STRAWBERRY, in botany, a species of the genus Fragaria, notable for the character of the fruit. The genus consists of about ten species, native of the north temperate regions of both hemi spheres, as well as of mountain districts in warmer climes; one species is found in Chile. The tufted character of the plant, and its habit of sending out long slender branches (runners) which produce a new bud at the extremity, are well known. The leaves have usually three leaflets palmately arranged, but the number of leaflets may be increased to five or reduced to one. The flower has the typical structure of members of the family Rosaceae: the so-called fruit is peculiar. The floral axis swells out into a fleshy, dome-shaped or flattened mass in which the carpels or true fruits, commonly called pips or seeds, are more or less embedded but never wholly concealed. A ripe strawberry in fact may be aptly compared to the "fruit" of a rose turned inside out.
The common wild strawberry of Great Britain, which indeed is found throughout Europe. and a great part of temperate Asia and North America, is F. vesca, and this was the first species brought under cultivation in the early part of the 17th century. Later on other species were introduced, such as F. elatior, a European spe
cies, the parent stock of the hautbois strawberries, and especially F. virginiana from the United States and F. chiloensis from Chile. From these species, crossed and recrossed in various manners, have sprung the vast number of different varieties now enumerated in catalogues, whose characteristics are so inextricably blended that the attempt to trace their exact parentage or to follow out their lineage has become impossible. The varieties at present culti vated show wide variations in the size, colour and flavour of the fruit, in season of ripening and in liability to disease.
The larger-fruited sorts are obtained by crossing from F. chiloensis and F. virginiana, and the smaller alpines from F. vesca. The alpine varieties should be raised from seeds; while the other sorts are continued true to their kinds by runners. New varieties are obtained by judicious crossing and seeding.
For further details see G. Bunyard, "The History and Development of the Strawberry," Jour. Roy. Hortic. Soc. (1914). For cultivation see T. W. Sanders, Encyclopaedia of Gardening (1912) ; L. H. Bailey, Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture (1914-27).