Fragaria × ananassa (white-fruited) Seeds | White Strawberry
LATIN NAME: Fragaria × ananassa (white-fruited)
COMMON NAME: White Strawberry
Plant Profile
Each achene holds one seed and a thickened wall, and the arrangement of achenes is a real field character: in wild and alpine species they sit proud of the fruit, and in most garden cultivars they are sunken in shallow pits. Critically, the achenes also drive ripening — the tissue under each one softens first, so a berry colours unevenly around the seeds.
Because the block is in pigment accumulation rather than in ripening, a white berry is fully ripe at the same stage as a red one: soft, fragrant and sweet, just colourless. The trait behaves as a recessive, which is why white selections are grown from named stock rather than saved from a mixed bed, and why the achenes stay red or brown while the flesh does not.
Pale berries are eaten fresh, where their softness and lower acidity suit people who find red strawberries sharp. They also make striking preserves, since a white-fleshed jam sets to a clear amber rather than red, and they freeze well as whole fruits for smoothies and sauces.
Raising plants from extracted achenes is slow, but it is the only way to grow a variable seedling population; named cultivars are multiplied from runners instead.
Grey mould, Botrytis cinerea, is the main fruit rot and is worst in damp, crowded beds, so ventilation and regular picking do more than any spray. The strawberry aphid spreads viruses and vine weevil larvae destroy plants in containers by eating the roots; two-spotted spider mite builds up in hot, dry seasons. Powdery mildew and crown rots follow poor drainage.
Science & Biotechnology
The garden strawberry is an octoploid, its genome assembled from diploid ancestors including Fragaria vesca and Fragaria iinumae. The plant appeared in cultivation in north-western Europe, after Chilean plants reached France in the early eighteenth century and met North American stocks in the same gardens; the name ananassa means pineapple-like.
Red colour in a strawberry comes from anthocyanins, chiefly pelargonidin-3-O-glucoside with smaller amounts of cyanidin-3-O-glucoside. The pathway runs from phenylalanine through the enzymes of flavonoid biosynthesis to anthocyanidin synthase and then a glucosyltransferase that finishes the molecule. In white-fruited cultivars the accumulation step is blocked or strongly reduced, so the receptacle ripens to cream or pale yellow with no red to mask it.
Strawberry aroma is built during ripening and owes much of its character to furaneol, also called 2,5-dimethyl-4-hydroxy-3(2H)-furanone, together with esters such as methyl and ethyl butanoate and a small amount of methyl anthranilate. None of that chemistry depends on the pigment, so a pale berry smells and tastes like a strawberry — and in some cultivars carries a distinct pineapple note on top. Ellagic acid and vitamin C are also present in both colour forms.
Uses & Benefits
Fragaria is unusual in the rose family for building its fruit from the receptacle rather than the ovary wall. After pollination the receptacle expands, fills with sugars and pectin, and turns from green through white to red, while the ovaries embedded near its surface ripen into achenes. The plant that results is low and clump-forming, with trifoliate leaves, white five-petalled flowers and long stolons that root at their tips.
Growing from Seed
Pick in the cool of the morning into shallow trays, handle the fruit gently and chill it quickly; pale berries bruise more visibly than red ones because there is no pigment to hide the damage. Wash them only just before use. Birds find white fruit against green foliage easily, so netting matters if the crop is to reach the kitchen.
Set plants with the crown exactly at soil level — buried crowns rot and exposed roots dry out. Space them 30 to 40 cm apart in rows about 70 cm apart, on a raised bed mulched with straw or a woven mat. Water steadily through flowering and fruiting, remove runners unless new plants are wanted, and renovate the bed after cropping.
Our Take
For a white-fruited plant that comes reliably true from seed, white alpine strawberry is the easier choice in a small garden. If you want to taste the ancestral flavours behind the modern berry, the Virginian line and the musky hautbois strawberry are both worth a row.
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