CHERRIES ARE RIPE. 125 



seeds, and yet to thrive much better in the struggle for 

 Hfe too — seeing that they have developed into stout 

 woody trailers, often forming considerable thickets, and 

 killing down all the lesser vegetation beneath and be- 

 tween them. Again, the dog-roses show still higher 

 development, alike in their erect bushy form, in their 

 large pink flowers, and in their big scarlet hips — which 

 are uneatable by us, it is true, but are great favourites 

 with birds in severe winters. The haws of the white- 

 thorn are even more successful in attracting the robins 

 and other non-migratory allies ; and the whitethorn has 

 been enabled, accordingly, to reduce its seeds to one or 

 two, each enclosed in a hard, bony, indigestible nut. 

 Finally, at the very summit of the genealogical tree, we 

 get the plum tribe, highest of all the roses ; growing into 

 considerable arborescent forms (though in this respect 

 inferior to pears or apples), and producing large, luscious, 

 pulpy fruits, with a single stony seed, admirably adapted 

 to the best type of dispersion, and never wasting a soli- 

 tary germ unnecessarily, as must be continually the case 

 with its small dry-seeded congeners the silver-weeds and 

 cinquefoils. Not, of course, that this pedigree must be 

 accepted in a linear sense (indeed, the roses early in 

 their history broke up into at least three distinct lines, 

 which have evolved separately on their own account, 

 and have culminated respectively in the plums, the true 

 roses, and the apples) ; but it illustrates the general 

 method of their development, and it shows the strong 

 tendency which they all alike possess towards the pro- 

 duction of sweet pulpy fruits in one form or another. 



If you look for a moment at a ripe cherry — by pre- 

 ference a red one, as being less artificial than the pale 



