Sometimes, my strawberries grow interesting leaves. I have also been tinkering with breeding strawberries, sometimes a few interesting things come out of the crosses. Crossing appears to introduce instability, which isn't always a bad thing.
I have had a few strawberry plants that sometimes throw up variegated leaves. I had hoped this trait would continue and I would have a line of variegated plants, so far it is always restricted to a single leaf. Hopefully in the future this variegation happens to a runner, then I may be able to grow variegated strawberry plants.
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| Variegated strawberry leaf |
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| Variegated leaf |
Some plants tend to display this trait more often than others, it is more common in the wide crosses, but as yet I do not have any plants I consider to consistently grow four or five leaflets instead of the usual three.
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| Five leaflets instead of three. |
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| Four leaflets instead of three |
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| Five leaflets on the left, I don't know how many on the right |
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| Five leaflets |
If you have strawberries that grow interesting leaves and are willing to send me a plant or some seeds let me know. I would be keen to grow them.
Currently strawberry seeds are still legal to import into Australia. I know there is at least one variety of variegated strawberry around but don't know if it grows variegated from seed.
I do sell some strawberry plants through my for sale page. Unfortunately at the moment I can't guarantee that any will ever grow interesting leaves like this.
Re: plants with reliable 5+ leaflets- try crossing strawberry with cinquefoils, some of which have more than 3 leaflets? (Fragaria × Comarum hybridization's been done already, resulting in pink-flowered strawberries, which are pretty common as a decorative plant in US.)
ReplyDeleteIf I may ask, how is that raspberry x strawberry experiment of yours doing?
Strawberry x cinquefoils - of course! Yes, I have seen a couple of these hybrids here in Australia. I may not get to that for some time, but will add it to my list of things I want to try.
ReplyDeleteThe raspberry x strawberry experiment is going slowly. I had two plants that survived winter, one is doing nothing and is still a tiny seedling that I expect to die, the other is growing strong.
It looks a lot like a strawberry, I mean, almost exactly like a strawberry. It is not yet flowering or growing runners which is odd. Strawberry seedlings that were planted at the same time began flowering back in September and have been fruiting since.
The crown started to become elongated, which I was hoping meant it would sent up a flower stalk, but instead it has started to divide. It has also started to grow more plants from the roots, which is unlike my other strawberries.
The wait to see if it flowers is killing me. I have a few recent photos, when I get them off the camera I will put them up on this blog.
I think I have a strawberry plant (Fragaria Vesca 'white soul') with varigation, every leaf is variegated and is a super slow grower. Unless it's a virus but it doesn't look like a plant virus and hasn't infected their siblings and other strawberries that were kept together.
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