I’m new to this site, so I hope this comment ends up in the right place.
You’re answer concerning the seeds of the strawberry is on the right track, but needs a little more explaining. The edible part of the strawberry is the swollen receptacle (not stamen), the central axis of the flower to which the flower parts are attached. What appear to be seeds are actually the fruits, dry single-seeded fruits called achenes. The strawberry flower, like the blackberry, contains multiple separate carpels. In the blackberry, each carpel becomes fleshy, rather than dry as in the strawberry. Both plants are in the Rose family, and have very similar flowers, but each becomes fleshy and attractive to animal dispersers in a different way. Both can also be considered aggregate fruits.
Welcome to the forum botanyprofessor.
Here’s the article in question: “Are strawberries fruits?”
In future it’s best to leave a link to the article somewhere in the thread so we’re all looking at the same data, but nobody does their first time (not even Neo!).
Anyway, hope you enjoy your stay!
In the article, Terey writes
I don’t think that’s relevant. They must reproduce by seed often enough to be useful to the species, or why would they bother making fruit in the first place?
It’s neither relevant, nor is it correct. Modern garden/commercial varieties of strawberries are typically propagated by runners, but they also produce viable seed. Wild species of strawberry absolutely do spread by seed - in fact, some of these seldom produce vegetative runners.
Strawberries have seeds on the outside because they are accessory fruits - the bit we eat is not the ovary, but arises from other tissues. Some accessory fruits still enclose their seeds in fleshy tissues - strawberries don’t, for some reason, but I don’t think it has anything to do with them being able to propagate by runners.
Link to article being discussed here
If there weren’t seeds on the outside it wouldn’t look like a strawberry.
I also don’t know why, but that’s the way nature is, like you don’t find any seed in banana, you don’t find any seed in coconut; all dry fruits are actually seeds etc. Nature has made diverse fruits and vegetables. All have evolved to survive in nature.
The coconut IS the seed.
I don’t know how well or poorly our cultivated bananas would do in nature, but they didn’t evolve to seedlessness to survive in nature. Seedlessness is the result of artifical selection.
Seems Terey made the equivalent mistake of confusing a penis for a vagina.
Also note column has link rot*.
*Link rot = embedded link no longer works. http://www.jamm.com/strawberry/facts.html is redirected to 404.
I also don’t know why, but that’s the way nature is, like you don’t find any seed in banana, you don’t find any seed in coconut; all dry fruits are actually seeds etc. Nature has made diverse fruits and vegetables. All have evolved to survive in nature.
Bananas have not evolved to be the way we find them in the supermarket. We made them that way.
Bananas we eat are tri-chromosomal and are seedless. Wild bananas are small, and packed with seeds.
The strawberries we eat are also far from wild. The first domestic strawberries were grown in the mid-18th century.
Strawberries aren’t true berries. Instead, each seed represents a single ovum. In most fruits the ovum becomes the fruit. However, in strawberries the fruit represents a conglomeration of ovum. The seeds make the fruit grow. If you remove the seeds from an immature fruit, it will never grow into a full size berry.
Seeing that Shakespeare mentions strawberries growing in a garden (and one of the few things we know about him is that he knew his gardens), I assume you mean “the first examples of what we now know as domestic strawberries”.
Not always. Seedlessness can also evolve in plants that happen to be very successful at vegetative propagation - in the same way that eyelessness can evolve in fish that live in the dark.
Yes, you’re right. Strawberries are related to roses and have pretty little white flowers. In Shakespeare’s time, they looked nice in gardens, but weren’t too good with milk and sugar.
We have wild strawberries growing all over our lawn. I hate mowing in the early summer because I don’t want to cut their blossoms.
I’m sorry if the implication of “The seedlessness of bananas didn’t evolve” wasn’t clear enough. I’ve no desire to spread ignorance through carelessness.