ICOSANDRIA— POLYGYNIA. Riibus. 109 



In hedges and thickets frequent. 



Shrub. July. 



Stems biennial ; the barren ones very long and trailing, unless 

 accidentally supported, sometimes arching, glaucous and pur- 

 ))lish ; green in the shade j they are brittle and full of jjith, ge- 

 nerally with 5 slightly prominent angles, and besprinkled witli 

 copious, rather small, j/rickUs, placed without any order and 

 not confined to the angks, all very nearly straight, though a 

 little detlexed. The flowering sie)ns are round, more uju'ight, 

 not (]uite so prickly, throwing out abundance of young hairy 

 leafy hramhcs, terminating in nearly sim])le, corymbose, hairy 

 and downy p'lnicli^s, v.hich are armed with straight prkkhsy 

 and besprinkled with sliort glandular bristles. Leaves on the 

 barren stems of ;'> very large, broadly ovate, somewhat heart- 

 shaped, pointed, sharply serrated leojlels, often precisely like 

 hazel-leaves ; peculiarly soft and minutely hairy, for the most 

 part, beneath, though Ehrhart's specimen is almost smooth ; the 

 2 lowermost nearly or quite sessile ; the prickles of ihe'irjoot- 

 sfiilks and ribs moderately hooked : the leaces of the flowering 

 branches are uniformly of 3 much smaller, more cut leajlets ; 

 all light green and very soft, not white or hoary, at the back. 

 Sti])Hl(is and hracteas linear-lanceolate, often very narrow. 11. 

 large, white, earlier than most of the genus. Cal. hoary and 

 hairy, dotted with minute, scarcely prominent, glands, often 

 ))rickly at the base, spreading in the flower, reflexed wlien in 

 fruit. Berry large, agreeably acid, of larger and fewer grains 

 than in R. fruticosus, and of a browner black, ripened before 

 that oi \\\G. fruticosus and its allies. 



The late Mr. (i. Anderson, un excellent observer, found the barren 

 stems of this species taking root at tlic extremity, as often as 

 those of R. fruticosus. That this accident however is not very 

 general in either, appears from the anxiety witli which country 

 nurses and quacks seek it out, in order to cure children of the 

 vvlioo])ing cough, by drawing them through the arch thus form- 

 ed by the stem of a Bramlde. The i^'lduds on the calyv and 

 Jlitwcrstalks of R. corylifolius, thougli not hitherto notici-d, di- 

 stinguisli it from fruticosus as essentially as the scattered 

 straight ]>rickUs of the stem, or any other mark whatever. 

 These i^ldnds nearly agree with R. l< ucostacliys, as du the 

 straight jyricklcs of tl»e pauicle. 



11. R. Cfc^ius. lilue l^iaiublo, or Dow-bniy. 



Stems jinrstiate, round, «.>1aiK'()US, prickly and luistly. 

 Prickles (leflcxed. Leallets thrive; hairy hciuatii; la- 

 teral ones lobcd externally. Calyx enibraein;^; tin fruit. 



R. caesius. Lhm. Sp. yv. TOG. Jl'ifhl. r. 2. \{)V I. //. Ih. :> 12. llnjf. 



