General:
Perennial herb from a fibrous root and short, thick rhizome, with long, leafless runners; stems trailing, rooting at the nodes; runners, leaf stalks and flower shoots greenish or very lightly tinged with reddish purple, lightly to densely hairy.

Leaves:
Basal in rosettes, palmately compound, on stalks 3-12 cm long; leaflets 3, elliptic to egg-shaped, more or less unstalked, 1-3 cm long, the lower surface pale and fine-hairy underneath, the upper surface yellow-green and nearly smooth, the margins strongly toothed with the terminal tooth projecting beyond the adjacent lateral ones.

Flowers:
Inflorescence an open cluster of 3 to 15 stalked flowers atop axillary, leafless, shoots that are usually longer than the leaves at maturity; corollas white, the petals 5, egg-shaped, 5-10 mm long; calyces silky-hairy, 5-lobed, the lobes (sepals) 4-5 mm long, alternating with narrowly elliptic bractlets about as long as the sepals; ovaries superior; stamens about 20.

Fruits:
Strawberries, hemispheric, about 1 cm wide, covered with achenes; achenes 1.3 mm long, partly sunken in the fleshy receptacle.

Notes:
Two varieties with overlapping ranges occur in BC:

1. Flowers to 1.5 cm across; achenes not sunken; leaf-stalks with appressed-ascending hairs; flower-shoots rarely with a leafy bract below inflorescence..................... var. americana Porter

1. Flowers to 2 cm across; achenes in shallow pits; leaf-stalks with spreading or reflexed hairs; flower-shoots commonly with a leafy bract below inflorescence..................... var. bracteata (Heller) R.J. Davis

Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

If more than one illustration is available for a species (e.g., separate illustrations were provided for two subspecies) then links to the separate images will be provided below. Note that individual subspecies or varietal illustrations are not always available.

Illustration Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Fragaria bracteata A. Heller
Fragaria bracteata var. bracteata
Fragaria crinita Rydb.
Fragaria helleri Holz.
Fragaria vesca var. bracteata (A. Heller) R.J. Davis
Fragaria vesca var. crinita (Rydb.) C.L. Hitchc.
Fragaria virginiana var. glauca S. Watson