CXX.— THE WILD STRAWBERRY. 
Fragaria vesca Linne. 
T he Sub-Tribe Potenlillitue^ which includes the genera Fragaria and Potentilla^ 
shares, of course, the characters distinctive of the whole Tribe Potentille<£ and 
of the Sub-Family Rosoide^. Its members have, that is, an indefinite number of 
one-seeded carpels collected together in an etaerio. They are distinguished from 
the Sub-Tribe Ruhina by the possession of an epicalyx, and by the carpels becoming, 
not drupels, but dry achenes ; and from the ^nh-Tr\ht Dry adin^e by the styles not 
elongating after the flower stage. 
The genus Fragaria is distinguished from the otherwise nearly allied genus 
Potentilla^ as well as from all others, by the remarkable large fleshy outgrowth from 
the floral receptacle which forms after fertilisation below the carpels. It comprises 
about eight species, natives of the North Temperate Zone ; but extending into the 
Andes, the Sandwich Islands, and Reunion, three significant extensions southward. 
They are all perennial herbaceous plants, bearing radical leaves and flowering 
scapes on a subterranean rhizome ; while they reproduce themselves freely in a 
vegetative manner by the formation of numerous slender runners, with long 
internodes, rooting and shooting at the nodes and thus producing numerous young 
plants at some distance from the parent, which in time become independent. 
Strawberries are thus enabled to hold their own even amongst grass, and sometimes 
to dominate the ground vegetation of woodland. The runner or stolon springs from 
the axil of a radical leaf and is continued by an axillary shoot at the second node, 
thus forming a sympodially cymose branch-system, whilst it bears a single scale-leaf 
at the first and other intermediate nodes. The leaves, which in our one British 
species, Fragaria vesca Linne, are ternate, may also be pinnate or simple. They 
have stipules adnate to their petioles. The inferior calyx is a cup of five united 
sepals which persist in the fruit stage ; and the five-leaved epicalyx immediately 
below it, and closely resembling it, probably represents five pairs of stipules, a pair 
to each sepal, one of each pair being united to one of those belonging to the next 
sepal. The function of this epicalyx may be to act as an additional protection for 
the honey against crawling or boring “ unbidden guests.” The five petals, white in 
our species, are in other cases yellow, and are obovate with a short claw. The 
numerous stamens wither but remain on for some time. When both stamens and 
carpels are present in one blossom the stigmas mature first ; but great variety occurs 
as to the sex of the flowers, especially, perhaps, under cultivation. While some 
plants have all their blossoms perfect, others are entirely staminate, or entirely 
carpellate, or more commonly in Britain staminate or carpellate flowers occur in the 
same cluster with perfect ones. The species is thus polygamous or sub-dioecious here ; 
but is stated to be more generally dioecious in North America. The numerous 
achenes are readily seen to be arranged in a spiral and to have their styles springing 
