MESPILUS. /O 



fruit not worth a place in our desserts ? Linnaeus says, " Baccse ex- 

 acinatse cum vino juscula constituunt nostratibus receptissima." Fl. 

 Suec. p. 171. 



Our wild Roses obey much the same laws in their distribution as 

 the Brambles. R. tomentosa ascends the Cheviots higher than any 

 other. The species intermingled occupy the district from the deans 

 in our elevated boundary to the sea-shore ; but it is in lowland open 

 deans, and in unclipt and untended hedges, of which we fortunately 

 have several that line by-roads, or roads which traffic has forsaken, 

 that they shoot up in freedom their cany boughs, and flush the 

 solstice with beauty. Nothing can be more exhilarating than a hedge 

 bourgeoned with their graceful arches, glowing with a crowd of flowers 

 in bud and in blow * ; and looking thereupon I have learned to enter 

 with more entire sympathy into others' bereavement, as well as to 

 Milton's complaint, that there was blank to them, and to him, 



" Or light of vernal bloom, or summer's rose." 



The botanical rambler in our deans will frequently meet with groups 

 of thorn, hazel and sloe, enwreathed with honeysuckle and arched with 

 roses, which may have been the very types whence the poets have 

 drawn the following true pictures ; 



" The Hawthorn here, 

 With moss and Uchen grey, dies of old age : 

 Up to the topmost branches climbs the Rose, 

 And mingles with the fading blooms of May, 

 While round the Briar the Honeysuckle-wreaths 

 Entwine, and with their sweet perfume embalm 

 The dying rose." — James Grahame. 



" and there Wild Briers enwreath'd 



With honey-suckles wild, brimful of life, 

 Now trail along, and clamber up and fill 

 The air mth odom's, by short sleeping bee 

 Already visited." — J. Wilson. 



206. Mespilus oxyacantha = Crataegus oxyacantha. Don's 

 Gard. Diet. ii. 600. €\)t Ci)orn : |^aiuti)ont : ?^alu4rcc ; and the 

 fruit are called ?^ah)£i. — The name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon 

 Haia, which signifies a hedge, — and furnishes a proof as to the verv 

 early period in which the shrub was applied to a purpose for which 

 long experience has shown no other is so well adapted, and for which 

 it is now almost exclusively employed in our district. In 1561, to 



dity into his maw, from the sour mouth-screwing crab up (though down in 

 literal position) to the Swedish turnip, sweetened by the frost, riots in the 

 luxury of the hi]}, caring not how much the downy seeds may canker and 

 chap the wicks of his mouth, and render his nails an annoyance in scratching 

 his neck." — Thomas Aird. 



* " Once upon a time, when I was fishing on the Tweed, between Old 

 Melrose and Drybiugh, I saw, after a thunder-storm, a slip of dewy sunlight 

 streaming down through a wild-rose bush, on the bank, all a-blush with 

 roses. I thought it the sweetest sight I had ever seen in natm-e." — Thos. 

 Aird. Memoir of D. M. Moir, p. cxxviii. — The Wild-Rose was Delta's 

 favourite flower. 



