Peanut

The peanut is not a nut. It is a legume, a member of the pea and bean family, and its pods grow underground. After the plant's small yellow flowers are pollinated, a stalk called a peg grows down from the flower and pushes itself into the soil, where the pod develops.^[1] The peanut is the only plant that flowers in the open air and then hides the results.

Not a nut

In botany a true nut is a hard-shelled fruit, such as a hazelnut or an acorn, that does not open by itself to release its seed. Peanuts are seeds in a pod, like peas. Walnuts, almonds and cashews are also not true nuts in the strict botanical sense, which leaves the nut aisle of most shops containing very few nuts.^[2]

• Peanut: legume.
• Almond: seed of a stone fruit.
• Cashew: seed.
• Hazelnut: a nut, finally.

Names

Peanuts are also called groundnuts, which is accurate about where they are and wrong about what they are, and monkey nuts, which is wrong about both. In some places they are called goobers. The peanut has accepted all of these and is not known to prefer any of them, much like a pebble.

See also

• Pebble – another small thing in the ground
• Brown – its colour
• Banana – a fruit with a similar problem
• Chocolate – a frequent travelling companion

References

1. Peg, P. (2001). Down It Goes. Legume Press.
2. Shell, S. (1997). “Few Nuts in the Nut Aisle”. Botanical Pedantry 1: 1.
3. Goober, G. (2009). What Shall We Call It? Several titles.