THE BRAMBLE. 135 



leaf is more or less commonly covered with a white down 

 or felt. Our readers will, we trust, excuse the absence of 

 anything more definite. In writing 1 of a plant that varies 

 in so marked a degree, it is impossible to draw a hard and 

 fast line, though we are very conscious that it may be as 

 painful to others to read such a series of halting definitions, 

 such a free use of the words often, generally, more or less, 

 as it is to us to pen them. The blossoms are either white 

 or varying degrees of pink. The petals are five in number, 

 and of a delicate satin-like texture, and as they surround 

 the mass of deep yellow anthers in the centre, form with it 

 a very pleasing and beautiful flower. 



The fruit is almost as literally black as the name of 

 i he plant implies, for it is, when ripe, so deep a purple 

 as to appear almost black. Before ripening, the berries 

 are first green, then bright red; and as the fully- 

 matured fruit and those in all stages of progression towards 

 this luscious consummation may be met with on the same 

 spray, the contrast of colours is often very marked, and not 

 without its charm. When the fruit is ripening, and, in 

 fact, directly after flowering, the sepals of the calyx are 

 turned downwards, as may be seen in our illustration. 

 They do not, as in the dewberry and cloudberry, other 

 species of the genus, surround the base of the fruit. 



The generic name of the blackberry, Rubus, was 

 bestowed by Linnaeus ; it is supposed to have been 

 suggested by the Celtic word reub, to tear. The specific 

 name does not, as some novices might imagine, mean 

 fruit-bearing; the word would in that case have been 

 fructuosus. Fruticosus is a Latin word, derived from the 

 word for a bush or shrub, and refers to the bushy nature of 

 the plant. The word blackberry is too self-evident in its 



