FRAGARIA vesca (3. atrovirens.
Simon-burn Strawberry.
Syn. Fr. calycina. Lindley, Synopsis of the
British Flora, p. 96, not of Loiseleur.
T h e first knowledge I had of this plant was from specimens
sent to the Horticultural Society by Sir Charles
Monck, under the name of the Simon-burn Strawberry.
It appears to have been originally noticed by Wallis, who,
in his History of Northumberland, vol. i. p. 145, speaks of
it thus:—
“ 14. Large, Mountain Strawberry, with shining rugose
leaves, in the bottom of the wood at the ostium of Gofton-
burn, on the north side. On the strand of the brook at
Slaterfield by the path to Simon-burn. The fruit is conic,
of the size of a small nutmeg, finer-tasted than the garden
kinds. It loves a water sand and gravel, and a low shady
situation. It is a variety of the small, rough, shining-leaved,
common strawberry of the woods.”
As in cultivation it proved to have more cuneate and
much deeper green leaves than the Common Wood Strawberry,
and to have quite another aspect when growing in
masses, I was led to regard it as a distinct species, and to
refer it to the F. calycina of Loiseleur, a supposed species
found in the neighbourhood of Paris. It is, however, probable
that it is a mere variety of F. vesca, and I am now
convinced that it is at least different from F. calycina, whatever
that may be. The short diagnoses in DeCandolle’s
Prodromus, and such other works as I had consulted when
the Synopsis was printed, were so much in accordance with