Wild Strawberry plant in flower (Fragaria vesca)

Fragaria vesca, commonly called wild strawberries or woodland strawberry, is a plant that grows naturally throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

Other names for this species include Alpine Strawberry, Fraises des Bois, Wild Strawberry, and European Strawberry. The type in cultivation is usually everbearing and produces few runners.

Typical habitat is along trails and roadsides, embankments, hillsides, stone- and gravel-laid paths and roads, meadows, young woodlands, sparse forest, woodland edges, and clearings. Often plants can be found where they do not get sufficient light to form fruit. In the southern part of its range, it can only grow in shady areas; further north it tolerates more sun. It is tolerant of a variety of moisture levels (except very wet or dry conditions). It can survive mild fires and/or establish itself after fires.

Evidence from archaeological excavations suggests that Fragaria vesca has been consumed by humans since the Stone Age. The woodland strawberry was first cultivated in ancient Persia where farmers knew the fruit as Toot Farangi. Its seeds were later taken along the Silk Road towards the far East and to Europe where it was widely cultivated until the 18th century, when it began to be replaced by the garden strawberry, (Fragaria × ananassa), which has much larger fruit and showed greater variation, making them better suited for further breeding.

Woodland strawberry fruit is strongly flavored, and is still collected and grown for domestic use and on a small scale commercially for the use of gourmets and as an ingredient for commercial jam, sauces, liqueurs, cosmetics and alternative medicine. In Turkey hundreds of tons of wild fruit are harvested annually, mainly for export.

Description taken from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_strawberry

• Biota
• Life
• Vitae
• Eukaryota
• Plantae
• Plants
• Magnoliophyta
• Flowering Plants
• Angiosperms
• Magnoliopsida
• Dicotyledons
• Rosales
• Rosaceae
• Roses
• Fragaria
• Strawberries
• Fragaria vesca
• Wild Strawberry
• Woodland Strawberry
• Alpine Strawberry
• Fraises des Bois
• European Strawberry

• Adobe Camera RAW