8o Floivers and their Pcdis'rces. 



III. 

 STRA W BERRIES. 



Side by side in our English hedgerows in early 

 springtime there grow two sister plants, almost exactly 

 alike in foliage, flower, and all other points except the 

 fruit, but differing widely from one another in that 

 solitary, and to us essential, particular. One of these 

 plants is the wild strawberry, the other is the little 

 three leaved, white potentilla. It is not often that a 

 parent species and its more developed offspring sur- 

 vive together in the same district, but this is almost 

 certainly the case with these two small English way- 

 side flowers. Indeed, the similarity between them is 

 so close that even the most unobservant passers-by 

 have been greatly struck with it ; and the common 

 native English name of the white potentilla — 'barren 

 strawberry ' — bears witness to the striking character 

 of the family likeness. Perhaps one ought rather to 

 go a step further, and to say that, while the most 

 unobservant have perceived the relationship, only the 

 more observant have ever discovered the distinctness 



