Best Berry

The garden strawberry, Fragaria x ananassa, is a cultivated hybrid in the rose family that arose in Europe from crosses between the North American Fragaria virginiana and the Chilean Fragaria chiloensis. Its familiar red edible portion is an enlarged receptacle rather than a botanical berry, while t...

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...

The marionberry is a cultivated blackberry hybrid developed through the United States Department of Agriculture breeding program in cooperation with Oregon State University. Released in 1956, it was named for Marion County, Oregon, where it underwent extensive field testing. The berry is known for i...

Vaccinium angustifolium, commonly called the lowbush blueberry, is a deciduous shrub native to eastern and central North America. It spreads through underground rhizomes to form low colonies and produces small blue berries that are eaten fresh, processed commercially, and used by wildlife. The speci...

Fragaria vesca, commonly called wild strawberry, woodland strawberry, or alpine strawberry, is a perennial plant in the rose family with a broad native distribution across the Northern Hemisphere. It produces small aggregate fruits formed from an enlarged receptacle, with the true fruits appearing a...

Highbush blueberry, Vaccinium corymbosum, is a deciduous shrub in the heath family native to eastern North America. It produces clusters of blue to blue-black fruits and is a principal source of commercially cultivated blueberries, with varieties selected for climate, ripening season, fruit quality,...

Lychee, Litchi chinensis, is an evergreen fruit tree in the soapberry family, Sapindaceae, native to southern China and cultivated there for more than two millennia. Its fruit has a rough red or pink shell surrounding translucent white edible flesh and a single glossy brown seed. Adapted to warm sub...

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...

The Saskatoon berry is the fruit of Amelanchier alnifolia, a deciduous shrub native to western and north-central North America. Its small purple fruits resemble blueberries in appearance but are botanically pomes related to apples and pears. The berries have long been used by Indigenous peoples, inc...

Rambutan, scientifically named Nephelium lappaceum, is a tropical fruit tree in the soapberry family, Sapindaceae, and is native to Southeast Asia. Its round or oval fruit has a leathery red, yellow, or orange rind covered with flexible, hairlike projections; its name derives from the Malay word ram...