Strawberries. James F Hancock
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Moesbach, 1992). The Mapuches made many kinds of fermented juices, but the one from the llahuen or lahueñe small red-fruited wild strawberry was their favourite, called lahueñe mushca (Labarca, 1994).
Most evidence indicates that the primary domesticants were the larger white-fruited forms, called kallén or quellghen by the Mapuches. Albino-fruited types are rare in nature but have been found at three southern locations. Some red-fruited forms may also have been domesticated but reports of their existence are sketchy. Darrow (1957) described Chilean large red-fruited forms from around Santiago in the middle of the 20th century, although there are no earlier reports of cultivated lahueñe. Wild red-fruited forms were abundant from Santiago southward, so the pressure to cultivate them was probably minimal. It is reported, however, that the Mapuches planted small plots of the wild red forms in open spaces in the forests as a trap for the Spanish soldiers. When the soldiers dropped their arms to pick the fruit, the fierce Indians attacked and killed them (Gonzalez de Nájera, 1866).
Strawberry cultivation by the Mapuches was mostly limited to garden plots. After the conquest by the Spaniards, larger commercial plantings of 1–2 ha began to appear in the coastal areas from north of the Itata River to Chiloé Island. These traditional plantings of F. chiloensis flourished until the 1950s, when they began to be mixed with Northern Hemisphere cultivars of F. × ananassa. Cultivation of F. chiloensis has now largely disappeared, but small plantings can still be found along the traditional area of cultivation from Iloca on the coast of Curicó province to Chiloé Island (Hancock et al., 1999). Recently, there has been a burst of interest in redeveloping the commercial F. chiloensis industry in Chile, particularly around the white-fruited forms (Retamales et al., 2005; Céspedes, 2018; Morales-Quintana and Ramos, 2019).
SPREAD OF F. CHILOENSIS OUTSIDE CHILE
During their period of exploration and conquest in the mid- to late 1500s, the Spanish spread F. chiloensis throughout north-western South America. Major industries developed around Cuzco (Peru), Bogotá (Colombia) and Ambato (Ecuador) (Popenoe, 1921, 1926; Darrow, 1957). The source of these plants is not known; however, the variability among the preserved land races suggests that they had multiple origins (Hancock et al., 1999). The land races may have been spread from several Chilean locations or seedling volunteers may have been moved from their original sites to new locations.
The largest hectarage of cultivated F. chiloensis in South America was grown at Huachi-Grande, Ecuador, near Ambato (Darrow, 1953). There were probably 500–700 ha from at least the late 1700s until 1970 (Hancock et al., 1997; Finn et al., 1998). Father Velasco wrote in 1789 that the frutilla was three times the size of the European strawberry and ‘it is produced throughout the entire year, and though it is common in several provinces, in no other is it so abundant, nor so excellent as in that of Ambato’ (Popenoe, 1921). The English botanist Richard Spruce visited Ambato in the mid-1800s and proclaimed that the strawberry grown in abundance in the nearby village of Huachi was of exceptional quality. Wilson Popenoe (1921) declared that ‘It is the custom in Ecuador to throw the fruits into boxes: they are then carried six or seven miles on mule-back to the city of Ambato, where they are sorted by hand, for shipment by train to Quito or Guayaquil. There is probably no other strawberry in the world which could tolerate this sort of handling.’ In an expedition to Huachi-Grande in 1997, Finn, Hancock and Heider (1998) were able to locate a field that had been visited by both Popenoe (1921) and Darrow (1953), and they brought back samples to North America for breeding (Fig. 2.2).
Fig. 2.2. Fruit and flowers picked from the ancient land race of F. chiloensis still grown in Hauchi-Grande, Ecuador. (From Finn et al., 1998.)
One of the Chilean clones even found its way into Europe in the 1700s compliments of a French spy Captain Amédée Frézier (Darrow, 1966; Wilhelm and Sagen, 1974). Frézier was struck by the large-fruited strawberry grown around Concepción, Chile, during his mapping of Spanish fortifications from 1714 to 1716. He selected some of the largest-fruiting types and took them back with him to Marseilles in 1716 (Fig. 2.3). Five of these plants survived and one of them was given to Antoine de Jussieu, the director of the Jardin de Plantes in Paris, where clones of F. virginiana were already growing.
Fig. 2.3. A woodcut of the original Fraise du Chili or Frutilla clone of Chilean Fragaria chiloensis brought to France by A. Frézier in 1716. The picture comes from Frézier’s book A Voyage to the South Seas and along the Coasts of Chile and Peru in the Years 1712, 1713 and 1714. (From Darrow, 1966.)
Reports on this remarkable new introduction spread widely and within a few years plants were located in botanical gardens all across Europe. Unfortunately, early reports on the Chilean strawberry were negative, as the plants were largely barren. Frézier had inadvertently brought back staminate plants that needed a pollinator. French horticulturalists solved the problem when they discovered that the ‘Chili’ would produce fruit when pollinated by F. moschata or F. virginiana.
The Chilean strawberry reached its highest acclaim in Brittany, where it came to be known as the Fraise de Plougastel, after one of the major cities of production. The Chili thrived in the cool maritime climate of Brittany, which was similar to its original home environment. By the mid-1800s, there was probably more cultivation of F. chiloensis in France than in its native land, as 200 ha were grown in Brest and over 1000 ha in all of Brittany (Wilhelm and Sagen, 1974). The clones originally grown in Brittany had much more impressive size than the Scarlet types when effectively pollinated (primaries the size of walnuts), but their fruit were paler in colour (whitish-red), seedier and fainter of flavour. Over time, improved hermaphroditic selections of F. chiloensis were identified with greater self-fertility, but they still needed a pollinator to reach maximal production.
The strawberry of Chile never became popular in Europe outside of Brittany. Difficulties with its fertility probably played a role, but climatic factors may have been more important. The Chilean was difficult to grow in the harsher inland climates and had to be protected from winter cold. Under most continental conditions, the ‘…fruit was poor coloured,