Hala in Hawaii

Hala grove in Hawaii ca. 1901. Image credit: Internet Archive Book Image.

Native to Hawaii, the pū hala (hala; Pandanus tree; screwpine; Pandanus tectorius S. Parkinson ex Z) was as useful as the coconut in ancient times, but is getting harder to find.

Prior to the turn of the last century, many dense groves of hala (screwpine; Pandanus tectorius S. Parkinson ex Z) abounded in Hawaii. One account described hala as the primary species seen when descending from the pali to Mōkapu in windward Oahu in 1831.

Looking toward Mōkapu from Nuuanu Pali in 2010: no hala in sight, at least from this perspective. Photo credit: Ken Lund.

Wider landscape view from Nuuanu Pali in 2014. Photo credit: Prayitno.

Hala is an indigenous (native), dioecious coastal tree in Hawaii, capable of withstanding wind and salt. Its range can extend to valley slopes up to or beyond 600 m (1969 ft) elevation.

Groves of hala typically existed near settlements in ancient Hawaii. Although it is not known whether they were planted intentionally or people simply chose to settle near existing groves, evidence exists to show hala was at least occasionally planted near homes, probably when there were no groves nearby or an outstanding tree was encountered. Hala does not appear to have been cultivated in Hawaii (i.e., intentionally selected to develop cultivars), however, and while several species and cultivars exist across the Pacific, only one species of Pandanus is considered native to Hawaii.

In a method called pāhala, taro was sometimes planted in holes made in the lava around the trees in Puna groves that had been filled with mulched lau hala (lit. Pandanus leaf). Burned hala branches reduced to ash were used as a soil amendment.

Lau hala was woven into hats, mats (eighteen different types, chiefs stacking as many as sixty to make a bed), canoe sails (by sewing mats together), baskets, pillows, kites, and fans, and used for making medicine, exterior thatching (not as good as pili grass, but better than the other alternatives), interior wall finishes, rope, fishing traps, adding color to surfboards (the leaves were first burnt), to wrap "hard" poi (pounded taro made without water), and water catchment. Compared to coconut thatching that lasted just three years in coastal areas with low rainfall, lau hala roofing reportedly had a lifespan of fifteen years. The fruit and root of the tree were used to treat various ailments; the keys strung into lei or used as a brush; the flowers used as a perfume and aphrodisiac; the wood used in woodworking; and the seeds provided famine food.

Hawaii homes thatched with lau hala, ca. 1880s. Photo credit: Hawaii State Archives.

Preparing hala fruit for lei-making, ca. 1930s. Photo credit: Hawaii State Archives.

Lei made from the hala fruit in modern times. Photo credit: Wendy Cutler.

1906 advertisement in The Pacific Commercial Advertiser for a hala hamper. Image credit: Evening bulletin. (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii), 07 Dec. 1906. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82016413/1906-12-07/ed-1/seq-3/>

Modern placemat woven from lau hala.

The weaving of hats is arguably the most popular use of lau hala in Hawaii today, and it appears this trend dates back at least a century. In order to weave a hat, or anything else, from the hala leaf, one must make the leaves workable through a labor-intensive processing ritual.

David Malo (1793-1853) wrote in Hawaiian Antiquities (1903) that preparation of lau hala began with women beating the leaves with sticks. The leaves were wilted over a fire, dried in the sun, separated according to age, rolled into bundles called kūka'a, and later unrolled and broken down into narrower strips for weaving.

Piles of lau hala. Photo credit: Hawaii State Archives.

Making kūka'a (rolls of lau hala). Photo credit: Hawaii State Archives (RKO Pathe Inc.).

Making kūka'a in 1935. Photo credit: Hawaii State Archives (Pan Pacific Press Bureau).

Making the leaves into narrow strips for weaving in 1935. Photo credit: Hawaii State Archives.

Weaver Pila'a Kilani in Pukoo, Molokai working on a lau hala mat in 1913. Photo credit: Hawaii State Archives (Ray Jerome Baker).

