Description

Fragaria vesca

This is a small strawberry variety that produces a nice ground cover with lots of small white flowers and lots of tiny, delicious red fruit. Fragaria vesca, commonly called wild strawberry, woodland strawberry, Alpine strawberry, Carpathian Strawberry, European strawberry, or fraisier des bois, is a perennial herbaceous plant in the Rose family that grows naturally throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere, and that produces edible fruits

Height: 6-20 cm.

Edible: Y

Medicine: Y

Other Uses: Y

Poisonous: N

Soil: Humusy, well-drained. Sandy, loamy, or clay

Watering: Medium

Sun: Full sun; tolerates partial shade

Usually found at: Along trails and roadsides, embankments, hillsides, stone and gravel-laid paths and roads, meadows, young woodlands, sparse forest, woodland edges, and clearings.

Ornamental: Great ground cover

 

Leaves: light-green leaves are trifoliate (in threes) with toothed margins

Flowers: Five to eleven soft, hairy white flowers

Berries: More conical in shape than wild strawberries and the seeds project out of the surface of the fruit

First Nations uses: First Nations Peoples mash the fruit spread out over mats to dry in the sun, but some groups consider them too juicy to dry. Strawberry flowers, leaves, and stems are also sometimes eaten. Strawberry-leaf tea is a good vitamin C supplement. It also has various medicinal uses. For example, the root is a strong astringent and is used as a treatment for diarrhea and other digestive orders. Young girls from one west native coast native group wore headbands and belts of strawberry runners plaited together in three or four strands.