XXV.] ORIGIN OP THE PINE STRAWBERRY. 409 



the old Pine class, known to botanists as Fragaria 

 ananassa and F. grandiflora. Now the questions recur, 

 What is the Pine ? where did it come from ! how did 

 it originate ? Three hypotheses, as I have said, have 

 been advanced which an evolutionary review of this 

 subject is capable of considering. Is it (1) a hybrid? 

 (2) a direct development of the Chilian strawberry! 

 or (3) a modified form of our big wild strawberry, 

 Fragaria Virginiana var. IlUnoensisf 



1. Is the Pine a hybrid f The only reason ever 

 advanced for considering the Pine strawberry to be 

 a hybrid was the supposed impossibility of account- 

 ing for its attributes upon any other hypothesis. The 

 ideas of hybridity were indefinite in those times, and 

 intermediateness of characters was often supposed to 

 be enough — as it is, unfortunately, too often at the 

 present day — to establish a hybrid origin. In con- 

 sidering this matter, two questions at once arise : 

 (a) Does the Pine bear evidence of being a hybrid? 

 (6) Would hybrid characters perpetuate themselves? 

 I am wholly unable to find, either in herbarium speci- 

 mens of the plants themselves, or in the pictures of 

 the plants, any distinct evidences of hybridity. The 

 Pine strawberries differ from the Chilian chiefly in 

 their greater size, less hairiness and better fruit, and 

 sometimes by somewhat thinner leaves, although this 

 thinness of foliage is usually more apparent than real, 

 being due to the larger size and consequently greater 

 flexibility of the leaf without any real diminution in 

 substance ; and I have seen as thin leaves in wild 

 Fragaria Ghiloensis as in garden berries. But greater 

 size could scarcely be obtained from the smaller or at 

 least more slender Virginian strawberry, and better 



