Cultivated-Plant Study 



673 



Strawberry leaf. 



Pistillate flower above. 

 Perfect flower below. 



The strawberry leaf is beautiful ; each of its three leaflets is oval, deeply 

 toothed, and has strong regular veins extending from the midrib to the 

 tip of each tooth. In color it is rich, dark green and turns to wine-color 

 in autumn. It has a very 

 pretty way of coming out 

 of its hairy bud scales, each 

 leaflet folded lengthwise 

 and the three pressed to- 

 gether. Its whole appear- 

 ance then, is infantile in 

 the extreme, it is so soft 

 and helpless looking. But 

 it soon opens out on its 

 pink, downy stem and 

 shows the world how beau- 

 tiful a leaf can be. 



If a comparison of the 

 wild and cultivated straw- 

 berries is practicable, it 

 makes this lesson more in- 

 teresting. Much tillage an d food have caused the cultivated blossoms to 

 double, and they may often have seven or eight petals. And while the 

 wild flowers are usually perfect, many cultivated varieties have the pollen 

 and pistils borne in different flowers, and they depend upon the bees to 

 carry their pollen. The blossom stem of the garden strawberry is round, 

 smooth and quite strong, holding its branching panicle of flowers erect, 

 and it is usually shorter than the leaf stems among which it nestles. The 

 flowers open in a series, so that ripe and green fruit, flowers and buds may 

 often be found on the same stem. As the strawberry ripens, the petals 

 and stamens wither and fall away; the green calyx remains as the hull, 

 which holds in its cup the pyramid of pistils which swell and ripen into the 

 juicy fruit. To the iDOtanists the strawberry is not a berry, that definition 

 being limited to fruits having a juicy pulp and containing many seeds, 

 like the currant or grape. The strawberry is a fleshy fruit bearing its 

 seed in shallow pits on its surface. These seeds are so small that we do 

 not notice them when eating the fruit, but each one is a tiny nut, almond- 

 shaped, and containing within its tough, little shell a starchy meat to sus- 

 tain the future plant which may grow from it. It is by planting these 

 seeds that growers obtain new varieties. 



The root of the strawberry is fibrous and threadlike. When growers 

 desire plants for setting new strawberry beds they are careful to take only 

 such as have light colored and fresh-looking roots. On old plants the 

 roots are rather black and woody and are not so vigorous. 



The stem of the strawberry is partially underground and so short as to 

 be unnoticeable. However, the leaves grow upon it alternately one above 

 another, so that the crown rises as it grows. The base of each leaf has a 

 broad, clasping sheath which partly encircles the plant and extends 

 upward in a pair of earlike stipules. 



The runners begin to grow after the fruiting season has closed; they 

 originate from the upper part of the crown; they are strong, fibrous and 

 hairy when young. Some are short between joints, others seem to reach 

 far out as if seeking for the best location before striking root ; a young 



