From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Fragaria vesca | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade : | Tracheophytes |
| Clade : | Angiosperms |
| Clade : | Eudicots |
| Clade : | Rosids |
| Order: | Rosales |
| Family: | Rosaceae |
| Genus: | Fragaria |
| Species: | F. vesca |
| Binomial name | |
| Fragaria vesca L. |
Fragaria vesca, commonly called the wild strawberry, woodland strawberry, Alpine strawberry, Carpathian strawberry or European strawberry, is a perennial herbaceous plant in the rose family that grows naturally throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere, and that produces edible fruits. The Latin specific epithet vesca means “thin, feeble”.
Contents
The Strawberry: A Multiple Fruit When we think of fruits and vegetables, we’re pretty sure about which is which. We tend to lump sweet or sour-tasting plants together as fruits, and those plants that are not sugary we consider vegetables. To be more accurate, however, we must consider which part of the plant we are eating.
- While vegetables are defined as plants cultivated for their edible parts, the botanical term “fruit” is more specific.
- It is a mature, thickened ovary or ovaries of a seed-bearing plant, together with accessory parts such as fleshy layers of tissue or “pulp.” Thus, many of the foods we think of casually as fruits, such as rhubarb (of which we eat the leaf stalks), are not fruits at all, and many of our favorite “vegetables” actually fit the definition of fruit, such as the tomato.
As a subcategory of fruits, berries are yet another story. A berry is an indehiscent (not splitting apart at maturity) fruit derived from a single ovary and having the whole wall fleshy. Berries are not all tiny, and they’re not all sweet. Surprisingly, eggplants, tomatoes and avocados are botanically classified as berries.
- And the popular strawberry is not a berry at all.
- Botanists call the strawberry a “false fruit,” a pseudocarp.
- A strawberry is actually a multiple fruit which consists of many tiny individual fruits embedded in a fleshy receptacle.
- The brownish or whitish specks, which are commonly considered seeds, are the true fruits, called achenes, and each of them surrounds a tiny seed.
These achenes also make strawberries relatively high in fiber. According to the Wellness Encyclopedia of Food and Nutrition, one-half cup of strawberries supplies more fiber than a slice of whole wheat bread, and more than 70 percent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C.
The cultivated strawberry is a hybrid of two different parent species. Because they are hybrids, cultivated strawberries are often able to adapt to extreme weather conditions and environments. While California and Florida are the largest producers, strawberries are grown in all 50 states. Strawberries are a significant crop in Pennsylvania, but they have a relatively short season.
According to Carolyn Beinlich of Triple B Farms, a local pick-your-own berry farm in Monongahela, Pennsylvania’s ideal strawberry season lasts three and one-half weeks. The plants form their fruit buds in the fall, so adequate moisture at that time is vital.
Since October 1996 was a rainy month, Beinlich is looking forward to a bountiful strawberry crop this season. The recipe shown here is among Beinlich’s favorites for celebrating the strawberry season. For more information about Triple B Farms, call 258-3557. Lynn Parrucci is program coordinator, and Amy Eubanks is a research assistant, at the Science Center’s Kitchen Theater.
Botanist Sue Thompson of Carnegie Museum of Natural History, also contributed to this article. *** Visit the Kitchen Theater at Carnegie Science Center to learn more about the science of cooking, and get a taste of what we’re cooking and a recipe to take home.
1 quart strawberries, washed and drained well, stems removed 3_4 cup white sugar 11_2 Tablespoons cornstarch 1 1/2 cups water 1 3-ounce package strawberry gelatin 1 9-inch baked pie shell
Boil sugar, cornstarch and water until clear (about 10 minutes). Mix well with strawberries and spoon into pie shell. Refrigerate three hours. Top with whipped cream if desired, and serve. Carolyn Beinlich of Triple B Farms will present a cooking demonstration on strawberries at the Science Center’s Kitchen Theater Sunday, June 1, at 1:30 and 3:30 p.m.
Tomatoes Are Berries, Strawberries Are Not https://www.sonomamag.com/tomato-strawberr-balsamic/ September 2010 August 2019 Strawberries, Tomatoes, & Balsamic Reduction Cruising the with my youngest daughter, under strict orders to return home with the makings of a salad but little other guidance, we walked by stall, and were stopped in our tracks by Lou’s strawberries.
