104 THE STRAWBERRY. 



Scientific ^Terms. Cotyledons accumbent. Cotyledons incum- 

 bent. Glabrous. Silicle. Silique. Synonym. 



XXVI. THE STRAWBERRY. 



Description. May, charming May is the festival of the 

 Eose worts. Now trees and shrubs, as well as tender herbs, 

 are bursting into bloom, adorning field and forest. So 

 many and varied are the flowers asking attention, that one 

 is bewildered in choosing. Among the Eoseworts let us first 

 examine the Strawberry plant. 



Analysis. The .^00/and Stem are, as in Liverleaf and 

 Blue Violet, subterranean. But the stem (crown, p. 53) at 

 certain times sends out from its top a slender, terete, red 

 runner, one or more, a foot in length, tipped with a bud, 

 which on touching the soil, develops roots downward and 

 leaves upward, and so founds a new plant. 



The Z/eaves are complete in their organization, having 

 blade, petiole, and stipules the blade palmately trifoliate 

 as in Oxalis (p. 90). The leaflets are ovate, oval or obo- 

 vate, coarsely serrate, having teeth pointing forward like 

 sawteeth, and, like the scapes, pubescent, with soft appressed 

 hairs. The petioles are villous, with coarser spreading hairs.* 



The Scape branches irregularly into a cluster, of which 

 the central flower is the oldest ; hence the inflorescence is 

 centrifugal, progressing from the center outward, and the 

 cluster, a cyme. 



* The hairs of plants constitute an interesting study. They are composed of a 

 single long cell, or of a transparent tissue of cells placed end to end like a string of 

 beads. There is an endless variety in their length, abundance, and quality. Some- 

 times they are soft and close like down, sometimes stiff and rough like bristles. Now 

 they form a fringe like an eyelash, and now they silver the surface with a silky gloss. 

 Here they curve backward into a hook, oftentimes barbed. In the Nettle, they are 

 hollow stings with a bag of poison concealed. In the Sun-dew, they are tipped with 

 a glistening exudation like a dew-drop. They warmly clothe the early catkins of the 

 Willow, and decorate the landscape in the waving plumes of the Pampas Grass. Cot- 

 ton, a great staple of commerce, is but the hair with which a seed is fledged. 



