STRAWBERRY. 329 



The stem is herbaceous, erect, simple, pubescent, and about 

 six inches in height. The leaves are ternate, on long petioles, 

 with two lanceolate acute stipulse at the base ; the leaflets 

 ovate, obtuse, inciso-serrate, smooth above, glaucous, nerved, 

 and clothed with silky hairs beneath. The flowers are axillary, 

 solitary, on long drooping naked peduncles. The calyx is ten- 

 cleft, spreading ; persistent, and at length reflexed ; five of the 

 segments ovate, mucronate ; the alternate five lanceolate, acute 

 exterior. The petals are five, white, roundish-obovate, obtuse, 

 repand, spreading, inserted into the calyx. The stamens are 

 numerous, with rather short subulate filaments inserted into 

 the calyx, tipped with cordate erect anthers. The germens are 

 numerous, ovate, obtuse, aggregated on a roundish receptacle ; 

 the styles are rather thick, short, proceeding laterally from 

 the germens, tipped with truncate stigmas. The fruit, called a 

 berry, is roundish, obtuse, scarlet, rarely white, consisting of a 

 fleshy succulent substance, (the enlarged receptacle,) upon the 

 surface of which are scattered the pericarps or carpels, (usually 

 called seeds). The carpels are small, shining, ovate, somewhat 

 compressed, deciduous, containing a single pendulous seed. 

 Plate 43, fig. 1, (a) vertical section of a flower ; (b) fruit, cut 

 longitudinally ; (c) pistil ; (d) carpel, isolated. 



This well known plant, a native of most parts of Europe, 

 is very abundant in woods and thickets in this country, flower- 

 ing in May and June. 



The generic name is derived from fragro, to be fragrant, be- 

 cause of the sweet odour of the fruit ; and the specific appel- 

 lation from vescus, edible. The English name Strawberry, ap- 

 pears to be a corruption of stray-berry, so called in allusion 

 to the trailing runners, which stray, as it were, in all directions, 

 from the parent stock. John Lydgate, (who died in 1483,) in 

 his poem called "London Lyckpenny," writes the word stra- 

 berry. 



It is astonishing that so delicious a fruit as this should have 

 been neglected by the ancients, for we can hardly suppose that 

 it was unknown to them. Even Pliny scarcely mentions it, and 

 Ovid and Virgil* only speak of it as a wild fruit. The mo- 



* Eel. iii. v. 92. " humi nascentia fraga." This is the only occasion on 

 which he mentions it, but the language is too characteristic to be misun- 

 derstood. 



