And what about grapes?

Question

Okay... Are grapes a type of berry? They grow in bundles like berries and some have pits. So why are they special? What makes them get to be named GRAPES? Don't you think the other berries feel left out? Who votes we call them grapeberries?

Answer 1

How about graberries, or berrapes, or grerries, or just gries?

It would be good to know their preferences before naming them.

Even though Nichiren Daishonin posited the enlightenment of plants, as part of the concept of the oneness of the person and the environment, few of us humans are enlightened enough to know which names berries and grapes prefer.

Answer 2

A grape is the non-climacteric fruit that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or used for making jam, grape juice, jelly, wine and grape seed oil.

Grapes grow in clusters of 6 to 300, and can be black, blue, golden, green, purple, red, pink, brown, peach or white. White grapes are evolutionarily derived from the red grape. Mutations in two regulatory genes turn off production of anthocyanin, which is responsible for the color of the red grape.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grape

...........

The term berry, in common parlance and in cuisine, refers generically to any small, edible fruit with multiple seeds. Aggregate fruits such as the blackberry, the raspberry, and the boysenberry are also berries in this sense, but not the botanical.

These fruits tend to be small, sweet, juicy, and of a bright color contrasting with their background to make them more attractive to animals that eat them, thus dispersing the seeds of the plant.

As berry colors derive from natural pigments synthesized by the plant, a special field of health research has focused on the anti-disease properties of pigmented polyphenols, such as flavonoids, anthocyanins, and tannins among other phytochemicals localized mainly in berry peels (skins) and seeds. Related to the biological properties of berry pigments is antioxidant ability for which berries are notable due to their relatively high oxygen radical absorbance capacity ("ORAC") among plant foods.[2] Together with good nutrient content, ORAC distinguishes several berries within a new category of functional foods called "superfruits", a rapidly growing multi-billion dollar industry which began in 2005.

In botany, the berry is the most common type of simple fleshy fruit; a fruit in which the entire ovary wall ripens into an edible pericarp. The flowers of these plants have a superior ovary and they have one or more carpels within a thin covering and very fleshy interiors. The seeds are embedded in the common flesh of the ovary. Examples of botanical berries include the tomato, grape, litchi, loquat, plantain, avocado, persimmon, eggplant, guava, uchuva (ground cherry), and chile pepper.

The fruit of citrus, such as the orange, kumquat and lemon, is a modified berry called a hesperidium. The fruit of cucumbers and their relatives are modified berries called "pepoes". A plant that bears berries is referred to as bacciferous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berries

...........

So from all I read above we should call oranges, kumkuat, and lemon, 'modified berries'. As for the grapes, please note the botanical berries include the tomato, grape, litchi, loquat, plantain, avocado, persimmon, eggplant, guava, uchuva (ground cherry), and chile pepper. So if we call a grape a berry, then so are tomatoes, litchi, loquat, plantain,avocado, persimmon, eggplant, guava, uchuva(ground cherry) and chile pepper. WOW! It would be difficult to know just what berry you were referring to, so I guess I'll just call them by their common names, grape etc. :)

Answer 3

Not all berries have the word "berry" in the name. Currants and cherries fit into that category, as well. Tomatillos and persimmons are related gooseberries and "ground cherries".

Answer 4

They are not berries by the definition of what a berry is. They are in fact a fruit.

Answer 5

I will!