200 THE FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE 



colour-effect is whitish-yellow, and the staminate flowers 

 give forth large quantities of yellow pollen. 



The berries are globular in form, and of a dark purple- 

 black, but covered with a greyish bloom. They are about 

 the size of a large pea, and each, when opened, is found 

 to contain three hard seeds. They remain for two years 

 on the plant, the first year remaining green and the second 

 ripening into black, so that we find examples of each 

 condition at the same time. One old author, whom we 

 may perhaps, without fear of the law of libel, call more 

 fanciful than reliable, would persuade us that the plant is 

 called juniper from junior, younger, and parere, to bring 

 forth, because " as the first berries be ripe, it bringeth forth 

 younger and junior berries to them." 



The berries when tasted have a warm, pungent, sweetish 

 taste, and a fragrant essential oil is extracted from them. 

 Before pepper was so readily obtainable as it is to-day our 

 ancestors employed the ripe, dry, crushed seeds of the 

 juniper as a substitute, and this is still a good deal used 

 in matters culinary in Germany and elsewhere abroad. 

 The berries have also been employed, when roasted, in 

 place of coffee, or used for fumigatory purposes in hospital 

 wards. We read in a book over three hundred years old 

 that on being burned " the Wood of Juniper yieldeth a 

 very sweet scent which freeth from Infection, and driveth 

 away all Noisesome Serpents, Flies, Waspes, &c." Many 

 birds, thrushes, grouse, and others, are very partial to these 

 berries. It is, however, as a flavouring to Geneva, a baleful 

 liquid that has had its name in England abbreviated to gin,' 



' Phillips, in his Companion to the Orchard, writes somewhat pungently 

 " So much is the flavour of the berries admired by the lower orders of 



