The famous St. Valery apple must not be 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. The fruit is constricted round the middle, and is formed of five seed-cells, surmounted by nine other cells. (10/94. 'Mem. de La Soc. Linn. de Paris' tome 3 1825 page 164; and Seringe 'Bulletin Bot.' 1830 page 117.) Not being provided with stamens, the tree requires artificial fertilisation; and the girls of St. Valery annually go to "faire ses pommes," each marking her own fruit with a ribbon; and as different pollen is used the fruit differs, and we here have an instance of the direct action of foreign pollen on the mother plant. These monstrous apples include, as we have seen, fourteen seed-cells; the pigeon-apple (10/95. Gardener's Chronicle' 1849 page 24.) on the other hand, has only four, instead of, as with all common apples, five cells; and this certainly is a remarkable difference.
In the catalogue of apples published in 1842 by the Horticultural Society, 897 varieties are enumerated; but the differences 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 the same kind; and it is said that the "Sister Ribston Pippin" was a white semi-transparent, sour-fleshed apple, or rather large crab. (10/96. R. Thompson, in 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1850 page 788.) Yet it was a mistake to suppose that with most varieties the characters are 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 known that the two lots not only usually differ from each other, but resemble to a certain extent their parents. We see this indeed in the several sub-groups of Russetts, Sweetings, Codlins, Pearmains, Reinettes, etc. (10/97. Sageret 'Pomologie Physiologique' 1830 page 263. Downing 'Fruit Trees' pages 130, 134, 139, etc. Loudon's 'Gardener's Mag.' volume 8 p. 317. Alexis Jordan 'De l'Origine des diverses Varietes' in 'Mem. de l'Acad. Imp. de Lyon' tome 2 1852 pages 95, 114. 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1850 pages 774, 788.), which are all believed, and many are known, to be descended from other varieties bearing the same names.
PEARS (Pyrus communis).
I need say little on this fruit, which varies much in the wild state, and to an extraordinary degree when cultivated, in its fruit, flowers, and foliage. One of the most celebrated botanists in Europe, M. Decaisne, has carefully studied the many varieties (10/98. 'Comptes Rendus' July 6, 1863.); although he formerly believed that they were derived from more than one species, he now thinks that all belong to one. He has arrived at this conclusion from 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 the varieties by any natural method. M. Decaisne raised many seedlings from four distinct kinds, and has carefully recorded the variations in each. Notwithstanding this extreme degree of variability, it is now positively known that many kinds reproduce by seed the leading characters of their race. (10/99. 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1856 page 804; 1857 page 820; 1862 page 1195.)
STRAWBERRIES (Fragaria).
This fruit is remarkable on account of the number of species which have been cultivated, and from their rapid improvement within the 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, which will be a fairer comparison, with the somewhat larger fruit of the wild American Virginian Strawberry, and he will see what prodigies horticulture has effected. (10/100. Most of the largest cultivated strawberries are the descendants of F. grandiflora or chiloensis, and I have seen no account of these forms in their wild state. Methuen's Scarlet (Downing 'Fruits' page 527) has "immense fruit of the largest size," and belongs to the section descended from F. virginiana; and the fruit of this species, as I hear from Prof. A. Gray, is only a little larger than that of F. vesca, or our common wood-strawberry.) The number of varieties has likewise increased in a surprisingly rapid manner. Only three kinds were known in France, in 1746, where this fruit was early cultivated. In 1766 five species had been introduced, the same which are now cultivated, but only five varieties of Fragaria vesca, with some sub-varieties, had been produced. At the present day the varieties of the several species are almost innumerable. The species consist of, firstly, the wood or Alpine cultivated strawberries, descended from F. vesca, a native of Europe and of North America. There are eight wild European varieties, as ranked by Duchesne, of F. vesca, 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 F. elatior. Fourthly, the Scarlets, descended from F. virginiana, a native of the whole breadth of North America. Fifthly, the Chili, descended from F. chiloensis, 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. grandiflora as a distinct species, said to inhabit Surinam; but this is a manifest error. This form is considered by the highest authority, M. Gay, to be merely a strongly marked race of F. chiloensis. (10/101. 'Le Fraisier' par le Comte L. de Lambertye 1864 page 50.) These five or six forms have been ranked by most botanists as specifically distinct; but this may be doubted, for Andrew Knight (10/102. 'Transact. Hort. Soc.' volume 3 1820 page 207.) who raised no less than 400 crossed strawberries, asserts that the F. virginiana, chiloensis and grandiflora "may be made to breed together indiscriminately," and he found, in accordance with the principle of analogous variation, "that similar varieties could be obtained from the seeds of any one of them."
