Which of these fruits are NOT berries: strawberry, blackberry, banana, tomato, and blueberry? The strawberry and the blackberry! A berry is any fruit that grows from one flower and has just one “ovary” to hold seeds. On a strawberry, all those tiny yellow dots are ovaries, so strawberries don’t count. And a blackberry is a cluster of “drupelets” that hold seeds. Meanwhile, tomatoes, avocados, bananas and pumpkins are berries because they grow from flowers. Just don’t put them all in your fruit salad!
Wee ones: If you nibble on a blackberry, a tomato, a banana and a blueberry, how many real berries are you nibbling?
Little kids: A strawberry has about 200 seeds on the outside! If you bite off 1/2 of them, how many seeds are left? Bonus: How many seeds are on 10 strawberries?
Big kids: If you eat a raspberry that has 37 drupelets and a blackberry with 54 drupelets, how many more drupelets does the blackberry have? Bonus: If you eat 10 of each, how many juicy drupelets do they have altogether?
The sky’s the limit: If you have a handful of raspberries, each with 36 drupelets, and strawberries each with 200 seeds, and the number of strawberries is 1/5 the number of raspberries and there are 80 more seeds than drupelets, how many of each do you have?
Answers:
Wee ones: 3 real berries.
Little kids: 100 seeds. Bonus: 2,000 seeds.
Big kids: 17 more drupelets. Bonus: 910 drupelets.
The sky’s the limit: You have 4 strawberries and 20 raspberries. To solve with algebra, if there are s strawberries and r raspberries:
5s = r (relation between number of each)
200s = 36r + 80
Substituting 5s for r, we get
200s = 36 (5s) + 80
200s = 180s + 80
20s = 80
s = 4
That gives us 4 strawberries and 5 times that many raspberries (20). To check, the 20 raspberries will have 720 drupelets, and the strawberries will have 800 seeds, which is 80 more.
