Not available – first paragraph follows: Polyploidy is important in strawberries, because only in the end products found in nature (octoploids Fragaria chiloensis and F virginiana) were the necessary genes found, organized, and conserved in such a way as to make possible the relatively rapid breeding of the modern large-fruited strawberry cultivare. Lower ploidy levels are of interest, because they tend to be highly specialized to specific environments, and many of the traits they carry as a result may be useful in the cultivare of the future, if they can be introduced into the octoploids.