r/Berries • u/Standard_Bet6569 • 18h ago
r/Berries • u/Artistic_County764 • 11h ago
What’s this thorny berry vine in my yard? Zone 7A SW, Missouri
galleryHi all! Had a mystery plant pop up in the spring that now has dark purple berry clusters all over.
Hard to discern one plant from another so there may be multiple growing together here. Berries are roughly pea-sized with a variety of thorns on a super flexible vine with teardrop/heart shaped leaves with deep vertical veins.
Thanks in advance for your help!
r/Berries • u/ChemScienceCrystal • 19h ago
The Strawberry I Love: Its French Roots and Brilliant Red Color
The modern garden strawberry is a hybrid and its scientific name is Fragaria × ananassa. The multiplication sign in its name indicates that it is a hybrid, meaning it originated from a cross between two different species.
Two important wild strawberry species contributed to its development:
- Fragaria virginiana — commonly called the Virginia strawberry, native to North America.
- Fragaria chiloensis — commonly called the Chilean strawberry, native to the Americas, including Chile.
A French botanist Antoine Nicolas Duchesne has carefully studied strawberries and documented their characteristics. In 1766, he published Histoire naturelle des fraisiers, a major work on strawberry plants. He identified the hybrid origin of the modern garden strawberry, helping explain the relationship between its two American ancestors. A modern scientific review describes the early plants as “spontaneous hybrids.” In simple words, this means the plants crossed naturally in cultivation rather than necessarily being created by a deliberate experiment.