As a rule, I’m not a big fan of strawberries, finding them a poster child for the over-engineered style of supermarket fruit: Big, firm, nice to look at, but overly dry and unpleasantly chalky to the tooth and so often devoid of any real taste. On Tuesday, however, with the oblique angle of the late day sun glancing off their perfectly ripe, almost impossibly red skins, Lou’s teeming baskets of rubescent little berries were like traffic lights designed to halt our egress down the aisle.
Farmer’s markets are all about quality over quantity, and the rest of Lou’s stall was a case study: Small, compact, efficient, and I wanted to eat everything in it, the rainbow-in-a-box of plump tomatoes, the short and squat sweet peppers and the long, lean, twisting, and vaguely sinister fiery ones, the progressive shading of green into crimson and yellow tracking the late-season maturation of the fruit.
- On the corner of the table, a wicker basket full of crusty sourdough loaves, labeled “country white”, but, to my taste, more closely resembling a dense, chewy version of the classic, with its distinctive tang of rye flour.
- Etymological specificity notwithstanding, I took a loaf home.
- It barely lasted through breakfast the next day.) Lou Preston’s Miche Anyway, back to dinner, and our latest installment of “Three”.
Armed with strawberries of such high sugar content, I wanted something with a bit of bite to provide ballast to the dish:, with higher acidity and more tartness than most of their heirloom cousins, would balance the flavor profile and a splash of color at the same time.
Now, strawberries and tomatoes may or may not sound odd to you – they are both, after all – but the what makes the match particularly interesting is that the : A botanist will insist that most of what we instinctively classify as berries (with the notable exception of the blueberry, which is a true berry) actually comprises a peripherally related cousin-class called aggregate fruit (many little fruits grouped together), while tomatoes (and bananas, which always surprises me)with their fruit, comprised of flesh from a single ovary, are true berries.
Lest you think that’s the end of the story, the strawberry is, in fact, neither berry nor aggregate fruit, but is instead an accessory fruit, in which the edible portion has not been produced from the ovary (apparently, the little bunches of seeds are the true “fruit” of the strawberry, but I don’t really get that).
The rest, as they say, is history, because I was now short one, and only one, ingredient, and there is no more classic accompaniment to either strawberries or tomatoes than balsamic vinegar. You could make a reasonable case that balsamic vinegars, ubiquitous throughout professional and home kitchens alike, have developed into something of a crutch, and I’d likely agree.
Certainly, when encountered in excess (and in increasingly suspect applications, such as a heavy-handed drizzle on the cloyingly sweet, sticky pizza I recently had the misfortune to order), their oaky sweetness has a tendency to become monolithic and wearing on the palate.
- Still and all, for my money, you’ll not often go wrong if you drizzle balsamic vinegar on your strawberries or tomatoes (I would almost always add olive oil and certainly salt and pepper to the latter, although not to the former, and not in combination, as in this “salad”).
- I served this as a dessert, to rave reviews from a 10- and an 8-year old with particularly finicky, and not wholly adventurous tastes, so I’m thinking it’s pretty solid.
Strawberry-Tomato ‘Salad’ with Balsamic Syrup
Pour a quarter cup (this is for about 4 plates) of good balsamic vinegar into a small sauce pan and reduce to a syrupy consistency. Watch the heat carefully – balsamic vinegar scorches easily, and even before then, with all the sugar, it will turn into caramel, which you can’t work with (if it starts to foam, start over, because by the time it cools, it’ll be a hard, sticky mess). While the vinegar is reducing, wash the fruit and cut the stems off the strawberries perpendicular to their long axis (i.e., so that they will stand straight up when plated on the cut side). Cut the Green Zebra into uniform small or medium dice (I cut them small and plated them in piles, but it turned out they were a little tricky to eat; I think I’d cut them larger next time, and keep the fingers out of the sticky vinegar drizzle). Once the vinegar syrup starts to cool and thicken, drizzle or splatter the plate and arrange the fruit on top (do it in that order, it’ll look cleaner).
What family is a strawberry in?
Horticultural Facts – The strawberry is a small plant of the Rosaceae (Rose) family. All varieties of strawberry plant belong to the Fragaria genus. Strawberries are not really berries or fruit, but they are the enlarged ends of the plants stamen. The small black spots are actually the fruit.
