A Family History. 203 



landers keep closer than any other existing people 

 to that primitive Teutonic and Scandinavian stock 

 from which we and all the other people of north- 

 western Europe are descended. Just so, the roses 

 do not necessarily derive their origin from the poten- 

 tillas, but the potentillas keep closer than any other 

 existing rose to that primitive rosaceous stock 

 from which all the other members of the famil}- are 

 descended.' 



The strawberry is one of the more developed 

 plants which has varied least from this early type 

 represented by the cinquefoil and the silver-weed. 

 There is, in fact, one common English potentilla, 

 whose nature we have already considered, and which 

 bears with village children the essentially correct and 

 suggestive name of barren strawberry. This particular 

 potentilla differs from most others of its class in hav- 

 ing white petals instead of yellow ones, and in ha\ing 

 three leaflets on each stalk instead of five or seven. 

 When it is in flower only it is difficult at first sight to 

 distinguish it from the strawberry blossom, though 

 the petals are generally smaller, and the whole flower 

 less widely opened. After blo.ssoming, however, the 



' All the potentillas have a double calyx, which certainly was not 

 the case with the prime ancestor of the roses, or else the whole tribe 

 would still retain it. 



