This very ancient strawberry variety has a unique characteristic: the aftertaste of pineapple and its origin, according to some studies, leads to cultivation done naturally in the vast Chilean lands.
Pineapple strawberry has a different flavor than we are used to, which comes close to the taste of the tropical fruit from which it takes its name. They are easy to distinguish from common red strawberries because their color is white. Until now in Europe some white strawberry seedlings of the Pineberry variety had been preserved and grown only in one area of France, which they had been able to reach in the eighteenth century.
From then on it seems that these strawberries with their unmistakable color and flavor never crossed the French national borders, until, a few years ago, a group of Dutch growers decided to recover the variety of strawberries that now seemed to have been forgotten and doomed to disappear, in order to take care of them and proceed to a selection of the most productive and robust seedlings.
Pineapple strawberry belongs to an albino variety, yet it is not completely white but has red dots on its surface. Its leaves are similar in shape and color to the strawberries we are commonly used to, but the size of this fruit appears smaller than the red variety. Pineapple strawberries prefer fertile, humus-rich soils, not to be kept too dry in the summer and too moist in the winter.
Over the centuries, from the eighteenth century onwards, pineapple strawberries were selected in a completely natural way, until they obtained today's hybrid. The first to venture into the crossroads of the two varieties of American wild strawberries from which strawberry-pineapple later originated was agronomist Nicolas Duchesne.
The most recent selection work, by Dutch growers, lasted six years. As a result, pineapple strawberries began to be sold in England.
This strawberry variety grows in any soil and climate.