Fragaria


Fragaria is a genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, commonly known as strawberries for their edible fruits. There are more than 20 described species and many hybrids and cultivars. The most common strawberries grown commercially are cultivars of the garden strawberry, a hybrid known as Fragaria × ananassa. Strawberries have a taste that varies by cultivar, and ranges from quite sweet to rather tart. Strawberries are an important commercial fruit crop, widely grown in all temperate regions of the world.

Description

Strawberries are not true berries. The fleshy and edible part of the fruit is a receptacle, and the parts that are sometimes mistakenly called "seeds" are achenes.

Etymology

Although it is commonly thought that strawberries get their name from straw being used as a mulch in cultivating the plants, the word is possibly derived from "strewn berry" in reference to the runners that "strew" or "stray away" from the base of the plants. David Mikkelson argues that "the word 'strawberry' has been part of the English language for at least a thousand years, well before strawberries were cultivated as garden or farm edibles."

Classification

There are more than 20 different Fragaria species worldwide. Numbers of other species have been proposed, some of which are now recognized as subspecies. Key to the classification of strawberry species is recognizing that they vary in the number of chromosomes. There are seven basic types of chromosomes that they all have in common. However, they exhibit different polyploidy. Some species are diploid, having two sets of the seven chromosomes. Others are tetraploid, hexaploid, octoploid, or decaploid.
As a rough rule, strawberry species with more chromosomes tend to be more robust and produce larger plants with larger berries.

Diploid species

A number of species of butterflies and moths feed on strawberry plants: see list of Lepidoptera that feed on strawberry plants.