236 ROSACEA 



The shoots are very tough, and are used for binding down the cottage thatch, 

 and the sods of the lowly graves. Badgers are said to be very fond of 

 blackberries, and to thrive well upon them. The green boughs are of great 

 use in dyeing wool, silk, and mohair, black ; and silkworms seem to like the 

 leaves of this plant as well as those of the nuilberry, and to thrive as well 

 upon them. A small fungus, the Bramble Puccinia {Pucxinia rubi) often 

 forms sooty patches in autumn on their under surfaces. A double flowering 

 variety of the Bramble is very ornamental to the garden and shrubbery. 



Few families of plants have been more variously arranged than the 

 Brambles, most botanists recording a large number of species, while others 

 consider that these so-called species are but different forms of the same 

 plants, varying only according to circumstances. Mr. Babington, in his 

 " Manual of Botany," describes forty-three species of Eubus. Dr. Bell Salter 

 considers that there are twenty-three species, and many botanists divide 

 them into a larger number than either of these writers. In that valuable 

 work, " The British Flora," by Sir William Jackson Hooker and Dr. Arnott, 

 the following remark occurs on this subject : " We are almost quite con- 

 vinced, practically, not only because the characters taken from the young 

 shoots, and disappearing when they are older and begin to blossom, are not 

 permanent, but because none of the reputed species of the shi'ubby Brambles 

 are either anatomically or physiologically distinct, all passing into each other 

 without any fixed assignable limit ; and theoretically, from a consideration 

 of what is requisite to constitute a difference between the other European 

 species of Eubus, that all of the present section are mere varieties, approach- 

 ing on the one side to E. idceiis, on the other to E. saxatilis, with both of 

 which many fertile and permanent hylirids may have been formed and are 

 still forming." These authors have, therefore, given what they consider 

 the more prominent forms or races, numbering them as if only constituting 

 a single species, and have indicated how these ought probably to be reduced 

 to four types, an arrangement which is followed in this work. 



In examining the descriptions it will be necessary to remember that by 

 stem is meant the barren root-shoot, and the prickles and leaves, when not 

 otherwise described, must be understood as those upon that shoot. 



2. (2) Upright Bramble {E. suberMiis). —Stem roundish, nearly erect, 

 not rooting, nearly smooth; prickles few, small, chiefly confined to the 

 angles, and not intermixed with bristles ; leaflets quinate, or sometimes 

 pinnate, without close white down underneath. This plant, which is common 

 in boggy woods and hedges, bears its white rose-like floM^ers from June to 

 August, and produces its red or black fruits in autumn till the frosts destroy 

 them. 



2. (3) Buckthorn-leaved Bramble (E. rhamnifoUus). — "Stem arched, 

 rooting, nearly glabrous ; prickles confined to the angles of the stem, 

 uniform, without glandular bristles ; leaflets quinate, paler underneath, but 

 not with close white down." This plant, which is in flower at the same 

 season as the Bramble last described, diff'ers very little from it. It is found 

 in thickets, woods, and hedges, and gives its glossy black fruits in autumn 

 to child and bird. 



2. (4) Hornbeam-leaved Bramble (E. carpinifolius). — "Stem arched 



