Part 7/9:
Frenzier’s ultimate mistake lies in the fact that he collected only female strawberry plants. Without the male counterparts necessary for fertilization, these plants provided no fruit for nearly 50 years. The breakthrough came when Antoine Nicolas Duchesne, a young gardener at Versailles, observed that planting the Chilean strawberries alongside compatible male varieties created the larger strawberries that the French had been yearning for. This led to the development of the well-known garden strawberry, or fragaria ananassa, known today as one of the primary strawberries found in markets.