The process of preparing lau hala for weaving has broadly remained the same over the years, although modern tools and dyes (like Rit dye) have been introduced. This video is a great explanation of how lau hala is prepared for weaving today using modern tools.

Many different styles of hats have been made over the years. Paniolo wore lau hala hats in the mid 1800s, plantation workers donned them in the early 1900s, and military personnel took an interest in lau hala products, increasing demand through the 1940s. A 1945 newspaper article reported that most of the lau hala came from the Puna and Hamakua districts on the Big Island, with eighty-five percent of production traced back to Kona (see Meilleur et al. (1997)).

In the early 1900s, hat weaving was taught in schools, and garnished awards. A lau hala hat could be sold for $2 or $3 in 1901 ($57 to $86 in 2015 dollars). For comparison, (perhaps fancier) hats made of peacock feathers, popular in the King Kalākaua era when such feathers were more abundant, went for $25 ($718 in 2015 dollars).

Pre-1900 portrait of Moloka'i woman wearing lau hala hat. Photo credit: Hawaii State Archives.

Woman weaving hat in 1935. Photo credit: Hawaii State Archives.

Dorothy Enzor models a hat (by Elsie Krassas?) decorated with dried limu (seaweed) in 1935. Photo credit: Hawaii State Archives.

Different hat styles ca. 1935 made of lau hala and kapa. Photo credit: Hawaii State Archives.

William Brigham noted a decline in the art of lau hala weaving in the latter half of the 1800s through this personal observation:

"Puna was a famous region for hala mats, and in 1864...when journeying through that district with that noble missionary the Reverend Titus Coan...[I] saw many a party in the curious open caves (caused by a breakdown of the lava crust in some of the many streams of lava, ancient and recent, that form much of the surface of Puna) busily engaged in weaving mats... 

...A quarter of a century later [Editor's note: that would be 1889] in traveling the same road with a younger companion the scene was greatly changed: the caves were there, the hala trees were there, but the inhabitants had gone, and for sixty miles there was nothing but a few deserted churches and some aged breadfruit trees to tell that once people had lived there...

...Fifteen years later [Editor's note: 1904] the scene had again changed owing to the opening of roads and the cultivation of sugarcane, but the present inhabitants were not the old natives, and the mat making is only here and there continued when there is a chance to sell to the foreigner...

...This was especially the work of old women, and as late as 1888 I saw an ancient dame near Kailua, on the western side of Hawaii, continuing the work of her ancestors. She was reputed to have outlived the century mark, cramped in every joint, unable to stand erect, kenneled in a grass hut not four feet high, she was still busily and cheerfully trimming hala leaves with a sharp shell. As I watched her...there came back to my memory most vividly the groups of old women I had seen in Puna doing the same thing..."

Weaving was revived in the 1930s, which may explain the number of photos related to lau hala in existence from that era at the Hawaii State Archives, but is again declining. Milliners of lau hala still exist today, but their products are often highly prized gifts for dear friends with few available commercially.

In 2010, Big Island Television featured Aunty Elizabeth Lee, contemporary master weaver, who described how to prepare lau hala and why she founded the weaving conference Ka Ulu Lau Hala 'O Kona in this video.

Another contemporary weaver, librarian Lynette Roster, spoke about weaving and designing hats and how weaving can be a spiritual experience in a video produced by Punahou School alumnus Alayna Kobayashi in 2014.

Weaving communities have expressed concern over the years about the future of the art. The art surely seems less prevalent than in earlier times, perhaps because it is labor-intensive; modern materials, manufacturing methods, and shipping provide inexpensive, readily available substitutes for Hawaii's lau hala products; and hala trees are getting harder to find.

Sugar cane production and development have encroached on hala habitat, making groves like the one below scarce. Several anecdotes claim the presence of hala is declining in Hawaii - certainly coastal and agricultural-zoned land has increasingly been developed - but no one appears to have documented this in a scientific way.

