Strawberry Blite: Red berry flowers

Stalk of Strawberry Blite flowers   © SB

I was surprised to read that these glossy red clusters are the ripening flowers, not fruits, of Strawberry Blight, a prairie wildflower I photographed at a native plant garden in Regina, Saskatchewan.

The Strawberry Blite flowers form in clusters where each leaf meets the stalk. They begin minuscule and green, with five sepals and no petals. As the sepals mature, the clusters turn red and enlarge to resemble berries.

(Raspberries, I'd say, but the experts — including Vance/Jowsey, source of that info above — see them instead as strawberries.)

These plants are members of the very large Goosefoot family. (The weed or pseudocereal Lambsquarters is related, though far from as brightly coloured.) 

The berry-like clusters of Strawberry Blite flowers are, in fact, edible, though very bland, according to the webpage for the Royal Saskatchewan Museum's Native Plant Garden.

Habitat for Strawberry Blite: Waste places, garden edges and moist roadsides across the continent, though so far, I've only seen these wildflowers in this Regina native plant garden.

Strawberry Blight and purple Asters ©  SB 

Prairie Wildflower: Strawberry Blite (Chenopodium capitatum)

Location: Native Plant Garden, Royal Saskatchewan Museum, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Photo Date: July 10, 2012.  

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