Fragaria vesca
Wild strawberry
How do you recognise wild strawberry?
A low herb 5–20 cm tall whose leaf divides into three coarsely toothed leaflets. The flowers are white and give rise to a small red fruit. The plant spreads by runners that can reach two metres.
What is it confused with?
Tormentil and the cinquefoils have similarly divided leaves, but their flowers are yellow.
Where does wild strawberry grow, and when does it flower?
Favours open, dryish, sunny ground such as clearings, forest edges, and roadside verges, and does not thrive in dense tall vegetation. Flowering is mainly in June and July, sometimes already in May.
Can you collect it for a herbarium?
Wild strawberry is common, and one leaf with a flowering shoot is enough for a herbarium.
Did you know?
A strawberry is not botanically a berry but a swollen flower base, and the true fruits are the small seeds dotted over its surface. New plants root from the runners, so one plant can fill a clearing in a few summers.
Where does wild strawberry grow in Finland?
The map shows where the species has been recorded. Darker squares mean more observations.
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Observations: GBIF · Map: CARTO, OpenStreetMap
Sources: fi.wikipedia.org
Identify plants with your phone
Linnea identifies a plant from a photo and tells you its name and its story. Every find takes its own numbered place in your herbarium, with the day and the town where you found it.
