2023-05-23 09:46:11
It must be because they smell so great and taste even better.
We humans have actually had strawberries on our menu since the Stone Age. However, the sweet fruits were certainly tiny back then and probably only grew wild.
Breeders, growers and gardeners have been trying to further develop, cultivate and optimize the coveted strawberries for a relatively long time.
How strawberries became what they are today. Read the whole success story of the delicious strawberries here.
also read
The Story of the Strawberry
The botanical plant name of the strawberry, Fragaria or Ananassa, has been traceable since the 12th century. The European wild strawberries (Fragaria vesca), which were widespread at the time, were even systematically cultivated in garden areas during the Middle Ages.
And: Even back then, there were methods of allowing the delicious fruits to ripen a little earlier or a little later by choosing a location and covering them with straw: Simply so that the short season of the coveted strawberries lasted a little longer in May and June.
Incidentally, the original form of today’s garden strawberry goes back to a crossing of Fragaria chilensis with the pollen of Fragaria virginiana. It is called Fragaria ananassa and was discovered by gardener Antoine Nicolas Duchesne in Amsterdam in 1750.
Unusual variety: white strawberries that look like pineapples
Photo: ddp
Good to know: From a botanical point of view, strawberries do not belong to the berries, but to the aggregate fruits or aggregate fruits. The small dots are the actual fruit.
Around 1750, French settlers along the St. Lawrence River discovered a wild strawberry species with larger fruits (Fragaria virginiiana or scarlet strawberry), which they initially cultivated for themselves.
This also came to Europe and was first cultivated here in botanical gardens. In 1714, the Frenchman Amédée-François Frézier brought back a strawberry species (Fragaria chilensis) that had already been cultivated from a trip to Chile. It had blue-green leaves and very large fruits.
Crossing the American scarlet strawberry with this Chilean strawberry ultimately gave rise to the ancestral variety of today’s strawberries: Fragraria ananassa.
There are now around a thousand strawberry varieties worldwide, all of which have evolved over time from this parent variety. However, fewer than a hundred varieties are grown professionally.
Interesting: Recently, interest in historical strawberry varieties has grown again. Many hobby gardeners enjoy collecting, planting and enjoying rather rare varieties.
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