisurely stroll or difficult hike in the woods can offer a refreshing trailside treat or even enough abundance to make pies and jam just from noticing ripe fruits and knowing that they are edible and delicious.
Strawberries (Fragaria spp.), blueberries (Vaccinium spp.), blackberries (Rubus spp.), black raspberries (Rubus occidentalis), serviceberries (Amelanchier spp.), elderberries (Sambucus canadensis) and gooseberries (Ribes spp.) are familiar fruits to most people and are easily found on grocery store shelves. These are all also wild native plants that grow and produce fruits in the woods and meadows around Western North Carolina.
Some native plants that produce delicious and edible fruits that are not commonly found for sale at groceries are spicebush (Lindera benzoin), sumac (Rhus spp.), wild plum (Prunus spp.), prickly pear cactus (Opuntia spp.), paw paw (Asimina triloba), teaberry (Gaultheria procumbens) and American persimmon (Diospyros virginiana).
These plants bear delicious native fruits that can provide nutrition and sustenance from a casual stroll in the woods. However, just because you see fruits in the wild does not mean that they are edible. Some plants produce fruits that are toxic and/or poisonous to humans.
Not all blue berries are blueberries. And it turns out, at least botanically speaking, not all berries are berries, either. Strawberries are not really berries. In botanical terminology, a strawberry is an aggregate of achenes. An achene is a small, dry, one-seeded fruit that doesn’t open to release seeds. And on strawberries, there are multiple small fruits with the seeds held on the outside of fruit flesh. You can see the strawberry seeds on every strawberry you’ve eaten.
Some things are technically berries, and you wouldn’t think they are. For instance, tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, grapes, bananas, peppers and watermelons are all technically a type of fruit. In fact, they are all berries, according to the botanical definition of a berry as a fleshy fruit with no pit that is produced from a single flower ovary.
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According to this definition, a persimmon is a berry but raspberries are not. It certainly can get confusing. Luckily, we use definitions and classifications from nutritional and culinary sciences when talking about fruits and vegetables, so we don’t have to call pumpkin or tomato soup.
There are many instances where the culinary and botanical definitions differ and can cause confusion. In culinary terms, a fruit is a sweet or sour product of a plant that can be eaten raw.
In its botanical definition, a fruit is any seed-bearing part of a plant. So, in botany, acorns and other nuts, wheat grains, bean pods and corn kernels are all kinds of fruits.
According to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Nix v. Hedden in 1893, which had to do with imports and tariff differences between fruits and vegetables, a tomato has been determined to be a vegetable. It was a unanimous decision and later was cited to allow the use of ketchup to count as a serving of vegetables in school lunches.
Even fungi get in on the fruity confusions. When you see a mushroom poking up through the soil or out of a dead log, that is the reproductive part of the fungi and is known as a fruiting body.
Here’s to the fruits of summer, to their sweetness and abundance. Here’s to botanical reproduction and the continuing growth and evolution of plants. Here’s to knowing that while a tomato is technically a fruit, gazpacho is not a smoothie, and neither is a bloody Mary.
(The Joyful Botanist leads weekly wildflower walks most Fridays and offers consultations and private group tours through Bigelow’s Botanical Excursions. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
