Are they nuts or fruits?

That's why strawberries are nuts

Botanists like to plunge hobby gardeners into deep confusion and give rise to heated discussions. With regard to the assignment of strawberries, the scientists succeed particularly well with this maneuver. Don't you just want to be confident in the saddle plants of strawberries, but like to be familiar with the exciting aspects of botanical assignment to nuts? The development process of a strawberry provides information:

• Before the buds can be seen, the plant creates the first flower inside for the largest A-fruit
• this is followed by the flower arrangement for the later B and C fruits
• As the flower grows, a nut develops on each ovary
• this nut is pushed apart in parts by the growing, red flower base
• a strawberry is thus a dummy fruit

Botanists refer to a false fruit as an allotment fruit. The actual fruits are therefore the small yellow nuts that gather on the juicy red flower base. In contrast to real berries, there are no strawberries inside

Seeds. These sit on the outside and are surrounded by a hard shell, as it should be for nuts.

Strawberries as false fruits - Mother Nature's ingenious plan

The deeper meaning of juicy red strawberries is not to pamper those with a sweet tooth under a hood of whipped cream. Here evolution created a sophisticated survival strategy. Dependent on a single spreading mechanism, the seed transporters should be attracted and rewarded by the tempting flower base.

Birds and small mammals nibble on the strawberries, with the seeds ending up in the digestive tract. They wander through this undamaged and germinate far away from the mother plant. Mice, hedgehogs, badgers, blackbirds, robins, ants and beetles target strawberries. They rearrange the beds in the garden and the planters on the balconyso that hobby gardeners have to pay attention to targeted protective measures.

This is how amateur gardeners benefit from the nut fruits

So you are now equipped with the knowledge that strawberries are a nut. This knowledge also has a practical use for enthusiastic hobby gardeners. Due to the botanical nature, the seeds of strawberries can be harvested easily by yourself. Although the propagation usually takes place by means of offshoots, the sowing now open as an alternative. How to harvest the strawberry seeds:

• Halve ripe strawberries
• place on newspaper with the cut side down
• let dry at room temperature

After a few days, collect the fallen nuts and carefully scrape the rest off the flower base.

Tips & Tricks

Figure-conscious strawberry fans shouldn't be confused by the assignment to the nuts. With a meager 32 calories per 100 grams, strawberries are still a slim eating pleasure. Peanuts, on the other hand, have a whopping 567 calories per 100 grams, coconuts with an impressive 660 calories and macadamia nuts with a record 718 calories.