FRAG ARIA, STRAWBERRY PLANT. 221 



All these irregularities & variations found on leaves of the strawberry plant depend more 

 on the strength of the plant or on specific circumstances than they do on the kind of plant. 

 But there's an unchanging variety of strawberry plant with simple & entire leaves that 

 we'll describe below. 



4°. When the strawberry plants have gained the required strength, upright shoots, 

 stems, or cylindrical fruiting branches emerge from the centers of the offshoots or from 

 the main stems. These are thicker than runners and are oriented vertically. The first node 

 on this stem has an ochrea consisting of one, & more often of two, opposite membranes, 

 one of which is long & terminates in a sharp point. The other sometimes has the same 

 shape & size; occasionally it's much larger & is indented into three or five sections. 

 Frequently one of the two, like a stipule, is associated with the very short stalk of a 

 simple leaf, or of one that has two or three leaflets, originating from the node. A single 

 flower supported on a long pedicel emerges from the ochrea, & one or several branches 

 that in turn subdivide into several more with the same accessories. The latter also branch 

 out until nothing more emerges from the node than the flowers that terminate the final 

 branches of the upright. After this stem has yielded its final fruits, it dries up & dies, as 

 does the offshoot that produced it. The dormant buds below this offshoot then open up & 

 form one or several more of them, unless the plant perishes from deterioration or an 

 accident, or some other cause disrupts this normal progression. Sometimes on vigorous 

 strawberry plants the upright shoots bend backward to the ground, or the leaves on the 

 plants protect them from the heat of the sun & from drying out. Far from dying, the plants 

 then put out leaves & roots from their first nodes & give rise to new plants as runners do. 

 One can infer from this that the ochreas on the stems 



