BARBERRY FAMILY 



Fruit. — Large, fleshy berry, one to two inches long, yel- 

 lowish, egg-shaped, many-seeded. 



Fertilized by bumblebees. 



Our May-Apple is not the Mandrake of the ancient 

 w^orld. It bears the same name, but it is not the same 

 thing. The ancient Mandrake, if tradition and folk- 

 lore be true, was a distinctly unpleasant plant, able 

 to blast its disturber with madness. It belonged to 

 the family of the Deadly Nightshade and is said to 

 have been indigenous in Palestine, Syria, and Greece. 

 Shakespeare thus refers to it: 



"Would curses kiU as doth the Mandrake's groan, 

 I would invent as bitter-searching terms, 

 As curst, as harsh, and horrible to hear." 



—"Second Henry VL" 



"And shrieks, hke Mandrakes torn out of the earth. 

 That hving mortals, hearing them, run mad." 



— "Romeo and Juliet." 



Our Mandrake, however, is altogether quiet and 

 harmless; it grows in open places where there is sun, 

 yet not too much; prefers meadows and pastures 

 bordering woodlands. The plants coming up in the 

 spring suggest little umbrellas, each wrapped in an 

 enfolding case. Later the case slips off and the leaves 

 open and spread. In every colony are two kinds of 

 plants — the single-leaved and the two-leaved. The 

 single-leaved are sterile, the tw^o-leaved are the ones 

 that bear the blossoms. The blossom appears at the 

 fork of the stem, solitary, nodding, waxen, and is care- 

 fully protected against direct sunlight by the two 

 sheltering leaves; indeed, one must look for it to find 



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