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
1. Leaves thin, not strongly veined beneath, not wrinkled above; plants generally distributed
2. Terminal tooth of leaflets usually surpassing the adjacent lateral ones; leaflets generally unstalked; fruiting shoots longer than the leaves................F. vesca
2. Terminal tooth of leaflets usually much narrower and shorter than adjacent lateral ones; leaflets short-stalked; fruiting shoots shorter than the leaves..............F. virginiana
Source: Illustrated Flora of British Columbia
Habitat / Range
Dry to moist open forests, sandy fields, clearings and meadows in the lowland to subalpine zones; common in S BC south of 53degreeN, rare northward; N to NT, E to NF and S to CA, NM, MO and VA.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
A shade-tolerant/intolerant, submontane to montane, circumpolar forb (transcontinental in North America). Occurs on moderately dry to fresh, nitrogen-medium soils within boreal, wet temperate, and cool mesothermal climates; its occurrence increases with increasing continentality, and decreases with increasing elevation. Inhabits exposed mineral soils on water-shedding sites; common in early-seral, meadow-like communities; sporadic in open-canopy, young-seral forests. Characteristic of disturbed sites.
