THE WILD STRAWBERRY. 63 



cries of his day, and points a moral against avarice and the 

 denial of justice to the poor. 



The generic name is derived from the Latin word 

 fragrans, a word that carries its meaning on its face, 

 and will at once suggest to the most unlearned of 

 our readers the idea of fragrance, while the specific name 

 signifies edible, a sufficiently frigid way of putting it, 

 as most people consider strawberries not only edible but 

 are very glad to find themselves in a position to reduce 

 their opinions to practice. It is singular that a fruit 

 so delicious should have been held in so slight esteem by 

 the ancients : the references to it in Pliny, or Ovid, or 

 Virgil, for example, deal with it very coldly, and merely as 

 a wild fruit, but in these later days it has received full 

 attention. It is a particularly easy plant to grow. 



The stock is perennial, scaly, and fibrous, throwing out 

 numerous slender runners which, in turn, root at intervals 

 and produce new plants. The flower-bearing stems spring 

 directly from the roots, and are erect, herbaceous, clothed 

 with soft hairs, and some six inches in height : either 

 entirely leafless or with one, or possibly two, leaves of very 

 simple character upon them, a feature that may be clearly 

 seen in our illustration. The flowers are few in number on 

 each stem. The leaves are of the form botanically termed 

 ternate, and are composed of three nearly equal leaflets ; 

 each leaflet being egg-shaped and deeply cut into teeth like 

 a saw. The leaves, like the stems that bear them, are often 

 thickly clothed with silky hairs. The petals are five in 

 number, pure white in colour, easily shattering, and the 

 calyx is cleft into ten divisions. The stamens are numerous, 

 and form a compact ball-like yellow mass in the centre of 

 the flower. The fruit is fleshy and succulent, ordinarily 



