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, and poor textured and often had a mawkish flavour’ (Darrow, 1966). Soil-borne pathogens were also a limiting factor, and the Chili grew vigorously only on well-drained sandy soils (Wilhelm and Sagen, 1974).
ORIGIN OF THE DESSERT STRAWBERRY, F. × ANANASSA
Unusual seedlings began to appear in Brittany and in gardens elsewhere with unique combinations of fruit and morphological characteristics. Although the origin of these seedlings was initially clouded, Duchesne (Fig. 2.4) determined in 1766 that they were hybrids of F. chiloensis × F. virginiana and he named them F. × ananassa to denote the perfume of the fruit that smelled like pineapple (Ananas). It is not clear from the literature where the first hybrids of the pineapple, or pine, strawberry appeared, but they must have arisen early in the commercial fields of Brittany, and in botanical gardens all across Europe such as the Trianon, the Royal Garden at Versailles where Duchesne studied. The first hybrid cultivars were disseminated from the Netherlands, perhaps because the Dutch were such active seed merchants and had imported early hybrids, but it is also possible that they had recognized unique types in their own gardens. The first description of a variety that matched F. × ananassa was by Philip Miller in the 1759 edition of The Gardeners Dictionary, although he was not sure of its origin (Fig. 2.5).
Fig. 2.4. The great French botanist Antoine Nicholas Duchesne, who first recognized the hybrid nature of the garden strawberry Fragaria × ananassa. (From Darrow, 1966.)
Fig. 2.5. The first European description of Fragaria × ananassa made by Philip Miller in his 1759 edition of The Gardeners Dictionary. (From Otterbacher and Skirvin, 1978.)
Duchesne referred to these early cultivars of F. × ananassa as ‘Quoimios’ in his 1771 supplement to L’Histoire Naturelle des Fraisiers (Darrow, 1966). Two were pale fruited like the Chili but were improved in other ways. One from Haarlem, the Netherlands, was a partial hermaphrodite that was best used as a pollinator because it bloomed during the same late season as the female Chili and its early developing flowers were
