Berry (botany) Berry (botany) In botany, a berry is a fleshy fruit without a stone produced from a single flower containing one ovary. Berries so defined include grapes, currants, and tomatoes, as well as cucumbers, eggplants (aubergines) and bananas, but exclude certain fruits commonly called berries, such as strawberries and raspberries. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire outer layer of the ovary wall ripens into a potentially edible "pericarp". Berries may be formed from one or more carpels from the same flower (i.e. from a simple or a compound ovary). The seeds are usually
Berry 1800s, English breeders of strawberry made varieties of "F. ananassa" which were important in strawberry breeding in Europe, and hundreds of cultivars have since been produced through the breeding of strawberries. A form of the word "berry" is found in all the Germanic languages; for example, Old English "berie" compares with Old Saxon and Old High German "beri", and Old Norse "ber". These forms point to the Proto Germanic "*bazją". In Old English, the word was mainly applied to grapes, but has since grown to its current definition. In botanical terminology, a berry is a simple fruit with seeds and