By the 1600s, the culture of the native European strawberries was widely practised and well refined. Many of our modern practices had already been developed including frequent establishment of beds to maintain high plant vigour, the use of raised beds in areas with poor drainage and the application of mulch to protect against winter cold. Fruit size was maximized by early planting dates, optimal plant spacing, elimination of the first flower trusses and removal of all but the first three or four flowers in a cluster. Europeans had become expert strawberry growers and the stage was set for the rapid acceptance of a new, highly promising horticultural type from the New World, F. virginiana.
DOMESTICATION OF THE SCARLET STRAWBERRY, F. VIRGINIANA
The wood strawberry, F. vesca, dominated strawberry cultivation in Europe for centuries, until F. virginiana from Canada and Virginia began to replace it in the 1600s. All of the clones that found their way to Europe were wild in origin, as the aboriginal peoples of North America did little gardening with strawberries. They enjoyed the fruit both fresh and in cornmeal bread (Wilhelm and Sagen, 1974; Sauer, 1993) but the natural abundance of the strawberry had generated little stimulus for domestication in the New World.
The exact particulars of the entry of F. virginiana into Europe are unknown, but it had certainly arrived in both France and England by the late 1500s, and new importations occurred regularly over the next 150 years. Jacques Cartier, the discoverer of the St Lawrence River of Canada in 1534, was probably the first to bring F. virginiana to the Old World. There are no specific records of its introduction by him, but Cartier made numerous mentions of it in his diary and he was known to have introduced other Canadian plants (Wilhelm and Sagen, 1974). The first published reference to the strawberry of Canada was in the garden catalogue of Robins, the botanist to Henri IV of France. He and his brother first reported it in 1624, but it is likely that they planted it long before then, as they were active importers of plants from throughout the world.
The Canada strawberry, then known primarily as Fragaria americana but now called F. virginiana, rapidly spread to gardens across France and all of Europe (Wilhelm and Sagen, 1974). It was incorporated in 1636 into the huge Jardin Royal des Herbes Mèdecinales of Guy de La Brosse, physician to Louis XIII. In 1633 it had appeared in a catalogue of Canadian exotics written by Giovanni Battista Ferrari, a professor of Hebrew at the Collegio Romano in Rome. The noted apothecary Jean Hermans was growing the Canada strawberry in his garden in Brussels by 1652, and numerous English herbalists and horticulturalists were raising it by the early 1600s, including John Tradescant and John Parkinson. At least nine different accessions of F. virginiana were being grown in Europe by 1650.
Although the first strawberries imported from Canada were botanically interesting and intriguing horticultural curiosities, most produced little fruit, were green where the fruit were shaded and frequently produced excessive runners. Not until strawberries from Virginia became widely distributed did F. virginiana really make an impact on the horticultural industry. What became known as the ‘Scarlet strawberry’ was favoured for its large fruit size, high yields and deep red colour. They were particularly enjoyed in jam, because of their persistent colour, acid flavour, high aroma and retention of shape (Darrow, 1966).
It is not clear when the first Scarlet strawberries arrived in Europe, but in the garden of de La Brosse there was an item called F. americana magno fruto rubro, which may have been a large-fruited, scarlet type. The surviving colonists from Plymouth may also have brought back Scarlet strawberries when they returned in 1586. Regardless, during the late 1500s and 1600s, all kinds of native plants of North America appeared in the gardens of Europe, making multiple introductions of the Scarlet strawberry likely.
The early cultivar development of F. virginiana was primarily conducted by growers who found raising seed imported from North America often resulted in horticulturally important variations. The numbers of varieties available increased dramatically from three to about 26, over a period of a few decades at the turn of the 17th century (Darrow, 1966). Some of the most important early cultivars were ‘Oblong Scarlet’, ‘Grove End Scarlet’, ‘Duke of Kent’s Scarlet’, ‘Knight’s Large Scarlet’, ‘Wilmot’s Late Scarlet’, ‘Morrisana Scarlet’, ‘Common Scarlet’, the ‘Australian Scarlet’ and ‘Hudson Bay Scarlet’. They came from all over the New World including Nova Scotia, Virginia and New York. The early improvements were modest, however, and generally did not yield any substantial advancements from the best of the earlier imported types such as ‘Large Early Scarlet’.
Garden culture of strawberries began in North America in the middle of the 17th century with varieties imported from England. Early garden calendars listed three types of strawberries: (i) the hautboy (F. moschata); (ii) the Chili (Fragaria chiloensis, originally from Chile); and (iii) the Redwood (F. vesca from Europe) (Fletcher, 1917). Little cultivation of F. virginiana was undertaken until the importation of ‘Large Early Scarlet’ in the late 1700s, even though native strawberry populations abounded and ‘Large Early Scarlet’ had actually been sent to England a century earlier from the wilds of North America.
The first native American clone of F. virginiana to be propagated for sale in North America in 1791 was called ‘Hudson’. It was very vigorous and had soft, scarlet fruit with high flavour. It was cultivated well into the 1800s and can probably be considered the first important American strawberry (Hedrick, 1925). The first commercial strawberry plantings were established around Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore in the early 1800s. Until that time, most commercial strawberries had been gathered from the extensive wild populations that were springing up in conjunction with the clearing of forests and the abandonment of worn-out agricultural sites.
‘Red Wood’, an English variety of F. virginiana, was probably the most important variety grown in the early part of the 18th century in North America, along with a number of Scarlet varieties (Fletcher, 1917). ‘Red Wood’ was thought to be inferior in flavour to the older Scarlet varieties but had a longer season of production. Other popular cultivars during the first half of the 1800s were ‘White Wood’ (a white-fruited type), ‘Early Hudson’, ‘Old Scarlet’, ‘Crimson Cone’, ‘Large Early Scarlet’, ‘Hudson Bay Scarlet’, ‘Methven Scarlet’, ‘Ross Phoenix’ and ‘Early Virginia’. All of these except for ‘Ross Phoenix’ and ‘Hudson Bay Scarlet’ were imported from England.
DOMESTICATION OF F. CHILOENSIS IN THE NEW WORLD
The cultivated strawberry of South America, F. chiloensis, has a long and rich history (Hancock et al., 1999; Lavín and Maureira, 2000). It was utilized well over 1000 years ago by the indigenous Mapuches between the rivers Biobio and Tolten in south-central Chile, and by the more northern Picunches tribe between the rivers Itata and Biobio. The Picunches had contact with the northern agrarian Inca invaders and were probably the first to transport elite plants from the wild to their home gardens. The Mapuches were primarily hunters and gatherers but learned about agriculture from the Picunches.
The indigenous Chileans used strawberry fruits fresh, dried, as a fermented juice or as medicinal infusions against indigestion, diarrhoea and bleeding (de