possible hybrid alpine strawberry x cultivated strawberry?

[fryge]

I think I may have a hybrid between alpine strawberry(fragaria vesca 'baron von solemacher') and regular strawberry(likely 'ostara'), but I'm not sure.

the story how I found them:

I moved out of my parents' house around 5-6 years ago.
while living there, I had my garden in a part of the backyard. among the things I grew were strawberries.
started out with strawberries I got from my dad('ostara'), but on one of the last years I bought a packet of seed of 'baron von solemacher' alpine strawberries, and grew those for a few years.
I may have at some point also grown another cultivar of regular strawberries as ostara, but not sure.

this weekend I visited my parents, and got a tour of the garden by my dad. he mentioned my strawberries had spread a lot. he had done nothing with my garden since I moved out. he thought they were the alpine strawberries.
I took a look, and there was an area of a few square metres covered in strawberries.
however, they didn't quiet look like how I remembered the solemachers. the solemachers had quiet lightgreen leaves, and a lot of them that where more standing up, creating a more bushy growth instead of groundcovering.
and most importaantly, they didn't produce runners.

upon inspection, I found evidence of runners in these strawberries.
but, they also didn't quiet look the same as the ostara my father still has. mostly the leafshape is different(more pointy instead of round), but they're also a slightly lighter tint of green.

so I'm thinking, could these be a hybrid?

the other option would be that they're a different cultivar of regular strawberries, which could also explain the different leafshape from the ostara.

this picture shows the leafshape well:


as a comparison, an ostara-plant(growing in full sun, while the possibly hybrids are growing under a tree)



another picture showing the leafshape well of the possible hybrid:



and an overview of the overgrown area





and some runners(there were also a few remnants from old runners, but haven't gotten good pics of those)




so what do you think?
could it be a hybrid, or too unlikely?
 I did find a few papers, among them this one: academic.oup.com/aob/article/107/4/699/162659
which suggests hybrids are possible, but I'm not sure how likely it is to happen if not done on purpose with hand pollination, since that particular study found no natural hybrids.

and if it is indeed a hybrid, how likely am I to get fruit on them?
since I found they would likely be sterile due to the chromosome-count.

I did take some plants home to see what comes out, but I'm curious what I can expect.

[walt]

It is possible that what you have is a selfed seedling from astara.  Since the common strawberry is normally cross-pollinated, I would expect such a selfed seedling would be smaller and less vigorous than the parent.  So it wouldn't be likely to have been able to compete with its parent.  But a possibility.

I have read of common strawberry x alpine.  Breeders doubled it to make it fertile enough to breed large numbers of them for studying them.  One or more of them were introduced commercially.  But I don't know how infertile the hybrid was before doubling.  Not necessarily completely sterile.  Either of 2 things could have happened.
1. Strawberries have unreduced gametes more often than most plants.  So 8ploid x 2ploid could be 6ploid, from a reduced 8ploid and unreduced 2ploid.  Or it could be 10ploid from 2 unreduced gametes.
2. A seedling from 2 reduced gametes, which would be what most would give  would be 5ploid.  Odd numbered sets of chromosomes are generally less fertile than even numbered.  But above 4, there is often enough pairing to give a few seeds.

I await your report on how this seedling does.

[c2h6]

I would guess those are from the alpine strawberry. Alpine strawberries can produce runners, it may have been hiding in the genes, and seedling recombination may have let them out. That being said, it is possible that an octoploid could have crossed with a diploid and produced pentaploid seedlings. I know that pentaploids have been discovered where plant ranges overlap. Do these produce fruit? If you can compare these putative hybrids with the parents, you may be able to discern if they are hybrids, as the hybrids should have thicker leaves and stems than the diploid, and thinner than the octoploid. The other thing you could do is get a microscope and look at the guard cells on the underside of the leaf. (I would use nail polish and make a peel, then look at the peel). The guard cells get bigger and further apart with increasing ploidy. Leaves also tend to have deeper serrations with increasing ploidy. The best way to tell is by doing some flow cytometry, but I don't suppose you have a flow cytometer lying around?
Cheers,
Ethan