Berries
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50 free Berries trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Berries are full of surprises. The fruits we call berries in the kitchen often fail the botanist's test, while some of the least likely items in the produce aisle pass it easily. Add centuries of folklore, a few toxic lookalikes and a long list of hybrids named after the people and places that bred them, and you have a subject with far more to it than jam. This quiz covers the science of what makes a berry, the stories behind strawberries, blueberries, cranberries, raspberries and blackberries, lesser-known wild berries from the far north to the tropics, and the way berries turn up in songs, novels, breakfast aisles and brand names. It is written for curious eaters, gardeners, foragers and pub quiz fans alike. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will leave with a few facts worth repeating at the table.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which of these fruits do botanists class as a true berry?
Banana
Banana plants bear what botanists call a leathery berry, because the whole fruit grows from the ovary of a single flower. The plant itself is a giant herb, not a tree.
Q 02Which botanical berry did the US Supreme Court rule a vegetable in 1893, in a dispute over import tariffs?
Tomato
Tomato importers argued it was a fruit to escape a tax on vegetables. The court accepted the botany but ruled on the everyday meaning of the word, so the tariff stood.
Q 03Which fruit was known as the Chinese gooseberry until exporters renamed it in 1959?
Kiwifruit
Kiwifruit got its name after a US client warned that anything called a gooseberry might struggle in quarantine. By 1970 every New Zealand export carried the new name.
Q 04The specks dotted over a strawberry's skin, which most people take for seeds, are really what?
Tiny dry fruits
Tiny dry fruits called achenes cover the outside, each with one seed inside. The juicy red part is the swollen base of the flower, which is why botanists do not count a strawberry as a berry.
Q 05Why do cranberry growers flood their fields at harvest time, before machines knock the ripe berries off the vines?
They float
They float, so workers can corral the loose berries into a corner of the flooded bed and pump them out. The low, creeping vines are only under water temporarily.
Q 06The rude noise known as blowing a raspberry takes its name from rhyming slang for which word?
Fart
Fart is the word hidden in the rhyme: the slang phrase was raspberry tart, later clipped to its first word. Americans know the same noise as a Bronx cheer.
Q 07Which author wrote the 1964 children's novel in which a gum-chewing girl swells into a giant blueberry?
Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl gave Violet Beauregarde that fate in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, after she chews an experimental gum whose dessert course is blueberry pie.
Q 08Which country was home to Research In Motion, the company that named its BlackBerry phone after a fruit?
Canada
Canada's Research In Motion, based in Waterloo, Ontario, picked the name from about 40 candidates because the little keyboard buttons looked like the bumpy surface of the fruit.
Q 09Silkworms feed almost exclusively on the leaves of which tree, also known for its blackberry-like fruit?
Mulberry
Mulberry leaves are so central to silk that it takes over 100 kg of them to produce 1 kg of raw silk. The caterpillars are drawn to a scent the leaves give off.
Q 10After someone chews the West African miracle berry, how do sour foods such as lemons taste for a while?
Sweet
Sweet is how lemons and limes taste once the berry's protein, miraculin, binds to the tongue's taste buds. In the 1970s US dieters could even buy it in pill form.
Q 11Which spirit takes its main flavour from juniper berries, which are really small fleshy cones?
Gin
Gin even owes its name to the plant, through an older Continental word for juniper. The so-called berries are seed cones whose fleshy scales have merged into one skin.
Q 12According to legend, the goatherd Kaldi discovered which drink after his goats grew lively on red berries?
Coffee
Coffee is the drink in the tale, which is set in the 9th century. It is probably apocryphal: the story was first written down in 1671, some 800 years later.
Q 13Which summer tennis tournament is famous for the strawberries and cream traditionally eaten by its spectators?
Wimbledon
Wimbledon crowds got through 34,000 kg of British strawberries and 10,000 litres of cream in 2017 alone. One story traces the pairing to a dessert served to Henry VIII.
Q 21Which pop star wrote the 1985 single Raspberry Beret and recorded it with his band the Revolution?
