54 



Last summer, being with my friend Mr. W. Matthews, jun., spend- 

 ing a few days at Park Hall, near Kidderminster, a botanical excur- 

 sion was proposed into Wyre Forest, and Mr. Matthews suggested 

 that an old servant of Mr. Fryer's, of Bewdley, who was well acquainted 

 with the Forest, should accompany us as a guide. This individual, 

 whose name is Jordan, a most honest and trust-worthy person, has a 

 good deal of time on his hands, and besides waiting upon Mr. Fryer, 

 manages his gardening affairs. Mr. Fryer having kindly dispensed 

 with Jordan's services, the old man came with us to look again at his 

 favourite forest with great glee. But first of all he requested us to 

 go to his garden, as he particularly wished me to see some brambles 

 which he had raised from seed gathered in the forest, that he had 

 carefully noted the bushes from which he took the fruit, and that in 

 every instance the offspring precisely resembled the parent plant. I 

 was delighted to hear this, more particularly as Jordan had not been 

 trusting to any nomenclature in the matter, and might have thus mis- 

 taken a name ; but as he truly said he knew all the brambles of the 

 forest by sight, but their Latin designations were quite unknown to 

 him. How long he had had brambles under cultivation I am unable 

 to say, but he said that he always found that three years elapsed after 

 planting the seed before the shrub produced flowers. 



I understood from Mr. Jordan that after satisfying himself that the 

 seeds produced plants quite similar to their parents, he had been in 

 the habit of grubbing them up, as he was obliged to economize room, 

 so that all he had experimented upon were not then under cultivation. 

 Those that I saw and examined in the garden were as under : — 



R. sylvaticus, W. & N. — Very characteristic, and precisely resem- 

 bling the plants in the forest, as well as specimens I have gathered in 

 Birchin Grove, Worcester. The very large leaves, green on both 

 sides, of this form, and the stem trailing far upon the ground, render 

 it very conspicuous in forest tracts. These leaves assume a brilliant 

 red colour, and fade away long before the enduring, almost evergreen 

 foliage of R. fruticosus. Totally distinct from any of the glandular 

 brambles. 



R. sublustris, Lees, (in Steele's 'Handbook of Field Botany').— 

 This is the R. corylifolius of Babington, but being confounded by 

 Sir J. E. Smith with R. dumetorum, W. $ N., the term corylifolius, 

 as deceptive, ought not in my opinion to remain. Weihe and Nees 

 have it not in Rub. Germ., referring Smith's plant to their dumetorum. 

 The very smooth stem, however, only distantly armed, and the 

 white pubescence of the leaves beneath, well distinguish it. The 



