July 5, 1890. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
695 
the modern British Queen, when they can get it, to the 
freshest and ripest berry from the banks. When the 
Duke of Glo’ster sent the Bishop of Ely to obtain for 
him some strawberries from the Bishop’s garden at 
Holborn, it was simply to get rid of him in aid of a 
conference with the Duke of Buckingham. But the 
incident has historical value, as Shakespeare derived it 
from Sir Thomas More’s Tragical History of Richard 
III., and it tells of the esteem in which the British 
Fragraria vesca was held in the days of the last 
Plantagenets. The Strawberries were sent for on 
Friday, June 13th, 1483, at which time Mayster Groshede 
was engaged in translating into English the Bolce of 
Husbandry, printed by Wynkin de Worde, in which 
the Strawberry is not even mentioned. The Bishop of 
Ely’s garden was one of the most important for its 
productions and management in the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries ; and as at that time the wild Wood 
Strawberry was alone cultivated in this country, the 
incident marks the esteem of our forefathers for a fruit 
that now obtains so little attention as, in towns at least, 
to be practically unknown. Thomas Tusser, writing 
his Hundred Points of Good Husbandry about 1557, 
gives directions for planting Strawberries, the roots of 
which are “growing abroad among thorns in the wood,” 
and in his September’s Husbandry the Strawberries 
remind him of other things then to be planted. 
“ The Gooseberry, Respis, and Roses al three 
With Strawberries under them trimly agree.” 
Even so late as the time of Sir Hugh Platt, who wrote 
his Garden of Eden about the year 1606, was grown the 
British Strawberry in his garden in Sr. Martin’s Lane, 
London, where it was considered a better fruit than the 
Yirginian, which at that time had been introduced, 
although the books give a later date for it. Sir Hugh 
says, “Strawberries which grow in woods prosper best 
4n__gardens,” and this agrees with the Shakesperian 
philosophy as spoken by the mouth of another Bishop 
of Ely in the drama of “King Henry V.,” to the effect 
that— 
“ The Strawberry grows underneath the Nettle, 
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best 
Neighbour’d by fruit of baser quality.” 
The common explanation of the name, as derived from 
the practice of spreading straw on the ground to keep 
the fruit clean, is as shallow as common explanations 
usually are. Centuries before it became the practice to 
strew straw for Strawberries, it was known by the same 
name as now. In the most ancient documents in which 
English names of plants occur we find the strea-berige, 
straeberie-wisen, strebere-wise, and strabery. It is the 
plant that strays by the aid of threads or wires from the 
parent centre to find pastures new, and in so doing 
strews or straws itself upon the soil, as quaintly put in 
an ancient song— 
“ And can the physitian make sicke men well, 
And can the magician a fortune devine, 
Without Lily, Germander, and sops in wine ? 
With sweet-bryer 
And bon-fire 
And Strawberry-wyer, 
And Collumbine.” 
The above references to Shakespeare include the only 
occasions of his mention of the Strawberry, for the 
handkerchief spotted with strawberries that Othello 
gave to Desdemona is so described through a mis¬ 
conception of the poet’s, the truth being that the 
handkerchief was marked with three Mulberrries, which 
was the device of the great captain’s shield. It was 
about the time of Shakespeare, however, that the 
garden Strawberry of the present day may be said to 
have come into being. The books are full of interest 
on this point. In Lyte’s translation of the Herbal of 
Dodoens, 1578, the Wood Strawberry alonejis mentioned 
as a plant that grows in shadowy woods, and deep 
trenches, and banks, and by highway sides. In 
Gerard’s Herbal, 1597, only two kinds are mentioned, 
and they are the Wood Strawberry, F. vesca, and the 
Hautbois, F. elatior, described as red and white. But 
in Parkinson’s Paradisus, published 1629, we have, in 
addition to these, the Yirginian Strawberry and the 
Bohemian, and these, so far as the chronology is 
concerned, may be considered the parents of our modern 
Strawberries. 
It is of considerable importance to note that in the 
introduction to his chapter on Strawberries Parkinson 
makes a distinct declaration that “the wild Strawberry 
that groweth in the woods is our garden Strawberry, 
but bettered by the soyle and transplanting.” He then 
describes the red, the white, and the green* forms of 
Alpine and Hautbois Strawberries, and evidently ranks 
the Yirginian and the Bohemian far below them in 
merit, for he says, “Scarce can one strawberry be seene 
ripe among a number of plants. I thiuk tlic reason 
thereof to be the want of skill or industry to order it 
aright. For the Bohemian and all other Strawberries 
will not bear kindly, if you suffer them to grow with 
many strings, and therefore they are still cut away.” 
