FRAG A RI A, STRAWBERRY PLANT. 



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Some lean on the petals, others are close to the pistil. They terminate in light yellow tips. 

 4°. the center of the flower is filled with one or several threads of contiguous pistils. 

 They're gathered on a fleshy hemispheric receptacle, or more often on one that's 

 elongated & terminates in a blunt point. Each pistil consists of an ovary with a small style 

 set on top of it, surmounted by a stigma. The styles fall off or detach easily when the fruit 

 ripens. The size of the flower varies according to the type, the vigor of the strawberry 

 plant. & which node on the stem they emerge from. Those originating from the first 

 nodes are the largest (these are the ones that we'll describe). Those terminating the final 

 branches are the smallest. 



6°. The receptacle enlarges & becomes a soft, succulent fruit whose size, color, 

 flavor, & fragrance differ with the type & cultivation, Strawberries that grow from the 

 first nodes of the upright shoots are the biggest, & some types often have a crooked & 

 uneven shape. The flowers of these distorted fruits almost always have more than five 

 petals. So there's reason to believe that these strawberries are rather like the angular 

 Seville oranges that ordinarily have as many excrescences as there were supernumerary 

 petals in their flowers. The seeds or pips are on the surface of the strawberry, sometimes 

 completely protruding, sometimes in rather indented recesses, depending on the type & 

 distension of the fruit. 



The flowers of European strawberry plants that have five petal 

 (they're by far the most common) have only twenty stamens. I 

 said evenly placed petals, as they arc in all flowers that have 

 five petals. But when supernumerary petals are in a second row 

 in front of the others, each one of the supernumerary petals 

 has one or two fewer stamens. 



Sometimes these petals arc situated behind the 

 regular ones. In that case there is no reduction 

 at all in the number of stamens. There are exceptions 

 to this observation. & it doesn't apply to the terminal 

 flowers at the tip of the upright shoots, where these 

 components have no definite size nor number. 



