Woodland Strawberry is a native low growing leafy perennial forb which usually has the flower cluster held above the leaf level.

Varieties: Four are accepted - see notes at page bottom.

Leaves are all basal on long stalks. They are 3-parted, toothed on the margins and the individual leaflets are usually not stalked. The two lateral leaflets have a slightly in-equilateral base. The end tooth of the leaflet tip is usually as wide to wider than the side teeth and often longer. Leaflets are thin, not leathery. The shape of the leaflet in subsp. californica is more rounded.

The inflorescence is a flowering scape (an above ground extension of the root) rising above the leaves, with the flowers in small clusters.

Flowers: The wild strawberries have 5-parted 1/2-3/4 inch perfect flowers (except sometimes in subsp. bracteata they are pistillate only) with wide white rounded petals. Flowers have a hairy stalk and are placed at the top of the scape. There are 5 green pointed sepals placed alternate with the petals, visible from the front of the flower, and alternating with the sepals are 5 shorter green sepal-like lobes, which are not visible from the front. All are slightly hairy. Slightly back from the base of the flower are a pair of small leaf-like bracts. There are numerous stamens with yellow anthers surrounding a blunt central yellow-green fruiting receptacle composed of numerous carpels.

Fruit: The small fruits, red when ripe, 1/2 to one inch long and somewhat elongate and pointed, are edible and fragrant - see below. We should clear up the terms however. The actual fruit of the strawberry is the small achene that is embedded in what has become the fleshy receptacle of the plant's flower. It is in these receptacles that the differences between strawberry species is most noticeable. In F. vesca the achenes are flattened and on the surface of the fruit. Since many mammals eat those receptacles, the small seeds get spread far and wide.

White Fruit: F. vesca can occasionally produce white fruit with red seeds. Taste and aroma remain the same as red fruit. This is due to a genetic mutation in the gene that controls the production of anthocyanins. Lower levels of anthocyanins result in paler fruit. The genetic reason for the white fruit was uncovered during research on the genetics of the many strawberry species found world wide and recently (2021) published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

Habitat: Wild Strawberries typically prefer a rich soil ranging from full to partial sun in moist to dry conditions. F. vesca prefers more moisture than the other species and more shade. The roots are rhizomatous and plants will send out above ground runners in early summer, which root at their nodes. Crowns of the original plants are usually not divided, simple thin out the plants and transplant. Once a runner is rooted, it can be separated from the parent plant.

Names: The common name of "strawberry" is believed to come from old English "straw", the past tense of "strew" which refers to the tangle of vines the plant can make on the ground as it grows and grows. It has nothing to do with placing straw under the berries as they ripen. This species was formerly classified as Fragaria americana. The genus Fragaria is from the Latin fraga, for 'strawberry'. The species vesca has several meanings, one being 'thin' and other 'edible'; both terms apply here, as the leaves are thin and the fruit edible. The author name for the plant classification, 'L.' refers to Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist and the developer of the binomial nomenclature of modern taxonomy.

Comparisons: The common cultivated strawberry, Fragaria × ananassa, is a cross between the wild strawberry and the Chilean strawberry. It has similar but slightly larger flowers and much larger fruit. The other wild strawberry, the Common Virginia Strawberry Fragaria virginiana, usually has the flower cluster at the leaf level or below and the seeds are embedded in small pits in the surface of the fruit. Leaflets are usually on short stalks and the end tooth is usually half as wide and shorter than the side teeth. Leaflets are somewhat thicker than F. vesca. Like garden strawberries, they also spread by runners. Research by Arthur Cronquist and others indicate that F. vesca and F. virginiana do not hybridize.