Not Really BlackBERRIES...

Macro photography reveals details we cannot see with our "naked" eyes, and among them for me was noticing the tiny stems on several of the little "bumps" of the ripe blackberry on the right.

Wanting to know more, off I went to "Google" the topic, where I learned on Wikipedia that In botanical terminology, a berry is a fleshy fruit produced from a single flower containing one ovary.

Did you know that bananas are considered a berry, using the botanical definition? 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. Conceding to common usage, In everyday English, "berry" is a term for any small edible fruit. Berries are usually juicy, round, brightly coloured, sweet or sour, and do not have a stone or pit, although many seeds may be present.

So the next time you want some blackberries on your cereal and want to be correct in every way,  just ask for "aggregate fruit from the Rubus genus," as that's what they are. Aggregate or compound fruits contain seeds from different ovaries of a single flower, with the individual "fruitlets" joined together at maturity to form the complete fruit.

(If you want to be even more pedantic, you can chat about your blackberry's aggregates of drupelets, the technical term for the individual "fruitlets" mentioned above. And if you're really obsessive, as I tend to be, you might enjoy reading this.)

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