Hala grove in Puna, Hawaii in 1888. Image credit: Internet Archive Book Image.

One place that Pandanus can be found today is in landscaping, although the species or cultivars chosen for this purpose sometimes appear to vary, especially in recent years (author's personal opinion).

Pandanus at Iao Tropical Gardens on Maui. Photo credit: Forest and Kim Starr.

Pandanus in landscaping at Schofield Barracks on Oahu ca. 2007. Photo credit: Cliff.

Pandanus (left) at the Aulani resort in Ko'olina on Oahu next to a large, conspicuous cactus and various palms. Photo credit: Joel.

Pandanus inside planters in rows flanking the faux swimming pool (used to be a real one) in an urban courtyard at the historic Hawaii State Art Museum (HISAM) on Oahu. (Also note the Pandanus on the right in the background.)

One study found hala forest replaced Metrosideros polymorpha ('Ōhia lehua) treeland (open canopy stands) in succession on bare Big Island lava flows within the plant's coastal range.

'Ōhia lehua seems to rarely be used in landscaping, at least where it isn't already growing, perhaps because it is slow growing or maybe it does better at higher elevations, but its form is surely a beauty to look at. It would be interesting to see hala and 'Ōhia lehua paired in a landscape design, especially given the successional pattern noted above.

For comparison, below are some images of Pandanus tectorius in the wild. 

Pandanus cliffside in Waipio, Maui. Photo credit: Forest and Kim Starr.

Pandanus tectorius amongst naupaka at Kipahulu, Maui. Photo credit: Forest and Kim Starr.

Pandanus tectorius grove, aerial view, Waipio, Maui. Click link to view larger --> Photo credit: Forest and Kim Starr.

Pandanus tectorius at Keanae, Maui. I think there is at least one 'Ōhia lehua tree (rightmost tree) in this shot. Click link to view larger --> Photo credit: Forest and Kim Starr.

Pandanus tectorius at Oheo, Maui. Photo credit: Forest and Kim Starr.

Sources and/or further reading:

Meilleur, Brien A., MaryAnne Maigret, and Richard Manshardt. Hala and Wauke in Hawaiʻi. Vol. 7. Bishop Museum Pr, 1997.

Malo, David. Hawaiian Antiquities:(Moolelo Hawaii). Vol. 2. Hawaiian Gazette Co., Ltd., 1903. Electronic copy

Little, Elbert L., and Roger G. Skolmen. Common forest trees of Hawaii. US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, 1989.  PDF copy

Atkinson, I. A. E. "Succesional trends in the coastal and lowland forest of Mauna Loa and Kilauea volcanoes, Hawaii." Pacific Science 24.3 (1970): 387-400. PDF copy

"The Making of Native Hats"

The Pacific commercial advertiser. (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands), 12 Jan. 1901. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85047084/1901-01-12/ed-1/seq-15/> 

"Art of Weaving Among Hawaiians"
The Pacific commercial advertiser. (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands), 17 July 1906. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85047084/1906-07-17/ed-1/seq-5/>

Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History, Volume II (Bishop Museum Press; 1906-1909)

http://www.agroforestry.net/images/pdfs/P.tectorius-pandanus.pdf (PDF)

http://www.agroforestry.net/images/pdfs/Metrosideros-ohia.pdf (PDF)

http://www.ntbg.org/plants/plant_details.php?plantid=8353

The origin of commercial strawberries

California strawberry field ca. 1985. Photo credit: Orange County Archives.

Although they grow wild across the globe, and can today be found in supermarkets nearly year round, strawberries weren't always so easy to come by. From 1908 to 1922, the word "strawberry" returns over 137,000 newspaper records in the Library of Congress' digitized newspaper collection, but the fourteen year increment from 1836 to 1850 returns just 2590. One newspaper reported strawberries in Brooklyn, NY cost fifty cents each in 1887; this would be over thirteen dollars today. The storied history of the modern strawberry involves royalty, international travel, and even a French spy.

