PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 203 



the colour of an apple, and contains a stone covered with 

 long hooked bristles.^ The flavour, according to travel- 

 lers, is excellent. It is not among the fruits most widely 

 diffused in tropical colonies. It is, however, cultivated 

 in Mauritius and Bourbon, under the primitive Poljnesian 

 name evi or hevi,^ and in the West Indies. It was in- 

 troduced into Jamaica in 1782, and thence into Saint 

 Domingo. Its absence in many of the hot countries of 

 Asia and Africa is probably owing to the fact that the 

 species was discovered, only a century ago, in small 

 islands which have no communications with other 

 countries. 



Strawberry — Fragaria vesca, Linnaeus. 



Our common strawberry is one of the most widely 

 diffused plants, partly owing to the small size of its seeds, 

 which birds, attracted by the fleshy part on which they 

 are found, carry to great distances. 



It grows wild in Europe, from Lapland and the 

 Shetland Isles ^ to the mountain ranges in the south ; 

 in Madeira, Spain, Sicily, and in Greece.* It is also 

 found in Asia, from Armenia and the north of Syria ^ to 

 Dahuria. The strawberries of the Himalayas and of 

 Japan,^ which several authors have attributed to this 

 species, do not perhaps belong to it,*^ and this makes me 

 doubt the assertion of a missionary ^ that it is found in 

 China. It is wild in Iceland,^ in the north-east of the 

 United States,^^ round Fort Cumberland, and on the 

 north-west coast,-^^ perhaps even in the Sierra-Nevada of 



* There is a good coloured illustration in Tussac's Fl. des Antilles, 

 iii. pi. 28. 



* Boyer, Hortus Mauriticinus, p. 81. 



' H. C. Watson, Compendium Cyhele Brit., i. p. 160 ; Fries, Summn 

 Veg. Scand., p. 44. 



* Lowe, Man. Fl. of Madeira, p. 246 ; Willkomm and Lange, Prodr. 

 Fl. Hisp., iii. p. 224; Moris, J^. Sardoa, ii. p. 17. 



* Boissier, Fl. Orient. * Ledebour, Fl. Ross., ii. p. 64. 



' Gay ; Hooker, Fl. Brit. Ind., ii. p. 344 ; Franchet and Savatier, 

 Ewum. PI. Japan., i. p. 129. 



* Ferny, Fropag. de la Foi, quoted in Decaisne's Jardin Fruitier d'U 

 Mus., p. 27. Gay does not give China. 



* Babington, Joxivn. of Linncean Society, ii. p. 303; J. Gay. 



" Asa Gray, Botany of the Northern States, edit. 1868, p. 156. 

 " Sir W. Hooker, Fl. Bor. Amer., i. p. 184. 



