Short answers, pulled from the story.
Fragaria is a genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, commonly known as strawberries for their edible fruits. The genus includes more than 20 described species along with many hybrids and cultivars. Most commercially grown strawberries are cultivars of the garden strawberry, a hybrid called Fragaria x ananassa.
No, a Fragaria strawberry is not a fruit or a berry in the strict botanical sense. The fleshy edible part is a receptacle, an enlarged piece of stem tissue, while the true botanical fruits are the tiny achenes on its surface that are often mistaken for seeds.
The genus name Fragaria comes from the Latin word for strawberry combined with a suffix used to form feminine plant names. That Latin root is thought to trace back to a Proto-Indo-European word for berry, reconstructed as either dhreh2g- or sroh2gs.
Fragaria species all share seven basic chromosome types but differ in how many complete sets they carry. Diploid species have 14 chromosomes in total, tetraploids have 28, hexaploids have 42, octoploids have 56, and decaploids have 70.
Fragaria species grow across the Northern Hemisphere, Europe, Asia, the Americas, and the Pacific, with different species tied to specific regions. Examples include Fragaria vesca across the Northern Hemisphere, Fragaria chiloensis along the coasts of the Americas, and Fragaria iturupensis on Iturup in the Kuril Islands.
Yes, several Fragaria species can crossbreed, and some crosses produce fertile offspring. Fragaria vesca crosses with other diploid species, though Fragaria nilgerrensis is less compatible, and Fragaria moschata can cross with diploid species and with the garden strawberry, Fragaria x ananassa.