26 OF THE ROSACEOUS FAMILY. 



differs from the Rose in having the whole calyx spread 

 out flat, and the clustered seeds each coated with a 

 pulp. This is then called a compound berry, and its 

 separate succulent grains, acini. To this genus be- 

 long the Blackberry, Raspberry, Dewberry, Thim- 

 ble-berry, and others. 



The Strawberry has also the flower of the Rose, 

 but the calyx is furnished with five small additional 

 leaflets, and the receptacle becomes a succulent 

 sweet mass covered with the dry seeds, and is thus 

 entitled, as it were, by a slight accident of structure, 

 to the rank of a most delicious fruit. This receptacle 

 when mature is deciduous, or separable from the 

 calyx. 



The Cinquefoil, or Potentilla, only differs from the 

 Strawberry in the dryness and juicelessness of its 

 seed receptacle ; but though some species have also 

 trifoliate leaves, they have more commonly five leaf- 

 lets, like the fingers of the hand, all arising from the 

 summit of the petiole, or leaf stalk, and hence called 

 digitate. In the barren Strawberry, now very proper- 

 ly referred to Potentilla, the flowers, in place of the 

 usual yellow color, are white, and the leaves trifoliate 

 and ribbed as in the Strawberry ; so that here we 

 almost lose the discriminating limits of the two genera, 

 which insensibly pass into each other, and tend, among 

 many other facts of the same kind, to prove, that, in 

 truth, our generic distinctions are only arbitrary helps 

 which we employ for discrimination, and that nature 

 knows no rigid bounds, but plays through an infinite 

 variety of forms, and ever avoids monotony. 



Nearly all the fine fruits and flowers of the family 

 of the RosacejE which we so generally cultivate, 

 originate in temperate climates. The Apple has been 

 obtained from the wild Crabtree of Northern Europe : 

 the Pear from the very unpromising wilding of 



