Berry Fresh Month – February 2025

History of Berry Fresh Month

Contrary to popular belief, strawberries are not berries. They are members of the ‘Rosaceae,’ or ‘rose,’ family, which includes other fruits like apples, pears, blackberries, raspberries, apricots, and cherries. Unlike blueberries, strawberries are aggregate fruits as they are multiple fruits embedded in a fleshy receptacle. Strawberries were first mentioned in history by the Roman poets Virgil and Ovid in the 1st century. The poets referred to strawberries as an ornamental plant instead of an edible one. However, even before that, people ate wild strawberries — although in small quantities, due to their small sizes, lack of flavor, and toughness.

In the 14th century, the French began transplanting wild strawberries from the forest to their gardens for harvest. By the 16th century, strawberry cultivation had become common and people were using the fruit for medicinal purposes. At the end of the century, the demand for strawberries in England had grown, so English farmers started cultivating the fruit. In 1714, a French spy introduced the Chilean strawberry — Fragaria Chiloensis — to France. Unlike other strawberry species, the Chilean strawberry has fewer but larger flowers and produces larger fruits. Although the strawberry thrived in France, it did not produce fruits due to the climate.

In the mid-18th century, French gardeners in Brest and Cherbourg accidentally pollinated the Chilean strawberry with the Virginia strawberry, giving rise to the modern strawberry. These pollinations of Chilean and Virginia strawberries — Fragaria ananassa — led Antoine Nicolas Duchesne to make discoveries vital to plant breeding science. He published his research on the sexual production of strawberries in 1766. Soon after, several varieties of Fragaria ananassa were produced in England, developing the ancestors of the modern strawberry. These varieties were also bred in Europe and America to improve their taste, hardiness, size, and disease resistance.