Fragaria

Garden strawberry plant (Fragaria × ananassa )

The strawberry (Fragaria ) is a genus in the subfamily Rosoideae within the rose family ( Rosaceae ). You since the Stone Age have been playing a role in the human diet, only with the introduction of American species in the 18th century, however, developed the garden strawberry. Contrary to their name include the strawberry from a botanical perspective, not the berries, but to the collective nut fruits. There are about twenty species, mostly in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere and one species in Chile (Fragaria chiloensis ).

• 4.1 foods
• 4.2 ornamental plant

Description

Strawberries are perennial herbaceous plants. They are usually soft or silky hairy, with thick, slightly woody, filamentary streamers drifting " rhizome ". The foothills take root and form new rosettes (so-called Blastochorie ). The alternate, basal, long-stalked leaves are usually three parts, less often fingered five-piece. The stipules are grown at the base of the petiole.

Strawberries wear white, rarely yellowish flowers, which appear after the end of the cold period. They are usually several in umbels at the top of the upright, armblätterigen shaft. The flowers mug carries five green sepals and five petals roundish. Between the actual sepals are five other smaller side sepals ( Epicalyx ). There are many stamens present. On the arched base of the flower sit numerous free carpels. At maturity the base of the flower forms a juicy fleshy berry note.

The actual fruits of the strawberry are the little yellow nutlets at the surface. The ovary of the strawberry plant forms a nutlet, whose parts are moved by the growth of later striking red floral axis during the ripening time apart. Animals that eat the flashy strawberry fruit, separate the small hard-shelled nutlets that are located on the flesh, back off, so that the nutlets - can germinate (called Endochorie ) - if they find suitable site conditions. In Europe, there are mammals such as red fox, badger, hedgehog, bank vole and dormouse; Birds such as blackbird, Black Redstart, Robin, Blackcap and invertebrates such as Snail, some species of beetles and millipedes, which are attracted to the fruit. They are so involved in their distribution. Ants drag the fruits even in their burrows, feed them to their larvae, the flesh, and then pay the remaining nutlet away. However, the strawberry used not only as Endochorie propagation mechanism. Fruits, which remain on the stems, dry up after some time. The nutlets fall down there. This mechanism is referred to as Barochorie.

Species

The genus Fragaria consists of the following species and hybrids. The simple set of chromosomes exists in all strawberry species from seven chromosomes. There occur species and hybrids with double (diploid ), four times ( tetraploid ) or six times ( hexaploid ), eight times ( oktoploid ) and tenfold ( dekaploid ) set of chromosomes.

• Fragaria chiloensis (L.) Duchesne, Chile strawberry oktoploid, North and South American Pacific Coast, Hawaii
• Fragaria daltoniana J. Gay, diploid, Himalaya
• Fragaria iinumae Makino, diploid, Japan and eastern Russia
• Fragaria iturupensis Staudt, oktoploid, only on the island Iturup ( Kuril Islands )
• Fragaria moupinensis ( Franch. ) Cardot, tetraploid, China
• Fragaria moschata ( Duch. ) Weston, musk strawberry, hexaploid, Europe
• Fragaria nilgerrensis Schltdl. ex J. Gay, diploid, Southeast Asia
• Fragaria nipponica Makino, diploid, Honshu and Yakushima (Japan)
• Fragaria nubicola ( Hook. f ) Lindl. ex Lacaita, diploid, Himalaya
• Fragaria orientalis Losinsk. , Tetraploid, China
• Fragaria vesca L., wild strawberry, diploid, Europe, North Asia and North America
• Fragaria virginiana Mill, scarlet strawberry, oktoploid, North America
• Fragaria viridis ( Duch. ) Weston, Knackelbeere, diploid, Europe and Central Asia
• Fragaria yezoensis Hara, diploid, Hokkaido, Kuril Islands and Sakhalin
• Fragaria × ananassa ( Duch. ) Decne. & Naudin, Garden Strawberry, oktoploid, hybrid from Chile and scarlet strawberry
• Fragaria × vescana Rud. Bauer & A. Bauer, dekaploid, hybrid of garden and wild strawberry

Other types

Similar looking and closely related to the strawberries Mock Strawberry ( Potentilla indica or indica Duchesnea ) and the strawberry cinquefoil are ( Potentilla sterilis ). The arbutus fruits because of their so called among the heather plants.

Cultural History

From archaeological findings it can be concluded that the strawberry was known already in the Stone Age. In Latin it was called " fragum ". From the Middle Ages are large areas where small wild strawberries (Fragaria vesca ) were cultured proven. Also, methods to allow strawberries ripen sooner or later, were already developed. Only the size of the fruit could not influence you. Only in the New World were French settlers along the St. Lawrence River, a greater fruity wild Article This was introduced to Europe in the 18th century when American scarlet strawberry and initially mainly cultivated in the Botanical Gardens. 1714 discovered the botanist Amédée -François Frezier the Chile strawberry, had the leathery - rigid and blue-green leaves and very large fruits showed mainly. Chile strawberries in this case have the peculiarity that they are dioecious, that is, there are purely male and purely female flowering plants flowering.

In 1750, created by crosses of various wild forms in Holland the Garden strawberry ( Fragaria × ananassa ), which in Germany commercially available, large- fruity strawberry, which arose from repeated random intersections of small scarlet strawberry from America ( Fragaria virginiana ) with the big fruity Chile strawberry ( Fragaria chiloensis ). In Austria and southern Germany, especially in Munich, be or have been particularly large fruit cultivated varieties of strawberry called " Pineapple ", to distinguish them from the wild strawberry, while the right pineapple is referred to in the course of a Hawaiian pineapple. Thus, the strawberry is also in Burgenland meadows, where the main growing areas are for eastern Austria, led Marked as pineapple strawberry among the traditional foods.

Use

Food

The fleshy base of the flower is used as a fruit. Commercially grown different varieties of garden strawberry. Strawberries are among the nichtklimakterischen fruits: If they are picked unripe, they do not ripen after.

The fruits can be eaten as raw food, also known as fruit salad, possibly sweetened and with a serving of whipped cream, or they can serve as cake toppings. Are also common the production of strawberry jam or adding to ice cream or fruit yogurt. Are known among other things, the use of punch or rum. Canned or frozen foods, the fruits are not really suitable because of its soft consistency.

Ornamental plant

The ornamental strawberries with pink flowers are intergeneric hybrids from a strawberry and the Swamp Cinquefoil ( Potentilla palustris). These hybrids are dekaploid ( eight sets of chromosomes from the strawberry and two from the bottom - blood eye).

Economic Importance

Source: Federal Statistical Office

Art history

Strawberries are a common motif in the visual arts. They are characterized by their low growth form a symbol of humility and modesty, especially as Jesus and Mary attribute. Because of the three-part leaves they were seen as a symbol of the Trinity, the five petals were already in the middle ages for the five crucifixion wounds of Christ. The hanging down, red fruit body was interpreted symbolically as Christ's shed blood and other martyrs. In addition, strawberries are the paradise plant in Christian art. Even in Ovid, they appear as the food of the Golden Age.

Swell

• Leo Fox, John Langley, Torkild Hinrichsen: The strawberry, seduction in red cultural history of a fruit from the Four Lands. Husum Druck, Husum, 2001, ISBN 3-89876-002-2
• Li Chaoluan, Hiroshi Ikeda, Hideaki Ohba: Fragaria. In: Wu Zhengyi, Peter H. Raven (eds.): Flora of China. Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis 1994 . Vol 9, p 335 Online, accessed on 20 February 2008