Fragaria

The cultivated strawberry of grocery shelves and home gardens — a low, stoloniferous herbaceous perennial of hybrid origin (a cross of the South American Fragaria chiloensis and the North American F. virginiana). Dense mounding rosettes of toothed, three-parted leaves carry loose clusters of five-petaled white flowers in spring, which ripen into the familiar cone-shaped red aggregate fruits studded with seed-like achenes. Plants run on above-ground stolons that root at the nodes to form new plantlets, so a single planting knits into a patch.

A low-growing native eastern North American perennial groundcover producing small intensely-flavored red berries in early summer + white five-petaled flowers in spring. The genetic parent (with F. chiloensis) of the modern cultivated strawberry (F. ×ananassa). Berries smaller than cultivated but exceptional flavor. Spreads via runners (stolons); makes excellent edible groundcover under fruit trees.