1118 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 
# A. U. 6 crispus. — Leaves curled and cut. 
a A. U. 7 salicifolius. — Leaves narrow. 
Description, §c. The common arbutus will grow to the height of 20 ft. or 
30 ft.; but, unless pruned to a single stem, it assumes more the character of a 
huge bush than that of a regular-headed tree. When it is pruned, however, 
it forms a small, picturesque-headed, evergreen tree of great beauty, at every 
season of the year; and particularly so in autumn, when it is covered with its 
white bell-shaped flowers, which are slightly tinged with pink, intermixed with 
its large strawberry-like fruit, which is 12 months before it arrives at perfection, 
and which is, therefore, seen on the tree at the same time as the flower. 
Smith says that the fruit is insipid, and scarcely eatable in England; but that 
in the Levant it is said to be much larger and more agreeable, as well as more 
wholesome. The reddish hue of the bark is very remarkable in this and some 
other species of A’rbutus. The rate of growth of the tree, when young, and 
properly treated, will average 1 ft. a year for the first 10 years ; and the plant 
is of considerable durability. 
Geography. The arbutus is a native of the south of Europe, also of 
varous parts of Asia, and of Africa, about Mount Atlas and Algiers; and 
it is particularly abundant in Italy, in the woods of the Apennines. In 
France, it grows as far’north as lat. 56°; but it requires protection, in the 
winter, in the neighbourhood of Paris. In Britain, it is one of the doubtful 
natives; for, though it seems to be perfectly naturalised in the south of Ire- 
land, it is, as we have seen (p. 34.), considered by many as having been intro- 
duced there. Some of the defenders of our indigenous flora, however, feel 
no doubts on the subject. Mr. Babington, a writer in the Mag. Nat. Hist., 
says, — “It has been doubted, if” A’rbutus U‘nedo “is indigenous at Kil- 
larney ; but I cannot conceive it possible for any person, who has observed it 
on the spot, to believe it to have been ‘introduced by the monks of Mucross 
Abbey,’ which is the theory of the sceptical. It grows in several isolated 
spots, far up the mountains, and is in its greatest beauty when springing from 
‘the crevices of rock on the islets of the upper lake. My conclusion is, that it 
is truly an aboriginal native of that country. The fruit 1s excellent.” [!} (Vol. 
ix. p. 245.) Mr. J. Drummond, in Mackay’s Flora Hibernica, says that it is 
certainly indigenous, 
History. The arbutus was known to the Greeks and Romans; but, 
according to Pliny, it was not held in much esteem ; for, as the specific name 
implies, he adds, the fruit was considered so bitter, that only one of it could 
be eaten at atime. There can be no doubt, however, that it was an article of 
food, in the early ages, both in Greece and Italy ; since in these countries, and 
also in Spain, as well as about Killarney, in Ireland, it is still eaten by the 
common people. Virgil recommends the young shoots as winter food for 
young goats, and as fit for basket-work. Horace praises the tree for its shade; 
and Ovid celebrates its loads of “ blushing fruit.” It is spoken of by Gerard 
as, in his time, growing only in some few gardens in England. It is men- 
tioned by various writers, both in poetry and in prose, who have been charmed 
with its beauty. Among others, Mrs. Barbauld, in her poem entitled Corsica, 
written in 1769, gives the following description of its appearance in that island 
in a wild state :— 

** While, glowing bright 
Beneath the various foliage, wildly spreads 
The arbutus, and rears his scarlet fruit 
Luxuriant mantling o’er the craggy steeps.” 
And Miss Twamley has the following lines on this tree in her Romance of 
Nature published in 1836. 
** See, like a ladye in a festal garb, 
How gaily deck’d she waits the Christmas time! 
Her robe of living emerald, that waves 
And, shining, rustles in the frost-bright air, 
Is garlanded with bunches of small flowers, — 
Small bell-shaped flowers, each of an orient pearl 
Most delicately modeled, and just tinged 
With faintest yellow, as if, lit within, 
There hung a fairy torch in each lamp-flower.”’ - 
