Veggie History:  Strawberries

Source: Cornell U.

It's shortcake season! Volunteer fire companies, church auxiliaries, and garden clubs now are busy posting signs daily along roadsides announcing "Strawberry & Short Cake Festivals," and the red berries  displayed in pint and quarter baskets   fill the stalls at local farmer markets. 

But did you know that these familiar strawberries (Fragaria x ananassa)  are actually an European  cultivar of two crossed wild varieties from the New World?

Native Americans  introduced European settlers to the eastern  variety, Fragaria virginiana. Although the settlers sometimes included it in their gardens, they generally picked the berries in the surrounding woods; and  Europeans returning to the  Old World took plants back to their  gardens.  In the early 18th century, F. virginiana  probably accidentally hybridized with another New World species, Fragaria chiloensis that grew along the West Coast and in South America to produce  our familiar F. x ananassa.   This hybrid quickly displaced Fragaria fresca (the "alpine strawberry" common throughout the Northern Hemisphere), in European gardens, it and soon traveled back across the Atlantic.  By the end of 18th century the new strawberry was being sold to gardeners like Jefferson by "plant men" in America. The rest is history, of course; but for a lot more information about strawberries, see Strawberryplants.org. 

And remember:

"I eat a lot of fruit because if I fill up on strawberries or an apple, then I'll have one small 

piece of cheesecake rather than two big pieces." - Tom Fridan

Adopted from a June, 2019 post from the Rensselaer County Vegetable Blog

by Irv Stephens, Master Gardener