Cranberry tribe m 



tooorfowls Avell know the worth of whortleberries as food. The young 

 mountaineer eats them with delight, and many could say with Robert 

 Nicholls — 



" And here are rich Blaeberries, black and wild, 



Beneath the beach-tree's thickest branches gi'owing : 

 This makes me once again a wayward child, 

 A pilgrimage into the woodland going — 

 The haunt of squirrels and of wood-mouse knowing. 

 And plucking black Blaeberries all the day, 



Till eastward mountain-shadows night was throwing 

 And sending me upon my homeward way, 

 Fill'd both in soul and sense with the old forest grey." 



Blaeberry is the name chiefly used for the fruit in the north. In the 

 neighbourhoods of moorlands these fruits are often gathered, and carried 

 about for sale ; and in the West of England, and in Surrey and Hampshire, 

 many a merry party wanders forth to go a " whorting " over hills and rocky 

 crags. Goats browse on the young branches, and sheep will occasionally eat 

 the plant, though cows and horses refuse it. Coleridge gives us a beautiful 

 sketch of just such a spot as this plant often serves to adorn, a spot which, 

 as we read the page, the mind involuntarily pictures : 



" I find myself 

 Beneath a weeping birch (most beautiful 

 Of forest trees, the lady of the wood !) 

 Hard by the blink of a tall weedy rock 

 That overbrows the cataract. 



At my feet 

 The whortleberries are bedew'd with spray, 

 Dash'd upwards by the fuiious waterfall. 

 How solemnly the pendent ivy mass 

 "Swings in its winnow ! all the air is calm." 



Both this species and the Cowberry are veiy abundant in the north of 

 Europe, the forests in Sweden being often quite covered Avith different kinds 

 of Whortleberry. It is well distributed over our country, but appears to be 

 entirely absent from Cambridge and Suffolk. The Swedes call this species 

 Blabar, and the Cowberry Lingou. The Lapps call the Whortleberry Johio. 

 In France the plant is called Lairette, and in Germany Heidelbeere ; while the 

 Dutch call it Blauhcssen, and the Spaniards and Italians Mirtillo. The fruit 

 is much eaten in Poland with cream and sugar, and the plant is in that 

 country termed Borrotdd czarne. 



2. Bog Whortleberry, or Great Bilberry {V. uliginusum).— Stem 

 rounded ; leaves inversely egg-shaped, entire, glaucous, and veined beneath ; 

 stalks one-flowered; perennial. This is the Blaeberry of the botanist; 

 but, in country places, all the Whortleberries share this name. It is quite an 

 Alpine plant, often growing almost at the summits of mountains where there 

 are bogs, both in the Highlands of Scotland and the north of England. This 

 species is taller than the last, its stem is more woody, and its more strongly 

 veined foliage is of a glaucous hue. The drooping flesh-coloured flowers, 

 which appear in May, are also smaller, and grow nearer together ; and the 

 black berries, though larger, and juicy and pleasant, are yet inferior to those 

 of the last species. They are said to have narcotic properties, and, if eaten 

 in large numbers, to produce a sensation of giddiness ; while, if taken when 



II. —27 



