According to most sources there are 103 species of strawberries. In our search for strawberries with taste we have “discovered” about a dozen or so species. Of course the most well known species is the common garden strawberry, Fragaria x ananassa. By the way, the “x” in the name means that it is a hybrid or cross.
We have been primarily interested in F. vesca, the alpine or wood strawberry. Along the way we found F. moschata, the musk strawberry. The scarlet strawberry, F. virginiana was our next “discovery”. Because F. viridis is a diploid we have been interested in F. viridis for breeding purposes.
Recently, we were able to obtain F. x vescana (a decoploid) and F. x bifera. F. vescana is a forced hybrid between a F. x ananassa and F. vesca. F. x bifera is obtained from the cross of diploid species F. vesca and F. viridis. This hybrid occurs naturally in Europe where both species’ distribution overlaps.
We have other species in our collection that we will discuss later. In the very near future we hope to make available plants of F. x vescana and F. x bifera. We recently added pics of F. bifera to our Facebook page.
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