132 COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



equally into the sweetbriar : for though it is usually 

 glandlcss, it has often a few small glands on the edge of 

 the leaflets to guard it from caterpillars or aphides ; and 

 these are scattered freely on the under side and the leaf- 

 stalks as well in the more typical sweetbriars. Yet the 

 truest sweetbriar of all is undoubtedly an artificial 

 human product, made by selecting the best or most 

 aromatic natural specimens and cultivating or breeding 

 from them under the most favourable circumstances. 

 Some botanists have divided even this into two species. 



In a third direction, the dog-rose varies through its 

 hairier varieties towards the downy rose, with a prickly 

 fruit and a more erect bushy stem. 



Lastly, the two or three shorter dwarf forms, with 

 numerous straight slender prickles, are variously lumped 

 together as burnet roses, or else divided into two or 

 more distinct species, according to the taste and fancy 

 of the observer. The names we choose to ^wo. them 

 and the lines we choose to draw are mere matters of 

 human convenience in nomenclature : the one patent 

 fact which all close lookers can see for themselves is this 

 — that throughout the whole series every single character 

 of stem, leaf, bud, flower, fruit, or seed varies indefinitely, 

 till the attempt really to discriminate between the types 

 becomes practically impossible. 



It is much the same with their neighbours the 

 brambles. Here, ordinary mortals have long since dis- 

 tinguished two fairly marked types, because of their 

 different berries ; and when you get a difference in the 

 berry you touch the intelligence of mankind at once in 

 one of its tenderest and deepest susceptibilities. So 

 these two species have acquired colloquial names as 



