222 



TREATISE ON FRUIT TREES. 



contain not only a flower & branches but also another bud or rudiments capable of 

 perpetuating the plant. 



5°. The flowers consist of 1°. a calyx in one piece divided around its margin into 

 ten long sections that come to a point. The five smaller ones on the outside cover the 

 separations between the large ones. The latter consistently maintain their size & shape. 

 The small sections often vary. Some split at the tip into several points. On vigorous 

 strawberry plants, others grow to a considerable size & then degenerate into sectioned 

 membranes resembling the ochreas on the nodes of upright shoots. Some of them change 

 into a small leaf that is simple or lobed, or that has two leaflets six to eight lignes long, 

 dentate, well formed, & held on a petiole one or two lignes long. 2°. five white petals, 

 slightly hollowed spoonlike, & attached by extremely short ungues to the inside edges of 

 the calyx where the large sections divide. Their shape varies according to their type. 

 Often it's the same as that of the fruit: round when the fruit is spherical, ovoid when the 

 fruit is something like the shape of a truncated egg. So the shape of the fruit sometimes 

 can be predicted by that of the petals, in the same way that their color corresponds to that 

 of the points of the teeth on the leaves. Generally the flowers that emerge from the first 

 nodes on the stem of a vigorous strawberry plant have more sections & petals. Sometimes 

 there are more petals than there are large sections, & in that case these supernumerary 

 petals are located in a second row in front of the others. 3°. about twenty stamens * with 

 different lengths & orientations. 



* The number of stamens varies according to the number 

 & the arrangement of the petals & the type of the strawberry 

 plant. In flowers of European strawberry plants, there usually 

 arc four stamens for each evenly placed petal. 



In those of American strawberry plants there 

 are five or six. Thus the flowers of the latter with 

 five petals have twenty-five to thirty stamens, & 

 those with seven petals have from thiry-fivc to 

 forty-two of them. 



