240 ROSACEA 



Gulf of Bothnia, especially about Tornea, the fruits are commonly collected 

 and sent in the form of a conserve to Stockholm, where they are used as a 

 sauce for meat, and mingled with soup. Casks are also sent to that city 

 filled with the roots of this Bramble, from which vinegar is made. 



There is great diversity of opinion among authors respecting the number 

 of native species of Brambles. Sir Joseph D. Hooker, for example, recog- 

 nises only four species, viz., Easpberry, Stone Bramble, Cloudberry, and 

 Blackberry, ranging the other forms enumerated as species above as sub- 

 species or varieties of the Blackberry {R. fruticosus). 



10. Agrimony (Jgrimdnia). 



Common Agrimony {A. eupatdria). — Leaves pinnate ; smaller leaflets 

 alternating with the larger ones, strongly serrated, downy underneath, 

 and the terminal ones stalked ; spikes long, with distant flowers. Plant 

 perennial. During the months of June and July this pretty wayside flower 

 can hardly fail to arrest our attention by its tapering spikes of yellow 

 blossoms, which have a faint odour of lemon, or as some say of apricots, an 

 odour becoming more powerful if they are bruised. Gerard e, and the 

 herbalists of his day, praise the great virtues of the Agrimony. Michael 

 Drayton mentions it in his " Muses' Elysium " among several other supposed 

 herbs of virtue : — 



' ' Next these here Egremony is, 



That helps the serpent's biting ; 

 The blessed Betony by this, 



Whose cures deserving writing, 

 This All-heal, and so named of right, 



New wounds so quickly healing ; 

 A thousand more I could recite 

 Most worthy of revealing." 



Few plants are, in our days, in more repute as a tonic than the Agrimony. 

 The village doctors and doctresses yet prescribe it, and the author has 

 known it to be taken in cases of debility with apparent benefit, for the herb 

 is doubtless somewhat tonic in its properties, though less so than that 

 common medicinal plant, the Red Centaury. The Agrimony is an ingredient 

 in most of the herb teas which have from time to time been recommended to 

 public notice. A decoction of the plant is also commonly used as a gargle 

 for diseased throats, and the notion that it was good for a disordered liver 

 once gave it the familiar name of Liverwort. Coughs, agues, gout, and a 

 variety of ills, were thought by the old herbalists to be ameliorated by syrup 

 and salves made of the Agrimony ; and the native of any other country who 

 should read their pages, while he wondered at the prevalence of serpents in 

 the land, might at least congratulate the physicians of the age that herbs to 

 cure their "biting" were to be found in every wood. Doubtless, in times 

 when forests were more frequent than now, the rambler or the woodman 

 might be more often bitten by the viper or adder, the only native reptile 

 whose bite is poisonous ; but as the innocent snakes and slow-worms are 

 popularly believed also to have the power of inflicting deadly wounds, the 

 apparent cures wrought by these herbs would be numerous. 



The Agrimony contains tannin, and has been used in dressing leather ; 



