BRAMBLES AND THISTLES 237 



berries which they beare are man's meat, besides many other 

 medicinable properties.' 



And he gives a list of their virtues. 



Clearly these writers did not despise the bramble, 

 nor did our English ancestors ; and while I claim for 

 our wild bramble — ' the scorned bramble of the brake ' 

 — that it is one of the most beautiful of our native 

 plants, I claim also for the family at large that almost 

 every species is well worthy of a place in the mixed 

 garden. Our wild bramble, of course, must be kept out 

 of the garden, or it will soon monopolise the whole, and 

 we can admire its grace and beauty in any hedgerow, 

 where it soon takes possession of every untidy corner ; 

 yet, though I think Walt Whitman's description, that 

 ' the running blackberry would adorn the parlours of 

 Heaven,' is exaggerated, I should not object to it as a 

 very lovely ornament of a garden if it were not for 

 this ' running ' quality. Many brambles, and our wild 

 one especially, have the power and the habit of bending 

 their shoots to the ground and there rooting, and so 

 travelling and increasing at a very rapid rate. These 

 long shoots rooting and then making fresh plants are 

 strictly analogous to the runners or stolons of the 

 strawberry, with which the bramble is closely allied ; 

 and for this reason they were (and perhaps still are) 

 used for binding down graves, a custom which, though 



