192 THE RUSTIC LANE AND WOODSIDE. 



and purple fruit. Our common species are not remarkable 

 for elegance or beauty, but the country waysides would 

 look bald and cheerless without the simple decoration 

 afforded by these plants. 



Among the trailing species of bramble, one of the most 

 important as a natural ornament of lanes and field-borders, 

 is the dewberry, or evergreen blackberry. It is very 

 abundant on the edges of woods, where the trees are 

 thin and scattered, and in pastures covered with low 

 shrubs, where it may be recognized by its small, elegant, 

 and shining leaves. These in protected situations remain 

 green all winter, becoming slightly impurpled as spring 

 advances. The dewberry covers with its close network 

 of trailing branches the virgin turf which has been left un- 

 disturbed in the borders of lanes and wood-paths. When 

 the soil has been repeatedly turned by the plough, this 

 little inhabitant of the primitive sods gives place to a 

 larger species, that trails in a similar manner upon the 

 ground, and bears an excellent fruit. 



The only native species of bramble which is admired 

 for the beauty of its flowers, but not so common in fields 

 and lanes as in old gardens, is the flowering raspberry. 

 It is so called from the size of its large crimson flowers 

 with a yellow disk, resembling a dark red single rose. 

 The leaves of this species are not pinnate, like the leaves 

 of other species of bramble, but palmate, resembling the 

 leaf of the striped maple. We sometimes find it in a 

 shady nook, concealing itself under a stone-wall, and sel- 

 dom in company with other shrubs. The delicacy of its 

 habit unfits it to contend with its more hardy congeners, 

 and it is soon driven away from its retreat by the ingress 

 of other species. 



I have not yet spoken of the grapevine, which, if 

 not very ornamental in gardens, where its beauty is 

 marred by excessive pruning, cannot be surpassed in a 



