2o8 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 



umbels, and there are complete and male flowers on 

 the same or on different umbels. In the absence of 

 insects which may produce cross-pollination the plant 

 is self-fertile. After pollination the flowers bend 

 down to ripen the fruit. 



The fruit is edible and dispersed by birds. The 

 garden strawberry may be derived from the wild 

 strawberry. Cultivated forms become dioecious and 

 polygamous. 



So long ago as the time of Edward I the Wild 

 Strawberry was cultivated in this country. This 

 plant is considered the origin of the hautboy, 

 haut bois, or high wood of Bohemia, and was derived 

 from that region. 



The Strawberry was called Striowberige in the 

 tenth century ; streow refers to the runners like 

 straws. In the fourteenth century the stalk and 

 runners were used in medicine, under the name 

 Strebery wyses. A drug was prepared from them 

 for fresh wounds (by doctrine of signatures, red 

 fruit the blood of wounds), and also a drug called the 

 Drynk of Antioch. 



The Wild Strawberry is called Preiser, Hedge- 

 strawberry, Strawberry. 



The Strawberry was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. 

 It was in German legend a favourite of the Goddess 

 Frigga, who presided over marriages, and she was 

 said to go a berrying with children on St. John's 

 Day. 



No mother who has lost a child will eat a straw- 



