You pretty much answered you own question as to why a banana is actually a
pepo. The banana-like fruit of some Yucca would be considered a pepo also.

Why not try looking in botanical dictionaries for the definitions? I know it
seems a radical thing to suggest but books in libraries are still far more
reliable as sources of info than the Internet. You don't want to be like
Rinkytink and just make it all up off the top of your head, do you?

If a fleshy fruit has several seeds with a stone endocarp, they would still
be called berries not drupes. 1 seed = drupe, several seeds = berry. That's
all there is to it. The presence or absence of a stone endocarp has nothing
to do with it.


mel turner wrote in message
...
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.