half-hidden in the luxuriant growth of leaves and flowers that drape the deep side of this green lane, i have just espied a little picture in miniature, a tall wild strawberry-stalk with three full red berries standing out on its graceful branchlets. there are glossy hart's-tongues on the matted bank, and yellow hawkweeds, and bright bunches of red campion; but somehow, amid all that wealth of shape and colour, my eye falls and rests instinctively upon the three little ruddy berries, and upon nothing else. i pick the single stalk from the bank and hold it here in my hands. the origin and development of these pretty bits of red pulp is one of the many curious questions upon which modern theories of life have cast such a sudden and unexpected flood of light. what makes the strawberry stalk grow out into this odd and brightly coloured lump, bearing its small fruits embedded on its swollen surface? clearly the agency of those same small birds who have been mainly instrumental in dressing the haw in its scarlet coat, and clothing the spindle-berries with their two-fold covering of crimson doublet and orange cloak.
in common language we speak of each single strawberry as a fruit. but it is in reality a collection of separate fruits, the tiny yellow-brown grains which stud its sides being each of them an individual little nut; while the sweet pulp is, in fact, no part of the true fruit at all, but merely a swollen stalk. there is a white potentilla so like a strawberry blossom that even a botanist must look closely at the plant before he can be sure of its identity. while they are in flower the two heads remain almost indistinguishable; but when the seed begins to set the potentilla develops only a collection of dry fruitlets, seated upon a green receptacle, the bed or soft expansion which hangs on to the 'hull' or calyx. each fruitlet consists of a thin covering, enclosing a solitary seed. you may compare one of them separately to a plum, with its single kernel, only that in the plum the covering is thick and juicy, while in the potentilla and the fruitlets of the strawberry it is thin and dry. an almond comes still nearer to the mark. now the potentilla shows us, as it were, the primitive form of the strawberry. but in the developed ripe strawberry as we now find it the fruitlets are not crowded upon a green receptacle. after flowering, the strawberry receptacle lengthens and broadens, so as to form a roundish mass of succulent pulp; and as the fruitlets approach maturity this sour green pulp becomes soft, sweet, and red. the little seed-like fruits, which are the important organs, stand out upon its surface like mere specks; while the comparatively unimportant receptacle is all that we usually think of when we talk about strawberries. after our usual protagorean fashion we regard man as the measure of all things, and pay little heed to any part of the compound fruit-cluster save that which ministers directly to our own tastes.
but why does the strawberry develop this large mass of apparently useless matter? simply in order the better to ensure the dispersion of its small brown fruitlets. birds are always hunting for seeds and insects along the hedge-rows, and devouring such among them as contain any available foodstuff. in most cases they crush the seeds to pieces with their gizzards, and digest and assimilate their contents. seeds of this class are generally enclosed in green or brown capsules, which often escape the notice of the birds, and so succeed in perpetuating their species. but there is another class of plants whose members possess hard and indigestible seeds, and so turn the greedy birds from dangerous enemies into useful allies. supposing there was by chance, ages ago, one of these primitive ancestral strawberries, whose receptacle was a little more pulpy than usual, and contained a small quantity of sugary matter, such as is often found in various parts of plants; then it might happen to attract the attention of some hungry bird, which, by eating the soft pulp, would help in dispersing the indigestible fruitlets. as these fruitlets sprang up into healthy young plants, they would tend to reproduce the peculiarity in the structure of the receptacle which marked the parent stock, and some of them would probably display it in a more marked degree. these would be sure to get eaten in their turn, and so to become the originators of a still more pronounced strawberry type. as time went on, the largest and sweetest berries would constantly be chosen by the birds, till the whole species began to assume its existing character. the receptacle would become softer and sweeter, and the fruits themselves harder and more indigestible: because, on the one hand, all sour or hard berries would stand a poorer chance of getting dispersed in good situations for their growth, while, on the other hand, all soft-shelled fruitlets would be ground up and digested by the bird, and thus effectually prevented from ever growing into future plants. just in like manner, many tropical nuts have extravagantly hard shells, as only those survive which can successfully defy the teeth and hands of the clever and persistent monkey.
this accounts for the strawberry being sweet and pulpy, but not for its being red. here, however, a similar reason comes into play. all ripening fruits and opening flowers have a natural tendency to grow bright red, or purple, or blue, though in many of them the tendency is repressed by the dangers attending brilliant displays of colour. this natural habit depends upon the oxidation of their tissues, and is exactly analogous to the assumption of autumn tints by leaves. if a plant, or part of a plant, is injured by such a change of colour, through being rendered more conspicuous to its foes, it soon loses the tendency under the influence of natural selection; in other words, those individuals which most display it get killed out, while those which least display it survive and thrive. on the other hand, if conspicuousness is an advantage to the plant, the exact opposite happens, and the tendency becomes developed into a confirmed habit. this is the case with the strawberry, as with many other fruits. the more bright-coloured the berry is, the better its chance of getting its fruitlets dispersed. birds have quick eyes for colour, especially for red and white; and therefore almost all edible berries have assumed one or other of these two hues. so long as the fruitlets remain unripe, and would therefore be injured by being eaten, the pulp remains sour, green, and hard; but as soon as they have become fit for dispersion it grows soft, fills with sugary juice, and acquires its ruddy outer flesh. then the birds see and recognise it as edible, and govern themselves accordingly.
but if this is the genesis of the strawberry, asks somebody, why have not all the potentillas and the whole strawberry tribe also become berries of the same type? why are there still potentilla fruit-clusters which consist of groups of dry seed-like nuts? ay, there's the rub. science cannot answer as yet. after all, these questions are still in their infancy, and we can scarcely yet do more than discover a single stray interpretation here and there. in the present case a botanist can only suggest either that the potentilla finds its own mode of dispersion equally well adapted to its own peculiar circumstances, or else that the lucky accident, the casual combination of circumstances, which produced the first elongation of the receptacle in the strawberry has never happened to befall its more modest kinsfolk. for on such occasional freaks of nature the whole evolution of new varieties entirely depends. a gardener may raise a thousand seedlings, and only one or none among them may present a single new and important feature. so a species may wait for a thousand years, or for ever, before its circumstances happen to produce the first step towards some desirable improvement. one extra petal may be invaluable to a five-rayed flower as effecting some immense saving of pollen in its fertilisation; and yet the 'sport' which shall give it this sixth ray may never occur, or may be trodden down in the mire and destroyed by a passing cow.
