Arbutus unedo is strawberry by name but definitely not strawberry by nature. Admiring the peeling cinamon bark, ivory bell flowers and luscious looking fruit will have to suffice as the Strawberry Tree is not a tasty specimen. Pliny the Elder apparently commented after tasting just one of the tempting berries “unum tantum edo” meaning “I eat only one”. Enough said.
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Off The Edge Gardening 
Actually I think they are quite nice. I have a friend who ate lots of them on a walk in the south of France where they grow wild. The result was quite explosive and potentially embarrassing. He just made it home in time.
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Perhaps another reason to eat just one!
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That made me guffaw into a bowl of real strawberries!
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Ha!
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They are using many of them in parking lots here because they don’t drop leaves.
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That sounds lovely!
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That’s amazing. The native Arbutus trees here in BC are terribly messy, dropping leaves with great abandon.
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I didn’t notice any droppage around this one, perhaps I was mesmerised by the fruit and didn’t notice what was going on beneath!
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Great shrub Arbutus!
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It is, I especially love the bark and the flowers and the fruit 😉
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‘My love’s an Arbutus, by the borders of Lene, so slender and shapely in her girdle of green….’, and ‘The Strawberry Tree’, a fantastic restaurant we dined at in Killarney in 1992, what lovely memories you have evoked.
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What a lovely quote! Thank you 🙂
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It’s an old Irish song, see http://www.joe-offer.com/folkinfo/songs/71.html or there is a U-Tube link as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFAhnpRBwOE.
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