Wild Berries & Fruits Field Guide of Minnesota, Wisconsin and... by Teresa Marrone

If you see something that looks like a teeny tiny strawberry in the woods or in a meadow, you can be sure it is. You can generally find strawberries in most habitats as long as they aren’t too wet or too dry. They ripen earlier in the summer than most berries. Strawberries grow along the ground on small plants that have leaves in sets of threes. When horticulturists mixed these genes together about 200 years ago, they gave rise to the modern strawberry. The Chilean strawberry was large but didn’t do well in cold.

strawberry was hardy to cold climates but was very small. Our modern strawberry is the result of a basic hybridization of two wild strawberry species. Most wild strawberry fruits are much smaller than what we are used to. The strawberry genus, Fragaria, grows around the world. This wild strawberry is a tiny version of what you would find in the grocery store. This makes identifying them in the wild pretty simple! They look very similar to their wild counterparts. Agricultural berries, however, have gone through less cultivation. Through intensive breeding and horticulture, humans have turned these unlikely plants into foods. Thousands of years ago, corn was about the size of a kid’s finger and wheat was nothing more than a wild grass. To some extent, all of our foods were once ‘wild’. Grocery Store Berries Resemble Wild Berries They are good to keep in mind, though, as you learn how to harvest fruits from the wild. With botany, all rules have many exceptions, so these four rules won’t work for every situation.

Aggregated berries (think blackberry and raspberry-like) are generally safe.

Black and purple berries are usually safe.

Red berries are sometimes safe, especially if they are not in clusters.

Always avoid yellow, white, and green berries.

Here are three easy guidelines that help a berry picker determine if a wild berry is safe or not. This is a beginner’s guide to identifying wild berries, so it will cover some of the easiest berries to identify.Ĭolor and Shape Are Critical to ID Edible Wild Berries They are much easier to identify and find than mushrooms and other plants. If you want to dive into foraging, there is no better place to start than with berries. These juicy treats quench thirst on hot days, can be baked into decadent pies, and are packed with healthy vitamins and antioxidants. Eating wild berries while out on a walk or hike is a summer delight.

Wild Berries & Fruits Field Guide of Minnesota, Wisconsin and... by Teresa Marrone