Unidentified small white strawberries

[hortusbrambonii]

Anyone of the experts who can tell me what this is supposed to be?

It's a small white strawberry, but with a very non-strawberry-like feel somehow. The fruits have a very peculiar almost square shape and are the size of a cherry or so, and taste like something like apricot with a hint pear and currantberries, or at least not quite like I expect from strawberries, even alpine strawberries.
It's definitely not one of those white F. vesca varieties, and something about the plant even feels completely non-Fragaria to me (as I know the genus in this part of the world). In a way it looks even less like a common strawberry-plant than a Duchesnea does... (A bit more like potentilla sterilis even, but it does form tasty fruit)

It looks a bit like some pictures of the so-called 'pineberry', which should be a cross of commercial strawberries with F. chiloensis, but still the form of the fruit is different, and the seeds are not red like the commercial pineberry, nor on the surface like white F. vesca varieties, but when they ripen the soft spongy flesh grows further around them so they end up a bit deeper in the fruit in tiny holes.
But still the rest of the plant looks like F. chiloensis (on google pictures) indeed: the leaves are not pointed like F. vesca, but rounded, and the fruits are a bit similar too, although different in color. Flowers are smaller though.

They have been growing as a groundcover for years and I don't know where they originally come from. Strong plant with intersting fruits but not very spectacular yield.

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[billw]

Definitely the oddest looking strawberry I've ever seen. I've grown alpines, musks, woodlands, reds, whites, and yellows of all sorts, but all have had a smooth exterior.

[mjc]

Well a little more info would be helpful...as where are they (general area...eastern US, Europe, etc...)

They look like some of the really old, as in 1800s (around 1860 or so) varieties. There were several whites from back then. Most of those were called pineberries...

They could also be a 'musk' strawberry (F. moschata)

Also what do they smell like? Taste?

What they aren't is the 'modern' Pineberry...nor do they look like a F. vesca or F. virginiana variety.

[hortusbrambonii]

I'm in Belgium, and the strawberry is defninitely NOT a native one (Main native species is just F. vesca, and more rare are F. moschata and F. viridis, all small alpine strawberries) and this is a garden variey, but I don't know the origin.

F. moschata (I've seen and it in the wild once) is just a slightly bigger and (even) better tasting alpine strawberry, with half-colored berries. This one has bigger berries, with leaves that are more rounded and colored differently, more like pictures of F. chiloensis on google pictures. Also, the flowers and fruits are formed under the foilage, and quite hidden. Flowers are small, not much more than a cm diameter, and are the only thing that's really similar to our European strawberries...It seems that every flower forms a fruit, so there seem to be no problems with it needing a pollinator like the commercial pineberry of today. The flowers are quite hidden (don't know if they attract pollinators by sight or by smell?) and I've never seen much pollinators on it, so it could be self-pollinating or even reproducing asexually? (Like Rubus?)
I haven't tried to sow the seeds yet, will collect seeds and sow them later this year.

Taste is a bit hard to define, not like a common or alpine strawberry but stronger and more aromated, with a hint of pineaple and apricot. Fruits are the size of a cherry or a little big smaller, and generally more broad than long.

[mjc]

That's sounding more and more like one of the 'old' pineberry varieties, from the mid to late 18000s. There were several of them and a number of 'white' ones. Most of them were 'lost' from commercial production ages ago, but some can still be found in some places, usually as 'groundcover'. A number of those older ones had blocky fruit, as opposed to the 'traditional' strawberry shaped fruit. The pineberry (both old and new) was never a popular item, but it did make it to Europe (one,White Dwarf, I believe saw some development/selection work done in Sweden), so it's possible that there are 'hold outs' floating around over there.

Go to www.archive.org and search Strawberries and Texts (media type). You come up with a bunch of old books from the mid to late 1800s on strawberry culture, many of them have pictures of both plant and fruit.

If it is an old pineberry, I'd expect sown seeds to have poor germination, as they were complex crosses. The species strawberries, F. vesca (etc), usually have pretty good germination rates. Typically, they were reproduced from runners.

Some names to look for, Carolina White, White Dwarf and more...

[hortusbrambonii]

I do suppose it to be an old pineberry now indeed, thanks.

I found this one on a Belgian site (site in Dutch, but you can use a translator), which seems to be an older pineberry from 1750 even, that appears to be still around here in Belgium somewhere, and the fruit looks quite similar to mine, even though the picture is not that good, so it might be a good candidate: sites.google.com/site/tuinvantoen/groenterassen/doorlevende-soorten/aardbei-ananas

Otherwise it's probably an ther old pineberry of which the name can probably not be traced anymore anyway...

[mjc]

Looking through some of those older books I mentioned, it really does look like one of the older pineberry varieties...can't really pin it down to a specific one, though. I'd call it an 'heirloom' pineberry variety, for now, especially since it has the 'hint of pineapple' that they were noted for.

[hortusbrambonii]

I have a completely different direction, someone on facebook pointed me to a strawberry that was introduced from Mount Omei (China) by the late Jelena de Belder of the arboretum in Kalmthout (not far from here), also called the apricot strawberry, Fragaria nilgerrensis or F. rubicola, sold as 'Mt. Omei', and every picture of that one is completely my strawberry.

www.fruitiers.net/fiche.php?NumFiche=1998

[mjc]

Digging a little deeper into that Mt Omei possibility...you may be right.

But, it doesn't seem to be F. rubicola (as that species doesn't really exist...F. nubicola does, though). Some places are calling it F. orientalis, instead of F. nilgerrensis (most are calling it that)

Also, both nubicola and nilgerrensis are diploid species and orientalis is a tetraploid...meaning the chances for larger, more fragrant fruit are in orientalis' favor. And according to some information I found, Mt.Omei should be a pink flowered variety. All three are Asian varieties, that may have overlapping ranges, in parts of China, but if they don't all three could occur in China. Most of the fruit for all three is pink or red. That doesn't really matter, much, because white fruit appears in other predominately red species, too, but is more common in crosses

So, the chances of it actually being a selection of a species variety are probably lower than it actually being a cross and not labelled as such. Without doing a chromosome count, it's going to be nearly impossible to pin it down 100%.

[ottawagardener]

Interesting.