Tuesday, August 31, 2021

A Spy, a Botanist, and a Strawberry

The year was 1712. An engineer in the French Army Intelligence Corps named Amédée-François Frézier was sent by King Louis XIV on a reconnaissance mission to Chile. Between covert visits to Chilean military fortifications where he posed as a tourist in order to gain access, Frézier was also charged with documenting the local flora and fauna. One day he came upon a familiar sight: a berry that looked similar to one he knew from Europe, but significantly larger...

Frézier packed up some of these plants and took them back to France where they were planted among other species. The crossing of Fragaria chilenosis with another species from the new world, Fragaria virginiana, resulted in a hybrid that would eventually become the strawberry we know today... Eventually the hybrid made its way back across the Atlantic and took hold in North and South America.

Did you happen to notice our French spy's name, Frézier? That might sound familiar because the French word for strawberry is fraise. An ancestor of Frézier’s was knighted and bestowed the name by the king of France in the year 916 after offering his highness a gift of ripe strawberries. Seems it was Amédée’s destiny to become intertwined with this noble berry. more