Wild Strawberry.Fragaria Virginiana.
Found during May and June in pastures, and fields, and copse-borders.
The leaf and flower stems, from 6 to 8 inches high, spring from the root, with dry sheaths enclosing them at the ground.
The leaf is compound, the 8 leaflets wedge-shaped; the margin is deeply toothed, and the many ribs show plainly; loose of texture, and roughened underneath with hairs. In color a rich strong green, paler beneath, sometimes reddish, or pink. The stem is hairy; green, and reddish near the foot.
The flower has 5 rounded petals with pointed bases; its texture is thin; pure white in color; the stamens many and orange-yellow. The petals are set daintily around the base of the little green cone, that later becomes the berry, showing the 5 broad divisions of the calyx between; just beneath the calyx, and alternate with its tips, occur 5 narrow bracts which lie so tightly underneath as to appear to belong to it. The flowers, on short foot-stems, are placed in groups on larger leafy stems, these forming a loose terminal cluster set on the hairy stem which rises from the roots.
After the petals fall, the calyx turns up its tips to protect the fruit, which droops, as it reddens and becomes pulpy. The young leaf, as it rises from the ground, is close-folded like a delightful little green fan; the first leaves often lie flat upon the ground, and are rusty in color. The Strawberry has a pleasant way of bursting into a flurry of bloom late in August; along wood-paths and unfrequented lanes one comes upon it as a belated bit of spring. He who has smelled the exquisite fragrance of the field strawberry fruit will not soon forget its wild charm.