STRAWBERRY. 89 



changes which they have been subjected to in cultivation, 

 This constancy of the F. vesca may account for the 

 feet that no advance, of any importance, was made in 

 Strawberry culture in Europe until other and more variable, 

 as well as valuable, species were introduced. 



In 1578, Lyte, hi his translation of " Dodoens Herball," 

 mentions only the Wood Strawberry. Gerarde, in 1597, 

 named the White and Red Wood Strawberry. In 1623, 

 Casper Bauhin, in his " Pinax," mentions the White and 

 Red Wood, Alpine, and Hautboy or Haarbeer Strawberries. 

 Parkinson, hi his Paradisus, 1629, page 528, says that there 

 are divers sorts in cultivation, and names the Red and 

 White Wood, Green, Virginia, and another variety, which 

 he called the Bohemian. In his Theatrum Botanicum, is- 

 sued in 1 640, page 758, he mentions a variety of the Al- 

 pine, which, he says, is barren, producing no fruit. It was 

 probably one of the Potentillas, and not a Strawberry, for 

 he also describes another variety which, he says, has yellow 

 flowers, and the seeds are in a dry, compact head, and the 

 plant has smaller leaves, and creeps along the ground with 

 many fine stems. 



About 1660 a Strawberry grower at Montreuil, in France, 

 is said to have produced a new variety from the seed of the 

 Wood Strawberry. It was called the Cappron, but after- 

 wards the Fressant. This is the first improved variety of 

 which we have any account. It was hi cultivation at the 

 time that Evelyn translated Quintinies " French Gardiner," 

 hi 1682; also mentioned by Duchesne, about a hundred 

 years later. 



The persistency with which some species reproduce 

 themselves is quite remarkable, but not more so than the 

 equally great variations that are constantly being developed 

 in others. 



Those species from which we have produced the greatest 

 number of valuable varieties, generally show the greatest 

 diversity of character in their natural or normal condition, 



