1. Duchesnea indica (Andrews) Focke (Indian strawberry)

Pl. 532 n–p; Map 2442

Plants perennial herbs with short rhizomes. Stems 8–80 cm or more long, prostrate and stolonlike, rooting at some nodes, lacking spines and thorns, hairy. Leaves in rosettes at the rhizome tip and where the aerial stems root, otherwise alternate, long-petiolate. Stipules 4–9 mm long, herbaceous, narrowly oblong-elliptic, hairy, those of the rosette leaves fused toward the base. Leaf blades 1–7 cm long, broadly ovate-triangular in outline, divided into 3 similar leaflets, these 1.0–6.5 cm long, elliptic or ovate, rounded to more commonly pointed at the tip, rounded or narrowed to a short-stalked base, the margins bluntly toothed or scalloped, the surfaces sparsely to moderately appressed-hairy, especially along the veins. Flowers solitary in the leaf axils (and among the rosette leaves), long-stalked, perigynous, the hypanthium saucer-shaped, with a poorly developed nectar disc around the margin, sparsely to moderately hairy, each flower with 5 bractlets alternating with the sepals (the calyx thus appearing more or less 10-parted), these noticeably wider than the sepals, broadly obovate, prominently 3-toothed or -lobed at the tip, becoming somewhat enlarged and reflexed at fruiting. Sepals 5, 4–7 mm long, usually arched upward, ovate-triangular, sparsely to moderately hairy, somewhat enlarged at fruiting. Petals 5, 5–9 mm long, narrowly obovate, yellow. Stamens 15–25, the anthers yellow. Pistils numerous, densely covering the surface of the obconic expanded receptacle. Ovary superior, glabrous, with 1 locule, with 1 ovule. Style 1 per pistil, attached laterally, shed before the fruit matures, the stigma disc-shaped. Fruits achenes, in a headlike cluster densely covering the surface of the enlarged expanded receptacle, but shed eventually, 0.9–1.5 mm long, asymmetrically ovate in outline, glabrous, shiny, red, with 1 seed.. 2n=42, 84. April–June, sometimes also sporadically until September.

Introduced, widely scattered in the southern half of the state (native to Asia south to the Philippines, introduced widely in Europe and the U.S.). Lawns and open disturbed areas.

The bright red fruits of Duchnesnea resemble those of Fragaria (strawberry), but are mealy and not sweet, hence the common name, barren strawberry.