EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Strawberry Parent

Wild Strawberry (Fragaria virginiana), Family Rosaceae
Cucumber Gulch Preserve, Colorado, USA

Explanation:  Ah, sweet wild strawbs, the fruits enjoyed by indigenous peoples throughout North America for centuries.  Here we see just the leaves, as it is off-season and the fruits have already been picked clean by birds, rodents, people, bears, and many others. 

This is an ethnobotanical prize.  Many Native American tribes ate the fruits.  The Winnebago and Blackfoot used the young leaves to make a tea. 

A study in the southern Rocky Mountains of Canada suggested that climate change may be reducing habitat for this species, with a potential adverse impact on grizzly bears that seek out the fruits (Roberts et al. 2014).  
  

This species of strawberry has a small central leaf tooth, whereas the look-alike Fragaria vesca has a large central leaf tooth.

Other visitors to strawberries include ants.  One study revealed that ants that visit the flowers of this species can have both positive and negative affects on the plant's reproductive fitness (Ashman and King 2005).  
  

 
So why do I call this the Strawberry Parent?

Because this species is the original parent stock of
90 percent of all cultivated strawberries.

The name strawberry derives from the Old English
streawberige and straeberie, but we don't know why.

One theory is that it refers to the tiny seeds ("achenes") that cover the fruit.

Another theory (MacKinnon et al. 1992) also speculates that the
name derives from the dried runners that string across the ground.

We're just grateful that the taste is great,
in any language.
  

  
Information:
     Ashman, T.-L., and E. A. King. 2005. Are flower-visiting ants mutualists or antagonists? A study in gynodioecious wild strawberry. American Journal of Botany 92(5):891-895.
     MacKinnon, A., J. Pojar, and R. Coupe. 1992. Plants of northern British Columbia. Lone Pine Publishing, Vancouver, B.C. 352 pp.
     Roberts, D. R., S. E. Nielsen, and G. B. Stenhouse. 2014. Idiosyncratic responses of grizzly bear habitat to climate change based on projected food resource changes. Ecological Applications 24(5):1144-1154.