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Fragaria virginiana is a great ground cover and bears tiny little sweet treats. The fruit is very different than cultivated strawberries, much smaller and sweeter. When I was starting out with native plats, I had Fragaria virginiana planted in a full sun cultivated strawberry patch and it wasn’t happy. The berries would get scorched out and the beautiful flowering ground cover, didn’t spread much. The chipmunks in my yard ate the berries and excreted them under a giant Beech tree in the back of my property. Now I have a happy large patch filling in under the tree thanks to my expert landscapers. Think of these more as a woodland ground cover than a cultivated variety! One can observe patches of this amazing plant all over our woodland trails in Greater Rochester.
From Braiding Sweetgrass, The Gift of Strawberries by Robin Wall Kimmerer:
Even now, after more than fifty Strawberry Moons, finding a patch of wild strawberries still touches me with a sensation of surprise, a feeling of unworthiness and gratitude for the generosity and kindness that comes with an unexpected gift all wrapped in red and green. "Really? For me? Oh, you shouldn't have." After fifty years they still raise the question of how to respond to their generosity. Sometimes it feels like a silly question with a very simple answer: eat them.