Pineapple is neither a pine nor an apple...what is it?

Answer 1

It is both a plant and a berry or fruit, if you will. The plant portion is the top, which is part of the bromeliad (spelling) family. The fruit is the edible portion of the plant.
Why it is called a pineapple is when it is not an apple or from a pine tree, I don't know. It fits along with other things in nature which names don't fit- the the seahorse is not a horse for example.

Answer 2

It is a bromeliad.

Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) is a large family of flowering plants native to the tropical and warm temperate New World. The family includes both epiphytes, such as Spanish moss Tillandsia usneoides, and ground plants, such as the Pineapple Ananas comosus. Christopher Columbus was the first European to come into contact with the pineapple and took it back to Europe after his first voyage. Many bromeliads are able to store water in a "tank" formed by their tightly-overlapping leaf bases. However, the family is diverse enough to include the tank bromeliads, grey-leaved epiphytic Tillandsia species which gather water only from leaf structures called trichomes, and even a large number of desert-dwelling succulents.

The largest bromeliad is Puya raimondii, which reaches 3-4 m tall in vegetative growth with a flower spike 9-10 m tall, and the smallest is probably Spanish moss.

Answer 3

what is in a name

Answer 4

The name pineapple in English (or piña in Spanish) comes from the similarity of the fruit to a pine cone.

The word "pineapple", first recorded in 1398, was originally used to describe the reproductive organs of conifer trees (now termed pine cones). When European explorers discovered this tropical fruit, they called them "pineapples" (term first recorded in that sense in 1664) because it resembled what we now know as pine cones. The term "pine cone" was first recorded in 1695 to replace the original meaning of "pineapple".

Answer 5

I found out recently that it's actually in the bromeliad family (a common house/office plant), which I never knew.

Anyway, no, it's not a pine (it's not even a conifer), but it is a fruit, like the apple.

Answer 6

Apple is so famous that once you say apple,anyone will say it as fruit! PINEAPPLE has thorns on its skin and also has a bushy head and ressembles a pine.Because its taste nearly goes with a juicy apple and it ressembles a pine,it is PINEAPPLE!

Answer 7

Bromeliad

Answer 8

it is a bromeliad fruit which grows above the plant, they are propagated taking the leaf off the fruit and planting it. Seeds in pinapples are smaller in cultivation than in wild forms and usually wont grow.

Answer 9

it's a tropical fruit. the name derives from the fact that it looks like a pine cone.

Answer 10

It is a fruit. It is very common in my country. May be you can come to take a look. It has a sweet-sour taste, mostly are quite sour, rich in vitamins, yellowish, can be found in tropical region, quite big in size.