My botany lecturer is running a trivia quiz, with an unknown prize. It’s not super important, or being marked, and is just for fun.
Anyway, I’ve solved all of the questions, bar two, and they are bugging me. If anybody would care to have a stab at it, I’d be very appreciative, because they are starting to niggle at the back of my mind.
What do pumpkins, grapes and raspberries have in common ?
and
World production of this fruit far exceeds that of any other. Which fruit ?
Could be almost anything; they are all dicotyledons, the fruits of all contain fructose, they can all be grown in temperate regions, they are all cultivated commercially and so on.
They’re all fruits? They all grow from vine-like things? (raspberries look like vines, and can be grown on the same structures as grape vines, but they’re more like linear bushes)**
Since this is a botanist we’re talking about, he/she might haull out a surprise answer for 2) in that things like wheat, rice and lentils are all grown for their fruit (in the obscure botanical sense of the word).
I’m not trying to start anything. It occured to me that here where the great past time is debate and nitpicking that I should hedge my guess against whoever was going to come in with the age old arguement. Additionally, I remembered someone mentioning in passing something about bananas being the most popular fruit in the world. I didn’t bother to google either answer to check for cites and I should have since this is GQ. My apologies.
As for raspberry canes, canes it is then, I conceed your superior knowledge on the subject. I grew up calling the the ones out back of grandma’s house vines. Apparently it’s a rather common thing.
AbbySthrnAccent: I wasn’t having a g, sorry if it looked that way.
In any case, the right answer is the one that the lecturer has written on his/her answer sheet; that won’t necessarily be the most sensible correct answer.
Well, it seems that all guesses have been proven wrong by other people popping in ! I’m not that fussed about what the lecturer has as the “correct” answer, because if I can prove my answer is just as “correct”, it’ll be ok. This subject is very much open to debate and discussion.
Anyway, I’ll let you know what the answers are, if I find out, though I’d appreciate more help from you lot!
In the meantime, there’s an additional one that I missed :
Which herb in the genus Omcimum was verbally abused and sworn at by both ancient Greeks and Romans while the seed were being sown ?
Happy trivia hunting. (my guess for the above question is basil, but I’m not 100% sure about it, since ancient history is not my thing)
This site indicates the whole genus is basil. I would guess holy basil or sweet basil on the basis that putting the word “holy” or “sweet” before other words is used as a form of cursing.
