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Re:There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) by SamBam on Thursday March 09, 2023 @12:48PM (#35084183)
Reminds me a little of the fact that "vegetable" is not a botanical term.

People who say "tomatoes are fruits, not vegetables" are guilty of performing an incorrect hypercorrection. Tomatoes are vegetables just as cucumbers, green beans, asparagus, lettuce, fennel and carrots are. "Vegetables" is a culinary and dietary term, not a biological one.

Re:There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) by commandlinefan on Thursday March 09, 2023 @01:51PM (#35085033)
Well wait a minute, then, biologically what are cucumbers, green beans, asparagus, etc.? They're not fruits.
Re:There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) by scotteric on Thursday March 09, 2023 @02:26PM (#35085459)
Cucumbers and green beans are fruit. Fruit is a botanical term for the structure that a flower grows into once fertilized. Fruit has seeds.
Re:There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) by dekhn on Thursday March 09, 2023 @04:59PM (#35087356)
(and fennel is an herb, which is a vegetable, that makes fruits which have seeds)
Re:There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) by scotteric on Saturday March 11, 2023 @07:56AM (#35107918)
I think fennel seeds are considered a spice in culinary terms. The bulb part I think would be a vegetable in culinary terms.
Re:There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) by NovaDudely on Thursday March 09, 2023 @04:29PM (#35086990)
The best definition was from Dr Karl on ABC radio (Australia).

If you put it with ice cream it is a fruit, if you put with a roast it is a vegetable.

Re:There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) by anonymouskimmer on Thursday March 09, 2023 @05:21PM (#35087638)
What is pineapple then?
Re:There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) by ggm on Thursday March 09, 2023 @07:46PM (#35089036)
an adjuvent to meat softening.
Re:There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) by alexjurkiewicz on Thursday March 09, 2023 @11:04PM (#35090225)
That's eaten with icecream in Dr Karl's home country!
Re:There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) by NovaDudely on Friday March 10, 2023 @03:49PM (#35100815)
But we also put on pizza and Burgers... And deep fry it in batter...

Pineapple is an odd one.

Re:There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) by proc0 on Thursday March 09, 2023 @04:49PM (#35087218)
So some fruits are also vegetables? That doesn't seem right. I would think they're mutually exclusive because fruit is more precisely defined. If tomato is a fruit, then necessarily it is not a vegetable. It's a simple distinction between the product of a plant (what it produces) and parts of the plant.
Re:There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) by brianpan on Thursday March 09, 2023 @05:13PM (#35087533)
They are not mutually exclusive because they are defined in orthogonal ways.

"Vegetable" is defined by how a plant is cooked and eaten, and so has a lot of cultural and context specific influences. A vegetable can be a root (potato), a stalk (celery), a fruit (cucumber), seeds (beans), even non-plant fungi (mushroom).

A fruit has a very specific definition (especially in a biological or botanical usage). It's the "seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering" (Wikipedia).

The part of the cucumber we eat is the fruit (you can see its seeds). But the way we prepare and eat it means we classify it as a vegetable.

Re:There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) by rovolo on Thursday March 09, 2023 @05:06PM (#35087455)
The common way to distinguish between the definitions is to say a tomato is a culinary vegetable and a botanical fruit, but not a culinary fruit.

> The question of whether the tomato is a fruit or a vegetable found its way into the United States Supreme Court in 1893. The court ruled unanimously in Nix v. Hedden that a tomato is correctly identified as, and thus taxed as, a vegetable, for the purposes of the Tariff of 1883 on imported produce. The court did acknowledge, however, that, botanically speaking, a tomato is a fruit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable#Terminology