VIRGINIA STRAWBERRY
(Fragaria Virginiana) Rose family
Flowers - White, loosely clustered at summit of an erect hairy
scape usually shorter than the leaves. Calyx persistent in fruit,
deeply 5-cleft, with 5 bracts between the divisions; 5 petals;
stamens and pistils numerous, the latter inserted on
a
cushion-like receptacle becoming fleshy in fruit. Staminate and
pistillate flowers, from separate roots. Stem: Running, and
forming new plants. Leaves: Tufted from the root, on hairy
petioles 2 to 6 in. tall, compounded of 3 broadly oval, saw-edged
leaflets. Fruit. An ovoid, glistening red berry, the minute
achenes imbedded in pits on its surface. Ripe, June-July. (Latin,
fragum = fragrant fruit, the strawberry.)
Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, banks, roadsides, woodlands.
Flowering Season - April-June.
Distribution - New Brunswick to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward
to Dakota.
"Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God
never did." Whether one is kneeling in the fields, gathering the
sun-kissed, fragrant, luscious, wet scarlet berries nodding among
the grass, or eating the huge cultivated fruit smothered with
sugar and cream, one fervently quotes Dr. Boteler with dear old
lzaak Walton. Shakespeare says : "My lord of Ely, when I was last
in Holborn, I saw good strawberries in your garden there." Is not
this the first reference to the strawberry under cultivation?
Since the time of Henry V, what multitudes of garden varieties
past the reckoning have been evolved from the smooth, conic
EUROPEAN WOOD STRAWBERRY (F. vesca) now naturalized in our
Eastern and Middle States, as well as from our own precious
pitted native! Some authorities claim the berry received its name
from the straw laid between garden rows to keep the fruit clean,
but in earliest Anglo-Saxon it was called streowberie, and later
straberry, from the peculiarity of its straying suckers lying as
if strewn on the ground; and so, after making due allowance for
the erratic, go-as-you-please spelling of early writers, it would
seem that there might be two theories as to the origin of the
name.
Since the different sexes of these flowers frequently occur on
separate plants, good reason have they to woo insect messengers
with a showy corolla, a ring of nectar, and abundant pollen to be
transferred while they are feasted. Lucky is the gardener who
succeeds in keeping birds from pecking their share of the berries
which, of course, were primarily intended for them. In English
gardens one is almost certain to find a thrush or two imprisoned
under the nets so futilely spread over strawberry beds, just as
their American cousin, the robin, is caught here in June.
A young botanist may be interested to note the difference in the
formation of the raspberry or blackberry and the strawberry: in
the former it is the carpels (ovaries) that swell around the
spongy receptacle into numerous little fruits (drupelets) united
into one berry, whereas it is the cushion-like receptacle itself
in the strawberry blossom that swells and reddens into fruit,
carrying with it the tiny yellow pistils to the surface.
The NORTHERN WILD STRAWBERRY (F. Canadensis), with clusters of
elongated, oblong little berries delightful to three senses,
comes over the Canadian border no farther south than the
Catskills. Nearly all strawberry plants show the useless but
charming eccentricity of bursting into bloom again in autumn, the
little white-petaled blossoms coming like unexpected flurries of
snow.
No one will confuse our common, fruiting species with the small,
yellow-flowered DRY or BARREN STRAWBERRY (Waldsteinia
fragarioides), more nearly related to the cinquefoils. Tufts of
its pretty trefoliate leaves, sent up from a creeping rootstock,
carpet the woods and hillsides from New England and along the
Alleghanies to Georgia, and westward a thousand miles or more.
Flowers in May and June.
Previous: CREEPING DALIBARDA
Next: WHITE AVENS
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