460 



The Journal of Heredity 



vessel of Marseilles, owned by the 

 brothers Brun>-, and on which they had 

 placed as sujiercar^o their nephew M. 

 Roux de X'albonne, who, after the Cap- 

 tain, had charj^e of the fresh water 

 which was carried on board, and which 

 is ver>' precious on a voyage of six 

 months duration, through the Torrid 

 Zone; so that, if he had not been 

 generous enough to have the plants, 

 which were in a pot of soil, watered, it 

 would not have been possible to keep 

 them ali\e until we reached Marseilles.^ 

 Five of them arri\ed in good order, of 

 which he took two, while I reserved 

 three for myself. On my arrival at 

 Paris, I gave one of these to my friend 

 M. Antoine Jussieu, to be planted in 

 the Royal Garden; one to M. le Pelle- 

 tier de Souzy, our minister of fortifica- 

 tions, and the third I retained.' " 

 Frezier later published, in his "Relation 

 du Voyage de la Mer du Sud" a draw- 

 ing of the plant and its fruit, with the 

 title, "Fragaria chiliensis, fructu max- 

 imo, foliis carnosis, hirsutis, vulgo 

 frutilia" and below, "F"raise du Chili 

 dessinee de grandeur naturelle." 



Duchesne remarks that, after the 

 introduction of these fi\e plants, "the 

 frutiller\\i\'> soon disseminated through- 

 out Europe." In his discussion of the 

 establishment of the species in France, 

 he accounts for only three of the five 

 specimens brought by Frezier. The two 

 which were taken by M. Roux de 

 Valbonne do not again figure in the 

 story. Ver>' soon after its introduction, 

 the species was culti\ated commer- 

 cially in the vicinity of Brest, but in 

 1766 its importance had greatly de- 

 clined, according to Duchesne, because 

 the plants were unproductive. Evi- 

 dently many of them were pistil- 

 lates, instead of hermaphrodites; in 

 fact, Duchesne thinks that all of them 

 may have been so, and that fruit was 

 onl\- produced when the\- were sup- 

 plied with pollen from one of the other 

 si)ecies then cultixated in I'Vance. So 

 far as I have observed, the plants 

 cultivated in Chile, Peru and Ecuador 

 always produce perfect flowers; can it 



*Thc 17th of AuKust, ITU.arroniinn to J. H, 

 Frezier voyage in the Journal of the Societe Cf 

 Paris, IX7X. 



be that the unaccustomed climatic 

 conditions to which they were sub- 

 jected in France caused them to abort 

 the stamens? 



At this point it is of interest to con- 

 sider the derivation of the name given 

 to the species. F"rezier, who published 

 his book in 1717, calls it "Fragaria 

 chiliensis," while Duchesne, who mono- 

 graphed the strawberries in 1766, 

 changes it to "Fragaria chiloensis." 

 The island of Chiloe, which lies off the 

 coast of Chile between latitudes 42 and 

 44 S., apprf)ximately, is one of the 

 regions in which this large-fruited form 

 occurs as an indigenous species, and the 

 logical assumption would be that the 

 specific name chiloensis was formed 

 from that of the island ; yet Duchesne 

 says nothing to this effect, and the fact 

 that Frezier, in his earlier work, uses 

 the form chiliensis shows that he, at 

 least, desired to name the species after 

 the country, Chile, instead of for the 

 island, Chiloe. 



Several authors give quelghen as the 

 indigenous name of the fruit. Frutilia 

 is the term universally employed for 

 the species by Spanish-speaking people 

 on the western coast of South America; 

 the Spanish name of the European 

 strawberry, fresa, is reserved for the 

 fruit of F. vesca. A strawberry field, if 

 the plants are of the chiloensis species, 

 is termed a frutillar, and there is a 

 town by this name in southern Chile. 

 In the United States the names 

 Chilean strawberry-, sand strawberry, 

 beach strawberr},-, and probably several 

 others have been applied to the species. 



PRESENT STATUS OF KRAC.ARIA CHILOEN- 

 SIS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



The horticultural importance of this 

 strawberry in South America is con- 

 siderable. I have not been in Argen- 

 tina to determine whether or not it is 

 cultivated there, but on the western 

 side of the continent it is grown in 

 nearly every country. Beginning in 

 the north, it is cultivated in the vicinity 

 of Bogota, ColoiTibia, though not ex- 

 tensively so. In the months of Decem- 



Hiaiuhani.who ^ives a (U-tailed account of the 

 ntrale d'Horticulture de France, Xll, p. 628, 



