THE BRAMBLE. 



Mubiis fruticosus. Nat. Ord., Rosacete. 



E W plants, perhaps, are more 

 readily recognised by the gener- 

 ality of people than the black- 

 berry, or bramble, while perhaps 

 few are less readily identified by 

 the botanist. Certain broad fea- 

 tures at once present themselves, 

 and enable any one of ordinary 

 observation to say that a given 

 plant before him is the black- 

 berry, while many minor fea- 

 tures become visible on close and 

 attentive study. The once simple 

 bramble becomes a very Proteus 

 amongst plants, and develops into al- 

 most any number of species ; and, 

 V unfortunately, these species are by no means 

 all equally recognised or recognisable, so that 

 while some will tell us that there is but one true black- 

 berry, with many aberrant forms, another will tell us that 

 nine distinct types are clearly recognisable, a third will 

 say not nine but twenty, while Professor Babington finally 

 divides the British Rubi into forty-one species. Into the 

 minor points that are necessary when such precision of 

 classification is striven after we need not here enter j 



