A plant of wooded banks and hillsides, the wild strawberry spreads by extending runners along the ground. Its berries appear from short stalks with pale leaves, growing from white flowers, each of which produces a small red fruit. These wild strawberries are globular in shape and covered with tiny seeds.
Wild strawberries of this kind grow widely across the Northern Hemisphere, and so doubtless they were equally commonplace in Middle-earth. They were found by Bilbo Baggins growing along the banks of a stream running down from the Misty Mountains, as Thorin and Company were making their urgent escape from the Goblins of the mountains. The company had lost their supplies to the Goblins, and the ravenous Bilbo managed to harvest three of the tiny red berries to eat, but they provided only a meagre meal.
Notes
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Fragaria vesca is the wild strawberry that Bilbo Baggins found as he descended from the Misty Mountains. This wild variety is much smaller than the more familiar hybrid strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa) seen in modern times, and so it is hardly surprising that the three Bilbo managed to find did little to satisfy his hunger.
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The word 'strawberry' comes from Anglo-Saxon streawberige, but the origins of that word, and especially the association of the berry with 'straw', are mysterious. Some sources suggest that the seed-like patterns covering their surfaces are vaguely straw-like, or that the name might derive from the yellow colour of the unripened berries. Others suggest that the name is cognate with 'strew' or 'stray', because strawberry plants grow in tangles across the ground, or that their runners form a pattern like straw spread on the ground. Ultimately, the true origin of the name remains enigmatic.
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- Updated 14 October 2023
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