It sounds backward, but botanically, a banana qualifies as a berry while a strawberry does not.

That's because botanists aren't terribly interested in whether a fruit is small, round, sweet or something you'd put on your cereal. They classify fruits by how they develop from a flower, and that's where our everyday idea of a berry starts to fall apart.

The banana passes the botanical test. The strawberry doesn't—and the reason gets stranger once you look at those little specks covering its outside.