T
he very name would make your mouth water, as you think of strawberry ice-cream, strawberry jam, and other delicious food items associated with this delicious pink fruit.
The strawberry is not really a berry, in the strict botanical sense. The actual fruits are tiny hard pellets, called achenes, scattered over the outside surface. The delicious fleshy part we eat is called a torus and is formed from the centre of the strawberry flower. It secretes nectar for pollination. It is
this nectar that makes it sweet and tasty.
The fruit grows on a small plant with a crown of dark green leaves, each of which has three small leaflets with saw-like edges. Runners, or long stems, grow from the crown, which send down roots when they touch the ground and a new plant develops.
There are more than 600 varieties of strawberries that differ in flavor, size and texture. However, one can usually identify a strawberry by its red flesh with yellow seeds piercing its surface, and the small, green leafy cap and stem that adorn its crown.
Strawberries have grown wild for millennia in temperate regions throughout the world. They began being cultivated some time before the Christian era. The ancient Romans enjoyed this fruit so much that they gave it the name Fragaria, meaning ‘Fragrance’, and this has survived in its botanical name. Native Americans mixed strawberry paste with dough to make bread (an early version of the modern strawberry short cake).
This fruit has a lot of healing properties and this has made it popular right from the earliest times. An excellent source of vitamin C, manganese, dietary fibre and iodine, strawberries are also rich in potassium, folate, vitamin B2, vitamin B5, vitamin B6, omega-3 fatty acids, magnesium, copper, and vitamin K. They are commonly used in facepacks. The alphahydroxyl acids in the fruit pulp clean the skin without damaging it. If this pulp is rubbed on mild burns, it helps the injured area to heal quickly.
The strawberry is undoubtedly the most popular type of berry fruit in the world.
he very name would make your mouth water, as you think of strawberry ice-cream, strawberry jam, and other delicious food items associated with this delicious pink fruit.
this nectar that makes it sweet and tasty.
There are more than 600 varieties of strawberries that differ in flavor, size and texture. However, one can usually identify a strawberry by its red flesh with yellow seeds piercing its surface, and the small, green leafy cap and stem that adorn its crown.
Strawberries have grown wild for millennia in temperate regions throughout the world. They began being cultivated some time before the Christian era. The ancient Romans enjoyed this fruit so much that they gave it the name Fragaria, meaning ‘Fragrance’, and this has survived in its botanical name. Native Americans mixed strawberry paste with dough to make bread (an early version of the modern strawberry short cake).
