In article ,
wrote...

And yet you insist the pulpy (not fleshy) fruit of a banana is a berry when
in fact it is not.

Why isn't it?

Well, I've seen a wild banana species with more or less dehiscent,
self-peeling rinds, but other than that dehiscence, why not call
it a "berry"?

I've seen bananas called thus, e.g.:

http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/Wilso...99/fruits2.htm

[I do recall a bright student in class stumping an instructor with

"Apart from not belonging to Cucurbitaceae, why isn't a banana a
'pepo'?"

The instructor had to agree that there was little or no
difference from the general definition of "pepo" that he'd given
the class.]

The classical definition of a drupe is that it is a one seeded berry.

Where can one find this definition? It's unfamiliar to me.

As I understand the usual definitions, "berries" can be one-seeded,
and "drupes" can be several-seeded, either with one several-seeded
stone or with several separate stones in one fruit.

See the "berries" of Ilex for an example of the latter form
of drupe:

http://biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/an...w/aquifoli.htm

"Fruit fleshy; indehiscent; a drupe. The drupes with separable
pyrenes (as many pyrenes as locules)."

Having a woody stone endocarp surrounding the seed has nothing at all to do
with the definition.

Not your "classical definition" perhaps, but it has everything to
do with the only botanical definition of "drupe" I'm familiar with.

If the fruit has two seeds, it automatically becomes a berry by default.

Unless there is a stony endocarp, in which case it's a drupe.

So what about those plants that have fleshy fruit with 1 to 3 seeds in them?

Berries or drupes, most likely, depending on whether there are
hard stony endocarps present.

P van Rijckevorsel wrote in message
...
Avocado is a one-seeded berry.

Iris Cohen schreef
How does it differ from a drupe, like peaches and cherries?

+ + +
He just explained that. In avocado the tissue arising out of the carpel
that
is closest to the seed is fleshy. An avocado consists of exocarp, mesocarp
and seed.

The question seems to be, is there a thin hard endocarp present
in avocados or not? Is the apparent seed coat really just a seed
coat? Accounts I've seen differ, but

http://www.cabi-publishing.org/books...1993575Ch2.pdf

seems to definitively say "it's a berry".

In a drupe the seed is inside a 'stone' which means that the tissue
arising
out of the carpel closest to the seed is quite hard. A drupe consists of
exocarp, mesocarp, endocarp and seed.

Well, technically, all fruits will consist of these three pericarp
layers, but they obviously differ in their patterns of histological
differentiation. Drupes have fleshy mesocarps and stony endocarps.

cheers