276 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



approved remedies ; and perhaps not without reason. 

 Boerhaave, the great physician, is said to have re- 

 garded the elder with such reverence, for its medi- 

 cinal virtues, that he sometimes took off his hat in 

 passing a tree of this species. 



THE BRAMBLE Rubus fruticosus. 



Though the bramble is rather annoying with its 

 long trailing stems and its sharp thorns, the fruit, 

 commonly called blackberry, is perhaps in its wild 

 state (and it does not need to be cultivated) among 

 the best, and certainly it is the most abundant, of our 

 native berries. The bramble prefers a soil that is 

 moderately good; but, it is found in every situation, 

 except marshes, to the borders of which it creeps 

 very close. On the slopes of the Welsh mountains, 

 more especially in Denbigshire, the bramble berry 

 grows to the size of a middling gooseberry; and in 

 a dry and sunny autumn is really an excellent fruit. 

 Pliny mentions the mulberry growing on a brier, which 

 probably was a fine blackberry. In England there 

 are a number of species confounded under the names 

 of rubus fruticosus, and rubus corylifolius, that vary 

 very much in the quality of their fruit, some of them 

 really deserving cultivation. The family of brambles 

 is divided into those with upright stems, those with 

 prostrate stems, and those with herbaceous stems. 



There is another species of bramble, the Arctic or 

 Dwarf crimson (Rubus arcticus.) This is a small 

 species, and a native of the coldest regions of the 

 world. Its fruit, however, is exceedingly delicious; 

 and were it possible to cultivate it in any habitable 

 situation, it would be a most important addition 

 to garden berries. We have not heard of its 

 ever having been found either hi England or in the 

 Welsh mountains; and in Scotland it grows only in 

 the most wild and elevated situations. Some of the 