That the so-called B ihemian Strawberry was an 
interesting novelty may be concluded from Parkinson’s 
description of the berries as measuring “neere flue 
inches about.” He says “Master Quester the Post¬ 
master first brought them ouer in our country, as I 
understand, but I know no man so industrious in the 
careful planting and bringing them to perfection in that 
plentiful manner, as Master Vincent Sion who dwelt on 
the Bancle side, near the old Paris garden stairs, who 
from seven roots, as he affirmed to me, in one yeare and 
a halfe, planted halfe an acre of ground with the 
increase from them, besides those he gave away to his 
friends ; and with him I have seen such, and of that 
bignesse before mentioned.” 
It will be observed that Parkinson had no success 
with his 
Virginian and Bohemian Strawberries. 
It should not surprise us that those newcomers occasioned 
perplexity, for the truth must be told that in the 
fifteenth and sixteenth and seventeeth centuries the 
cultivation of this fruit was understood by very few, 
and the produce of the woodlands was of far more 
importance than that of gardens until a quite new race 
had been established. Mr. T. Hudson Turner, the 
eminent archseilogist and author of Manners and 
Household Expenses of England, writing on horticulture 
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, says : — 
“Strawberries and Raspberries rarely occur in early 
accounts, owing probably to the fact that they were 
not cultivated in gardens, and known only as wild 
fruit. Strawberries are named once in the Household 
Roll of the Ciuntess of Leicester for the year 1265. 
The plant doss not seem to have been much grown 
even at the end of the sixteenth century. Lawson 
speaks of the roots of trees being 1 powdred ’ with 
Strawberries, red, white, and green. Raspberries, Bar¬ 
berries, and Currants he describes as grown in borders. 
Both fruits, being indigenous, were probably to be 
found plentifully in the woods of ancient times, and 
thence brought to market, as they are in the present 
day in Italy, and other parts of Europe.” 
The allusions to the fruit in poetry and the drama 
bear out the statement of the antiquary. We find in 
Ben Jonson a person saying — 
“ My son has sent you 
A pot of Strawberries gathered in the wood 
To mingle with your cream.” 
Spenser had in mind the attractions of Wood Straw¬ 
berries, where, in the tenth canto of the sixth book of 
the Faerie Queen, he takes Calidore and Corydon and 
Pastorell “to the green woods to gather Strawberries.” 
It is a question of some interest — when did the 
The Virginian Strawberry. 
It is named in a catalogue of Jean Robin, botanist to 
scarlet or Yirginian Strawberry first reach this country l 
Louis XIII., in 1611, and in Johnson’s History of 
English Gardening, page 343, the date of its introduc¬ 
tion to England is stated to be 1625, but Sir Hugh 
Pratt possessed it in 1606. Parkinson had it in 1629, 
and, as already remarked, was unable to grow it, 
probably because the plants were allowed to run into 
a mat, the systematic propagation now practised being 
then unknown. Indeed, the author of the Paradisus 
remarks at page 528, that “ Strawberries will not beare 
kindly, if you suffer them to grow with many strings, 
and therefore they are still cut away.” The cultivation 
of the Strawberry, as described by John Evelyn, at 
page 201 of the second volume of his Compleat Gar¬ 
dener, published 1693, begins with the removal of 
plants from the woods, and the putting of two or three 
plants in a hole, which is made with a stick 9 ins. or 
10 ins. asunder. He recognises only two kinds, the 
red and the white, evidently knowing nothing of the 
Yirginian Strawberry. It appears that the system 
pursued ensured a crop of fruit in the second year after 
planting, and that was the only crop obtained ; conse¬ 
quently annual or biennial renewal of the beds was 
necessary. It may be assumed, moreover, that the 
best forms of the plant were not secured in the first 
instance, and certainly there was no haste shown in 
raising seedlings, nor did anyone suspect the capabilities 
of the plant for variation and improvement. To obtain 
a faithful representation of the subject in what may be 
termed the middle period, I turn to the sixth edition 
of Miller’s Gardeners’ Dictionary, published 1771, 
where, under Fragaria, I find it stated that there were 
four kinds of Strawberries then in cultivation—the 
Wood Strawberry, Fragaria vesca; the Scarlet Straw¬ 
berry, F. Virginiana; Hautbois, F. muricata, “with 
fruits as large as a small Plumb” ; and the Chili or 
Frutilla Strawberry, F. Ghiloensis, “ with a large fruit 
and hairy fleshy leaves.’’ Speaking of the introduction 
of the Chili Strawberry, Miller says—“In the year 
1727 I brought a parcel of the plants to England, 
which were communicated to me by Mr. George 
Clifford, of Amsterdam, who had large beds of this sort 
growiug in his gardens at Hartecamp. The leaves of 
this sort are hairy, oval, and of a much thicker 
substance than those of any sort yet known, and fixed 
upon very long hairy footstalks ; the runners from the 
plants are very large, hairy, and extend to a great 
length. The footstalks which sustain the flowers are 
very strong ; the leaves of the empalemeDt (calyx) are 
long and hairy. The flowers are large, and often 
deformed ; so are the fruits also when cultivated in 
very strong land, in which the plants produce plenty, 
which are firm and well flavoured ; but as it i3 a bad 
bearer in most places where it has been cultivated, so 
in general it has been neglected.” 