Prince
Prince made it the lead single from Around the World in a Day, dressing the song in strings and Middle Eastern finger cymbals.
Q 22Which dark purple fruit of an Amazon palm is blended into the thick smoothie bowls made famous by Brazil?
Açaí
Açaí was a staple of floodplain villages long before it was promoted as a health food in the mid-1990s. The bowls are commonly topped with granola.
Q 23Which tart red berry is traditionally served as a jam alongside Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes and gravy?
Lingonberry
Lingonberry sauce also accompanies reindeer and elk steaks across Sweden, Finland and Norway. The English name comes straight from the Swedish word lingon.
Q 14Strawberry Field, the Salvation Army children's home behind a 1967 Beatles song title, stood in which English city?
Liverpool
Liverpool's Woolton suburb is where John Lennon grew up, playing in the grounds of the home as a child. The site now welcomes visitors as an attraction.
Q 15Which wild berry, the state fruit of Idaho and Montana, shares its name with Mark Twain's boy hero Finn?
Huckleberry
Huckleberry suggested something rustic or insignificant, which is why Twain's river boy and the cartoon dog Huckleberry Hound were both given the name.
Q 16Which fruit is, to a botanist, a large berry wrapped around a single big seed?
Avocado
Avocado flesh has no stony shell around the seed, so botanists usually class it as a one-seeded berry instead of a stone fruit like a peach.
Q 17Cranberry sauce is the traditional partner of which roast bird at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners?
Turkey
Turkey and the tart red sauce are so closely tied that American cranberry sales have traditionally clustered around the two winter holidays.
Q 18Which evergreen, hung in Christmas wreaths for its red berries, is mildly toxic to people but feeds winter birds?
Holly
Holly berries can cause vomiting and diarrhoea in humans, yet many birds eat them freely and scatter the seeds in return.
Q 19Which Christmas plant with waxy white berries lives as a parasite on the branches of trees?
Mistletoe
Mistletoe draws water and nutrients out of its host through a root-like organ, and the European species can grow on more than 200 kinds of tree and shrub.
Q 20The Golden Raspberry Awards, first handed out at a living-room party in 1981, mock the year's worst what?
Movies
Movies were the target from the start: the founder passed out ballots at his own Oscar-night potluck. The name comes from the rude noise of blowing a raspberry.
Q 24Strawberries, raspberries and blackberries belong to which plant family, along with apples and almonds?
Rose
Rose is the family's namesake flower, and botanists rank the group among the six most economically important crop plant families.
Q 25Which farmer-owned cooperative began in 1930 as Cranberry Canners and later introduced the dried snack Craisins?
Ocean Spray
Ocean Spray was formed by three growers who wanted a bigger market for their crop. It registered the name Craisin as a trademark in 1989.
Q 26Which natural gelling agent, sold as a powder made from citrus fruit, helps berry jams and jellies set?
Pectin
Pectin sets as a sugar-acid gel that only forms as the mixture cools, which is why jam stays runny in the pan and firms up in the jar.
Q 27Which English dessert, first mentioned in print in 1893, is a jumble of strawberries, meringue and whipped cream?
Eton mess
Eton mess is commonly believed to come from the famous school, where it is served at the annual cricket match against Harrow. The meringue was a later addition.
Q 28Folklore warns against picking blackberries after Old Michaelmas Day because which figure is said to spoil them?
The Devil
The Devil is said to step, spit or foul on the fruit once 11 October has passed, in a belief found across Britain. Some versions blame a spirit called the Púca instead.
Q 29General Mills launched the strawberry cereal Franken Berry in 1971 alongside which other monster-themed cereal?
Count Chocula
Count Chocula and his pink rival bickered in the adverts over whose cereal was better. In 1972 an indigestible pigment in Franken Berry turned some children's stools pink.
Q 30Which fruit, a hard-rinded berry that botanists call a pepo, was being farmed in Egypt by 2000 BC?
Watermelon
Watermelon was first domesticated in Sudan. Its firm rind and flesh with no internal divisions are what earn a berry the special label of pepo.