Fragaria vesca L., Wild Strawberry

Account Summary

Growth form and preferred habitats

This very familiar, low-growing, wintergreen, rosette-forming, weedy perennial colonises dry to damp but well-drained, shallow, rather stony soils in woods, scrub, hedgerow and roadside banks, open waste ground, old walls, gravel and in crevices on upland limestone cliffs, rock outcrops, pavement and screes. F. vesca prefers a soil reaction near neutral and it seldom tolerates conditions below pH 5.0 (Grime et al. 1988).

F. vesca typically occupies a wide variety of less-than-ideal, stressful habitats where competition with potential dominants is reduced or absent due to the physical or chemical severity of the growing conditions. Factors that inhibit competition include shade, dryness, low-nutrient levels, or absolute physical space limits imposed by crevices in bare rocks, pavements or in walls. In the Sheffield area, the established ecological strategy of F. vesca was assessed as lying intermediate between stress-tolerator and competitor-stress-tolerator-ruderal (C-S-R) by Grime et al. (1988).

Fermanagh occurrence

F. vesca is common and widespread in Fermanagh except in very wet or very acid peaty soils. It has been recorded in 379 tetrads, 71.8% of those in the VC.

Vegetative reproduction

The thick, woody rootstock of the plant helps it survive drought situations remarkably well and its characteristic vigorous stoloniferous spread forms substantial clones in open sites. The arching stolons are produced after flowering finishes. In common with related clonal species, individual colonies may well be very long-lived in stable, albeit often severe and limiting environments.

Flowering reproduction

Hermaphrodite (perfect) flowers appear from April to July in few-flowered cymes on axillary branches. The flower parts are 5-merous, the obtuse white petals nearly touching or overlapping, unlike those of P. sterilis (Barren Strawberry) which are definitely separated. As in the latter, numerous stamens surround the 40 or so central carpels and nectar is secreted from a disc on the hypanthium inside the stamen ring. Insect visitors including flies, bees, butterflies and moths are attracted by pollen and nectar food and they cross-pollinate the flowers. In the absence of insects, selfing occurs (Grime et al. 1988). Small, red, fleshy strawberries, 10-20 mm in diameter, begin appearing in June. The edible 'fruit' of the strawberry is a textbook example of a false fruit. It is not a berry at all, but is formed from the greatly swollen, fleshy, hairless receptacle which grows up through the thin, ± flat hypanthium and encloses the true fruits, which are the dry, black achenes that appear embedded in the glossy red surface of the strawberry, the so-called 'seeds' (Sell & Murrell 2014). Achenes are single-seeded dry fruits, not actual seeds, although we often refer to them as such.

Fruit and seed dispersal

Despite the obviously edible, red, sweet, fleshy fruit, obtaining definite direct evidence that birds collect and disperse them is not easily achieved. In common with most botanists, Snow & Snow (1988, p. 100) believe that birds definitely ingest the fruits and disperse the seed, although their eight and a half hours of observation proved fruitless, if the current author may be allowed the pun! These observers suggest that even when wild strawberries are locally abundant, their very small size means they still offer only a sparse food reward for the seed-transporting animal.

German literature records members of the Thrush family, Chaffinches and Blackcaps as consumers of wild strawberries. In view of their obvious scent and the fact that the fruit is produced at ground level, they are poorly presented to birds searching from above. This led Snow & Snow (1988) to propose that, in this case, mammals and slugs may be more significant than birds in their frequency in accepting the food reward and enabling internal F. vesca seed dispersal. Ridley (1930) reports many instances from around the world of birds transporting F. vesca seed and he also mentions a case of snails doing the same with F. × ananassa Duchesne (Garden Strawberry).

Again as a consequence of scale, it is not surprising that this rather dwarf plant is reputed to be tolerant of light grazing (Sinker et al. 1985). Browsing animals of any real size are unlikely to waste much time foraging on very small plants.

While vegetative reproduction is probably responsible for most regeneration in existing F. vesca colonies, seed is very important in allowing dissemination to fresh sites. Seed is also capable of persisting buried in the soil for up to five years, or perhaps longer (Thompson et al. 1997).

In appearance, Wild Strawberry fruit is like a garden strawberry in miniature and, nowadays, it is sometimes far more tasty than imported unseasonal representatives many times their size! F. vesca is a relative of the now cultivated "Alpine Strawberry" (Garrard & Streeter 1983).

British and Irish occurrence

F. vesca is common and widespread throughout B & I. It becomes less universal in the more strongly acid, peaty and wetter soils along the western seaboards of both B & I and this is particularly the case on the N & W Scottish isles. There is some evidence of a decline of the species since the 1962 Atlas, particularly in S England (D.J. McCosh, in: Preston et al. 2002).

European and world occurrence

The species, in the broad taxonomic sense, is common and widespread in most of temperate Eurasia including some of the Mediterranean isles (Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica) as well as Iceland, but not the Azores, the Faeroes or the Macronesian islands (Kurtto et al. 2004, Map 3550). It is also present in N America, although there it is known as var. americana. F. vesca is also introduced in many countries around the world (Hultén & Fries 1986, Map 1125).

Threats

None.

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