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The two species of wild strawberry which figure so frequently in the stories of these early explorers are Fragaria vesca and F. virginiana. From the last-named is derived the cultivated strawberry of Europe. The wild strawberries of North America were larger than those of Europe. Three or more kinds of gooseberry grow wild in Canada, but they are different from the European species.
A new berry was brought over from Virginia, FRAGRARIA VIRGINIANA, and then, amid wars and rumours of wars, Doctor Butler's happiness was secure. That new berry was so much richer and sweeter and more generous than the familiar FRAGRARIA VESCA of Europe, that it attracted the sincere interest of all persons of good taste. It inaugurated a new era in the history of the strawberry.
No such concentrated ambrosia ever graced the feasts of the Olympian gods, for they were restricted to the humble Fragaria vesca, or Alpine species. In discovering the New World, Columbus also discovered the true strawberry, and died without the knowledge of this result of his achievement.
This lateral or lineal generation of plants, not only obtains in the buds of trees, which continue to adhere to them, but is beautifully seen in the wires of knot-grass, polygonum aviculare, and in those of strawberries, fragaria vesca.
They are so acrid in their nature as to be altogether unfit for internal use. EUPHRASIA officinalis. EYEBRIGHT. Leaves. It was formerly celebrated as an ophtalmic, both taken internally and applied externally. Hildanus says he has known old men of seventy, who had lost their sight, recover it again by the use of this herb. FRAGARIA vesca. THE STRAWBERRY. The Leaves and Fruit.
The other wild species is the hautboy: this is larger than F. vesca, more hairy, and its fruit a deeper red; the flavour, like that of the garden-hautboy, rather musty; in its uses and qualities, it resembles F. vesca. The strawberry does not seem to have been noticed by the ancients, though it is slightly named by Virgil, Ovid, and Pliny.
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