Chilean Strawberry - Botanical poster 50x70cm

Fragaria Chilensis - Chilean Strawberry

In 1712, a naval officer named Frézier discovered this extraordinary strawberry plant at the foot of the Cordillera, near Concepción, and brought it back to France.

Deposited in Brest, Fragaria Chilensis acclimatized there, producing the largest strawberries ever observed; some reaching the size of a hen's egg.

But this botanical treasure held a secret: Frézier had only brought back female plants. Without male flowers for fertilization, the Brest gardeners devised a daring solution: planting Carolina strawberries between the rows to achieve "adulterous fertilization." This horticultural stratagem made the Chilean Strawberry one of the most fascinating botanical curiosities of the 18th century.

The Chilean Strawberry is immediately recognizable: a thick, short stem, few, thick, silky, and whitish leaves with rounded leaflets. Its remarkably thick flower stalks bear large flowers with 6-10 petals instead of the usual 5.

The fruit, yellowish-white washed with vermilion in the sun, has a shiny surface and seeds lodged in deep indentations.

Its firm, white, and slightly vermilion flesh gives off a pleasant scent in favorable years. Unique particularity: while all strawberry plants incline their fruits towards the ground at maturity, this one holds them vertically.

A delicate crop, it requires well-drained clay-siliceous soil or heather soil, a south-facing exposure, and loses its leaves in winter; rare behavior for strawberry plants.

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 for 19th-century naturalistic illustration.

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

• Each poster is printed in 12-color giclée printing, the benchmark for art studios for rendering fine tones, subtle gradients, and the most delicate botanical details.
• 200 gsm paper weight, soft matte finish, 0.26 mm thickness: a rendering close to the original engraving, sharp, glare-free, designed for hanging.
• Printed on FSC-certified paper, produced individually to order.
• Shipped in a rigid protective tube.