

on *owe of the jlater Jforms of 

 lately foxtail) m Dorset 



By the Rev. E. P. MURRAY, M.A., 

 F.L.S. 



KNOW of no problem presented by British Botany 

 more difficult, yet more fascinating, than that 

 which meets us in the study of the fruticose 

 Rubi. Most of the plants we meet with are well 

 separated from the forms most nearly related to 

 them by characters w r hich are sufficiently obvious 

 to the botanist, nor do they show any great tendency to run into 

 one another. But in some few genera this is far from being the 

 case. We shall find no better illustration of these unstable groups 

 than is to be found in the familiar bramble of our roadsides, 

 heaths, and woodlands. 



The older botanists were content to combine the innumerable 

 forms of European shrubby brambles into two or three species 

 viz., R. idceus, L. (raspberry), R. fruticosus, L. (blackberry), and 

 R. coesius, L. (dewberry). With R. idceus we have no further 

 concern to-day ; it is a form of great antiquity, and is well 

 separated from its allied forms. There can be no doubt, on the 

 other hand, that R. fruticosus and R. coesius are very nearly allied. 

 Their combined distribution is given in Hooker's "Student's Flora" 



