412 THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNLIKE. [xXV. 



for he says that while this strawberry usually loses 

 its leaves in winter, the varieties which have been 

 bred from it keep their leaves. This change in my 

 plants is due primarily, no doubt, to a greater amount 

 of food, arising from the greater space which the 

 plants are allowed to occupy ; and it is possible that 

 other environments may have assisted in the trans- 

 formation. Having this experimental evidence, which 

 so forcibly supplements direct botanical evidence and 

 so well emphasizes the known laws of plant variation, 

 I can no longer doubt that the garden strawberries 

 are Fragaria Ghiloensis, that the early botanists did 

 not recognize the garden type as a departure from 

 this species, and that this type has finally driven 

 from cultivation the forms of Fragaria Virginiana. 

 And I am glad to know that so great an authority 

 as the elder De Candolle accepted the opinion of 

 Seringe (1825) that the Pine, Bath Scarlet and Black 

 strawberries belong to the Chilian species, for the 

 Prodromus makes Duchesne's Fragaria ananassa, F. 

 calyculata and F. tincta all varieties of the Chilian 

 plant. This was evidently the opinion of the Dutch 

 plantsmen of the middle of the last century, also, for 

 even before Duchesne described the Pine strawberry, 

 these merchants sold it under the name of Fragaria 

 Ghiloensis ananceformis , indicating that it was re- 

 garded as a form of the Chilian species. And 

 Duhamel, towards the close of the last century, said 

 that the Pine could be raised from seeds of the 

 Chilian. It is evident, however, that Seringe did not 

 mean to say that all the large garden strawberries 

 are offshoots of the Chilian species, for he has a 

 variety Jiybrida of Fragaria Virginiana, which is a 