Strawberries can be grown wild or as a cultivated plant. Strawberry plants have an average of 200 seeds on the outside skin of each berry—unlike most fruit in which the seeds are enclosed within the fruit. Interestingly, strawberries do not normally reproduce by seeds. Strawberry plants send out what are called runners, which growson the ground and sends roots into the soil.
The roots then produce new plants that are often used to start new strawberry plots. Strawberries are hand-picked, sorted, and packed in the field. The flats or trays of strawberries are rushed to shipping houses where they are kept at a temperature of 34 F.
All in the Family -Part One, The Rose Family – Springmoor Retirement Community When it comes to ornamental plants, the Rose Family is the largest contributor. Also known as the Rosacea family, it is made up of 2,830 species of plants. The most popular members are probably the roses themselves. Roses come in the form of Grandiflora, Multiflora, Hedge, Climbing, Miniature, Hardy and Hybrid Teas. 
Thom Morgan, Springmoor landscape manager Less popular, but still big contributors in the landscape industry are Pyracantha, Flowering Quince, Flowering Almonds and Spirea. Thundercloud plums and Washington Hawthorns are also great flowering trees used for landscaping purposes.
What is the closest relative to strawberry?
The strawberry belongs to the family Rosaceae in the genus Fragaria. Its closest rela- tives are Duchesnea Smith and Potentilla L. Species are found at six ploidy levels in Fragaria (Table 1.1; Fig.
What are people allergic to in strawberries?
Strawberry Allergy Frequently Asked Questions – Is Strawberry Allergy Common? There is limited data available about strawberry allergies and how common they are. However, one study found that 3 to 4 percent of children aged 2 and under were allergic to strawberries, and the percentage dropped below 1 percent later in childhood and adulthood.
What Causes Strawberry Allergy? The primary allergen in strawberries is called Fra a1, but other proteins may also contribute to allergic reactions. Individuals allergic to latex may also be allergic to strawberries. This is known as latex-fruit syndrome. Does Strawberry Cross-React With Other Fruits? Yes, strawberries can cross-react with certain other fruits due to shared allergenic proteins.
Some fruits that are commonly associated with cross-reactivity with strawberries include Raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, cranberries, kiwi, peaches, apples, cherries, plums, and pineapple. How Is Strawberry Allergy Diagnosed? Allergists use allergy testing and sometimes a food challenge to diagnose mango allergies.
- Allergy testing may include a skin prick test.
- How Is Strawberry Allergy Treated? There isn’t currently treatment for strawberry allergy.
- The best way to prevent an allergic reaction is to avoid strawberries.
- However, in cases of severe allergic reactions, epinephrine can treat anaphylaxis.
- Antihistamines may treat less severe symptoms.
Contact an NYC allergist to learn how to manage your strawberry allergy. Can A Strawberry Allergy Be Outgrown? Allergies to certain foods, including strawberries, can sometimes be outgrown, especially in children. However, it varies from person to person, and some individuals may continue to have the allergy throughout their lives.
What foods are in the same family as strawberries?
3. What foods should people with a strawberry allergy avoid? – Strawberries belong to the rose family. Other fruits in this family include: pears, peaches, cherries, apples, blackberries, and blackberries. If you are allergic to a fruit in this family, you may also be allergic to strawberries.
Some people have allergic cross-reactivity with symptoms including itchy mouth, itchy throat, swelling inside the mouth and throat. This allergic reaction is related to pollen allergy. Strawberries and other fruits in the rose family have been linked to birch allergic rhinitis (hay fever). People who eat strawberries with allergies should avoid eating this fruit and also foods containing strawberries, including in the form of flavoring or strawberry decoration on cakes (even if you only eat cake, do not eat strawberries),.
At the same time, you can also have a food allergy to fruits related to strawberries such as peaches, apples or blackberries.
Is A Blackberry A berry?
It turns out berry is actually a botanical term, not a common English one. Blackberries, mulberries, and raspberries are not berries at all, but bananas, pumpkins, avocados and cucumbers are. So what makes a berry? Well, a berry has seeds and pulp (properly called “pericarp”) that develop from the ovary of a flower.
- The pericarp of all fruit is actually subdivided into 3 layers.
- The exocarp is the skin of the fruit, and in berries it’s often eaten (like in grapes) but not always (like in bananas).
