Fragaria × vescana

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Fragaria × vescana

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Magnoliophyta
Class:	Magnoliopsida
Order:	Rosales
Family:	Rosaceae
Subfamily:	Rosoideae
Genus:	Fragaria
Species:	F. × vescana

Fragaria × vescana is a hybrid strawberry cultivar that was created in an effort to combine the best traits of the Garden Strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa), which has large berries and vigorous plants, with the Strawberry (Fragaria vesca), which has an exquisite flavour, but small berries.

This cross cannot take place naturally. Fragaria x ananassa has eight sets of chromosomes whereas Fragaria vesca has only two sets. Repeated attempts to cross these resulted in sterile offspring.

Researchers treated tissue from a Fragaria vesca plant with colchicine to create a mutant plant with four sets of chromosomes. This mutant was then crossed with a Fragaria x ananassa plant, and vigorous fertile offspring were obtained. The offspring were found to be decaploid, (having ten sets of chromosomes).

Fragaria × vescana is not yet commercially important, but remains under development. While the plants are vigorous like their F. × ananassa parents, and the berries have the excellent flavour of the F. vesca parents, the berries are still quite small.