Strawberry

Strawberry here means the woodland strawberry, Fragaria vesca, a perennial of the rose family that grows across much of the Northern Hemisphere and bears edible fruit. Wikipedia also calls it the Alpine, wild, Carpathian or European strawberry. It has soft, hairy white flowers on a short stalk, light-green leaves in threes with toothed margins, and spreads mostly by runners. Cunningham prints the formal name and calls the plant feminine, with Venus and water, and links it to Freya. He lists love and luck. The fruit is served as a love food, and the leaves are carried for luck. Pregnant women are said to carry a packet of the leaves for pain. Kynes covers the garden strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa) and the woodland strawberry in one entry, so this file does not cite it, and the American Herbal Products Association monograph is a genus heading, so it is not cited either.