190 OUR COMMON FRTJITS. 



CHAPTEE XV. 



THE RASPBERRY AND ITS ALLIES, THE BLACK- 

 BERRY, DEWBERRY, ETC. 



DIFFERING greatly as regards the place they hold in 

 the world's estimation, the several species of plants which 

 bear the botanical name of Rubus (derived from the Celtic 

 rub, red) are yet all marked by a strong family likeness, 

 linking in bonds of unmistakeable affinity the much-prized 

 garden nursling which furnishes preparations deemed 

 worthy to figure at the most sumptuous banquets, with 

 the wild straggler of the hedgerow whose fruit is only 

 plucked by the cottager or the schoolboy. Not only is 

 the resemblance seen in their lowly growth, their prickly 

 and usually compound foliage, and spiky clusters of blos- 

 soms, but as respects their produce, while, in point of 

 size, there is no very great extent of diversity, in shape 

 ihere is still less, and all betray at the first glance their 

 peculiar formation as being what are called collective 

 fruits. The product of Eosaceous flowers, with five-cleft 

 calyx, five always crumpled petals, and numerous stamens 

 and ovaries, the latter develop each into a little distinct 

 berry containing a single seed ; while the receptacle, or 

 foundation into which the various parts of the blossom 

 are inserted, swells into a dry spongy mass, round which 

 these little berries crowd in such close contact that the 

 whole group forms but a single fruit, called itself, in 

 popular parlance, a berry, while the real berries which 

 compose it are termed its grains. Tet though these so- 

 -called grains actually press against each other, they are 

 not absolutely united, but remain so far independent that 

 it is possible to pick them off singly one by one, this adhe- 

 sion without union being the grand distinction between 

 collective fruits, such as those of the Rulus family, and 

 aggregate fruits such as the Mulberry, between which there 

 seems at the first glance so great a similarity. It is with 

 the Strawberry that the former have really the most affi- 

 nity, both these fruits being marked by the swelling of the 



