What Strawberry Plants Have Red Blossoms?

Agricultural Strawberries

• Strawberries plants grown for fruit (Fragaria X ananassa), are hybrid plants that have white flowers with cone-shaped yellow centers. These Fragaria X ananassa plants produce large, sweet, red fruits. The agricultural strawberry has many closely related species that also have white flowers and produce strawberries that are smaller and less sweet. For the best fruit, plant strawberries in soils with a lot of organic matter and don't fertilize until after fruiting. Strawberries send out runners and will continue to expand their territory each year. As fruiting fades, replace the older strawberry plants with new plants. The fruit of the strawberry isn't actually a berry but an achene.

Marsh Cinquefoil

• Marsh cinquefoil (Potentilla palustris) is a close relative of strawberry Fragaria species. Marsh cinquefoil has an interesting compound palmate leaf with wavy toothed edges. It's a floating or sprawling plant and has 1-inch-deep red blossoms over a long period during the summer. Much like the strawberry, it will creep along on stolons. It naturally grows in wetlands such as bogs, marshes, swamps and ditches. Like the strawberry, the fruit is an achene, but it's quite small--about 1.5 mm.

Cross Breed

• To produce the decorative strawberry, Netherlands growers crossed the strawberry plant with the marsh cinquefoil. When they crossed the two species, they created a red to pink-flowered strawberry that produces small, edible strawberry fruits. The breeders also managed to extend the flowering season in the strawberry cinquefoil cross-breed significantly to nearly six months--April to September in some areas. Cultivars of the ornamental strawberry include "Lipstick" with a red-fuschia colored flower and "Pink Panda," a hot pink blooming variety.

Barren and Mock Strawberries

• Another plant that has flowers similar to a strawberry, except they're yellow, is the barren strawberry (Waldsteinia ternata). As is obvious from the name, the barren strawberry doesn't bear any fruit. The mock strawberry (Potentilla indica) is more closely related to strawberry and in fact bears small achenes, although they are rather flavorless. Sometimes called the Indian strawberry, the mock strawberry has bright yellow flowers on low-growing plants that act as a good groundcover.