ROSE TEIBE 235 



and brilliant tiger-lily displayed their magnificence, while beantiful water 

 lilies abounded in the clear waters. 



* * Leaflets 5 ; digitate, or cut into lobes, or ternate, rarely pinnate ; stem mostly 



biennial, woody. 



2. (1) Common Bramble (B.. fruticdsus). — Stem arched, rooting at 

 the tip, angular, furrowed, and nearly smooth ; prickles slender, uniform, 

 confined to the angles of the stem, and not intermingled with bristles ; 

 leaflets quinate, with close white down underneath. The beautiful snowy 

 or delicate pink flowers of this Bramble are to be found on most hedges from 

 June till the end of summer, often contrasting with the dark crimson or 

 black berry clustering on the same bough. When winter comes, the long 

 trailing shoots are yet clad with leaves, exhibiting the tinge of purple and 

 deep brown, or of that red colour, which combined with the fruit to give the 

 name of Eubus to the genus, with here and there a leaf green as the spring 

 foliage, and whitened beneath with down. We have all in childhood eaten 

 the ripened fruits, for what so " plentiful as blackberries " ? They are very 

 wholesome, and often so juicy as to deserve the French provincial name 

 applied to one of the species, Finte de vln. The ancients considered both 

 fruit and flowers efficacious against the bite of the serpent, but blackberries 

 are now little valued save by country children, though they are occasionally 

 made into puddings and tarts, or boiled with sugar, when they form a whole- 

 some and pleasant preserve. Blackberries were also formerly considered as 

 of valuable medicinal uses, especially in complaints of the throat and mouth, 

 and Bramble-roots boiled in wine were prescribed by the Roman physicians 

 as one of the best astringents. The old English herbalists, who received 

 many of their notions of the uses of plants from the old Roman writers, con- 

 sidered every part of the Bramble as affording medicines, which, variously 

 prepared, relieved various forms of human suffering. Turner, one of our 

 oldest writers on plants, says, "The Bramble bindeth, drieth, and dieth 

 heyre," and a general belief prevailed that the Bramble was so astringent, 

 that even eating its young shoots as a salad would fasten teeth which were 

 loose. Many a poet, like Cowper and Robert Nicholls, has referred to the 

 pleasure of gathering the blackberries in early days, and Elliott has a beauti- 

 ful little poem addressed to the plant : — 



"Thy fruit full well the school-boy know.s, 



Wild Bramble of the brake, 

 So put thou forth thy small white rose, 



I love it for his sake : 

 Though woodbines flaunt, and roses blow 



O'er all the fragrant bowers, 

 Thou need'st not be ashamed to show 



Thy satin-threaded tlowers ; 

 For dull the eye — the heart as dull, 



That cannot feel how fair, 

 Amid all beauty beautiful, 



Th}' tender blossoms are." 



Brambles in some cases prove injurious to hedges by climbing about more 

 valuable plants, and hindering their growth; but, on the other hand, they 

 protect more delicate shrubs and herbs, and shield them from rough winds. 



30—2 



