Description: A perennial plant with small white flowers that have gold centers. From these, come the small fragrant wild berries that are sweet, juicy and more delicious than the cultivated strawberry. Cultivated strawberries also have less medicinal value than wild strawberries.

Habitat:  A perennial found mainly in forests, clearings and shady roadsides of the Eastern U.S. Any open habitat, except bogs, support wild strawberries. The most favored habitat has to be the open roadside where clearing and scraping have created an ideal environment.

Uses:  If you live in their area, the whole strawberry plant; berries, leaves and roots - can be used in the spring for cleansing the system. Both a blood purifier and builder, the wild strawberry is a laxative, diuretic and astringent. The leaves and berries are rich in iron and contain magnesium, potassium and sodium.

Indian people use strawberry for many different reasons. The leaves can be chewed and applied as a dressing for burns. The Ojibwe steep the roots for children with cholera and the Seneca have used strawberry roots as an astringent and the runners for tuberculosis.  Sometimes the leaves were dried by a fire until brown, then crumbled into a powder in a buckskin bag. The powder was put on the navel of a newborn baby for several days to heal it and keep it from becoming infected. It was also dusted into a baby's mouth when it was sore. This powder was put on any open sore as a disinfectant, too. The sore was washed, the powder was applied and deer fat was smeared on over it.

The fresh fruit removes discoloration on teeth.  Let the juice stay on the teeth for five minutes. Then brush with warm water and bicarbonate of soda. A cut strawberry rubbed over face immediately after washing your face will whiten the skin and remove slight sunburns.

  For Women: Just as every menstrual cycle includes the purification of the woman through her menses, it is also important that she cleanse her body in harmony with the earth's cycles through fasting or the use of plants. It is a teaching of many native peoples that during menstruation and pregnancy the woman's body becomes toxic to others.  At menses and childbirth, it is important for a woman to rest.  She may also observe dietary restrictions such as not eating meat or salt.  Wild strawberry leaves and berries can be used alone or in combination with other medicines to cleanse the woman's body during menses and following childbirth.  But, if you eat too many strawberries during pregnancy, the old women say, your baby will be born with a strawberry mark!

How to Grow:  Strawberry grows best in rich moist soil, full sun or partial shade.  It can be easily grown from offsets or daughter plants found at the end of the runners.  Cut the runner between the mother plant and daughter plant and carefully remove the daughter plant from the earth.  Replant it with the root crown at the same level as it was when you removed it.  The best time to establish the plants is during the moist season from fall to early spring.  For best results, plant in a loose soil rich in organic matter or humus.

Harvesting:  When harvesting, decide what parts of the plant you are more likely to use. Leaves picked when the plant is in flower make the best dried-leaf teas, and you would use the flowers too. However, if you pick the leaves then, it may harm the plant and you get fewer berries later.

In gathering berry leaves for teas, be aware that a poisonous compound develops in the leaves of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and others after the leaves begin to wilt, soften and curl.  Either make teas right after the green leaves are picked or dry them thoroughly in shade (indoors, don't use the oven!) for about 2 weeks until they are crumbly -- the toxins will all be gone then.  Crumble them and store in airtight jars in a dark place. Use a teaspoonful of dried leaves per cup of boiling water.  Pour the water over the leaves.

To make an extract of fresh leaves, pack them into a blender, cover with water and blend at slow speed in bursts. You just want to cut them up fine, not puree them. Put the chopped leaves with water in a pan and bring it to a boil. Simmer 15 minutes. Leave the chopped leaves in the water for a day in a cool place, then strain it. By then, the vitamin C, 4.5 times more per unit weight than oranges, will have passed into the water. Thimbleberry and Blackberry leaves can also be mixed with this tea.

Drink it hot or cold. To freeze, add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice or cider vinegar per pint and freeze in small milk cartons. Don't fill the cartons to the top, only about 3/4 way filled. To use - thaw then sweeten to taste with honey or maple syrup. Delicious!

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