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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.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun · Partial Sun · Shade
- USDA zone
- USDA 4–7
- Soil
- Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Dry · Well-Drained · Moderate
Vertical layer
Groundcover- Soil pH
- 6–6
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 3–6 in
- Mature spread
- 6–12 in
- Plant spacing
- 6–12 in
- Root type
- Rhizome
- Spread pattern
- Root
Keep exploring
Similar plants
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Beach Strawberry
Fragaria chiloensis
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Bilberry
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Black Medick
Medicago lupulina
Black Medick is a low, sprawling nitrogen-fixing clover relative that forms a mowable mat through fall, winter and spring before dying back…
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Carpet Bugle
Ajuga reptans
Carpet Bugle forms a fast, dense, rooting mat that thrives in dry shade - the hardest niche on most properties to fill, since dry ground…
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Catmint
Nepeta racemosa
Catmint blooms from spring through the end of summer if the spent flower spikes are sheared after each flush, holding nectar for pollinators…
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Common Chickweed
Stellaria media
Common chickweed is a cool-season annual that carpets bare ground through the winter months, exactly when pasture and garden beds otherwise…
Groundcover · USDA 4–11
The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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