THE WILD STRAWBERRY— continued. 
laterally nearly from their bases, though the “ man in the street ” mistakes the 
achenes for seeds. Each achene contains an ascending seed. 
The receptacle is, as has been said, the most distinctive feature in the plant. 
As Lindley put it : — 
“When you gather the Raspberry you throw away the receptacle under the name of core, never suspecting that it is the 
very part you had just before been feasting upon in the Strawberry. In the one case the receptacle robs the carpels of all their 
juice in order to become gorged and bloated at their expense ^ in the other case the carpels act in the same selfish manner 
upon the receptacle.” 
Whether from the weight of the fruit, or from an independent curvature, the 
fruit-bearing pedicel bends downward ; and, perhaps, the ripening of the fruit is 
thus hastened by the heat radiated from the surface of the ground. Few, if any, 
fruits of equal succulence grow so close to the ground ; and this feature has, no 
doubt, originated the German name Erdbeere, Dutch Aardberien^ “ earth berries.” 
Probably, too, after the plant came under cultivation it got its English name 
Strawberry from the same character, that name being derived from the old preterite 
of the verb “ to strew,” and not from the laying of straw beneath the fruits or from 
their being sold threaded on a straw. 
The Latin Fragaria^ which occurs in Pliny, is said to be connected with a 
Sanskrit root ghra^ meaning fragrant ; and it is the source of the modern Romance 
names — Fragola in Italian, Fraise in French, and Fresa in Spanish. Fragrance is 
certainly a most striking feature of the plant, and not of its fruits only, though, 
perhaps, this is more characteristic of the wild than of the cultivated form. Spenser, 
in one of his Sonnets, says that the 
and Bacon endows 
“Fragrant flowres doe give most odorous smell” 5 
“Strawberry leaves dying, with a most excellent cordial smell.” 
When plants were believed to absorb the properties of those growing near 
them, the Strawberry, which, as Shakespeare says, “ grows underneath the nettle,” 
was looked upon as an exception to the rule. St. Francis de Sales writes ; — 
“We cannot but admire the fresh innocence and purity of the strawberry, because although it creeps along the ground, 
and is continually crushed by serpents, lizards, and other venomous reptiles, yet it does not imbibe the slightest impression of 
poison, or the smallest malignant quality.” 
It is clear from references in various writers that in the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries it was still customary to transplant the roots of our wild wood 
Strawberry to gardens, although, in the fifteenth, the Strawberries in. the garden of 
Ely Place are said to have attracted the attention of Richard of Gloucester ; and 
Dr. William Butler, the friend of Izaak Walton, in the time of James I, passed 
the well-kncwn verdict that 
“ Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did.” 
