374 FRUITS : Chap. X. 



varieties. Knight did not succeed m crossing the European wood- 

 strawberry with the American Scarlet or with the Hautbois. 

 Mr. Williams of Pitmaston, however, succeeded ; but the hybrid 

 offspring from the Hautbois, though fruiting well, never produced 

 seed, with the exception of a single one, which reproduced the 

 parent hybrid form. 10 * Major E. Trevor Clarke informs me that 

 he crossed two members of the Pine class (Myatt's B. Queen and 

 Keen's Seedling) with the wood and hautbois, and that in each 

 case he raised only a single seedling; one of these fruited, but 

 was almost barren. Mr. W. Smith, of York, has raised similar 

 hybrids with equally poor success. 105 "We thus see 106 that the 

 European and American species can with some difficulty be crossed ; 

 but it is improbable that hybrids sufficiently fertile to be worth 

 cultivation will ever be thus produced. This fact is surprising, 

 as these forms structurally are not widely distinct, and are some- 

 times connected in the districts where they grow wild, as I hear 

 from Professor Asa Gray, by puzzling intermediate forms. 



The energetic culture of the Strawberry is of recent date, and 

 the cultivated varieties can in most cases be classed under some 

 one of the above native stocks. As the American strawberries 

 cross so freely and spontaneously, we can hardly doubt that they 

 will ultimately become inextricably confused. We find, indeed, 

 that horticulturists at present disagree under which class to rank 

 some few of the varieties; and a writer in the ' Bon Jardinier' 

 of 1840 remarks that formerly it was possible to class all of them 

 under some one species, but that now this is quite impossible with 

 the American forms, the new English varieties having completely 

 filled up the gaps between them. 107 The blending together of two 

 or more aboriginal forms, which there is every reason to believe 

 has occurred with some of our anciently cultivated • productions, 

 we see now actually occurring with our strawberries. 



The cultivated species offer some variations worth notice. The 

 Black Prince, a seedling from Keen's Imperial (this latter being 

 a seedling of a very white strawberry, the white Carolina), is 

 remarkable from " its peculiar dark and polished surface, and 

 from presenting an appearance entirely unlike that of any other 

 kind.'" 108 Although the fruit in the different varieties diners so 

 greatly in form, size, colour, and quality, the so-called seed (which 

 corresponds with the whole fruit in the plum) with the exception 

 of being more or less deeply embedded in the pulp, is, according 

 to De Jonghe, 109 absolutely the same in all : and this no doubt 



104 Transact. Hort. Soc.,' vol. v. 1862, p. 721. 



1824. p. 294. 107 <Le Fraisier,' par le Comte Le 



105 'Journal of Horticulture,' Dec. de Lambertye, pp. 221, 230. 



30th, 1862, p. 779. See also Mr. 108 ' Transact. Hort. Soc.,' vol. vi. 



Prince to the same effect, ibid., 1863, p. 200. 



p. 418. 109 ' Gardiner's Chron.,' 1858, p 



106 For additional evidence see 173. 

 ' Journal of Horticulture,' Dec. 9th, 



