HISTORY OF THE STRAWBERRY. 191 



which have been found efficient for the destruction of insects are 

 never tried in the public grounds. 



The meeting was then dissolved. 



The Committee on Publication and Discussion take pleasure in 

 publishing the following paper, the author of which has given much 

 study to the history of our cultivated fruits and vegetables. 



Notes on the History of thb Strawberry. 



By E. Lewis Sturtevant, M, D., South Framingham, Mass. 



The Latin word for the Strawberrj', Fraga, has given name to 

 the botanical genus Fragaria, which includes our edible species. 

 Euellius, in 1536, says the French word fresas was applied to the 

 fruit on account of the excellent sweetness of its odor (odore 

 suavissimum) and taste; in 1554 this was spelled frayses by 

 Amatus Lusitanicus, but the modern word fraise appeared in the 

 form /raises, in Fuchsius in 1542, and Estienne, 1545. The 

 Italian //•a.g'/te and fragole, as used by Matthiolus in 1571, and 

 fragola as used bj- Zvingerus in 1696 and the modern Italians, 

 appear to have come directly from the Latin ; while the Spanish 

 fresa and fresera must have had the same immediate origin as the 

 French. Some of the ancient commentators and botanists seem 

 to have derived the Latin name from fragrans^ sweet-smelling, for 

 Turner in his "Libellus," 1538, says ^'■fragum non fragrum (ut qui- 

 dam scioli scribunt)," and Amatus Lusitanicus in 1554 writes/raf/?-a. 

 The latter quotes Servius, a grammarian of the fifteenth century 

 as calling the fruit terrestria mora, — earth-mulberry, — (or, follow- 

 ing Dorstenius who wrote in 1540, ''fructus terrae et mora 

 terrestria)," whence the Spanish and Portuguese murangaos, (the 

 modern Portuguese moranguoiro) . The manner of the fruit-bearing, 

 near the ground, seems to have been the character of the plant 

 more generally observed, however, than that of the fruit, for we 

 have Virgil's verse, " humi nascentia fraga," child of the soil, 

 and Pliny's epithet, " terrestribus fragis," ground strawberr}', as 

 distinguishing from the Arbutus unedo, L. or strawberry tree, as also 

 the modern vernacular appellations, such as the Belgian eertbesien, 



