Fragraria

 Strawberries are the edible portions of the fruits of various species and hybrids of the genus Fragraria, a group of creeping flowers within the rose family. What non-botanists assume is the fruit is actually a fleshy base, called a “receptacle,” from which the flower’s ovaries emerge. Essentially, one can think of a strawberry “fruit” as being akin to a raspberry with tiny seed-like berries attached to a swollen base.

Horticulturally, what would become the garden strawberry (of the modern day supermarket) only officially entered into domestication during the middle of the 18th Century, when European horticulturalists hybridized the Virginian Strawberry, F. virginiana with the Chilean, or Beach Strawberry, F. chiloensis. Prior to that, horticulturalists had been working to produce large-berried strawberries using hybrids of various European species, primarily F. vesca, F. viridis, and F. moschata since the 1400s.

The strawberry plant has long been an important herb in European Herbalism, where the leaves are used to make an astringent, mood-soothing tea. The fruit, in turn, sees many uses, including treating iron-deficiency anemia (due directly to strawberry’s high iron content), gout, diabetes, fever, and liver and kidney ailments. The roots are brewed into a tea to treat diarrhea and difficult urination due to urinary tract infection.

Modern texts on Chinese Food Therapy often state how, because the (garden) strawberry was only recently introduced into China within the past few centuries, its usage in Chinese Food Therapy is not extensively documented or popular. Even so, strawberry is used for, in addition to the symptoms seen in European Herbalism, treating the symptoms of hangovers, stimulating the appetite, treating lung dryness, particularly with hoarse voice and or a lingering dry cough, relieving painful abdominal swelling, and resolving difficult and painful urination with bleeding.