(The Watcher) wrote in
:

On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 13:26:11 GMT, "Cereus-validus"
wrote:

You no fool me Steverino,

You're making that up.

You claim that Europeans were eating strawberries before they were
introduced from the New World.

Next you will be saying that Romans wore wrist watches with Roman
numerals on them!!

Of course. They also had little sundial faces with a tiny gnomon
sticking out from them.


Beware of Garden Gnomona bearing sundials?

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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)

Kay Easton wrote in news:W3RE9VDhXrVAFwD4
@scarboro.demon.co.uk:

The plant equivalent of sperm is pollen - and that of course *is* on the
outside ;-)
Plants are a lot less fussy than the human male about where they deposit
their sperm.

You are far more likely to find a human female that is fussy about where a
human male deposits his sperm. 8^@

sassy326 wrote:

ok even though this conversation has drifted away from its present
topic i would like to ask a question about growing strawberries. I
want to grow them on the south side of my house along with blueberry
bushes, and rasberry bushes but have been told that they will never
grow on the south side. Is this so?

Well, they would grow on the south side here because I live in the
frozen north. Where do you live?
Be careful planting blueberries close to the house. The concrete in
the house foundation tends to make the soil alkaline and it's hard
to make it acid enough for blueberries.

Steve

Good point Loki. Down there, the south side might be too shady for
good growth as well.

Steve

Loki wrote:

What hemisphere do you live in? South is the cold side in the
Southern hemisphere.

Cheers,
Loki [ Brevity is the soul of wit. W.Shakespeare ]

Ha! you're pretty funny. :-)
OK, the modern strawberries that we all know and love were developed
from 2 new world species.
BUT...
There were other species of strawberry that always lived in Europe
(and beyond). So, yes. Europeans WERE eating strawberries before
they were introduced from the New World.
Here's a quote from a web page that tells a little mo

" The Wild Strawberry or Wood Strawberry Fragaria vesca is native
to the temperate regions of Eurasia and North America. It has become
distributed worldwide and is sometimes found naturalised in southern
Africa. It is a diploid species (i.e. 2 sets of chromosomes).The
finding of strawberry achenes in neolithic archaeological
excavations, shows that wild strawberries have been eaten by people
since the earliest of times. Fragaria vesca was being cultivated in
Europeans gardens by the 1500's (Renaissance) and after about 1530,
cultivated strawberries are clearly larger than wild ones,
indicating selective breeding. Although Fragaria vesca is still
grown in gardens for domestic use, it is not used in commercial
strawberry production because of the development of the Modern
Garden Strawberry Fragaria ananassa."

Steve


Cereus-validus wrote:

You no fool me Steverino,

You're making that up.

You claim that Europeans were eating strawberries before they were
introduced from the New World.

Next you will be saying that Romans wore wrist watches with Roman numerals
on them!!


"Steve" wrote in message

More mystery than you apparently think.
If your story is correct, how do you explain that they were called
strawberries before Columbus sailed to America and before anyone in
Europe knew that native Americans existed?
I'll admit that perhaps the exact spelling of strawberry wasn't set
until a little later but the name was there.
I know that some people believe they were once called stray berries
perhaps because their runners let them stray away from the patch
where they were planted. When people started mulching with straw,
the name slowly evolved into strawberry.
I wasn't there so I don't know. ;-)

Steve

Ha! you're pretty funny. :-)
OK, the modern strawberries that we all know and love were developed
from 2 new world species.
BUT...
There were other species of strawberry that always lived in Europe
(and beyond). So, yes. Europeans WERE eating strawberries before
they were introduced from the New World.
Here's a quote from a web page that tells a little mo

" The Wild Strawberry or Wood Strawberry Fragaria vesca is native
to the temperate regions of Eurasia and North America. It has become
distributed worldwide and is sometimes found naturalised in southern
Africa. It is a diploid species (i.e. 2 sets of chromosomes).The
finding of strawberry achenes in neolithic archaeological
excavations, shows that wild strawberries have been eaten by people
since the earliest of times. Fragaria vesca was being cultivated in
Europeans gardens by the 1500's (Renaissance) and after about 1530,
cultivated strawberries are clearly larger than wild ones,
indicating selective breeding. Although Fragaria vesca is still
grown in gardens for domestic use, it is not used in commercial
strawberry production because of the development of the Modern
Garden Strawberry Fragaria ananassa."

