Varieties 237 



It is when the plants come into bloom that anyone can 

 tell whether the flowers of a given variety of strawberry 

 are perfect or imperfect. The "staminate," "male" or per- 

 fect flowered kinds will be found to have a number of yel- 

 low or greenish yellow bodies on little short stems sur- 

 rounding a central green, cone-shaped body, which can be 

 readily recognized as an immature strawberry. These yel- 

 low bodies are the "anthers" or pollen producing organs, 

 and such flowers are able to produce fruit without the ne- 

 cessity of mating them with other kinds. But those flow- 

 ers from which the anthers are missing must be planted 

 close to pollen-producing kinds before there will be any 

 fruit produced. 



Many of the most desirable varieties of strawberries 

 produce these imperfect flowers, so that to get a crop of 

 fruit they must be mated with some kind which will pro- 

 duce an ample supply of pollen for itself and for the im- 

 perfect flowered kind. In setting out such a plantation it 

 is found satisfactory to plant one row of the perfect flow- 

 ered kind and two rows of the imperfect. In this way 

 there will be one row of staminate plants between two rows 

 of imperfect flowered varieties. The pollen which is pro- 

 duced by the stamen bearing flowers will be carried to 

 the non-staminate kind by insects which visit the flowers. 

 The common honey bee is the most industrious in perform- 

 ing this valuable work, although a number of flies and 

 other kinds of insects no doubt help out. On warm days 

 the wind may also help out in carrying the pollen, as some 

 of it is undoubtedly blown from plant to plant and row to 

 row, but in order to obtain the best results with pistillate 

 varieties it is essential that the pollen-producing sort be 

 one that blossoms at the same time as the staminate kind. 



Varieties 



The question as to what kind of strawberries to plant 

 is not easily answered, so far as the home garden is con- 

 cerned, although it is somewhat easier for the commer- 

 cial plantation. In the catalogue of every dealer in straw- 

 berry plants there is a long list of varieties with tempting 



