The small yellow flowers are the giveaway. Real strawberries have white or maybe pink flowers. Otherwise, mock strawberry, Potentilla indica, looks very much like wild strawberry, with similar small red fruits and neatly serrate trifoliate leaves (that are palmately divided into three leaflets). The berries are edible, but do not taste like much.
Like real strawberries, mock strawberry spreads efficiently by stolons. If watered occasionally and sometimes fertilized, it is probably a better groundcover than the common ornamental varieties of wild strawberry. It is invasive in some areas.
I think both these and the wild strawberry are lovely. I finally found the wild strawberry used as a ground cover, and it was quite attractive, even sans flowers and fruit.
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That was one that I disliked while working for those in the landscape industry. It never looked good within the regions in which I was working, but it got planted anyway. Now that I am working where it grows like a weed, I sort of like it. There is a native version that looks even better than the landscape version, and does not dry out too badly without irrigation, if sheltered from the warmth of summer.
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It’s interesting to me that certain Potentillas look so much like strawberries – almost interchangeable…
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For many landscape situations, one does better than the other.
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Can the fruits be used to make “mock strawberry pie”? 😉
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Goodness! I did not consider that! There are many plants here, over a large area, but never enough berries at the same time for a pie. I could make a “mock mock strawberry pie” with Ritz crackers instead.
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A useful groundcover for certain situations. I have both this and the native Strawberry, F. virginica.
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I sort of prefer the native strawberry. The withe flowers just seem to be more natural than yellow flowers. Ours is a different species.
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I agree that the native is better, but the other is acceptable.
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