FORMS OF THE STRAWBERRY. Ill 



various forms of the genus of Strawberr}'. On the present 

 occasion we shall speak only of two of those forms, namely, of what 

 he calls the Plymouth Strawberry, which is the prickly fruited 

 of Linnaeus, and of that with double flowers. The character 

 of the first of these, which does not differ from our common wild 

 Strawberry in growth, stem, and leaves (rather I should say, did 

 not differ, for it exists no longer) consists in bearing smaller 

 petals than usual, which are greenish and terminated each by three 

 or four toothlets. The fruit — that is, the berry-like receptacle — 

 is thickly beset with greenish hairs, which are nothing else than 

 mishapen ovaries, elongated above in a long straight or curved point, 

 soft at first, but afterwards becoming hard and stiff; there being 

 no sign of any style, which, as is known, originates from the base 

 of the ovary. {Duchesne Herb. p. 93.) Barrelier {Plant. Ic, 90) 

 has exhibited the character of the fruit, also the flower, which 

 is tolerably good ; at least, it is better than Zanoni's {Hist. ed. 

 Monti, t. 78, f. 1). This monstrosity (for it is clear from the 

 description that such it must be) was first exhibited by Parkinson 

 in 1629 in a poor woodcut, and next described by Johnson in 

 1633. Since then the plant is mentioned in various works, and 

 last of all in 1686 by Ray, since which time it seems to have 

 disappeared from all the gardens of England and on the continent 

 of Europe. It must therefore have been on the testimonies 

 of those authors that Linnaeus published the plant as a second 

 species of Strawberry, which he called Fr. muricata, giving it 

 characters which do not exist in nature. It was only in his last 

 work on plants, namely the Mantissa secunda, that he corrected 

 his error and declared that Fr. muricata was only a variety of 

 Fr. vesca. The most remarkable feature of this monstrous 

 form was, that a so-called berry was produced notwithstanding the 

 impaired fertilisation on account of the deficient style, that it 

 was eatable after removing the prickles, and, though pronounced 

 bad and tasteless by Zanoni, was considered palatable" by 

 Barrelier. The same is the case with the other of the two vari- 

 eties, namely the double and semi-double one. This too originates 

 from England, for it is called auglica fthe English sort) in the 

 writings which first treated of it, and was likewise known already 

 in the middle of the seventeenth century. Fortunately, this form 

 has not perished like the last, but is still preserved, and the 

 specimens which I have now the honour to exhibit are from 

 the garden here of *the horticulturist, Mr. Giinther. With 

 exception of the flower, you will find no difference between it and 