- The mesocarp is the part of the fruit we usually eat, like the white yummy part of an apple, or the bulk of a plum, though in citrus fruits the mesocarp is actually the white, sort of inner-peel that we remove.
Last is the endocarp, which is the closest layer that envelopes the seeds. In stone fruits, it’s the stone. In many fruits, it’s actually a membrane that we don’t really notice, often because it’s been bred to be thin, like in bananas. In citrus, the endocarp is actually the membrane that holds the juicy parts of the fruit, that is, the part you don’t want to pierce unless you want to get sticky.
- If most fruit have these 3 layers, then why are berries special? It’s mostly due to the nature of their endocarps.
- Although not exactly quantified, berries generally have thin endocarps and fleshy (not dry) pericarps.
- Of course, these rules aren’t rigid, as watermelons and citrus fruits are berries, and neither are thought to have especially thin skins.
So if your favourite fruit isn’t a berry, what might it be? If it has a thick, hard endocarp, it’s probably a drupe, a fancy term for a stone fruit. This group encompasses apricots, mangoes, cherries, olives, avocados, dates and most nuts. Basically, if you wouldn’t want to just bite into it, it’s probably a drupe.
- If your snack has a core, it’s probably a pome,
- From its name you probably guessed that this bunch includes apples, as well as pears.
- If you’re a bit more adventurous, your favourite breakfast might include a multiple fruit, which is a fruit that is actually make up of a cluster of fruiting bodies.
- Some examples of this are pineapple, figs and mulberries.
These fruits turn out to be part of a greater group called accessory fruits, in which the fruit (or many fruiting bodies) is not derived from the ovary, but some other part of the developing plant. This is where the “not-a-berry” strawberry falls. Finally, if you, like me, consider your favourite fruit to be a raspberry or blackberry, then you love aggregate fruits,
Are avocados a berry?
While they’re often prepared and eaten like vegetables, funnily enough, avocados are biologically fruits. Even weirder, avocados are actually single-seeded berries in the same family as sassafras, the bay laurel, and various species of cinnamon tree.
Is an apple a rose?
The Rose family is called Rosaceae. It includes several important crops such as: apples.
Interesting Facts in Easy English – Pre-Listening Vocabulary
- herb: plant used for flavour, food, scent, or medicine
- shrub: a woody plant that doesn’t grow as high as a tree
- petal: an individual segment of a flower, often coloured
- symbolic: representative of something
- nutrition: food that is needed for growth and health
- boost: increase
- lift one’s spirits: put someone in a better mood
Comprehension Questions
- What is the name of the plant family that apples and roses belong to?
- What characteristics do flowering plants in this family share?
- Why are apples traditionally given to teachers?
Discussion Question : What makes a better gift, food or flowers? Would you rather receive a basket of fruit or a bouquet of flowers? show Answers hide Answers Roses and Apples Are Related Did you know that apples and roses are from the same family? Apples, peaches, pears, and plums are all from the Rose family (Rosaceae).
Almonds, strawberries, and cherries are too. If you look closely at the flowers on these herbs, shrubs, and trees, you will notice the similarities. Flowering plants from the Rose family have a cup-like shape with five petals and oval-shaped leaves. While lovers often give each other roses as gifts, students often give their teachers apples.
Where did this tradition come from? Historically, apples have been associated with nutrition. Giving an apple to a teacher is a symbolic way of wishing your teacher good health. Does an apple a day truly keep the doctor away? Many fruits and herbs from the Rose family have health benefits.
- The name of the plant family that apples and roses belong to is the Rose family (Rosacea).
- Flowering plants from this family have a cup-like shape with five petals and oval leaves.
- Apples are traditionally given to teachers because they symbolize good health.
Which has more DNA a kiwi or a strawberry?
DNA Extraction Lab: Strawberry – Background: The long, thick fibers of DNA store the information for the functioning of the chemistry of life. DNA is present in every cell of plants and animals. The DNA found in strawberry cells can be extracted using common, everyday materials.
Strawberries are soft and easy to pulverize. Strawberries have large genomes; they are octoploid, which means they have eight of each type of chromosome in each cell. Thus, strawberries are an exceptional fruit to use in DNA extraction labs and strawberries yield more DNA than any other fruit (i.e. banana, kiwi, etc.).
