54: FAMILIAR FEATURES OF THE ROADSIDE. 



black raspberry is most common in its wild state 

 northward. 



The high blackberry (Ru'bus villosus) is another 

 distinctive roadside character in the North. It grows 

 from two to seven feet high, and is armed with 

 recurved thorns stout enough to tear anything but a 

 leathern suit into shreds. The blossoms are narrow- 

 petaled, but large and white as well as beautiful ; 

 indeed, a full-flowered spray of blackberry is as pic- 

 turesque a bit of roadside embroidery as one may 

 well find. The berries themselves in their red and 

 black aspects are inimitably decorative, and the 

 strongly modeled, deep-veined, sharp-toothed leaves 

 are as conventional in arrangement as anything of 

 the leaf kind we can find in Nature. 



The blackberry is well named, for it is the most 

 obviously black thing in all the world of flowers and 

 fruit. But is it truly black ? So far as effect is con- 

 cerned I must answer yes ; but considering it in the 

 light of principle I must answer no ; for black hardly 

 has an existence in Nature! To prove this, crush 

 the skin of a blackberry or the petal of a black pansy, 

 and examine the juice under a magnifying glass; 

 there is no black there, but color; and as we all 

 know black is the absence of color the proof is con- 

 clusive. 



The low blackberry, or dewberry (Rubus Cana- 



