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HISTORY OF STRAWBERRY DOMESTICATION

      It seems likely that our species, Homo sapiens, has always gathered and consumed strawberries from the wild. Who can walk by a strawberry patch in a forest or field without gathering these succulent berries? In fact, the ease with which strawberries can be collected from the wild may actually have delayed their cultivation until almost modern times. Although our important grain crops were domesticated over 10,000 years ago (Hancock, 2014), the first strawberry species were domesticated in the last 2000 years, and the major strawberry of commerce, Fragaria × ananassa, was born only 250 years ago.

DOMESTICATION OF OLD WORLD SPECIES

      The strawberry was probably grown in Roman and Greek gardens, but there is only limited reference to its cultivation in early writings (Darrow, 1966). Ovid and Virgil mentioned the strawberry in poems, and Pliny (AD 23–79) lists its fruit ‘Fraga’ (fragrant) as a natural product of Italy. It seems likely that the Romans cultivated indigenous strawberries, as they spent considerable funds importing a wide array of fruits for their country estates including apples, apricots, cherries, citrons, figs, grapes, peaches, plums and pears (Wilhelm and Sagen, 1974).

      The first references to strawberry cultivation in Europe appear in the French literature of the 1300s. Most notably, it is known that King Charles V had over 1000 strawberries planted in the royal gardens of the Louvre in Paris, and strawberries were grown in four blocks of the gardens of the Dukes of Burgundy (Darrow, 1966). The mother stock for these gardens was most likely collected from the wild, and then propagated by moving runners from established blocks to vacant soil. The popularity of the strawberry steadily grew during the Middle Ages, in spite of a warning from the noted abbess and mystic St Hildegard von Bingen in the 12th century that the strawberry was unhealthy because its fruit were found near the ground in stale air (Bühler, 1922).

      It is known that Fragaria vesca, the wood strawberry or fraise des bois, was widely planted in gardens all across Europe by the 1500s. Records are common in Renaissance herbals, and after about 1530 there is a clear distinction made between wild and garden strawberries (Sauer, 1993). The wood strawberry was grown not only for private consumption, but for market as well. In fact, the strawberry may have got its name from the activities of street vendors who strung the berries on straws of grass or hay to take to market (Darrow, 1966; Wilhelm and Sagen, 1974). Another possible origin of the name relates to its ripening at the same time as hay, as streaw is the Anglo-Saxon word for hay. Most likely, strawberries were named after the way the runners ‘strew’ or scatter around the mother.

      The first printed illustration of the strawberry is found in the Herbarius Latinus Moguntiae published in 1484 by Peter Schöffer, a partner of Johann Gutenberg (Leyel, 1926). The inclusion of the strawberry meant that it was considered important to healthful living. The first colour illustration of the strawberry (Fig. 2.1) was published in 1485 in the German edition of Schöffer’s book titled Herbarius zu Teutsch or Gart der Gesundheit, meaning literally ‘Garden of Good Health’. This book ‘occupied a place unsurpassed in German natural history for more than a half century’ (Wilhelm and Sagen, 1974). In fact, the strawberry was grown widely in apothecary gardens all across Europe. All parts of the plants were used in medicinal teas, syrups, tinctures and ointments. Strawberry concoctions were used for skin irritations and bruises, bad breath, throat infections, kidney stones, broken bones and many other injuries.