Friday, May 3, 2013

Wild strawberries and wannabe wild strawberries...

The easy way to tell wild strawberry Fragaria vesca, which has tasty succulent fruits, from barren strawberry Potentilla sterilis, which doesn't:






















In wild strawberry the petals overlap,and .......















.... in barren strawberry they don't ...
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6 comments:

  1. ADRIANMay 3, 2013 at 6:43 AM

    Thanks for this Phil. It will save me staking a claim on the wrong plant.

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  2. Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!May 3, 2013 at 8:11 AM

    West of here, wild strawberries grow in the hedges and I've noticed them only when in fruit. Maybe the air here is to salt or the wind too harsh. Wish they weren't!

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  3. PhilMay 5, 2013 at 8:45 AM

    The fruit take a long time to pick, don't they Adrian?................but worth it!

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  4. PhilMay 5, 2013 at 8:46 AM

    Hi Lucy, I really like the fruit because it's so much more aromatic than cultivated strawberries, even if there are a lot of 'pips' in comparison with the pulp...

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  5. Richard PeglerMay 5, 2013 at 8:31 PM

    Hi Phil. I have a tast bud anomaly which means that all cultivated strawberries taste really sour to me, even when left encased in sugar for 24 hours! For some reason (and you with your scientific background may be able to tell me why), wild strawberries taste sweet (as picked) and have a great flavour. Fortunately these grow as a weed in our garden!

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  6. PhilMay 5, 2013 at 10:06 PM

    How interesting Richard. The biochemical basis of strawberry flavours is extremely complex ...... there are pineapple flavoured strawberries, and raspberry and apple flavoured varieties have been recorded too but have now been lost. We have wild strawberries as a weed in our garden too - a weed that I welcome!

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