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"David Hill" wrote in
:

"............The Anglo-Saxons were calling them strawberries 500 years
before Columbus. They're recorded at least as far back as Roman times
........"



Strawberries were cultivated by the Romans as early as 200 BC and in
mediaeval times strawberries were regarded as an aphrodisiac and a
soup made of strawberries, borage and soured cream was traditionally
served to newly-weds at their wedding breakfast.

Be that as it may, the Latin word for strawberry isn't strawberrinus, it's
the infinitly more sexy 'fragum'. If I recall correctly, there is some
reference to 'strawberry' in the Canterbury Tales, although I don't
remember if the original used some Old English variant of 'strawberry' or a
French cognate of 'fragum'. That also doesn't mean that Noah (Webster)
didn't sail across the ocean bringing two of every word, and stuck 'straw'
and 'berry' together as per the current spelling after seing the natives'
horticultural practices, with 'straw' having been previously derived from
'strewn about' just a happy coincidence.

It's also not to say that a 'fragum' did or didn't denote specificly the
fruits of genus 'fragaria' or was used genericly or poeticly for some
strawberry-like fruit/plant.

(rec.gardens)