XXV.] EARLY STRAWBERRY HISTORY. 401 



type of plant, taking place under our very eyes : 

 whilst the botanists have written precise histories 

 of its successive progresses, the reasons and methods 

 of its development have escaped them. Perhaps there 

 is no other plant which has more quickly obscured 

 its own origin, or in which the speculative evolu- 

 tionist can find stronger proof of the instability and 

 elasticity of plants. 



I have said that the history of the strawberry is 

 well known. There has been a careful record from 

 the time Casper Bauhin and his contemporaries wrote 

 their voluminous herbals. We cannot expect, at this 

 time, therefore, to add anything to this long and 

 consequential record. We must accept the history 

 essentially as we find it. But it is possible that we 

 shall be able to elucidate the evolution of the straw- 

 berry by the application of some of the principles of 

 plant variation, the knowledge of which is now suf- 

 ficient to warrant a constructive retrospect. At all 

 events, if these laws cannot solve the general prob- 

 lem of the evolution of the strawberry, we must con- 

 tinue to remain in ignorance of its birth and depart- 

 ure. This inquiry will be all the more interesting, 

 also, from the fact that the first monographer of the 

 strawberries, Duchesne, in 1766, made an attempt to 

 explain the origin of known species from the Alpine 

 or Everbearing strawberries of Europe, and this 

 essay, which has apparently not attracted the atten- 

 tion of modern philosophers, is one of the earliest 

 efforts to account for the origin of organisms by 

 means of a course of evolution. 



It is necessary at the outset to eliminate the so- 

 called European types of strawberries from our in- 

 26 suR. 



