160 OTJE COMMON FRUITS. 



its centre, and it is not until the fruit is formed that it is 

 seen by the circle of five little scars upon its surface, 

 beyond the 10 dots * which show where the stamens once 

 were, and a central mark denoting the place of the style 

 that this globular corolla was really composed of five 

 pieces, though adhering so. closely as to seem but one. 

 The nearest ally to the cranberry is the Vaccinium vitis 

 idee, a low-growing evergreen, with foliage very like that 

 of the box used for bordering garden-beds, and flowers 

 with a bell-shaped corolla, rather deeply cleft by four 

 notches, growing in racemes at the end of the branches. 

 The berries, too, are crimson, and ripening about August 

 in some parts of England, chiefly in Westmoreland, are 

 often made into tarts under the name of " cow-berries." 

 but are more astringent and less pleasant than either the 

 cranberry or the commonWhortle or Bilberry. In Sweden, 

 however, large quantities are yearly made into jelly, which 

 is eaten as a sauce with all kinds of meat, being even pre- 

 ferred by many to currant jelly. Shut into a close vessel, 

 and placed in a cellar, they keep well for a long time, 

 and the wine-makers of Paris preserve them thus from 

 June until vintage-time, using them then to give colour 

 to their grape-juice a practice harmless, at least so long 

 as they confine themselves to the use of this species ; but 

 it is said they also resort sometimes to the Vaccinium uli- 

 ginosum, a larger, darker coloured fruit, with less flavour, 

 but which, taken in any quantity, causes giddiness and 

 headache, and which is therefore employed occasionally in 

 England also to produce an illegitimate " headiness " in 

 beer. A white-fruited species is also sometimes met with, 

 chiefly in Lancashire. 



The kind most often seen is the Vaccinium myrtillus, 

 variously named the Whortle, Hurtle, Bil, or Blaeberry, a 

 small, round, purple or almost black fruit, covered with 

 a delicate azure bloom. Growing on heaths or waste 

 places, it is not only indigenous in every county of this 

 country, from the warm Land's End to the bleak highlands 

 of Scotland, but is actually so peculiarly at home in this 



Plate IV., fig. 5 b. 



