**1. Introduction**

The musk strawberry, *Fragaria moschata* is originally a Central European species having spread as an escape from gardens in many areas [1–5]. In the Tortona municipality in North Italy, cultivation of the musk strawberry, 'Profumata di Tortona' dates historically back to the year 1411 [6 cited in 7], when in a register of the *Pieve di Garbagna*, *magiostre* or *fravole* are indicated among the local fruits and vegetables [8]. The strawberry of Tortona is a local, dioecious ecotype, and the name 'Profumata' appeared for the first time in the mid-19th century [8]. The first known cultivar name of musk strawberry was 'Le Chapiron' in Europe in 1576; the cultivar name was derived further and apparently called 'Capron' by Jean de la Quintinie in 1672 [9]. In 1773, 14 varieties of the musk strawberry were listed in England by the botanist

Richard Weston [10]. The binominal name *Fragaria moschata* valid nowadays was ascribed to Weston [11]. In 1788, the Frenchman A. N. Duchesne described the hermaphroditic musk strawberry cultivar 'Le Caperonnier royal', the origin of which was known from Brussels in 1770 [12]. With the name 'Capiton' the variant was probably introduced to cultivation in Wallonia by about the middle of the 16th century [11]. A paper recognizing a hermaphroditic musk strawberry was red in England in 1817 by Keens [13] who, however, preferred dioecious varieties. Of the 'Le Caperonnier royal' variety was probably the hermaphroditic musk strawberries with name 'Capron royal' in St. Petersburg, Russia since 1869 [14, 15]. 'Capron' was studied by Ahmadi & Bringhurst [16] in USA in 1991. The use of the cultivar names of musk strawberries was confusing in the past [11, 17].

Hegi [1] considered the distribution of *F*. *moschata* in the north to reach Ingria (see [18, 19]), i.e., the territory on the eastern coast of the Gulf of Finland. The archaeobotanist Terttu Lempiäinen [20] thought *F*. *moschata* (erroneously under the name *F. muricata*) to have occurred in the 17th on Karelian Isthmus, in the territory of Finland of the Kingdom of Sweden. The growing or semicultural choosing of *F*. *moschata* preceded the evolution and spread of *F*. *ananassa* Duch., which occurred in Europe between the latter half of the 18th and early half of the 19th century [11, 21–23]. In Swedish texts of the Nordic literature, *F*. *moschata* was usually called *jordgubbe*, e.g., by Kalm [24] in 1759, which term later started to mean the garden strawberry, *F*. *ananassa* [25]. In Finland, the growing of *F*. *ananassa* began in the 1840s with a few early European cultivars [26]. Growing strawberries from seeds were prompted in the past [27], which may have resulted in the development of local varieties.

The earliest introductions to Finland of cultivated *F*. *moschata* occurred to gardens of manor houses in the 18th century principally from Sweden, less likely from Germany, and later on, from Russia. Stocks of musk strawberries were subsequently transferred from garden to garden. To the Valamo (Валаам, Valaam in Russian) islands on the Lake Ladoga, then of the territory of Finland, *F*. *moschata* varieties were introduced from Dr. E. Regel's garden nursery in St. Petersburg as written in 1870 by Damaskin [28], the igumene of the Valamo monastery. Regel" [29] recommended *F*. *moschata* varieties 'Belle Bordelaise', 'Bloch Hautbois', 'Capron royal', 'Capron framboisé' and 'Large flat' in 1866. He listed elsewhere altogether 11 varieties of *F*. *moschata* in 1869 [14]. *F*. *moschata* also thrived in the wilderness on Valamo, in a grove, where berry forming clones were found by Dr. Med. T. Sælan in 1881 [30] shown by Sælan's specimens H 371514 – H 371516, in Botancal Museum, Luomus, Helsinki. For berries, the growing of clones of both female and male, or a hermaphroditic clone are needed.

In the latter half of the 19th century, the supply of the garden nurseries in Europe turned to sell cultivars of *F*. *ananassa*. As examples, the catalog of Regel" & Kessel' ring" [15] in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1879 had 11 named cultivars of *F. vesca* s.l., 10 named cultivars of *F*. *moschata*, and 168 cultivars of *F*. *ananassa* (by far the most), with *F. virginiana* Miller and *F. chiloensis* (L.) Miller cultivars pooled together. The catalog of Vilmorin-Andrieux et Cie [31] in Paris, France in 1891 listed eight named cultivars of *F. vesca* s.l., one of *F*. *viridis*, three of *F*. *moschata*, one of *F. virginiana*, one of *F. chiloensis* and 46 of *F*. *ananassa*.

In the now ceased Soviet Union before the year 1930, musk strawberry was grown for industrial purposes, though less than *F*. *ananassa*, at the most, on tens of hectares in different regions assessed then in the country recovering from its inner wars. There the cultivar names 'Španka' ('Шпанка'), 'Russkaya' ('Русская') and 'Kapron' ('Капрон') were recognized [32]. The 'Capron' cultivar usually meant a

*Hermaphroditism in* Fragaria moschata*, a Cultivated Strawberry Species… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103974*

hermaphroditic variety. Soviet Union exported strawberry products [32], and their ingredients probably also contained musk strawberries.

The Austrian organization Arche Noah has maintained a hermaphroditic cultivar 'Oke' of *F*. *moschata* [33]. Among 108 *F*. *moschata* plants collected in Ziegenbusch, near Dresden, Germany, six were found to be hermaphroditic [5]. *F*. *moschata* is clearly a trioecious species also having hermaphroditic genotypes beside females and males.

Prof. Günter Staudt (\*1926 †2008) did not believe that hermaphroditic *F*. *moschata* really exists [4, 12 p207]. He evidently held the concept of his teacher, Prof. Elisabeth Schiemann [34] that hermaphroditic *F*. *moschata*-like plants are tetraploid hybrids between *F*. *moschata* and *F*. *viridis*. Nowadays, the ancestry of the hexaploid *F*. *moschata* is thought to trace to three diploid species, *F. viridis*, *F. mandshurica* Staudt, and *F. vesca* [35] which are monoecious.