The Wood Strawberry. 
It is of great importance—so it appears to me—to 
note further what Miller says on some other points. 
In common with Parkinson, he reports three varieties 
of the Wood Strawberry—the red, the white, and the 
green, the last named being particularly valued for its 
fine flavour. The Scarlet Strawberry of Virginia he 
places high above all other sorts for earliness to ripen 
and every other good quality ; and he adds, “ It is so 
different from the Wood Strawbeiry in leaf, flower, and 
fruit that there need be no doubt of their being distinct 
species.” It startles one to find Mdler describing the 
Hautbois Strawberry, which he catalogues F. muricata, 
as originally derived from America. He speaks of its 
capability of producing large fruit of a globular form, 
as the result of good cultivation, and he adds that 
when neglected for a year or two, these superior kinds 
degenerate to the common Hautbois. I submit that 
the sample of Muricati on the table, kindly supplied by 
G. F. Wilson, Esq., F.R.S., of Weybridge, will give 
the reason for its name as well as an explanation of its 
history. It is the kind described by Parkinson on 
p. 528 as “ somewhat reddish, like unto a Strawberry, 
but with many small harmless prickles on them, which 
may be eaten and chewed in the mouth without any 
manner of offence.” This is the Prickly Strawberry of 
Tradescant, formerly found wild in Hampstead Wood, 
near London, now only known as a garden curiosity. 
It is a variety of the Hautbois, and when Miller says 
he obtained it from America, we need not put that 
down as one of his blunders, because our Wood Straw¬ 
berry has certainly been found growing wild on the 
American continent, and Miller does not say whether 
he obtained it as a wilding or as a garden plant. 
We have thus far only two or at the utmost three 
species of Strawberry before us ; these we may class as 
the Low JVood (F. vesca), the High Wood (F. elatior), 
and the Scarlet (F. virginiana). 
The Pine Strawberry. 
In the year 1759 at the latest, the Pine Strawberry, 
Fragaria grandiflora, was introduced. The source of 
this is not clearly determined, but Surinam is commonly 
named as its native country. There can be no 
objection in the nature of things to the acceptance 
of Surinam as the original home of the Pine Strawberry, 
for it should be observed that it does not take us from 
the American continent. Indeed, there is a peculiar 
propriety in finding a Strawberry in Guiana, for we 
may suspect it to be but an eastern form of the Chilian 
species, which, perhaps, is but a southern form of the 
Yirginian species, just as our Wood Strawberry is the 
western and the Hautbois the eastern form of the 
European species ; and all five are probably radiations 
from one centre, and there cannot be a question that 
all will cross or breed together, as commonly happens 
with plants nearly related in origin and constitution. 
While Miller tells us he obtained the Pine Straw¬ 
berry from a friend in Amsterdam who derived it from 
Surinam, Duhamel speaks positively of its having been 
raised from the seed of a Chili Strawberry. Both may 
be right, for the Dutch settled at Surinam in 1654, and 
on the higher lands of that tropical country many 
plants from cool climates prosper; and from the 
beginning of the world a Dutchman would have a 
garden wherever he himself might be planted, and 
would gather treasures from all climates to furnish it. 
That the Pine Strawberry is closely related to the 
Chili is sufficiently evident to give reasonable colour to 
Duhamel’s declaration. 
(To be continued.) 