Fragaria vesca, a European species, may have been the first domesticated strawberry in the world. Cultivated by Romans and Greeks, the French began growing F. vesca in their gardens by the 1300s.

F. vesca fruit. Photo credit: Björn S....

About two hundred years later, the wild North American species F. virginiana was introduced to Europe by Jacques Cartier (explorer who discovered the St. Lawrence river in 1523) and gained a following there (although another source dates its introduction to France to 1624 and Darrow (1966) states little is known about how F. virginiana arrived in Europe except that it probably crossed the Atlantic in the early 1500s). At the end of the sixteenth century, F. vesca and F. moschata dominated gardens; there was also a third known species, F. viridis, commonly known as the green strawberry.

A Dragon-fly, Two Moths, a Spider and Some Beetles, With Wild Strawberries by Jan van Kessel, 17th century. Image credit: Wikipedia.

F. virginiana, North American wild strawberry. Photo credit: Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

F. moschata, native to Europe. Photo credit: Dendrofil.

At least a century later, French engineer and spy Amédée-François Frézier was mapping Spanish forts in Chile when he noticed F. chiloensis, a wild species known for its large fruit, and brought five specimens back to France in 1714. The voyage around Cape Horn took six months, and the plants had to be watered and cared for throughout the journey amidst freshwater rationing.

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Some side notes:

After completing his studies, but before leaving for South America, Frézier visited Italy and grew fascinated by art and architecture. He wrote a book synthesizing what was known about fireworks and how to make them artistic displays in an era where pyrotechnics had focused solely on military uses. The book became an authority on the subject and garnered him a promotion.

The Mapuche and Huilliche tribes that lived in F. chiloensis' Chilean habitat were probably first to cultivate it because their languages contain words to distinguish wild strawberry from cultivated. Darrow (1966) states that these tribes were cultivating strawberry at least as long as Europeans.

 Frézier had named the Chilean strawberry F. chiliensis in reference to Chile, but Linnaeus later renamed it F. chiloensis.

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A map of coastal Chile and Peru drawn by Frézier in the early 1700s. He also drew a map of Concepción where he found the Chilean strawberries. Image credit: Wikipedia.

An illustration of F. chiloensis in Frézier's book documenting his travels, published in the early 1700s. Frézier wrote to Duchesne (more on him below) in 1765 that "For half a real, which is the lowest money, one gets one or two dozens, wrapped in a cabbage leaf." Image credit: Wikipedia.

Fragaria chiloensis, coastal strawberry native to Chile. Photo credit: Peter Pearsall, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Frézier's plants did not bear fruit at first, disappointing French and English growers. French scholar Antoine Nicolas Duchesne (1747–1827) proved that some species of strawberry, like F. chiloensis, are dioecious, that is, male and female plants are required for fruit set, but only female plants of F. chiloensis had been imported. In 1764, when he was just seventeen, Duchesne brought King Louis XV a bowl of strawberries that he grew by pollinating F. chiloensis with pollen from F. moschata. Due to genetic differences in ploidy, perhaps not fully understood at the time, F. chiloensis would not cross with F. vesca. 

Reports of different looking fruits began to surface in Brittany, where F. chiloensis was widely grown. In a book he published in 1766 when he was just nineteen years old, Duchesne posited the theory (later proven) that the unusual fruit were the result of F. virginiana and F. chiloensis hybridizing. He named the hybrid Fragaria x ananassa as a tribute to the fruit's pineapple-like fragrance (Ananas being the genus of pineapple). By the end of the 1800s, F. chiloensis had become less popular in favor of hybrids.

Fragaria x ananassa var. Oscar circa 1870s. Image credit: Swallowtail Garden Seeds.

Interestingly, both F. virginiana and F. chiloensis occurred in North America in the wild, but Native Americans do not appear to have cultivated them.

Getting from wild varieties to modern commercial cultivars is a lengthy process of which Duchesne's discovery of F. xananassa is only the first step. The offspring of the hybrids must then be hybridized and back-crossed to the parents for reselection (Darrow (1966)). France may have birthed the modern strawberry in the 1700s, but England can be credited with the earliest breeding work to improve it.

