Strawberries are not actually berries but rather an accessory fruit due to not deriving from and ovary, but rather a supporting structure since the achenes (seed) on the surface are the actual fruits. This confirms the apparent truth in the quote, "God could have made, but God never did make, a better berry." Although not recorded from more than a couple of counties in Alabama I may have seen wild strawberry plants in Coon Gulf, besides the ones I saw with fruit at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. The native strawberry found in the southeast (and that part of New Mexico) is the flavorful Virginia strawberry, Fragariavirginiana Duchesne, but the most common cultivated garden strawberry, F. ×ananassa (Weston) Duchesne ex Rozier (pro sp.) [chiloensis × virginiana], is a hybrid resulting from a cross with the larger (Pacific) beach strawberry, F.chiloensis (L.) Mill., that based on the specific epithet ranges along the west coast all the way to Chile (and Argentina) in South America, and all of these are octaploid having eight pair of chromosomes. Previously the primary cultivated strawberry was the woodland strawberry. F.vesca L., which is a diploid, but there are other cultivated strawberries such as the musk strawberry, F. moschata Duchesne, which is a hexaploid. Both of those are notable for their flavor, but most other species have little or no commercial value.
Numerous unsuccessful attempts have been made to cross breed the species of strawberry with different chromosome counts, but that fact explains why it is virtually impossible, where at best only offspring produced were sterile thus probably meaning no fruit. Recently genetic tricks such as using chemicals to produce changes in the chromosome counts have made these long sought hybrids possible and several varieties are now under field trials testing for berry quality, climate adaptability, etc. Normally higher chromosome counts result in larger berries and or more vigorous plants, but one such result from crossing a chemically induced tetraploid mutant of woodland strawberry with F. ×ananassa produced a decaploid hybrid with mix characteristics having vigor of the later, flavor of the former and still relatively small intermediate size. Similarly created hybrids with barren strawberry, Potentilla L., produced decaploid plants only suitable as an ornamental due to having pink flowers with inconsequential fruit.
