The Cloudberry. 2 1 1 



" A green and gentle hill, the last 

 As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such, 

 Save that there is no sea to lave its base, 

 But a most living landscape." 



In this case it would simply mean " mountain-berry." 



A Rubus to all intents and purposes in flowers and 

 fruit, this very interesting little plant has nothing about 

 it in figure of the bramble, the ligneous portions being 

 chiefly underground, and the flowering-branches rising 

 above the soil to a height never greater than six or eight 

 inches, and usually less. The leaves are roundish or 

 kidney-shaped, though often five, seven, or nine-lobed. 

 The large white flowers are solitary and terminal, and 

 usually of only one sex, the staminate and the pistillate 

 occurring in distinct patches, after the manner of the 

 rose-lychnis and the white evening lychnis. Occasionally 

 the two kinds are intermingled, the stems being united 

 underground, which shows that the plant is monoecious 

 as well as dioecious. It often covers expanses of many 

 acres in extent, growing without any intermixture of other 

 plants, a very pretty spectacle when in full bloom at the 

 end of June. In the arctic regions it flowers imme- 

 diately after the snows have passed away ; and scarcely 

 are the berries ripened, six weeks afterwards, before snow 

 begins to fall again. Covering only midsummer, these 

 " short and simple annals " render the life-history of the 

 little cloudberry the briefest of any among the fruit- 

 bearing plants useful to man. When ripe, the appearance 

 of the great beds is again exceedingly pretty. The 



