Plant · P-170

Barren Strawberry

Waldsteinia fragarioides

Barren Strawberry is a low woodland groundcover with strawberry-like leaves and yellow spring flowers, but despite the name and the leaf shape, its fruit is dry and inedible rather than fleshy like a real strawberry. It is native to cool, moist upland forest and mixed hardwood or pine woodland, where it spreads by rhizome into a dense mat that bees and other insects visit and that deer tend to avoid. It needs strongly acidic soil and cannot handle a hot, humid summer, and its spring bloom window is later than once hoped, so it does not solve an early-season nectar gap.