Berries of the Hills 



late in forming its flowers and its fruits rarely mature. A 

 delicate plant is the cloudberry. It withers quickly when 

 plucked, and its fragile white blossom has a short life at the 

 best. The fruit before ripening is of a reddish colour, which, 

 curiously enough, turns more to yellow — not to a darker red 

 — as the berry becomes mature. When the plants grow in 

 sufficient profusion — as in the Border district — the berries 

 are gathered and make excellent jam, but I have never heard 

 of them being used for this purpose in the Highlands. 



Such is a brief record of some of the better known berries 

 of the hills. The levels they touch in this country are, of 

 course, insignificant as compared with the Alps, for, to take 

 a single example, in the Maritime Alps the blaeberry certainly 

 reaches an elevation of 9,00c feet, if not more. 



•57 



