So I found this berry/flower out in my front yard. At first glance I thought it was a strawberry so I bent down to take a quick look. Upon further inspection I found it was this weird looking thing (refer to picture). It seems the seems are a relief, kind of sitting outside the rest of the specimen. I guess one could think of a really shriveled strawberry. It's spherical, almost perfectly, and the top leafy part looks almost like that of a strawberry. Do I have some weird mutated strawberry, just an old shriveled one, or do I have something that isn't a strawberry at all?
Looks like Duchesnea indica. Common name false strawberry. See.... http://www.missouriplants.com/Yellowalt/Duchesnea_indica_page.html
That is exactly it. Thanks so much for identifying it for me, and so quickly too. It says it's mostly found in Missouri though. I'll definitely do my own research but I live in Upstate, NY (actually the geographic center, Utica, NY). Does that seem weird?
That was a Missouri website, which is very good, but the USDA site is better for showing its range. LINK
Duchesnea indica is now Potentilla indica: Eriksson, T., Hibbs, M. S., Yoder, A. D. Delwiche, C. F. & Donoghue, M. J. (2003). The Phylogeny of Rosoideae (Rosaceae) based on sequences of the internal transcribed spacers (ITS) of nuclear ribosomal DNA and the TRNL/F region of chloroplast DNA. Int. J. Plant Sci. 164(2): 197–211. http://www.biology.duke.edu/yoderlab...al,%20IJPS.pdf (pdf file).
