May 3

Wild Strawberries in bloom

The main hill that fronts Anna Maria is covered with tiny white flowers, close to the ground and each no bigger than a dime. These are wild strawberries, and we’ve noticed that they’ve been spreading across this hill for several years.

The leaves are also diminutive and in a grouping of 3 leaflets, each notably serrated and also close to the ground. Pull up one of the groupings and inevitably the runners that connect them to its neighbors will follow. Much like the mycorhizzae fungus that inhabits healthy soil, the strawberries on this field are an interconnected mass of reproductive individuals.

Bees and other insects are visiting the flowers now, and with luck in a month we will have miniature red berries throughout the grass on the hill. Most will fall prey to the rabbits, opossum and birds that call this area their habitat, but there will be so many that surely we will have some leftovers to sample. Individually, they don’t amount to much, but a handful of a dozen or so tastes somewhat sweet.