What is the difference between a fruit and a vegetable?

[Bonzo 2000]

I'm guessing its something to do with reproduction, seeds and roots etc, but I'd appreciate a more detailed answer

[Lindy Loo]

I think I'm right in saying that fruits have seeds or stones inside them, but vegetables don't.

[Scarlett]

In flowering plants, the structure which encloses the seeds. True fruits develop from the ovary wall, such as bananas and tomatoes, though not all fruits are edible, such as the dry pods of milkweed or the winged fruits of the maple. A fruit is a ripened ovary of a plant along with any attached parts that developed wiA vegetable is described as "any herbaceous (non-woody) plant or plant part that is eaten with the main course rather than as a desert. It usually has a bland taste." Botanically the fruit is "the developed ovary of a seed plant with its contents and accessory parts, as the pea pod, nut, tomato, pineapple, etc." or " the edible part of a plant developed from a flower with any accessory tissues, as the peach, mulberry, banana, etc." The confusion arises because the "vegetable" can have "fruit" which are the reproductive parts. The tomato is probably the only legally declared vegetable in a Supreme Court ruling in the early 1900's.

[New Forester]

This confusion is because of the different uses of the words in different contexts. In cooking (and come to that in eating), rhubarb is usually regarded as a fruit, and marrows, runner beans and maize are vegetables. Apples and strawberries are "obviously" fruits. Generally, dessert or sweet things are culinary fruits, and main-course or savoury ones are vegetables. Scarlett has explained the botanical meaning of fruit very well -- so botanically beans, peas, okra, marrows etc are definitely fruit. Rhubarb is of course just a leaf-stalk. Apples and pears are technically "pomes", or false-fruits -- the main part is a swollen stem surrounding the true fruit (which is just the bit round the seeds). Plums, on the other hand, are true fruit. Individual maize ("corn") seeds are fruits, but the cob is not part of the fruit proper. A strawberry is equivalent to the cob part of maize, and so in this sense is not a fruit but mainly a swollen receptacle -- the fruits are just the little seeds dotted over the surface. However, the discarded shells of nuts etc are usually part of the fruit.

[Lindy Loo]

Well I did try Bonzo, but Scarlett and New Forester did it better!!!

[Bonzo 2000]

Scarletts and New Foresters answers are magnificently comprehensive, but yours was nicely concise, Lindy. Thank you!