126 ROSE FAMILY 



Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite valleys and elsewhere along our 

 lower borders. Its berries are as highly flavored as those 

 of any cultivated species and are eagerly sought by campers, 

 who usually find, however, that the birds have preceded them. 



6. FRAGARIA. Strawberry. 

 Perennials with running stems which root at the joints, 

 the white flowers in small clusters. Leaves basal, each with 

 3 obovate or wedge-shaped toothed leaflets and with a pair 

 of stipules at base of petiole. Sepals 5, alternating with as 

 many sepal-like bractlets. Petals 5, obtuse, never notched. 

 Stamens about 20. Receptacle hemispheric or conic, becom- 

 ing enlarged and juicy, bearing the minute dry akenes scat- 

 tered over its surface. 



1. F. californica C. & S. California Wild Strawberry. 

 Leaflets sessile, Y to 2 in. long, silky-pubescent beneath. 

 Flowers white, ^ to 1 in. across, in irregular clusters, the 

 branches being very unequal. Seed-like akenes set in shallow 

 pits of the juicy fruit. 



The California Strawberry is most abundant in the Coast 

 Ranges, but it occurs also in the foothills of the Sierra 

 Nevada, as from Crockers to Big Meadows and the Mariposa 

 Grove, and has been found as high as 6200 ft. alt. in Little 

 Yosemite Valley. The Sierran plants are almost entirely of 

 the var. crinita Hall, distinguished by their thicker leaves and 

 by the long, white, almost shaggy hairs of the petioles and 

 flower-stalks. The berries, though small, are of delicious 

 flavor. 



2. F. virginiana Duch. Leaflets mostly short-stalked, 1 to 

 3 in. long (shorter in one var.), silky-pubescent beneath, 

 nearly glabrous above. Flowers white, y 2 to \ in. across, on 

 nearly equal branches of a few-flowered umbel. Seed-like 

 akenes set in deep pits of the juicy fruit. 



Visitors to the Yosemite are not long in locating the 

 strawberry beds and filling their baskets with the luscious 

 fruit. These patches, like those to be found at the Hog 

 Ranch, near Hetch Hetchy, are doubtless the result of plant- 

 ings of roots brought from the East by the early settlers, 

 since the plants have all of the characters of the eastern 

 form. The native wild strawberries of this species, which 

 grows throughout the Sierra Nevada from about 4000 ft. alt. 

 to timber-line, belong to the following varieties : Var. platy- 

 podia Hall, distinguished by its smoother and greener appear- 

 ance, the leaves being practically glabrous above and with 



