47 2 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



fruit in autumn ; the white-flowering hazel-leaved 

 Bramble (Rubus Corylifolius), a less striking species 

 than the latter, and the Dewberry (Rubus ccestus), a 

 more humble and dwarf growing plant than either, 

 this is scattered about the hedge banks, and produces 

 a very delicious fruit with a bloom like that of a plum, 

 but consisting individually of fewer grains than that 

 of the commoner species. The most frequent ex- 

 amples of the Wild Rose which we find enlivening 

 our hedges and wastes, are the Downy-leaved Dog 

 Rose (Rosa tomentosa), the small-flowered Sweet Briar 

 (R. micranthd), the still more common Dog Rose (R. 

 canina), and the White Dog Rose (R. arvensis). 



The climbing plants, which add so much to the 

 beauty and variety of our native woodlands, are of 

 three kinds, those which twine spirally round the 

 stems and branches of the shrubs and trees to which 

 they attach themselves, those which climb by their 

 tendrils or leaf petioles, and the Ivy (Hedera Helix], 

 which climbs by means of fibres, springing laterally 

 from its young shoots. Among the twining plants, 

 we find the Sweet Woodbine, or common Honeysuckle 

 (Louicera Peryclimenum), the gay, sweet blossoms of 

 which decorate, throughout the summer months, al- 

 most every bush and tuft of bushes on the downs and 

 wastes ; the glossy-leaved, white trumpet-flowered 

 Convolvulus, or Great Bindweed (C. Sepium] ; the 

 Small Bindweed (C. arvensis), as frequent in the 

 corn fields as in the hedges ; the Black Briony ( Ta- 

 mus communis), deriving its trivial name from the 

 colour of its root ; and the Woody Nightshade (Sola- 

 num dulcamara], the flowers of which have an unmis- 

 takable family likeness to the potatoe blossom. The 

 other climbing plants, that do not twine, are the 

 Virgin's Bower, or Traveller's Joy {Clematis vitalba], 

 abundant everywhere on the chalk, and particularly 

 conspicuous in autumn and winter, when its persistent 

 gray tufts of feathery seeds shroud the plants they 



