HARD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OS SIP. 



129 



1. C. cava, Schw. : bulb becoming hollow with 

 age, and covered with small fibres above. Flower- 

 stem solitary or numerous, without scales at the 

 base ; leaves bi-ternate, with blunt segments ; bracts 

 ■entire, spur somewhat inflated and bent ; corolla 

 purple, pink, or white ; pedicel three times shorter 

 than the capsule ; plant glaucous. March — April. 



2. C. fabacea, DC. : stem with a scale at the 

 base ; bracts entire ; spur prolonged and straight ; 

 •leaves ternate. May. 



3. C. solida, Sm. : (C. digitata, Pers.), stem with 

 one or two scales ; bracts digitate ; spur less inflated 

 and bent ; bulb small, with^fibres at the base ; leaves 

 bi-ternate, with rounded segments ; corolla crimson, 

 pink, slate-grey or white. March — April. 



C. Intea, DC. : leaves bi-tripinnate ; segments 

 obovate, entire or trilobed ; bracts linear ; entire 

 spur blunt; flowers in a one-sided raceme, yellow ; 

 grains black. April— May. 



C. Parkinson, F.G.S. 



HISTORY OF THE STRAWBERRY. 

 By H. G. Glasspoole. 



* I ""HE strawberry is the earliest of our summer 

 -L fruits, and its appearance is as welcome as its 

 flavour is agreeable. , This plant is widely diffused, 

 being found indigenous almost throughout Europe, 

 and indeed in most parts of the Temperate Zone. 

 Botanically the strawberry belongs to the genus 

 Rosacea or Rose tribe, and the part we eat is not a 

 berry or even a fruit, but is merely a fleshy receptacle, 

 the true fruit being the ripe carpels which are 

 -scattered over its surface in form of minute grains, 

 looking like seeds, which they really are not, for the 

 seed is enclosed inside of the shell of the carpel. 

 This is exactly the contrary to the raspberry : here 

 you throw away the receptacle under the name of the 

 core, never suspecting that it is the very part you had 

 been feasting upon in the strawberry. In one case 

 the receptacle robs the carpels of all their juices in 

 order to become gorged and bloated at their expense, 

 in the other case the carpels act in the same selfish 

 manner upon the receptacle (see Lindley, "Ladies' 

 Botany.") In ancient history we do not find the 

 strawberry mentioned by the old Greek authors, 

 and it is but slightly so by Virgil, Ovid and Pliny. 

 The first author, in his third Eclogue enumerates 

 it as one of the beauties of the field, and Ovid, 

 speaking of the simplicity of living during that happy 

 period which existed only in the poets' imagination — 

 the " Golden Age " — says the people were 



" Content with food which nature freely bred, 

 On wildings and on strawberries they fed." 



Pliny only mentions it in connection with the 

 arbutus-trees. In book 15, chap. 24, he says the tree 

 is termed the strawberry-tree ; and there is not any 

 other tree that gives fruit which resembles the fruit 

 of an herb growing by the ground. There is no 

 mention of its being cultivated, but Soyer tells us 

 that both Greeks and Romans were fond of it, and 

 both applied the same care to its cultivation, and that 

 it graced the tables of the Luculli by the side of its 

 more humble sister the wild strawberry ; but this 

 author gives no statement on what authority he gets 

 his information. 



The strawberry does not appear to have been 

 cultivated in the early days of English horticulture, 

 probably from the fact that it was found plentifully 

 as a wild fruit in the woods, and thence brought to 

 towns and sold in the streets and markets, as it is 

 in the present day in Italy and other parts of Europe. 

 The earliest record we have of this fruit is mentioned 

 in the household rolls of the Countess of Leicester for 

 the year 1265. This fruit was known in London as 

 an article of ordinary consumption in the time of 

 Henry VI. In a poem of that age called " London 

 Lyckpeny," by John Lydgate, who died about 1483, 

 he mentions that " Strabery rype ! " was one of the 

 street cries of that period. 



From the chronicles of Holinshed, published in 

 1577, we learn that strawberries were cultivated in 

 the gardens of the Bishop of Ely in Holborn about 

 the year 1483. Ely Place, Holborn, was the ancient 

 site of the stately palace of the Bishops of Ely. The 

 gardens and grounds were forty acres in extent, and 

 celebrated for their roses, saffron, crocuses, and 

 strawberries. Holinshed describes a scene in which 

 these gardens and fruit are introduced, which was 

 afterwards dramatised by Shakespeare in his plays. 

 The old historian refers to the conduct of Richard 

 III., then Duke of Gloucester, on the morning of the 

 execution of Lord Hastings, sitting with others in 

 council devising the honourable solemnities for the 

 king's coronation. Gloucester, after talking with 

 them, said to the Bishop of Ely, " My lord, you have 

 very good strawberries in your garden in Holborn. I 

 require you to let us have a mess of them." " Gladly, 

 my lord," quoth he ; " would God I had some better 

 thing as ready to your pleasure as that ; " and there- 

 with in all haste he sent his servant for a mess of 

 strawberries. The garden in Holborn was at that 

 period one of the most celebrated in the kingdom : it 

 seems to have been an object of great care with the 

 episcopal owners, for in the reign of Elizabeth we 

 find that the Bishop of Ely was obliged to grant it on 

 lease to Sir Christopher Hatton, stipulating for the 

 right of walking in it and gathering twenty bushels of 

 roses yearly. 



From the Hampton Court accounts in the time of 

 Henry VIII. we learn that strawberry roots were 

 sold at 4</. per bushel, and were no doubt plants of 

 the wood strawberry. Tusser, who wrote in the 



