264 BERRIES 



tasteless one too ; as you will find if you expect some- 

 thing succulent. This is produced by the eccentric 

 dwarf cornel (Cornus suecica), found in this country 

 on the Scottish mountains and in a few places in 

 Northumberland and Yorkshire. This curious and 

 beautiful little herb belongs to the dogwood family, and 

 has many aristocratic and important relatives, such as 

 our native dogwood, the Japanese aucuba and others. 

 Its small, dark purple flowers are gathered into a flat 

 cushion surrounded by four snowy-white, petal-like 

 bracts, making up a very showy inflorescence, which 

 has a strangely exotic effect in the mountain solitudes. 

 The fruit which follows is of the intense scarlet of 

 sealing-wax, and delights the deerstalker, if he has eyes 

 for anything besides his quarry, by the brilliancy with 

 which its lowly clusters light up grey rocks and brown 

 heath. 



Most beautiful of all British shrubs, if you take 

 foliage, flower, and leaf into account, is the arbutus of 

 Killarney. Alas! that it should be tender in less 

 favoured parts of our islands, and, alas ! that even in 

 those seaside places where it thrives, it is not more 

 commonly planted. Its pendulous fruit has a deli- 

 ciously edible appearance, but the botanists have well 

 named it Arbutus unedo (unum edo), inasmuch as he 

 who tries one will not hanker for more. 



Among exotic berry-bearers let me name one which 

 deserves special favour from landscape-gardener 

 namely, the tree cotoneaster (C. frigidus). Its large 

 leaves are semi-evergreen, and the scarlet fruit hangs in 



