122 THE STRAWBERRY IN NORTH AMERICA 



Surinam, where today there are said to be no strawberries. 

 It is also said to have been a variety of the Virginian 

 brought from Carolina. It may be a chinensis cross, as 

 Holland received many plants from China during the 

 eighteenth century. Whatever its origin, all our best 

 garden varieties of today are descended from F. ananassa 

 crosses. I have selfed eight varieties of garden fruit, 

 producing over 1000 plants. Not one resembles a vesca 

 or an Alpine, but many show distinct traces of chiloensis, 

 more of virginiana and not a few of chinensis." 



E. A. Bunyard, another English student of Fragaria, 

 believes that the original Pine was a seedling of F. chiloensis 

 but adds: 1 "To Thomas Andrew Knight and Michael 

 Keens must be given the honor of laying the foundation of 

 the strawberry of the present day. The two most im- 

 portant species had existed for some time in English 

 gardens and it was to the crossing of early descendants 

 of F. virginiana and F. chiloensis that this success was 

 due." And again, "The introduction of the Chilean 

 strawberry, F. chiloensis, brought, however, the required 

 size into combination with the flavor of the Virginian 

 and thus laid the foundation of the fruit as we know it 

 today." In 1907, the Count of Solms-Laubach, a 

 German authority, made an extended study of the botany, 

 classification and development of the strawberry. He 

 concluded that the Pine developed in Europe as a result 

 of hybridization between F. chiloensis and F. virginiana. 2 

 Thus there seems to be fully as much evidence that the 

 Pine was a chiloensis-mrginiana hybrid as that it was a 

 direct modification of chiloensis. The original Pine straw- 

 berry still is found in English gardens and conservatories. 



1 Jour. Royal Hort. Soc., Vol. 39, pt. 3 (1913), p. 547. 

 Bot. Ztg. 1 Abt. 65 (1907), Nos. 3-4, pp. 1-76. 



