Strawberries have a long history going back to Neolithic times and continuing into the rich heritage of ancient Greece and Rome and beyond. According to version of Greek mythology, strawberries grew where the tears of Aphrodite mixed with the blood of her slain lover Adonis as she cradled his body in her lap. The ancient Romans associated Aphrodite with Venus, whom they worshipped for her love, beauty, and fertility and the early Christians loved the Virgin Mary for these same virtues. Mary, therefore, became associated with many of the stories surrounding Venus/Aphrodite including the myth of Adonis. In parts of Europe the Virgin Mary is said to accompany children when they pick strawberries on St. John’s Day. According to Norse mythology, the goddess Frigga, who was associated with marriage, love, beauty, and fertility, loved strawberries and perhaps this is an example of overlapping traditions.
Native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere, the woodland strawberry grows in forest edges, clearings, pastures, meadows and rocky outcrops. It is a herbaceous perennial and in the rose family, Rosaceae, that includes apple, goat’s beard, and lady’s mantle. Plants grow two to eight inches high and have palmately compound leaves with three toothed leaflets and round white flowers with five petals. The flowers appear continuously from spring until fall and give way to fruits that are less than one half inch long but are strongly flavored and produced from early summer to fall. Woodland strawberries prefer full sun to light shade and moist, well-drained soil but can tolerate clay and very alkaline soils. They are hardy in USDA zones 4-8, but can be weedy. Photo Credit: Wikipedia
The origin of the common name strawberry is in dispute. The berry part of the name, however, is a misnomer because the part of the plant that we eat is not a berry but really the swollen receptacle of the plant and the parts we consider the seeds are actually a kind of fruit called an achene.
The genus name, Fragaria, was the Latin name for strawberry but probably comes from the Latin word fragrans meaning fragrant referring to the pleasant fragrance of the fruit. The specific epithet, vesca, is from the Latin word vescere meaning to eat, referring to the ageable taste.
Karen Meyers