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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsRaise your hand if you didn't know pumpkins were fruit
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, "Fruit, in its strict botanical sense, (is) the fleshy or dry ripened ovary of a plant, enclosing the seed or seeds." That definition includes produce popularly thought of as fruit including apples, bananas and berries but it also applies to beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, olives, avocados and, yes, pumpkin.
Carve a jack-o'-lantern and you'll encounter stringy orange pulp and many seeds inside. Those seeds also called pepitas provide all the proof you need. In fact, New Hampshire officially named pumpkin its state fruit in 2006!
If you're wondering what really counts as a vegetable then, just think of all the other edible parts of plants. That can include the leaves (lettuce), stem (asparagus), roots (carrots), tubers (potatoes), bulbs (onions) or flowers (artichokes).
When it comes to pumpkin, the word itself has no botanical meaning, according to the Missouri Botanical Garden. The round, orange things we call pumpkins technically qualify as squash, since they're part of the Cucurbitaceae family, which contains 700 different species. The big pumpkins, mini pumpkins, acorn squash, spaghetti squash, zucchini and ornamental gourds are all different cultivars of the same species: Cucurbita pepo, which originated in Mexico more than 10,000 years ago.
https://www.wtae.com/article/is-pumpkin-a-fruit/24175827
AleksS
(1,665 posts)For example, tomatoes are legally a vegetable in the US, by tax code, though biologically theyre fruits.
Also:
Intelligence is knowing tomatoes and squash are fruits...
Wisdom is knowing not to put them in a fruit salad!
Sentath
(2,243 posts)Also:
crud
(619 posts)Somebody owes me a drink, if I can just remember who took my bet.