the south; and on this continent, from time immemorial, the Indian
children have gathered it, from the Northern Atlantic to the Pacific.
In England this species exhibits some variation from the Alpine type,
and was called by our ancestors the Wood strawberry. The chief
difference between the two is in the form of the fruit, the Wood
varieties being round and the Alpine conical. They are also subdivided
into white and red, annual and monthly varieties, and those that
produce no runners, which are known to-day as Bush Alpines.

[Illustration: SEEDS AND PULP OF THE STRAWBERRY]

The Alpine, as we find it growing wild, was the strawberry of the
ancients. It is to it that the suggestive lines of Virgil refer:--

"Ye boys that gather flowers and strawberries,
Lo, hid within the grass an adder lies."

There is no proof, I believe, that the strawberry was cultivated
during any of the earlier civilizations. Some who wrote most
explicitly concerning the fruit culture of their time do not mention
it; and Virgil, Ovid, and Pliny name it but casually, and with no
reference to its cultivation. It may appear a little strange that the
luxurious Romans, who fed on nightingales' tongues, peacocks' brains,
and scoured earth and air for delicacies, should have given but little
attention to this fruit. Possibly they early learned the fact that
this species is essentially a wildling, and like the trailing arbutus,
thrives best in its natural haunts. The best that grew could be
gathered from mountain-slopes and in the crevices of rocks. Moreover,
those old revellers became too wicked and sensual to relish Alpine
strawberries.