BILBERRY 179 



and Stalkes boyled in fat broth dravveth forth mightily 

 Choler, and so do the tender Leaves eaten with Oyle and 

 Salt." About the best medicinal use we seem able to put 

 the plant to nowadays is the fabrication of elder-flower 

 water as a pleasant cooling application to inflamed or weak 

 eyes. 



BILBERRY (Vaccinium Myrtillus) 



On open moorlands and bleak commons, up to some 

 four thousand feet above the sea, one may often find in 

 profusion the little Bilberry, the Vaccinium Myrtillus. 

 Several early writers speak of its being found on Hampstead 

 Heath, and it may still occur there. We have met with 

 it in abundance in Surrey and Sussex, but it is more 

 especially found in the north, where the extent of wind- 

 swept moorland is so much greater. It is but a small plant, 

 thickly covered with small leaves not unlike those of the 

 box, and little, delicate-looking, waxen, bell-like, drooping 

 flowers, of a pale pink. To these in turn succeed the 

 berries, at first green, then red, and finally, black. These 

 ripened berries when growing arc covered with a beautiful 

 bloom, but this is to a great extent lost when the children, 

 " going bilberrying," gather them by the thousand and 

 bring them to market. The fruit has a very pleasant acid 

 taste, and deeply stains the lips ; but, refreshing as the 

 berries are when picked and eaten on the mountain side, 

 they are much better when cooked. They are some- 

 times called buUberries. From a certain crispness when 

 bitten they are sometimes called crackberries, while another 

 common name is whortleberry, sometimes contracted and 

 corrupted into hurts. 



