XXV.] VARIATION OF THE CHILIAN SPECIES. 411 



is the common and potent means of the evolution 

 and amelioration of plants. Hybridization rarely 

 effects a permanent evolution of types. To suppose 

 that the Chilian strawberry should have varied into 

 the type of the common strawberry is in accord with 

 all the methods of nature. But there are two con- 

 siderations which convince me beyond all question 

 that cultivated strawberries belong to Fmgaria Chi- 

 loensis : (a) Their botanical characters, which I 

 shall discuss more fully in the next paragraph (3), 

 and (&) direct experiment. The experiment which 

 I now record I consider to be of great importance. 

 In 1890, I sent to Oregon for wild plants of Fragaria 

 Chiloensis. The strawberries which I secured were 

 short, stocky, thick -leaved, hairy, evergreen plants, 

 at once distinguishable from the garden sorts. They 

 were planted in a spot convenient for observation. I 

 pressed one of the original plants, and have taken 

 specimens from time to time since. A specimen taken 

 in May, 1891, is scarcely distinguishable from the 

 wild plants set the year before, but specimens secured 

 in July of the same year show the longer stalks and 

 larger leaves of garden strawberries ; while an aver- 

 age specimen taken in June, 1892, is indistinguishable 

 from common cultivated varieties in botanical fea- 

 tures ! Here, then, is a change in two years, and not 

 by seeds, either, but in the same original plants or 

 their offshoots. This change, while remarkable, is 

 still not unintelligible, for I have seen many cases of 

 as great modification in plants under cultivation ; 

 and the Chilian strawberry is widely variable in its 

 wild state. Barnet has inadvertently recorded a dis- 

 tinct departure from the type of the Chilian plant. 



