STEAWBEBEIES. 209 



Twickenham, an enduring memorial of this being their 

 chosen haunt remaining in the name of Horace Walpole's 

 far-famed Strawberry Hill. Our consumption of them 

 may be judged by the circumstance of one market gar- 

 dener at Enfield having been known to send out 1,200 

 gallons of one kind alone, the Elton Pine, every morning 

 through the season. 



A strange fragarian freak is the Plymouth Strawberry, 

 so named because first noticed at Plymouth. In the 

 quaint words of Parkinson, " The flower, if it have any, 

 is green, or rather it beareth a small head of leaves thickly 

 set together like a double ruff, in midst whereof stands 

 the fruit * when ripe, soft and somewhat reddish, like a 

 strawberry, but with many small harmless prickles, which 

 may be chewed without offence, and is somewhat pleasant." 

 Though no strawberry eater of the present day could find 

 the least "pleasantness " in such a vegetable stickleback, 

 this strange abortion has been of service to Science in 

 throwing light on the metamorphosis of plants, for it is 

 found that in it the five petals of the ordinary flower are 

 changed into five distinct leaves with regular lobes, the 

 stamens become little irregularly-shaped leaves more or 

 less lobed, while the ovaries elongate and do not change 

 colour, so that the fruit when ripe resembles a common 

 strawberry stuck with thorns, for instead of seeds lying 

 on the surface, it has these green buds standing up thickly 

 all over it, "like quills upon the fretful porcupine." It 

 still continues a great rarity. 



The strawberry belongs properly to cold climates, and 

 though well known is comparatively little valued in the 

 south of Europe ; indeed, if soil and situation be properly 

 adapted to it, the more cold, or even bleak, the climate, 

 the more delicious is the berry. It has one quality, how- 

 ever, which tends to give it a wide geographical range, 

 namely, a great power of adapting itself to circumstances, 

 and we find it accordingly spread over a great proportion 

 of the globe, languidly existing where other fruits are 

 most abundant, and luxuriating in healthy vigour where 



See Plate III., fig. 5. 



14 



