94 Flowers and their Pedigrees. 



colour are produced in the outer coat of the little nut- 

 lets themselves, and the receptacle assumes the form 

 of the hull, which we pull out of the fruit and throw 

 away. In the plum, there is only one such berry, 

 inclosing a single seed. But in the strawberry, the 

 separate fruits remain always hard and dry, and it is 

 only the receptacle which holds them that swells out 

 into the bright-coloured and juicy edible portion. 



It very seldom happens, however, that a plant 

 which has diverged from another in one point remains 

 constant in all other points. In the strawberry this 

 is almost the case, for it hardly differs at all in any 

 particular, save its fruit, from its ancestor, the white 

 potentilla ; and that is good evidence, it seems to me, 

 that the two plants cannot very long have separated 

 from one another. Yet even here there are a few 

 inconspicuous lateral differences. Most notable of 

 these are the variations in the flower. Though to a 

 casual observe^the two blossoms look almost identical, 

 and the plants can only readily be identified when in 

 fruit, a botanical eye has never any difficulty in' dis- 

 tinguishing the one from the other. The petals of the 

 barren strawberry are usually short and narrow, the 

 flowers scarcely open into more than a cup shape, 

 and there is a good deal of yellowish or reddish 

 colour about the receptacle and the base of the 



