Montreuil strawberry

Fragaria portentosa, Montreuil Strawberry

In the 18th century, in the countryside of Ville-du-Bois near Montlhéry, an exceptional strawberry plant appeared, the result of a mutation of the wild strawberry. Transplanted to Montreuil, Charonne, and Bagnolet, this variety produced prodigious fruits that brought fame to the market gardeners of the Île-de-France region.

These monstrous strawberries, up to ten times larger than their wild ancestors, bore witness to the horticultural mastery of Parisian cultivators and their intimate knowledge of the laws of nature.

The Montreuil Strawberry required extremely rigorous cultivation. Planted in November from nurseries in Fontenay-aux-Roses, each plant was spaced 50 centimeters apart, watered several times a week, mulched, and had its runners removed during the first year.

It was only in the second and third years that the plant offered its extraordinary fruits, before being replaced after six to nine years of intensive cultivation. Without these constant cares (regular watering, weeding, pruning of stolons) the fruits quickly degenerated to revert to the modest size of the wild strawberry.

These spectacular strawberries, less fragrant than their more regular cousins, nevertheless sold for exorbitant prices in Parisian markets, where appearance took precedence over taste refinement.

This plate is taken from Pierre-Antoine Poiteau and Pierre Jean François Turpin's Traité des Arbres Fruitiers (Treatise on Fruit Trees), a botanical encyclopedia published between 1807 and 1835, a major reference in 19th-century naturalistic illustration.

It combines the rigor of scientific drawing with a rare artistic sensibility, characteristic of the great plates of the golden age of illustrated botany.

As an anecdote, this plate was used by Salvador Dali for his series of lithographs 'Flordali, les Fruits' in 1969.