136 hee? THE ROSE FAMILY. [ Fragaria. 
VI. FRAGARIA. STRAWBERRY. 7 
Habit, foliage, and flowers of Potentilla, but the fruit is succulent, formed 
of the enlarged succulent receptacle, studded on .the outside with the 
numerous minute, 1-seeded carpels, looking like seeds. 
A genus spread over nearly the whole of the northern hemisphere without 
the tropics, where it consists, perhaps, but of a single species, and repre- 
sented again by a nearly allied but possibly distinct species in southern 
extra-tropical America. 
1, FE. vesca, Linn. (fig. 311). Common Strawberry, Strawberry.—A 
short, perennial, tufted stock often emits slender runners, rooting and form- 
ing new plants at every node. Leaves mostly radical, more or less clothed 
with soft, silky hairs, consisting of 3 ovate, toothed leaflets at the end of a 
long leafstalk. Flower-stems radical, erect, leafless, or with 1 or 2 usually 
undivided leaves, 3 to 6 inches high or rarely more, bearing a small number 
of pedicellate white flowers. Fruit usually red. 
In woods, bushy pastures, and under hedges, throughout Europe and 
Russian and central Asia and in northern America, extending to the Arctic 
regions. Abundantin Britain. Fl. nearly the whole season. The hautboy, 
a rather taller variety, with fewer runners and flowers, usually entirely 
or partially unisexual, and fruit without carpels round its base, has been 
distinguished as a species under the name of /. edatior, Ehrh. ; and several 
other wild or cultivated varieties have been proposed as species, but the 
great facility with which fertile cross-breeds are produced, gives reason to 
suspect that the whole genus, including even the Chilian Pine Strawberry, 
may prove to consist but of one species. 
VII. POTENTILLA. POTENTIL. 
Herbs, with a perennial, tufted stock, and occasionally a creeping root- 
stock or runners. Flowering stems usually annual, often very short, rarely 
perennial or partially shrubby. Leaves of 3 or more digitate or pinnate, 
distinct segments or leaflets. Peduncles 1-flowered, solitary, or forming a 
dichotomous cyme at the ends of the stem. Calyx free, double, that is, of 
twice as many divisions as there are petals, the alternate ones outside the 
others and usually smaller. Petals 5 or rarely 4. Stamens numerous. 
Carpels numerous, small, 1-seeded and seed-like, crowded on a receptacle 
which enlarges but slightly, and rarely becomes spongy, never succulent. 
The species are numerous, extending over the whole of the northern 
hemisphere without the tropics, especially in Europe and Asia, penetrating 
into the Arctic regions, and descending along the mountain-ranges of 
America to its southern extremity. The genus, already extended by the 
admission of Zormentilla and Comarum, would, perhaps, be still better 
defined if Fragariaiand Sibbaldia were likewise included. It would then 
comprise all Hosacee with a double calyx, numerous, distinct, 1-seeded 
carpels, not enclosed in its tube, and the styles not transformed into long, 
feathery beaks or awns. 
Leaves digitately divided. 
Flowers white . . 
Flowers yellow. 
Petals 4 in all, or nearly all, the flowers . 5 -  . 8. P. Tormentilla, 
Petals 5 in all, or nearly all, the flowers. 
Leaves very white underneath. . ‘ f : . 4. P argentea. 
. 1, P. Fragariastrum. 
