196 OTJE COMMON FRUITS. 



tion. The Arctic, or Dwarf Crimson (_S. Arcticus), having 

 often been the sole refreshment attainable by Linnaeus 

 during his wanderings in those regions, he prefaces his 

 account of it by the kindly remark, " I should be ungrate- 

 ful towards this beneficent plant, which often, when I was 

 almost prostrate with hunger and fatigue, restored me 

 with the vinous nectar of its berries, did I not bestow on 

 it a full description." But the fruit which is reckoned to 

 be the very best produced by any plant of the species 

 is that highly-valued Cloudberry, or Rubus cTiamcemorus, 

 less exclusively Arctic than the preceding, but which still 

 finds its most congenial home in the far North, in Swe- 

 den, Norway, &c. A small plant, with large serrated 

 leaves, it bears at the top of the stem a single berry, at 

 first scarlet, but afterwards yellow, and which Dr. Clarke 

 describes as being as big as the top of a man's thumb, 

 and in taste cooling and delicious, of a flavour like the 

 large American Hautbois Strawberry ; while he gives, too, 

 an interesting account of the " blessed effects " he expe- 

 rienced while suffering from a disorder which had seemed 

 to be incurable, when, on eating daily a quantity of these 

 berries, simply gathered by his hostess's children as an 

 offering to the guest, his fever abated, appetite and spirits 

 returned, and he was soon restored to perfect health, the 

 symptoms of amendment, he says, having been "almost 

 instantaneous after eating of these berries." This valuable 

 fruit is found in some of the loftier parts of the High- 

 lands of Scotland, remaining in season about a month, 

 during which period it not only serves to support various 

 kinds of game, but is eagerly collected and preserved by 

 the Highlanders. It became a special object of interest 

 in that country some years ago, owing to a poem written 

 by Mr. Archibald Grorrie in the Ossianic style, which met 

 with many admirers, and which was in the form of a peti- 

 tion from the Cloudberry to the Caledonian Horticultural 

 Society, praying that it might be favoured with the ad- 

 vantages of garden culture, or wedded to the Raspberry, 

 in order that its progeny at least might be elevated to the 

 dignity of a dessert fruit. It has, however, been found 

 very difficult to naturalize, a temperate climate not suit- 



