QUEER STRAWBERRIES. 
167 
note, sounding like “ tonka-tonk.” Here and there we may 
chance upon a tiny “ creek ” or brook, rippling merrily over the 
white quartz pebbles, and if we watch awhile where it broadens 
out into a shallow pool, we may catch sight of some of the little 
speckled native trout, enjoying themselves in the clear waters. 
Should we be inclined for a little angling there is some fun 
to be had among these same trout with a small hook and tiny 
worm, for they will bite furiously, and make a capital fry when 
we get back to camp, the flesh being very white and delicate. 
And so we will take leave of our natural park, with its abundant 
animal life, and its many and curious forms of plant life also, of 
which we may some day speak. 
H. S. Dove. 
Tabic Cape, Tasmania, March 12th, 1893. 
QUEER STRAWBERRIES. 
SHO cares for a strawberry that is not good to eat ? 
Well, of course the eaters are in the majority, and 
being so they can aflbrd to be magnanimous towards 
those harmless lunatics, as they may deem them, who 
take an interest in strawberries for reasons other than those 
connected with the palate. In any case those who look at 
a strawberry with the eyes of a naturalist have the advantage, in 
that they derive a double benefit. The gratification of intelligent 
curiosity is, in its way, every whit as important as, if not more 
so than, the tickling of the palate with grateful savours. The 
Editor of Nature Notes evidently shares my opinion, or he 
would not have asked me to inflict on the readers of this journal 
a note on strawberries that are not good to eat, which have been 
somewhat frequent during this hot summer. 
Our forefathers knew of such, for whilst they spoke of the 
true form as Fragaria fvaga, they also recognised a “ Fragaria non 
fragifera vel non vesca — Fragaria sterilis.” But this was what 
we call the Barren Strawberry, Potentilla Fragariastnm, which, 
by the way, is certainly not barren, as the writer finds in his 
own garden several seedling plants, the parent of which was 
probably introduced with a specimen of the Lady Fern. But 
this does not concern us at present. We have to deal with 
a Fragaria which is truly “fragifera,” but scarcely “vesca.” 
Tradescant has the credit of having been the first to bring it 
into notice. He found it in a garden at “ Plimouth,” the 
proprietor of which was about to discard it as a cumberer 
of the ground. Tradescant was one of those harmless people 
above referred to ; and he secured what was to him a treasure, 
and, in all probability, shared it with a man of the same turn 
of mind, named Parkinson. At any rate, Parkinson, Paradisus, 
(1629), p. 528, thus writes of it : — 
