344 LI. EOSACEJ!. (J. D. Hooker.) \_Fragana. 



or doubly crenate or toothed or serrate, base cuneate entire, nerves parallel ; petiole 

 1-5 in., very slender ; stipules leafy, toothed. Veduncles very slender, equalling the 

 petioles, D£Lked. Flowers J-1 in. diam. Calyx-hbea ovate or lanceolate ; bracteoles 

 narrow or broad, often greatly exceeding the ealyx-lobes, rarely quite entire. Petals 

 obovate, cordate, yellow. Fruit spherical or oblong, bright red, spongy, insipid; 

 achenes minute, obscurely pitted. 



A very variable plant. I refer Potentilla denticvlosa doubtfully to it on the 

 authority of J. Gay (in Herb.), who has further verified the reference of the Ameri- 

 can P. Dv/randii to F. indica ; M. E. Durand in 1860 having informed him that this 

 plant was sent to him from Savannah, where it grew in the streets, and was no doubt 

 introduced. 



** Flowers white. 



2. P. vesca, Linn. ; leaflets sessile or nearly so many-toothed, fruit 

 glotose or subglobose, calyx-teeth usually entire. 



Vah. nvMcola ; slender, silvery, nearly glabrous, runners filiform, hairs on peti- 

 oles and few flowered peduncles appressed, calyx-lobes narrow spreading in fruit. F. 

 nnbicola, lAndl. in Wall. Cat. 1238. 



Vae. .' collina, slender or stout runners with spreading hairs, hairs on petioles and 

 few- or many-fiowered peduncles more copious spreading, calyx-lobes narrow or broad 

 spreading or suberect in fruit. 



Temperate Himalaya, from Mdekeb and KASHMiH,alt.'5— 10,000 ft., to Stuktm, alt. 

 6-13,000 ft. — DisTBiB. F. vesca, Affghanistan, Java, N. temp, zone. 



I am quite unable to identify the Indian strawberries by means of the characters 

 given by authors to the European species, which differ in their several works. F. vesca 

 is defined by Boissier (Fl. Orient.) as having the petioles with spreading hairs, and the 

 peduncles with spreading or appressed ones ; Ledebour (Fl. Eoss,) describes the hairs 

 of its peduncles as appressed, and Decaisne (Jardin fruitier) as spreading. In the 

 common Himalayan Fragaria the hairs pf both petals and peduncles are appressed in 

 some forms, in others those of the petiole are spreading and of the peduncle appressed, 

 and in still others both petiole and peduncle have spreading hairs. As the specimens 

 with most appressed hairs appear from dried specimens to have spreading calyx-lobes 

 I have referred them to E. vesca as var. nvMgena. I must remark however that J. 

 Gray, who was the greatest living authority on Fragaria, and to whom I sent a series 

 of specimens, has regarded most of them as F. coUma, but evidently with doubt ; for a 

 Simla and a Kashmir specimen he tickets F. collina ? and then crosses out the mark 

 of interrogation, and a Kishtwar specimen he tickets first elatior? and then crosses that 

 name out substituting coZ^ZMff .^ and finally crosses out the mark of interrogation: of those 

 marked collina by Gay ; some have appressed, others spreading hairs on both pedun- 

 cle and petiole. The Sikkim specimens, again, which I describe above as var. nubi- 

 cola, are marked F. vesca without a doubt by M. Gay. This slender silvery form 

 occurs throughout the temperate Himalaya ; it has often small accessory pinnules on 

 the petiole fer below the tip and toothed or entire calyx-lobes. 



3. P. nilgrerrensis, ScMdl. in Hohenack. Plant. Ind. Or. Bxsicc. No. 

 1518 ; very robust, runners petioles and peduncles clothed with long stout spread- 

 ing hairs, fruit suhglobose or depressed, calyx-lobes entire spreading or suberect 

 in fruit. J. Oay in Ann. Sc. Nat. Ser. 4, viii. 206. F. elatior, Wight l^ Am. 

 Prodr. 300 ; Wight Ic. t. 988. 



Khasia Mts., alt. 5000 ft. J. D. H. # T. T. NitoHiEi Mts., Wight, &c. 



This win probably prove to be another form of F. vesca, and I iind an approach 

 to it amongst the Himalayan specimens of that plant ; and there are specimens of it 

 marked as from Sikkim in Griffiths' collection, but they are probably from Khasia 

 and mislabelled. Gay who elaborately describes it says that the calyx-lobes are erect ; 

 this they seem to be in dried specimens, but Wight's excellent figure (which Gay does 

 not refer to) shows them to be spreading. The fruit is white with a pale pink tint, 

 and not worth eating ; it is globose and inclined to be conoidal in the Nilghiris, but 

 a vezy depressed sphere in Khasia. 