Steve


Cereus-validus wrote:

You no fool me Steverino,

You're making that up.

You claim that Europeans were eating strawberries before they were
introduced from the New World.

Next you will be saying that Romans wore wrist watches with Roman numerals
on them!!


"Steve" wrote in message

More mystery than you apparently think.
If your story is correct, how do you explain that they were called
strawberries before Columbus sailed to America and before anyone in
Europe knew that native Americans existed?
I'll admit that perhaps the exact spelling of strawberry wasn't set
until a little later but the name was there.
I know that some people believe they were once called stray berries
perhaps because their runners let them stray away from the patch
where they were planted. When people started mulching with straw,
the name slowly evolved into strawberry.
I wasn't there so I don't know. ;-)

Steve

Ha! you're pretty funny. :-)
OK, the modern strawberries that we all know and love were developed
from 2 new world species.
BUT...
There were other species of strawberry that always lived in Europe
(and beyond). So, yes. Europeans WERE eating strawberries before
they were introduced from the New World.
Here's a quote from a web page that tells a little mo

" The Wild Strawberry or Wood Strawberry Fragaria vesca is native
to the temperate regions of Eurasia and North America. It has become
distributed worldwide and is sometimes found naturalised in southern
Africa. It is a diploid species (i.e. 2 sets of chromosomes).The
finding of strawberry achenes in neolithic archaeological
excavations, shows that wild strawberries have been eaten by people
since the earliest of times. Fragaria vesca was being cultivated in
Europeans gardens by the 1500's (Renaissance) and after about 1530,
cultivated strawberries are clearly larger than wild ones,
indicating selective breeding. Although Fragaria vesca is still
grown in gardens for domestic use, it is not used in commercial
strawberry production because of the development of the Modern
Garden Strawberry Fragaria ananassa."

Steve


Cereus-validus wrote:

You no fool me Steverino,

You're making that up.

You claim that Europeans were eating strawberries before they were
introduced from the New World.

Next you will be saying that Romans wore wrist watches with Roman numerals
on them!!


"Steve" wrote in message

More mystery than you apparently think.
If your story is correct, how do you explain that they were called
strawberries before Columbus sailed to America and before anyone in
Europe knew that native Americans existed?
I'll admit that perhaps the exact spelling of strawberry wasn't set
until a little later but the name was there.
I know that some people believe they were once called stray berries
perhaps because their runners let them stray away from the patch
where they were planted. When people started mulching with straw,
the name slowly evolved into strawberry.
I wasn't there so I don't know. ;-)

Steve

il Wed, 17 Mar 2004 23:39:28 +0000, Kay Easton ha scritto:

In article , Loki
writes

I'm more amazed it's from the rose family. And just as long as they
taste wonderful, who cares?

Why? The compare a strawberry flower to a dog rose flower - there's lots
of similarities.

It's not half as surprising as a cyclamen belonging to the primrose

I'd rather eat a strawberry than a dog rose :-)
--
Cheers,
Loki [ Brevity is the soul of wit. W.Shakespeare ]

il Wed, 17 Mar 2004 23:34:46 -0500, Steve ha scritto:

Good point Loki. Down there, the south side might be too shady for
good growth as well.

Steve

Cold, shady and damp, and when those winter winds from Antarctica
blow there's only sea between it and us... brrr
--
Cheers,
Loki [ Brevity is the soul of wit. W.Shakespeare ]

"Ricky" wrote in message
...

"Kay Easton" wrote
A lot of plants have their seeds on the outside

name another?

pomengranates?
Bethany

"Ricky" wrote in message
...

"Kay Easton" wrote
A lot of plants have their seeds on the outside

name another?

pomengranates?
Bethany

(meat n potatoes) in
om:

i was eating a strawberry and was suddenly bowled over by a profoundly
puzzling fact. ever notice the seeds on the strawberry are on the
outside? but why?
all fruits have the seeds on the inside. take a blueberry, grape,
cherry, apple, tomato, etc. etc.

why do strawberries have the seeds on the outside? it's like a guy
with sperm on the outside of his ballsack. that shit is weird.

each fragaria/strawberry seed is in its own fruit.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1
&q=fruit++pseudocarp+receptacle+

blackberries/brambles are closely related, but you can see the structure
more readily.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1
&q=rubus+pseudocarp+receptacle+