Hautbois Strawberry
Sweet Woodruff is one of the most typical of woodland plants, growing chiefly in beechwoods, but also found in hornbeam/oak forests, mixed beech/fir forests, and, randomly, in cultivated spruce forest. It is a Eurasian plant, very adaptable to a wide range of soil acidity, which serves as an indicator of very fertile soil with good chemical and physical properties.
Present in Europe’s forests are three very similar and related species, although the name Wild Strawberry is applied only to one – Fragaria vesca L., which probably also has the largest area of distribution. It grows in open broad-leaved as well as coniferous forests, chiefly in glades and alongside forest rides, on shrubby banks and in forest margins from lowlands to fairly high elevations. This is also one of the first plants to gain a foothold on bared skeletal soils.
The smell of coumarin is the characteristic scent of hay, and it is this aromatic quality which has led to the use of coumarin in the manufacture of tobacco.
This is a substance which can be used medicinally to reduce the clotting properties of blood. Excessive use of the drug may cause poisoning and even death; in small doses, however, it has a sedative effect. The top parts of the plant are also used as an aromatic in the home production of liqueurs.
The Slipper Orchid is a perennial orchid, 15-50 cm high, with a short-segmented creeping root. The stem bears up to four large flowers. Of the three outer perianth segments the two lateral ones are joined to form a single long double-toothed segment; of the three inner segments the two lateral ones are widespread, lanceolate, and coloured brownish red, whereas the third inner segment forms a pouch-like lip which is pale yellow with red dots inside. The fruit is a unicapsular capsule splitting by six valves. The seeds are very tiny.
However, there is one thing all three have in common – the real fruit of the strawberry is not the berry itself, the fleshy receptacle, but the small achenes which project from and cover its entire surface.
