**2. Find of two hermaphroditic** *Fragaria moschata* **clones in Finland**

In the summer of 2012, I visited a private experimental farm in Loimaa town, SW Finland, where I to my surprise saw berry carrying plants of *F*. *moschata*, without any indication of separate females or males in the stand. The land owner's family had moved to the farm in 1954, when the strawberry was already there. The preceding history of the strawberry is unknown. I received a living sample of the musk strawberry, hereafter called 'Loimaa' (**Figures 1** and **2**), and deposited its herbarium specimen to Botanical Museum, Luomus (H 831495). Studying in the Museum specimens of *F*. *moschata* with berries, revealed a sample (H 223584) with well-formed anthers and pollen collected 13.5 km away from the experimental farm in Loimaa in 1971. This specimen and 'Loimaa' may be of the same gendre.

A surprise to a land owner in Kotka town, on the S coast of Finland, was the occurrence of berries in 2013 in an area of about 4 m2 among about 3 ares of large strawberry plants, which had never set any berry during the observed period since

### **Figure 2.** *The hermaphroditic 'Loimaa' of* Fragaria moschata *at maturity. June 19, 2014.*

1941. I got a message about the strange berry-set through conversations between two elderly people who met in a clinic waiting room, one being the landowner's relative, and the other my father. Visiting the farm in Kotka showed that an apparent mutation had occurred in the female clone of *F*. *moschata* to hermaphroditism (**Figures 3** and **4**).

#### **Figure 3.**

*Occurrence of berries on a patch with flowers carrying fertile anthers in the female clone of* Fragaria moschata *in Kotka, South Finland. Before the 2013 season, the musk strawberry occurrence has not made any berry since 1941, the year of the start of observation. The occurrence in the yard of the farm house has been isolated spatially from other clones of musk strawberry. July 4, 2013.*

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

#### **Figure 4.**

*A dessicated late flower carrying fertile anthers in the anew risen hermaphrodite of* Fragaria moschata *from the female clone in Kotka. The anthers have dehiscing stomia with pollen grains. See Figure 3 for the stand already advanced to the berry maturing period on the day of the sampling, July 4, 2013.*

This mutated clone is called 'Kotka' hereafter. Its level of male fertility has appeared variable, being inferior in part of the flowers, or flowers opening at a certain point of the flowering season.

I performed crossing between 'Kotka' and 'Loimaa', and interspecific crosses of the hexaploid *F*. *moschata* with the diploid *F*. *bifera*, *F*. *vesca* and *F*. *viridis*, in order to reveal the inheritance of the sex-determining genotype in *F*. *moschata* in the resulting tetraploid hybrids and to study the possible use of the hybrids as cultural berries. *F*. *bifera* is the variably fertile hybrid between *F*. *vesca* and *F*. *viridis* [36]. Two spontaneous hybrids between *F*. *moschata* and *F*. *vesca* occurred.

The hexaploid chromosome number (2n = 42) in *F*. *moschata* in material from Finland has been determined in a female clone [37] and, in a male clone from Viitasaari, Central Finland (H 335838), by Ahokas (unpublished).
