The early Virginian settlers happened on their own wild strawberry, grew it and then sent it to England and Europe. To the European botanists dismay even though the New World strawberry held on to its characteristics in Europe it would not cross with the native berries..  In 1712 Amedee Francois Frezier a French navy man brought back five plants from South America's Pacific Coast to Brest, where only one bore viable pollen and managed to produce large pale yellow insipid with a slight pineapple flavor.  This strawberry, the Chilean pine or sand strawberry (fragaria chiloenis) was given to the French Botanist who shared it with his comrades through out Europe and as the story goes, before long they were producing fruit the size of eggs and even apples.  It took most of the rest of the century before Antone Nicholas Duchesne planted the South American Valparaiso near the F. virginia giving us the beginning of the fruit we now know as the common strawberries of today.

The first examples of the modern varieties, called F. ananassa because of their pineapple fragrance, were produced in England in 1819 and sold as Keen's seedlings.  We later re-imported these hybrid  varieties back into the United States where they have been continuously improved on since.