Best Berry

Red raspberry fruit is formed from many small drupelets joined into a single aggregate, giving Rubus idaeus its familiar clustered appearance. The species belongs to the rose family and is native to Europe and temperate parts of Asia. Often called the red raspberry or European raspberry, it is a per...

The familiar garden strawberry belongs to the rose family, but its red edible portion is not a berry in the botanical sense. Fragaria × ananassa is a cultivated hybrid that arose in Europe through crosses between the North American Fragaria virginiana and the Chilean Fragaria chiloensis. The fleshy...

Blueberries are small edible berries that can be eaten fresh, frozen or incorporated into cooked foods. Their blue to purple coloring comes in part from anthocyanins, a group of flavonoid pigments. They also provide dietary fiber, making them a whole-food source of plant compounds rather than an iso...

Cherimoya, Annona cherimola, is a fruit-bearing tree in the custard-apple family, Annonaceae, associated with the Andean regions of South America. Its green fruit has overlapping scale-like or smooth depressions on the skin and soft white flesh surrounding numerous hard, dark seeds. The edible pulp...

Developed as a cultivated blackberry hybrid, the marionberry has a close connection to Oregon fruit growing. It emerged from a United States Department of Agriculture breeding program carried out with Oregon State University. Released in 1956, it took its name from Marion County, Oregon, where exten...

Low colonies spreading through underground rhizomes are a defining feature of Vaccinium angustifolium. This deciduous shrub, native to eastern and central North America, produces small blue berries used fresh and in processed foods. Wildlife also feeds on the fruit. Its low growth and ability to exp...

Small edible fruits distinguish Fragaria vesca from the larger garden strawberries commonly sold in shops. Known as wild strawberry, woodland strawberry, or alpine strawberry, this perennial member of the rose family has a broad native distribution across the Northern Hemisphere. Its fruit develops...

A deciduous shrub from eastern North America, Vaccinium corymbosum supplies a major part of the cultivated blueberry crop. Highbush blueberry belongs to the heath family and bears clusters of blue to blue-black fruit. Its cultivated varieties differ in the climates they suit and when they ripen, all...

Beneath a rough red or pink shell, lychee fruit contains translucent white edible flesh surrounding a single glossy brown seed. Litchi chinensis is an evergreen tree in the soapberry family, Sapindaceae, native to southern China. Cultivation there extends back more than two millennia. Its fragrant s...

Rubus fruticosus agg. is a collective botanical name applied to a complex group of closely related European blackberry plants in the rose family. These perennial brambles typically produce arching or trailing canes, compound leaves, and aggregate fruits composed of many small drupelets that turn dar...

Mara des Bois is a French everbearing garden-strawberry cultivar introduced in 1991 and bred for a fragrance and flavor reminiscent of the wild woodland strawberry, Fragaria vesca. It produces relatively small to medium-sized red fruit over an extended season rather than in a single concentrated cro...

Purple passion fruit is the edible fruit of Passiflora edulis, a perennial climbing vine native to parts of subtropical South America and now cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide. The round or oval fruit develops a purple rind around an aromatic, sweet-tart pulp containing numero...

The boysenberry is a cultivated bramble fruit generally described as a complex hybrid involving blackberry, raspberry, and loganberry ancestry. Rudolph Boysen developed the plant in California, and nurseryman Walter Knott later cultivated and marketed it after locating surviving vines. The fruit is...

The boysenberry is a large aggregate fruit in the genus Rubus, generally described as a hybrid involving blackberry, raspberry, and loganberry ancestry. Rudolph Boysen cultivated the fruit in California in the 1920s, and Walter Knott later propagated and sold it, helping establish the berry's associ...

Vaccinium myrtillus, commonly called bilberry, is a low-growing shrub in the heath family native across much of Europe and parts of northern Asia. It bears small blue-black berries whose flesh is dark and strongly pigmented, unlike the pale interior of many cultivated blueberries. The fruit contains...

Jamaican allspice is a spice derived from the dried, unripe berries of the *Pimenta dioica* tree, which is native to the Greater Antilles and Central America. It is distinguished by its complex flavor profile, which chemically resembles a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. The spice is a c...

Cloudberry, or Rubus chamaemorus, is a low-growing perennial plant in the rose family found across Arctic and subarctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere. It produces aggregate fruits that ripen from red to amber or golden orange and commonly grows in bogs, peatlands, and tundra. The fruit is gathe...

The tomatillo, Physalis philadelphica, is a plant in the nightshade family cultivated for its round fruit, which develops inside a papery husk. Domesticated in Mexico before European contact, it remains a standard ingredient in Mexican cooking, particularly in salsa verde and sauces whose tart flavo...

Atemoya, botanically Annona x atemoya, is a cultivated hybrid between the cherimoya and the sugar apple, both members of the custard-apple family. It produces a segmented green fruit containing aromatic, sweet, custard-like pulp and numerous dark seeds that are not eaten. Grown in warm subtropical a...

Vaccinium membranaceum, commonly called black huckleberry or thinleaf huckleberry, is a deciduous shrub native to forests and mountain regions of western North America. It produces dark purple to nearly black edible berries that are gathered by people and eaten by wildlife, while its underground ste...

Sumac is the coarsely ground dried berry of Rhus coriaria, a shrub native to the Middle East and Mediterranean, prized for its tart, lemony flavor and used as a souring agent and condiment in Lebanese, Turkish, and Persian cuisines.

Allspice is a spice derived from the dried, unripe berries of the Pimenta dioica tree, an evergreen native to the Caribbean and Central America. English colonists gave it this name because its flavor profile resembles a blend of cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon. It is available whole as dried berries or...

Kaki persimmon, Diospyros kaki, is a deciduous fruit tree in the ebony family, Ebenaceae, native to China and cultivated widely across East Asia and other temperate or subtropical regions. Its orange to reddish fruit is botanically a berry and varies greatly by cultivar in size, shape, sweetness, an...

Jaboticaba, Plinia cauliflora, is an evergreen fruit tree in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, native to southeastern Brazil. It is distinguished by cauliflory: flowers and round, dark-purple fruits develop directly on the trunk and older branches rather than only on new shoots. The fruits have pale, ju...

Mamey sapote, Pouteria sapota, is a tropical fruit tree in the Sapotaceae family, native to southern Mexico and parts of Central America. Its large, rough-skinned fruit contains dense salmon, orange, or reddish flesh with a sweet flavor often compared with pumpkin, sweet potato, and almond, surround...

Lingonberry, Vaccinium vitis-idaea, is a low-growing evergreen shrub in the heath family, Ericaceae, native across boreal and Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere. It produces small red berries with a distinctly tart flavor and commonly grows in forests, heathlands, and tundra. The fruit is wid...

Black raspberry, Rubus occidentalis, is a deciduous bramble in the rose family native to eastern North America. Its dark aggregate fruit resembles a blackberry, but a ripe black raspberry separates cleanly from the receptacle and is therefore hollow at the center when picked. The plant grows on arch...

Morus nigra, native to southwestern Asia, has been cultivated for its large, richly flavored dark berries for at least 2,000 years and was the mulberry species prized for fruit rather than silkworm production in ancient Persia.

Triple Crown is a thornless blackberry cultivar released by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1996. It has a semi-erect growth habit and produces large, sweet fruit that ripens over an extended period, typically later than many other blackberry cultivars. Its lack of thorns, fruit quali...