Lib. of Agricul. and Hort. Knowl. (2nd ed.) p. 563. — Mark. Catal. of Plants of 
Irel. p. 49. ; FI. Hibern. pt. i. p. 92. — Fragaria, Ray’s Syn. p.254. — John- 
son’s Gerarde, p. 997. 
Localities.-* Woods and thickets; and on hedge-banks and heaths; common. 
Perennial. — Flowers in May, June, and July. 
Root somewhat woody, blackish, fibrous ; throwing out long, 
slender, trailing, hairy runners above ground, which take root at 
intervals, and produce new plants. Stems from 4 to 8 inches high, 
upright, slightly leafy, clothed with soft spreading hairs. Leaves 
mostly radical, on long channelled, hairy footstalks, ternate ; leaflets 
egg-shaped, serrated, pubescent beneath, the 2 lateral ones unequal 
at the base. Flowers panicled, or somewhat cymose, white, up- 
right, their common stalks (peduncles ) clothed with copious spread- 
ing hairs ; their partial ones (pedicels J with upright or close- 
pressed silky pubescence. Segments of the Calyx, especially the 
smaller or external ones, often cloven at the point. Fruit droop- 
ing, egg-shaped, deep scarlet, pulpy, studded with the small smooth 
seeds or nuts. 
The fruit (which is the fleshy receptacle of the seeds become 
enlarged and pulpy) is fragrant, gratefully acid and aromatic, and 
from its cooling quality is particularly acceptable in Summer. Eaten 
either alone, or with sugar and cream, there are few constitutions 
with which strawberries, even when taken in large quantities, are 
found to disagree. Further, they have properties which render 
them in most conditions of the animal frame positively salutary ; 
and Physicians concur in placing them in their small catalogue of 
pleasant remedies. They promote perspiration, and dissolve the 
tartarous incrustations of the teeth. Persons afflicted with the gout 
or stone have found relief from using them very largely ; and 
Hoffman says, he has known consumptive people cured by them. 
The bark of the root is astringent. 
Many varieties of the Wood Strawberry are cultivated in gardens. Mr. Neill 
informs us, in his Horticultural Tour in Flanders, Holland, and France, 
p. 210, that at the Hague, Leyden, and Haarlem, the native species, Fragaria 
vesca, is preferred for culture, and is there very generally known by the name of 
Boskoeper strawberry, from the circumstance of the plants being procured from 
the woods at Boskoop. It is found to possess, with proper treatment, the pro- 
perty of continuing very long in fruit, like the Alpine Strawberry in England. 
At Haarlem, the fruit is sometimes gathered for nine months in succession, from 
March till November ; but it is to be understood, that different lines of the plants 
have been dressed at different periods of the season, and that attention has been 
paid to watering the rows during the parching droughts in summer. The culti- 
vated plants are regarded as exhausted after the second year ; they are therefore 
rooted up and destroyed, and a new supply is obtained from Boskoop. 
Two minute, parasitic fungi, Arigma obtusatum, Hook. Brit. FI. v. ii. pt. n. 
p. 359; and Uredo Potentilldrum, ibid. p. 382 ; are found, occasionally, on the 
leaves of this species of Fragaria ; but they are both much more common on 
the leaves of Potentilla Fragariastrum. 
Mr. Nelson, a very intelligent man, and an excellent gardener, who has, for 
nearly 40 years, had the management of the gardens of A. Grimes, Esq. of 
Coton House, near Rugby, in Warwickshire, informed me, in 1831, that the 
Hautboy strawberry, Fragaria elatior, was growing wild in the plantations 
and spinnies about that place, in such abundance, that he usually procured it 
from thence to cultivate in his garden. 
