272 THE SMALL FRUITS OF NEW YORK 



sex predominates while the other is more or less abortive on the same or on 

 different individuals, so that one plant carries either only male or female 

 flowers. Purely female flowers are without stamens but with well-developed 

 pistils, while in male flowers the stamens are perfect and the pistils 

 imperfect. Male flowers are usually larger. It is not always easy to say 

 whether in a stamen-bearing flower the pistils are imperfect and sterile or 

 not. Female flowers, of coiirse, must be pollinated with pollen from male 

 flowers, if they are to produce fruits. If the male individuals are removed 

 because they produce no fruit, as was not infrequently done in the early 

 days of strawberry ctilture, the rest must cease to bear fruits, and com- 

 plaints as to the iinproductiveness of strawberries follow. 



The French botanist, Antoine Nicolas Duchesne, investigated this 

 sterility and discovered the differences in the sex of the strawberry flowers 

 in 1766, He observed that among 300 plants grown from seeds none had 

 perfectly hermaphrodite flowers. Similar complaints about sterility were 

 common in the beginning of the cultivation of the Chilean strawberry. 



Fragaria. Linnaeus 5^. P/. 494. 1753. 



Acaulescent, more or less hairy, perennial herbs with basal leaves and long filiform 

 runners from the axils, which root and form new plants. Petioles mostly long and chan- 

 neled above; stipules adnate at the base of the petiole, large, mostly scarious and brown, 

 persistent and covering the rootstock. Leaves 3-foliolate, or sometimes imequally impari- 

 pinnate, i.e., with a pair of much smaller lateral leaflets below the normal ones; leaflets 

 sharply dentate, but entire at the more or less wedge-shaped base, the lateral ones oblique, 

 the inner half usually smaller. Scape mostly about as long as the petioles, cymosely 

 branched, the lowest bracts with stipules and a more or less developed blade; pedicels 

 slender, erect when in flower, curved when in fruit. 



Flowers polygamo-dioecious, rarely hermaphrodite, the male flowers larger and showier, 

 all s-parted, central flowers the first to open, often 6- to 8-parted and larger than the later 

 ones. Calyx-lobes from a flat hypanthiimi, augmented by as many shorter and mostly 

 narrower outer calyx-lobes or bractlets. Stamens about 20 or less, or abortive; filaments 

 mostly shorter than the receptacle, anthers oblong. Receptacle roundish or conical, 

 bearing niunerous pistils with lateral styles, at maturity the receptacle becoming enlarged 

 and juicy, popularly known as " Strawberry." 



Key to the Species Described 



A. Leaflets rather thick, almost leathery, with the venation deeply impressed above and 

 prominently reticulate beneath, shining green above and tomentose or silky 

 hairy beneath; teeth comparatively short and broad. Pedicels of the fruit 

 recurved 



B. Fruits ovoid-conical; calyx-lobes loosely appressed F. chiloensis 



BB. Fruits roimdish, calyx-lobes spreading F. calif ornica 



