Garden strawberry or Woodland strawberry: how to tell them apart?
Garden strawberry and Woodland strawberry look alike and are often mixed up. Here is how to tell them apart, feature by feature, with their photos and the details to look for.
⚡ The quick answer
Garden strawberry
Fragaria x ananassa
Woodland strawberry
Fragaria vesca
The wild strawberry has much smaller fruits and finer foliage — the garden strawberry has been selected for large fruits.
🍃 Leaves
Trifoliate, toothed, bright green, in a basal rosette
Trifoliate, toothed, bright green, slightly hairy beneath
🌸 Flowers
White, with 5 petals, grouped in cymes above the foliage
Small white flowers with 5 petals, yellow centre
🍎 Fruits
Fleshy, sweet false fruit (the strawberry), red when ripe, with achenes on the surface
Small red strawberries about 1 cm across, very fragrant and sweet, much smaller than those of the garden strawberry.
🪵 Bark
Herbaceous stoloniferous plant, no woody stem; spreads by runners
Basal clump with creeping runners
📏 Size
15 to 30 cm tall
10 to 20 cm tall
🗺️ Habitat
Grown in kitchen gardens and gardens
Open woodland, gardens, banks, cool soils
⚠️ Toxicity
No known toxicity — edible fruit
No known toxicity, edible fruits.
🔎 And from the Woodland strawberry side
The wild strawberry has much smaller fruits and finer foliage — the garden strawberry has been selected for large fruits.
🌿 Go further
Want to practise spotting these details on real photos? Floraneo offers profiles and quizzes for dozens of look-alike species.
ℹ️ Educational profile — do not use it to judge whether a plant is edible or safe.