Tibetan strawberry

Survives zone 5 through 8

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

A tetraploid wild strawberry endemic to the Tibetan Plateau and adjoining Sichuan/northwest Yunnan, distinguished from its relatives by unusually pale, whitish fruit and large pollen grains and seeds; known almost exclusively from botanical field surveys rather than cultivation.

Hardiness

Zone 5–8

Habit

Groundcover

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Summer–autumn

Mature size

Rosette 10–20 cm, spreading by runners

Light

Full sun to partial

Soil pH

6.0–7.0 (near-neutral)

Environment

Montane

Native range

Endemic to southern Tibet, extending east into Sichuan and northwest Yunnan, China.

Status

Wild

Years to fruit

2–4 yrs

Growth speed

Fast — a single plant can fill a square metre in a season by runner

Spacing

35 cm (14 in) apart — about 8.2 per m² (7.6 per 10 sq ft)

Leaf shape

Trifoliate, the leaflets hairy beneath and bluntly toothed, on long hairy petioles.

Root system

Shallow and fibrous from a short woody crown, almost all of it in the top 15–30 cm, with new roots striking down wherever a runner touches soil. Nothing to dig around: the crown must sit at soil level, buried too deep it rots and planted too high it dries out.

Fruit description

A pale, whitish-fruited species (a purer-white form has also been named) with notably large seeds; texture and flavor aren't documented.

Propagation

Runners, which is what the plant is built for -- peg a plantlet down into soil or a pot, sever it once rooted, and you have a clone. Seed matters only for species and breeding: it needs surface sowing, light, and cold stratification, and the seedlings are variable.

Pollination

Described in the taxonomic literature as dioecious — individual plants bear only male or only female flowers, rather than the hermaphrodite flowers typical of most cultivated Fragaria — meaning both sexes need to be present nearby for fruit and seed set.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.