Since Knight's time there is abundant and additional evidence (10/103. See an account by Prof. Decaisne, and by others in 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1862 page 335 and 1858 page 172; and Mr. Barnet's paper in 'Hort. Soc. Transact.' volume 6 1826 page 170.) of the extent to which the American forms spontaneously cross. We owe indeed to such crosses most of our choicest existing varieties. Knight did not succeed in crossing the European wood-strawberry with the American Scarlet or with the Hautbois. Mr. Williams of Pitmaston, however, succeeded; but the hybrid offspring from the Hautbois, though fruiting well, never produced seed, with the exception of a single one, which reproduced the parent hybrid form. (10/104. 'Transact. Hort. Soc.' volume 5 1824 page 294.) Major R. Trevor Clarke informs me that he crossed two members of the Pine class (Myatt's B. Queen and Keen's Seedling) with the wood and hautbois, and that in each case he raised only a single seedling; one of these fruited, but was almost barren. Mr. W. Smith, of York, has raised similar hybrids with equally poor success. (10/105. 'Journal of Horticulture' December 30, 1862 page 779. See also Mr. Prince to the same effect ibid 1863 page 418.) We thus see (10/106. For additional evidence see 'Journal of Horticulture' December 9, 1862 page 721.) that the European and American species can with some difficulty be crossed; but it is improbable that hybrids sufficiently fertile to be worth cultivation will ever be thus produced. This fact is surprising, as these forms structurally are not widely distinct, and are sometimes connected in the districts where they grow wild, as I hear from Professor Asa Gray, by puzzling intermediate forms.
The energetic culture of the Strawberry is of recent date, and the cultivated varieties can in most cases be classed under some one of the above native stocks. As the American strawberries cross so freely and spontaneously, we can hardly doubt that they will ultimately become inextricably confused. We find, indeed, that horticulturists at present disagree under which class to rank some few of the varieties; and a writer in the 'Bon Jardinier' of 1840 remarks that formerly it was possible to class all of them under some one species, but that now this is quite impossible with the American forms, the new English varieties having completely filled up the gaps between them. (10/107. 'Le Fraisier' par le Comte L. de Lambertye pages 221, 230.) The blending together of two or more aboriginal forms, which there is every reason to believe has occurred with some of our anciently cultivated productions, we see now actually occurring with our strawberries.
The cultivated species offer some variations worth notice. The Black Prince, a seedling from Keen's Imperial (this latter being a seedling of a very white strawberry, the white Carolina), is remarkable from "its peculiar dark and polished surface, and from presenting an appearance entirely unlike that of any other kind." (10/108. 'Transact. Hort. Soc.' volume 6 page 200.) Although the fruit in the different varieties differs so greatly in form, size, colour, and quality, the so-called seed (which corresponds with the whole fruit in the plum) with the exception of being more or less deeply embedded in the pulp, is, according to De Jonghe (10/109. 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1858 page 173.) absolutely the same in all: and this no doubt may be accounted for by the seed being of no value, and consequently not having been subjected to selection. The strawberry is properly three-leaved, but in 1761 Duchesne raised a single-leaved variety of the European wood-strawberry, which Linnaeus doubtfully raised to the rank of a species. Seedlings of this variety, like those of most varieties not fixed by long-continued selection, often revert to the ordinary form, or present intermediate states. (10/110. Godron 'De l'Espece' tome 1 page 161.) A variety raised by Mr. Myatt (10/111. 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1851 page 440.), apparently belonging to one of the American forms presents a variation of an opposite nature, for it has five leaves; Godron and Lambertye also mention a five-leaved variety of F. collina.
The Red Bush Alpine strawberry (one of the F. vesca section) does not produce stolons or runners, and this remarkable deviation of structure is reproduced truly by seed. Another sub-variety, the White Bush Alpine, is similarly characterised, but when propagated by seed it often degenerates and produces plants with runners. (10/112. F. Gloede in 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1862 page 1053.) A strawberry of the American Pine section is also said to make but few runners. (10/113. Downing 'Fruits' page 532.)