Hautbois Strawberry
Fragaria moschata
Grown in Europe and in America until improved, larger-fruited varieties of the early 19th century took its place.
Description: Hardy edible fruit; bears five white, round petals with yellow centers, followed by small, scarlet-red berries in spring
Historical Notes: Although relatively infrequent in 18th-century Virginia gardens, strawberries abounded at Monticello, because of the abundance of wild fruit, and ranked as one of Thomas Jefferson's favorite fruits. (The strawberry grown in modern times is a hybrid of two wild species: the North American F. virginiana and the Chile strawberry, F. chiloensis, of the Pacific Coast.) The Hautbois strawberry was grown in Europe and in America for its fruits until improved, larger-fruited varieties of the early 19th century took its place. The English used Hautbois for table decoration as well as for eating,1 and Hautbois was sometimes called Hautboy, which was an English derivative of the French name "Hautbois."2
- Peggy Cornett, n.d.
Further Sources
- Stuart, David, and James Sutherland. Plants from the Past: Old Flowers for New Gardens. London: Penguin Books, 1989.
- Leighton, Ann. American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986.
- Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants.
Footnotes
- Joan Parry Dutton, Plants of Colonial Williamsburg (Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1979), 155.
- Edwin M. Betts, Hazlehurst Bolton Perkins, and Peter J. Hatch, Thomas Jefferson's Flower Garden at Monticello, 3rd ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986), 167.