BEAR-BERRY 235 



and on dry rocky slopes, being quite at home up to three 

 thousand feet above the sea. Its botanical name has a 

 rather formidable appearance, Arctostaphylos Uva Ursi. 

 The first name, however, is but bear-berry over again, 

 only this time in a Greek, dress, while the second name 

 is again bear-berry, but now set forth in Latin. The 

 generic name was bestowed on the plant by Adanson, a 

 celebrated French botanist, who published his notable work, 

 a book on the families of plants, in the year 1763. One 

 curious feature in his nomenclature, though the present is 

 an exception, is that many of the names he gives are to 

 all appearance meaningless, or so obscure and recondite 

 as to be entirely pointless.^ Clusius, a Dutch botanist, 

 who wrote in 1601 his best-known book, A History of 

 Rare Plants, is responsible for the specific name. Whether 

 we take Greek or Latin or English, we arrive at the 

 same idea that the fruit of the plant is a delectable item 

 in the food of bears. It may perchance be objected 

 that there are no bears, at least of the quadrupedal type, 

 in Durham or Cromarty, but we must always beware of 

 falling into the fallacy that because a plant is undoubtedly 

 British it is British alone, and in Northern Europe, Northern 

 Asia, Northern America, where the plant is as much at home 

 as in North Britain, bears are no less at home. It is 

 sometimes called bear's bilberry or meal-berry, in Danish 

 meelbter^ from the mealy character of its fruit. 



' Thus the gentianella, a graceful Httle yellow-flowering plant of the turf- 

 bogs, he called Cicendia. It has been suggested that this is from the Greek 

 kikinnos, curled hair, or from the Latin cis and candeo, to burn within, 

 though what curly locks or internal combustion have to do with this charming 

 little plant it would be impossible to explain. Anotlier plant, the hedge 

 parsley, he called Torilis — wherefore, no man knoweth. 



