Thorn- Fruits. 59 



very showy plant, produces a really handsome and very 

 promising fruit, yellowish, with red streaks and blotches, 

 and sharply acid. Though not eatable in the raw state, 

 made into jam the flavour becomes very distinct, and is 

 thought superior to that of marmalade. 



Then come various species of the grand genus Cra- 

 tcegus, familiarly represented in the common hawthorn of 

 the hedgerows. As a rule, the fruits of these are useless 

 to mankind, but the produce of many may be compared 

 to little red, or more usually yellow, apples. They can- 

 not be eaten fresh, but are serviceable for tarts, either 

 alone or in combination with genuine apple. Such are 

 the fruits of the Cratcegus Azarolus, the Cratcegus Aronia, 

 both from the south of Europe, and the North American 

 Cratcegus coccinea. The Cratcegus tanacetifolia, one of 

 the species with golden-yellow fruit, indigenous to the 

 mountains of Greece, appears to be the original mespile, 

 as described by Theophrastus. 



Having so many excellent fruits ready made, as it 

 were, experiments in regard to the amelioration of these 

 half-dozen are perhaps hardly to be expected, except as 

 scientific pastime. They are very interesting, neverthe- 

 less, as illustrations, in all likelihood, of what all our best 

 fruits were in primaeval times, when their development 

 had scarcely begun ; as illustrations, also, of the abun- 

 dance of rude material there is around us, waiting only 

 for the enterprise and curiosity of man. They seem 

 to hold the same position in Europe as that which in 

 Australia is held by the indigenous fruits not yet culti- 



