"Technically, a cereal grain is also a kind of fruit, a kind which is termed a caryopsis. However, the fruit wall is very thin, and is fused to the seed coat, so almost all of the edible grain is actually a seed. Therefore, cereal grains, such as corn, wheat and rice are better considered as edible seeds, although some references do list them as fruits." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit#Botanic_fruit_and_culinary_fruit