We will use an extraction buffer containing salt, to break up protein chains that bind around the nucleic acids, and dish soap which helps to dissolve the phospholipid bilayers of the cell membrane and organelles. This extraction buffer will help provide us access to the DNA inside the cells.
- heavy duty quart ziploc bag
- Strawberry
- Table salt
- Shampoo (look for sodium lauryl sulfate as a first ingredient)
- Water
- Cheesecloth or similar loose woven fabric
- Funnel
- 50mL vial / test tube or similar container
- 500 mL beaker or mason jar
- glass rod, popsicle stick, wooden skewer or toothpick
- chilled (refrigerated or briefly frozen) isopropyl alcohol
Warning: Isopropyl alcohol is a skin irritant, and inhaling or consuming it can make you sick. Use in a well ventilated space. Alcohols are also flammable and the vapors can ignite. Keep away from open flame. Procedure:
- Gather all materials.
- Prepare the DNA extraction buffer.
In 500 mL beaker add
- 400mL (1 ¾ cups) water
- 50mL (3 Tablespoons + 1 teaspoon) shampoo
- 5mL (2 teaspoons) table salt
Slowly invert the bottle to mix the extraction buffer.
- Place one strawberry in a Ziploc bag.
- Smash/grind up the strawberry using your fist and fingers for 2 minutes. Careful not to break the bag!
Why? The physical smashing breaks the plant’s cell walls and allows the cytoplasm to leak out.
- Add 10mL (2 teaspoons) of extraction buffer (salt and soap solution) to the bag.
- Kneed/mush the strawberry in the bag again for 1 minute.
Why the detergent? The soap breaks down the lipids (fats) in the phospholipid bi-layers of the cell membrane and nuclear membrane. This releases the contents from the cell and the chromosomes containing DNA from the nucleus.
- Assemble your filtration apparatus as shown to the right.
- Pour the strawberry slurry into the filtration apparatus and let it drip directly into your test tube.
Why? Filtering strains all the large cellular junk out of the mix. The DNA, still tightly wound, is so small it slips through with the liquid and into the test tube. Caution! From this stage onward, you must be careful not to agitate the mixture.
Gently Slowly pour 20mL (1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon) cold alcohol down the inside wall of the test tube to form a separate, clear layer on top of the cloudy strawberry mixture below (You should see small wisps of gel-like material forming above the boundary.) OBSERVE
Why? The polar/non-polar boundary layer causes the DNA to precipitate. The tiny bits of wispy junk floating in the alcohol just above the boundary layer is DNA.
- Dip the glass rod or wooden stick into the tube where the strawberry extract and alcohol layers come into contact with each other. OBSERVE
- If the procedure worked really well (it often doesn’t) you will get long strands of DNA forming, sometimes more than an inch long! Using the bamboo skewer or toothpick, gently wind up the precipitated DNA.
- As you gently lift the skewer or toothpick out of the container after winding, it will carry long strands of a mucus-like substance that looks like “boogers.” That’s concentrated DNA, just like they do it on CSI 😉
If it didn’t work perfectly, don’t despair. Most people see the wispy stuff, but you have to get a bit lucky to get the long strands to form References and Resources: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/squishy-science-extract-dna-from-smashed-strawberries/ https://science.wonderhowto.com/how-to/extract-dna-from-strawberry-with-basic-kitchen-items-0140302/ https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/strawberry-dna/ Video: https://youtu.be/vPGKv53zSRQ Video: https://youtu.be/usaE_XZx-a8
What foods are in the same family as strawberries?
3. What foods should people with a strawberry allergy avoid? – Strawberries belong to the rose family. Other fruits in this family include: pears, peaches, cherries, apples, blackberries, and blackberries. If you are allergic to a fruit in this family, you may also be allergic to strawberries.
Some people have allergic cross-reactivity with symptoms including itchy mouth, itchy throat, swelling inside the mouth and throat. This allergic reaction is related to pollen allergy. Strawberries and other fruits in the rose family have been linked to birch allergic rhinitis (hay fever). People who eat strawberries with allergies should avoid eating this fruit and also foods containing strawberries, including in the form of flavoring or strawberry decoration on cakes (even if you only eat cake, do not eat strawberries),.
At the same time, you can also have a food allergy to fruits related to strawberries such as peaches, apples or blackberries.