Wild Strawberry

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

There is probably no person in Russia who has not tasted the fragrant berries of wild strawberries at least once.

Apparently, therefore, the people do not take root in the correct name of garden strawberries, a culture that is, perhaps, in every garden, in every summer cottage. Everyone stubbornly calls it strawberry, probably considering that it is not at all like a real wild strawberry.

This is a very widespread in our country perennial herb from the Rosaceae family, 5-20 cm high. It grows in forests, in shrubs, on forest edges, clearings, clearings and on the sides of forest roads. Wild strawberry blooms in May - June, fruits ripen in June - July. Small sweet and sour berries have such an amazing aroma that everyone who has tasted them at least once will remember it for life.

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Of course, strawberry fruits are small in size, but if a sunny meadow overgrown with strawberries turns up, then you can taste plenty of fragrant berries with a heady aroma and even collect them in a basket or, as children like to do, string bright juicy berries on long thin blades of grass, which are then very similar to elegant beads.

Everyone knows how wild strawberries help out tired tourists, blueberry gatherers or mushroom pickers, when, barely moving their legs, they wander home, and suddenly on the side of the road they meet a scattering of delicious fragrant berries. They quench thirst, and refresh, and even, it seems, add strength. And what a wonderful forest gift for children is a handful of fragrant strawberries brought from a long trip by their parents!

Anyone who has tasted the jam made from its berries will also remember its taste and aroma for a long time. Unfortunately, nowadays you will not meet such lucky ones so often - a lot of berries are needed even for a liter of such jam, and how many people who want to pick its fragrant fruits go to the forest every summer! True, remontant varieties of strawberries have already appeared on sale, which have a taste and aroma very similar to forest strawberries. But it's still better!

And, of course, like many other forest and field plants, it has long been used in folk medicine. Wild strawberry preparations are used to improve digestion in gastritis, enteritis and colitis. It has a choleretic and diuretic effect, therefore it is used for cholelithiasis and kidney stones, for gout.

Going to the forest, collect a handful of berries, taste the aroma of wild strawberries familiar from childhood. But be careful with the plant, do not trample it, otherwise the day may come when our descendants will not be able to find such a familiar plant in the meadow.