By 1824, the Royal Horticultural Society knew twenty-six varieties of F. virginiana, none surpassing the wild strawberry in flavor, and there were several known varieties of F. chiloensis in England as well (which were considered by the English inferior to F. virginiana). Thomas Andrew Knight is credited with being the first to undertake systematic breeding of the strawberry. Another Englishman, Michael Keens, who was also breeding strawberries back then, developed the Keens Seedling variety that Darrow (1966) described as "an ancestor of most of today's leading varieties".

In the early 1800s in the U.S., most of the strawberries grown were the native  F. virginiana. Charles Hovey, a Massachusetts nurseryman and founder and long-time editor of what became Magazine of Horticulture, is credited with introducing one of the earliest popular cultivars in North America, aptly named 'Hovey', in 1836. By 1840, the Hovey commanded a tenth of strawberry fields, these mostly concentrated in New England.

The majority of strawberries in cultivation then were still native varieties, but in 1858, the introduction of the hardy Wilson variety by a Scottish New Yorker named John Wilson replaced native varieties and dramatically expanded the strawberry industry. Produced on roughly half the acreage dedicated to strawberries, the Wilson dominated the strawberry landscape in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Both the Wilson and Hovey resulted from growing out just one set of seedlings.

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King Kamehameha IV of Hawaii, two years into his reign in 1857, invited readers of The Pacific Commercial Advertiser to his Nuuanu property to take home "the finest imported varieties" of strawberry, as his gardener was cleaning out the beds and they were about to be thrown out.

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'Improved Wilson' ca. 1891. Image credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705.

Darrow (1966) included maps showing where popular strawberry varieties were grown in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the first half of the 1800s, cultivation was largely limited to New England and native wild varieties. By the late 1800s, cultivation expanded to the Midwest and South, largely due to the Wilson variety.

Between 1900 and 1920, the Dunlap variety swathed across much of the northern U.S., 'Klondike' its southern counterpart. 'Gandy' dominated the Northeast and eastern Midwest, 'Aroma' spanned Nebraska to Tennessee, 'Jucunda' much of Colorado, and 'Marshall' the West Coast. Paintings of these varieties, except for Jucunda, done in this era exist as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Pomological Watercolor Collection and are reproduced below. Links in each caption link back to the original record and image file on the USDA site. But first, an antique postcard of a Texas strawberry field:

Postcard depicting a Texas strawberry field ca. 1908-1910. Image credit: Wikipedia.

'Dunlap' by Mary Daisy Arnold (1873-1955) in 1912. Image credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705.

'Klondike' by Mary Daisy Arnold (1873-1955) in 1915. Image credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705.

'Gandy' by Deborah Griscom Passmore (1840-1911) in 1906. Image credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705.

'Aroma' by Bertha Heiges in 1900. Image credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705.

'Marshall' by Bertha Heiges in 1904. Image credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705.

Darrow (1966) lists Marshall, Klondike, Dunlap, and Aroma (images above), as well as the Missionary, Howard 17, Aberdeen, Blakemore, and Fairfax, as the most important varieties of the first half of the twentieth century. The Blakemore and Fairfax were created by Darrow himself. Some of the highlights of these varieties were:

• Marshall
  Well suited to West Coast conditions; replaced by varieties with greater disease resistance in the mid 1900s.
  
• Klondike
  A railroad shipping agent introduced this variety in 1901 after seeing the need for a strawberry that travels well; the leading variety for three decades until the Blakemore displaced it. Descends from a Hovey hybrid.
  
• Dunlap
  Known for hardiness, flavor, and vigor.
  
• Aroma
  Introduced in 1891 and a major variety between 1920 and 1940; good looking fruit, productive, and disease resistant.
  
• Missionary
  Requires less chilling and fruits better in semitropics.
  
