ROSE FAMILY ROSACEAE 
WILD STRAWBERRY 
Fragaria virginiana Duchesne 
The several varieties of garden Strawberries that 
we prize so highly have been derived from crossing a 
Chilean species with our native forms. The wild berries 
are smaller but 
fully as delicious 
as the cultivated. 
The Wild Straw- 
berry is common in 
fields and along road- 
sides and railroads in 
the northern middle 
west, blooming from 
April to June. The 
hairy leaves, flower- 
ing shoots and run- 
ners grow from the 
end of a simple, short 
underground stem. 
The dark green leaf- 
lets are rather thick 
and firm. 
The calyx is deep- 
ly 5-cleft and has a 
bract in each sinus which appears to double the parts and make 
the flower seem Io-cleft. The 5 petals are white and the numerous 
stamens are orange-yellow. The fleshy receptacle forms the 
green cone-shaped center of the flower, and is covered with 
numerous pistils. It is the receptacle which enlarges to become 
the red edible berry; the seedlike structures on the surface of the 
berry are individual fruits, each an akene. 
Another form of this Wild Strawberry, Fragaria virginiana 
Duchesne var. illinoensis (Prince) Gray, is coarser and larger, with 
flower scapes and pedicels densely covered with spreading or 
widely diverging hairs. The fruit is quite apt to have a pro- 
nounced neck. 
The Hill Strawberry, Fragaria vesca L. var. americana Porter, 
is common in open rocky woods. Its leaves are much smaller and 
thinner, its runners much longer and more slender, and its smaller 
fruits are less juicy and mounted on a dry tasteless neck. 
150 
