CHAP. III.] DRYADE^. 55 



other. Sometimes, as we have seen in several 

 of the Ranunculaceae and Leguminosae, it is a 

 mere disk or flat substance serving as a founda- 

 tion to hold together the other parts of the 

 flower ; and at other times we have found it 

 drawn out into a thin membrane and divided 

 into a kind of leaves, as it is among the carpels 

 of the tree-peony; but in no plants that I 

 have yet had occasion to describe does it 

 assume such strange forms as in Rosacese. 



The flower of the strawberry {Fragaria vesca) 

 has a green calyx of ten sepals ; five of which 

 are much smaller than the others, and grow a 

 little behind them, the large and small ones 

 occurring alternately. The corolla is cup-shaped, 

 and in five equal petals ; the stamens are 

 numerous and arrano^ed in a crowded rino^ round 

 the carpels, which are placed on a somewhat 

 raised receptacle. The carpels or nuts resemble 

 those of the rose, but they have no hairy 

 covering, and indeed look hard and shining on 

 the surface of the distended receptacle, or poly- 

 phore as it is called in its metamorphosed state. 

 The carpels when ripe do not open to discharge 

 the seed, and consequently as they are sown with 

 the seeds, the young plants are a long time 

 before they appear. The strawberry has what 

 is called ternate leaves, that is, leaves consisting 

 of three leaflets ; with large membranous stipules. 



