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Show 350 FRUITA. CllAI'. X. the Golden Harvey and tho Siberian Crab; and the latter, I believe, is considered by some authors as specilicallj' distinct. The famous St. Valery apple must not bo passed over; the flower has a double calyx with ten divisions, and fourteen styles surmounted by conspicuous oblique stigmas, but is destitute of stamens or corolla. Tho fruit is constricted round tho middle, and is formed of five seed-cells, surmounted by nine other cclls.94 Not being provided with stamens, tho troo requires artificial fertilisation; and tho girls of S~. V~lery an_nually go to "juire ses pornnu's," each marking her own frmt with a nbbo_n ; and as different pollen is used, tho fruit differs, and we here have an mstanco of the direct action of foreign pollen on tho mother-plant. Those monstrous apples include, as we have seen, fourteen seod-co~ls; the pigconapplo, 95 on the other hand, has only four, instead of,_ aR w1th all common apples, five cells; and this certainly is a romarlmblo difference. . In tho catalogue of apples published in 1842 by the HortiCultural Society, 897 varieties are enumerated; but the difierencos between most of them are of comparatively little interest, as they are not strictly inherited. No one can raise, for instance, from the seed of the Ribston :Pippin, a tree of tho same kind; and it is sll.id that the " Sister Rihston Pippin" was a white, semi-transparent, sour-fleshed apple, or rather largo crab.96 Yet it is a mistake to suppose that with most varieties tho characters arc not to a certain extent inherited. In two lots of seedlings raised from two well-marked kinds, many worthless, crab-like seedlings will appear, but it is now lmown that the two lots not only usually differ from each other, but re. cmblo to a certain extent their parents. We see this indeed in tho several sub-groups of Russctts, Swectings, Codlins, Pearmains, Rcinettes, &c.,U7 which arc all believed, and many are lmown, to be descc:qded fl:om other varieties bearing the same names. P ears ( PyTus communis).-! Reed say little on this fruit, which varies much in tho wild state, and to an extraordinary degree when cultivated, in its fruit, flowers, and foliage. One of tho most celebrated botanists in Europe, M. Decaisne, bas carefully studied the many varieties; 98 although he formerly believed that they were derived from more than one species, he is now convinced that all belong to one. He bas arrived at this conclusion fTom finding in the several varieties a perfect gradation between the most extreme characters; so perfect is this gradation that he maintains it to be impossible to classify tho varieties by any natural method. M:. Decaisnc raised many seedlings from four distinct kinds, and has carefully recorded the variations in each. Notwithstanding this extreme degree of 91 'Mem. do la Soc. Linn. de Paris,' tom. iii., 1825, p. 1G4; and Seringe, 'Bulletin Bot.,' 1830, p. 117. 95 'Ganlcner·s Clironiele,' 1849, p. 24. 96 R. 'l'hompsou, in 'Gardener's Chron.,' J 850, p. 788. 9i Rngcrct, ' Pomologic Physiolo· gique,' 1830, p. 203. Downing's' Fruit Trees,' pp. 130, 134, 139, &c. Loudon's 'Gardener's Mag.,' vol. viii. p. 317. Alexis Jordan, 'De l 'Origine des tlivcrscs Varictes,' in' Mem. de l'Acad. Imp. de Lyon,' tom. ii., 1852, pp. U5, 114. 'Gnrdencr's Chronicle,' 1850, pp. 774, 788. 98 'Comptcs Rcndus,' July Oth, 1803. C IIAP. X. PEARS-STRAWBERRIES. 351 variability, it is now positively known that. many kinds reproduce by seed tho leading characters of thcil' race. 99 8truwbe1·ries (Fwgaria).-Tbis fruit is remarkable on account of the number of species which have been cultivated, and from then· rapid improvement within tho last fifty or sixty years. Let any one compare the fruit of one of the largest varieties exhibited at our Shows with that of the wild wood strawberry, or, wmch will be a fairer comparison, with the somewhat larger fruit of the wild American Virginian Strawberry, and he will see what prodigies horticulture has effcctcd. 1' 0 The number of varieties has likewise increased in a surprisingly rapid manner. Only till·eo kinds were lmown in Franco, in 1746, where this fruit was early cultivated. In 1766 five species bad been introduced, the same which are now cultivated but only five varieties of Jt'mgw·in vesw, with some suh-vai'ioties, had bee~ produced. At the present day the varieties of the several species are almost inn umerablo. ThO' species con.sist of, firstly, the wood or Alpine cultivated strawberries, descended from Jt'. vesca, a native of Europe and of North America. There are eight wild European varieties, as ranked by Duchesne, of F. vescu, but several of these are considered species by some botanists. Secondly, the green strawberries, descended from the European F. collina, and little cultivated in England. Thirdly, the Hautbois, from the European _1': eluNot·. Fourthly, the Scarlets, descended from F. Virgi11iana, a nat1vo of tho whole breadth of North America. Fifthly, tho Chili, descended from F. Ohiloensis, an inhabitant of the west coast of the temperate parts both of North and South America. Lastly, the Pines or Carolinas (including the old Blacks), which have been ranked by most authors under the name of F. grandijlora as a distinct species, said to inhabit Surinam· but this is a manifest error. 'l'his form is considered by the highest authority, M:. Gay, to be merely a strongly marked race of F. Ohilwnsis.10I T_he~e five or si~ forms have been ranked by most botanists as specifically distinct; but this may be doubted, for Andrew Knight,102 who raised no less than 400 crossed strawberries, asserts that the F. Vi1-giniana, Ohilor;nsi.~ and y?-~?a.tiflom "may be made to breed together indiscriminately," and b~ found, m accordance with the principle of analogous vari3tion, "that similar varieties could be obtained from the seeds of any one of them." Since Knight's time there is abundant and additional evidence 103 of the extent to which the American forms spontaneously cross. We owe 99 'Gardener's Chronicle,' 1850, p. 804; 1857, p. 820; 1862, p. 1195. 100 Mo8t of the largel>t cultivated stmwb rricl) arc the descendants of F. granrlijlm·a or Ohiloensis, and I have seen no account of tl10sc forms in their wild state. Methuen's Scarlet (Downing, 'Fruits,' p. 527) has "immense fruit of tlw lm·ge~:~t size," antl belong:-; to the section descended from Ji'. Vi1·giniana; and the fruit of this species, ns I hear from Prof. A. Gray, is only a lit tlc larger than that of 1?. vesca, or our common wood strawberry. 101 • Le Fraisier,' par lc Comtc L. de Lambcrtyc, 1864, p. 50. Hl'2 'Transact. Hort. Soc.,' vol. iii. 1820, p. 207. 103 See an account by Prof. Dccaisnc, and by others in ' Gardener's Chronicle,' 1862, p. i335, and J 858, p. 172; and Mr. Barnet':; paper in 'Hort. Soc. Transact.,' vol. vi., 1826, p. 170. |