100 RUBUS VILLOSUS 



stone) bony and hard, marked with minute excavations. Seed 

 solitary, filling the stone, pendulous, with plane-convex cotyledons 

 and a short radigle ; no endosperm. 



Habitat. This is the commonest Blackberry of the United 

 States of America, being found everywhere from south to north 

 in dry situations, as roadsides, borders of fields and thickets, &c. ; 

 in Canada it is less frequent. It is exceedingly variable in habit, 

 the shape and size of the flower and fruit, and the amount of 

 glandular hairiness of its stems ami petioles. The flowers appear 

 in May and June, and the large and very sweet fruit is ripe in 

 August and September. Though very like some European species, 

 it is considered by those who have specially studied this difficult 

 group of plants to be quite distinct from any of them, though 

 coming nearest to R. subereous, Anders. The bush is in cultivation 

 in a few botanic gardens here. 



A. Gray, Man. TJ. S. Bot., p. 157 ; Chapman, Fl. S. States, p. 125 ; 

 Hook., Fl. Bor.-Amer., i, p. 179 ; Lindl., Fl. Med., p. 227. 



Official Part and Names. EUBUS, Blackberry ; the bark of the 

 root of Eubus Canadensis, and of Rubus villosus (U. S. P.). It 

 is not official in the British* Pharmacopoeia, or the Pharmacopoeia 

 of India. In the Pharmacopoeia of the United States, issued in 

 1863, the entire root was official; but the bark of the root 

 is now alone recognised. It should also be noticed that the 

 bark, although official under the common name of Blackberry, 

 is ordered to be obtained from two distinct plants the one, 

 Rubus canadensis, being the American Dewberry ; and the other 

 Rubus villosus, the American Blackberry. 



General Characters and Composition. The roots of both the 

 blackberry and dewberry are more or less cylindrical and branched, 

 and vary in size from that of a common quill to about an inch 

 in diameter. They consist of a thin bark and a central woody 

 portion or meditullium; and as the latter is nearly inert, the 

 bark is alone official. The dried bark of the blackberry has a 

 brownish or reddish-brown colour, and is marked with longitudinal 

 wrinkles ; that of the dewberry has a dark-ash colour, and 



