546 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



was for long called the Surinam Strawberry. The Comte de Lam- 

 bertye, the great historian of the Strawberry, leaves the question 

 of origin undecided. There is, I think, no doubt that it is a seedling 

 of F. chiloensis, and a passage in Duchesne's Histoire des Fraisiers, 

 which seems to have been overlooked by previous writers, establishes 

 the point. In a note of recent observations printed at the end of 

 his book the following passage occurs : " Les graines des Frutilles 

 envoyees de Cherbourg en 1764, et semees tant dans notre jardin 

 qu'a Trianon et au jardin du Roi, y ont produit de veritables Fraisiers- 

 ananas. Nous venons de l'observer dans leurs premieres fleurs, qui 

 sont hermaphrodites parfaites. Cela nous apprend l'origine du 

 Fraisier-ananas, et quelle est la degeneration ordinaire du Frutiller en 

 Europe." 



Other varieties which showed evidence of descent from this species 

 were the ' Carolina ' and the ' Bath,' and F. grandiflora. The differ- 

 ences between these varieties were very small, and constant confusion 

 resulted as to which was the true type. Lambertye considered them 

 identical. 



Having now described the introduction of the species which 

 provided the material from which the Strawberry of our time has 

 been derived, it remains to show the means by which this has been 

 raised to its present perfection, and to say something about the workers 

 to whom it was due. 



Though the fact of the separation of the sexes in plants had been 

 partly realized by the Egyptians and Greeks, it was not fully under- 

 stood until much later days. Bacon, in his Natural History, saw 

 the possibilities of cross-fertilizing for the production of new varieties, 

 but his suggestion bore no fruit until the experiments of Bradley 

 and Miller in the eighteenth century. These were, however, con- 

 cerned with flowers, and it is probable that the first crossings of 

 fruits were made by Duchesne (fig. 1C9), whose Histoire Naturelle des 

 Fraisiers forms the starting-point of the literature of the Strawberry. 

 This remarkable writer was born in 1741 at Versailles, where his father 

 was Inspector of Buildings. The wonderful horticultural collections 

 in the gardens of the Trianon were at the disposal of the young student 

 of botany, and to such good use were they put that at the age of 

 seventeen he published his first work, the Manuel de Botanique, and 

 two years later his monograph on the Strawberry appeared. In 

 this work the varieties of this fruit are described with the greatest 

 minuteness and an attempt is also made to classify them genea- 

 logically, a notable undertaking when the current botanical doctrine 

 of constancy of species is considered. 



In other ways Duchesne showed great independence of mind, 

 and to devote a book to the accurate description of garden plants at 

 the time of Linnaeus was in itself a bold departure. As an example 

 of careful observation his study of the cause of sterility of the ' Haut- 

 bois ' may be quoted. Current opinion held that this fruit was de- 

 generating, as it was becoming less fruitful. Duchesne was able to 



