Indian strawberry - mock strawberry - potentilla indica

I searched these forums but found little about this plant so I thought I would highlight it. Mock strawberry has a reputation as an invasive, useless, or purely ornamental plant.



I was excited when a wild strawberry plant popped up in my forest garden areas and waited patiently until it spread a good amount and then started flowering and fruiting. I was pretty disappointed when the first fruit I tried tasted like nothing at all. I had read that wild strawberries have more flavor than domestic varieties and was confused by what I was tasting. After researching a little I discovered these aren't really strawberries at all, and are certainly not native to my area. No big deal though as they still have medicinal uses, and are still edible to humans and other animals. I now have a plan to transplant a lot of this plant into my chicken forest paddock and minimize it in the human forest section.

Luckily I have some very healthy ozark beauties that will quench my thirst for strawberry growing, and now I have another wild plant to add to my "find these and transplant" list.

I thank you for posting that because I have them increasing in number in my garden. I thought they were offspring of composted hybrid strawberries or something like that. After reading that info from the link, I'm pretty sure this is what I have. They make a moist little snack while playing in the garden but mine really have no flavor worth mentioning. It's nice to know there are other ways to experiment with them.

Very nice information. We too have this growing in abundance in parts of our yard. I am glad to learn both exactly what it is and that it is useful.

At my farm intership this year, I tasted a few P. indica berries that tasted a bit like watermelon. If I find any other wild fruitsin the future that have stronger flavor and a higher sugar content, I'll consider saving the plants and collecting the seeds from the fruit to do a plant breeding project. Maybe it's possible to get a P. indica plant that doesn't taste watery and bland and has a flavor closer to cotton candy.