• Howard 17
  Disease resistance and productivity are among its many positive traits; widely used in breeding. Its namesake Arthur B. Howard started systematically breeding strawberries in the late 1800s.
  
• Aberdeen
  High yields, good flavor, but did not ship well.
  
• Blakemore
  Cross of Missionary and Howard 17; ships well, disease resistant, more productive than Klondike, and ripens early.
  
• Fairfax
  Disease resistant and exceptional flavor.

'Missionary' by Mary Daisy Arnold (1873-1955) in 1915. Image credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705.

'Blakemore' ca. 1935. Image credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705.

'Fairfax', undated. Image credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705.

'Pocahontas' by Ellen Isham Schutt (1873-1955) in 1910. Image credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705.

Like evolving fashions, strawberry varieties are continuously being replaced by new and improved selections. Blakemore, for example, replaced Klondike in the mid 1930s, but was itself replaced by newer varieties like Sparkle and Pocahontas (above).

So what varieties are grown in commercial fields today? Bloomberg reported that American Driscoll's varieties are typically around for just three years. Each year, Driscoll's selects new plants from amongst thousands to develop into new varieties, a process that takes up to seven years. In 1991, Driscoll's had six of its forty-two patented varieties in commercial production.

Driscoll's does not release its patented varieties to other growers, and considers University of California (UC) Davis' strawberry breeding program its primary competition. The UC program, which originated at UC Berkeley in the 1920s, has been criticized with restricting access to its varieties and has been the focus of recent legal action. Strawberry varieties comprise four of the UC's top ten income generating inventions. The breeding program had a million dollar surplus last year, supporting a billion dollar California industry, but nearly shuttered a few years ago without explanation.

Below are a few more paintings from the late 1800s to early 1900s of perhaps rarer varieties from the USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection. Botanically accurate, it is worth comparing the finer details depicted in the paintings of the varieties in this collection as there are noticeable visual differences.

Variety 'Timbrell', painted 1897. Image credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705

 

Variety 'Early Ozark', painted 1913. Image credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705.

 

Variety 'George Washington', painted 1913. Image credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library, Beltsville, MD 20705.

Other sources and/or further information:

Perhaps the foremost modern authority on strawberries, The Strawberry by George M. Darrow (1966), available as PDF at https://specialcollections.nal.usda.gov/speccoll/collectionsguide/darrow/Darrow_TheStrawberry.pdf

USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection (also contains paintings of many other fruits, particularly apples)
https://usdawatercolors.nal.usda.gov/pom/about.xhtml

Big Bucks From Strawberry Genes Lead to Conflict at UC Davis (NPR The Salt, 2014)
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/07/02/327355935/big-bucks-from-strawberry-genes-lead-to-conflict-at-uc-davis

UC Davis Strawberry Breeding Program Historical Timeline
http://news.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/2016/05/11/strawberry-breeding-program-backgrounder-a-historical-timeline/

A Patented Berry Has Sellers Licking Their Lips (NYTimes 1991)
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/14/us/a-patented-berry-has-sellers-licking-their-lips.html?pagewanted=all

How Driscoll's is Hacking the Strawberry of the Future (Bloomberg 2015)
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-07-29/how-driscoll-s-is-hacking-the-strawberry-of-the-future

Sleuthing the Secrets to a Scrumptious Strawberry (2014)
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/sleuthing-the-secrets-to-a-scrumptious-strawberry/ 

UC Davis strawberry breeding program under fire (The Californian 2015)
http://www.thecalifornian.com/story/money/2015/07/01/university-california-davis-california-strawberry-commission/29593819/

Strawberry ruling favors UC Davis (The Packer 2016)
http://www.thepacker.com/news/strawberry-ruling-favors-uc-davis

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/kids/plants/story7/history.htm

http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/33602/PDF (PDF)

http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/html/botanytextbooks/economicbotany/Fragaria/index.html

List of Fragaria species from The Plant List:
http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl1.1/search?q=fragaria

https://www.vitalberry.eu/pineberries/