Fruits, vegetables and herbs

Question: Is a banana a fruit or a herb?

Answer: This was a new question for us. We’d been asked whether a tomato was a fruit or a vegetable, but no one had ever questioned us about the fruit status of a banana before.

A bunch of ripe bananas from Museum Victoria's wax fruit collection.
Photographer: John Broomfield, Source: Museum Victoria

A true fruit develops from the ovary at the base of a flower and contains the seeds of its plant. A tomato is therefore definitely a fruit. Other “vegetables” that are really fruits include capsicums, zucchinis and chillies.

A cluster of vine-ripened tomatoes from Museum Victoria's wax fruit collection.
Photographer: John Broomfield, Source: Museum Victoria

Bananas also develop from the ovaries of flowers, but where are their seeds? We’ve eaten a lot of bananas and we’ve never found any. When we did some research, we discovered that wild bananas have obvious, black seeds. Apparently, the plants of commercially-grown bananas are sterile and the seeds only develop into tiny black specs. If you look closely, you should be able to see them.

So, now that we’re sure a banana is a fruit, is it a herb? A herb is a plant whose stem does not contain any woody tissue. Banana “trees” are therefore not trees. They are herbaceous plants and should perhaps be called banana herbs.

So to answer this week's question, a banana is both a fruit and a herb.