what the white dots on strawberries really are
By ELEANOR DYE
People have been left shocked after finding out what the white spots on strawberries really are.
As the UK finally starts to see more sunshine, many will be thinking about bringing strawberries on picnics, or picking them out at fruit farms.
It's thought that two million strawberries are eaten each year at Wimbledon tennis tournament alone - but many Brits are not as clued up on the beloved fruit as they might think.
Each strawberry has hundreds of brownish white specks on the outside.
Most people assume these are seeds - but they're actually small fruits, called achenes, each of which contain a single seed.
The average strawberry will contain around 200 of these, making it very high in fibre.
They form when the strawberry flower is pollinated - and the fertilised ovaries in the flower form small dry fruits, which look like seeds on the outside.
Other plants that have achenes include buttercups, buckwheat, quinoa and cannabis.
People have been left shocked after finding out what the white spots on strawberries really are (stock image)
Aaron Liston Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University told Live Science: 'When you eat one strawberry, you're getting hundreds of fruits, not just one.'
As the seeds are actually hidden inside the achene, it's unlikely that most people will ever have seen the true seed of a strawberry.
Chris Gunter, associate professor of horticultural science at NC State said: 'First off, strawberries don't keep their seeds outside their fruit. Those things we think of as strawberry seeds aren't seeds.'
'There are a few fundamental reasons why plants have evolved different kinds of fruits. One reason is to attract something that spreads seeds,' he said.
'A second evolutionary approach is for plants to find ways for their fruit to disperse on their own. For example, they may fly in the wind, like a dandelion, or be moved by the water, like a coconut.'
In a recent Reddit thread, one user explained that the 'seeds' on the outside of a strawberry are actually the fruit - and people couldn't believe what they were reading.
People said: 'I'm actually so mindblown by this..';
'This is blowing my mind more than i feel it should';
Most people assume these are seeds - but they're actually small fruits, called achenes, each of which contain a single seed (stock image)
'All these years I've been lied to';
'Awww they have little stems on them too!';
'So that's why they're prickly!!!!'
And if the seed situation wasn't mindboggling enough - strawberries aren't technically berries, despite their misleading name.
They are in fact fleshy swollen receptacles covered in the tiny separate dry fruits and are made from the part of the plant that connects the flower to the stem.
They still appear like fruits as the genes that would be typically expressed in the fruit are instead displayed in the receptacle, meaning it becomes ripe and juicy to eat.
Botanists commonly refer to the strawberry as a 'false fruit' due to its misleading name and appearance.
Strawberries can easily reproduce as they don't rely on their seeds to grow.
If they're unable to spread their seeds, strawberries can propogate a runner - horizontal stems that emerged from the parent plant, that are then rooted to create a new plant.
Last summer, feuds erupted between berry pickers and business owners, who branded them 'shoplifters' for nibbling the fruit before they got to the pay desk.
The Vale Pick Your Own farm in Bonvilston, South Wales has found itself in a jam, alleging that people eating the fruit is having 'a significant impact' on their business.
In a social media post, the small family run farm compared eating strawberries before getting to the till as equal to 'taking products without paying in a shop'.
They later warned that customers would be kicked out if they were spotted taking a quick bite of the fruit in the fields.
The business model allows visitors to have free reign in the farm or field to pick their own fruit, flowers or vegetables, which they pay for afterwards.
Shoppers spent a record £847.5million on strawberries over the last 12 months leading to July 2024.
But that same month, it was reported that four in ten British berry growers could find themselves at risk of going out of business by 2026, due to rising costs and squeezed supermarket prices.
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