STRELITZIA OF ECONOMIC PLANTS. 395 



in baskets carried by women on their heads. These carriers 

 were principally from Shropshire, and found employment in the 

 market gardens in the neighbourhood of London duiing the 

 summer season ; and it was a curious sight to see twenty or 

 thirty Shropshire girls, as they were called, marching along in a 

 line with their baskets sitting freely on their heads. It is 

 proper to explain that the fruit of the strawberry, so called, is 

 not a fruit but a fleshy receptacle, the so-called seeds seated 

 on the outside of the pulp being the true fruits. The strawberry 

 is one of the most wholesome of fruits. Besides being eaten fresh 

 by all classes during the season, immense quantities are made into 

 jam and preserves, one firm in London in 1873 using 200 tons. 



Strawberry Tree. {See Arbutus.) 



Strelitzia, a genus of the Banana family (Musacese), natives 

 of South Africa. They possess no economic properties, but 

 are remarkable plants. 1. Strelitzia cfAcgustahdiS a palm-like stem, 

 in its native country attaining a height of 20 or more feet, 

 and a foot in diameter. It has large distichous leaves, the 

 general habit of the plant being similar to that of the Traveller 

 Tree (JJrania), It produces its flowers in a sheath at the base 

 of the leaves ; they are small, white, and inconspicuous, con- 

 sidering the magnitude of the plant. Its stem is not solid as in 

 that of the Traveller Tree, and both in its native country and 

 tinder cultivation, when attaining above 20 feet in height, its 

 w^eighty crown of leaves causes it to break over. A plant at 

 Kew being supported attained the height of 34 feet, and was 

 still progressing when it was ordered to be cut down. The 

 seeds, like those of Urania, are furnished with a woolly arillus, 

 those of Strelitzia being red, and those of Urania blue. 2. Stre- 

 litzia regince, — This differs entirely from the preceding in having 

 no arborescent stem. It has firm, oval, elliptical, glaucous 

 leaves, borne on long foot-stalks, about 3| to 4 feet high, which 

 rise direct from the ground in casspitose tufts. The flower- 

 stem also rises direct from the ground, bearing on its apex an 

 open sheath, containing many flowers of orange and purple tints, 

 which, with the peculiar form, make the plant very attractive. 



