Linnean System of Plants. 139 
immersion in water, is made into a jelly, used in Sweden as 
we use currant jelly. The cranberry (VY. Oxycéccus) has a 
peculiar flavour, very generally known, and to most persons 
agreeable. That it is used in Sweden for no other purpose 
than cleaning silver plate is to be attributed to the many fine 
berries with which that country is supplied. Large quanti- 
ties of cranberries are annually imported from America; not 
because they are superior to our own, for, though larger, 
they are not so sweet as our English cranberry ; ‘but either 
because we have not enough to supply the demand, or that 
they are too easily obtained to be considered as wor th having. 
Whortleberry is a name common to all the species, whether 
foreign or English. The V. formosum (handsome) is held 
sacred in China, and placed in the temples, at the commence- 
ment of the new year, as an offering to the gods. 
Menziés¢a is a small genus, very nearly allied to the 
heaths: of the two species admitted into the English Flora, 
the first, M. czerilea is a native of Scotland; the other, M. 
polifolia, of Lreland. 
Another near relative of the heath, and formerly included 
in that genus, is the ling, Calltna (to cleanse or adorn). It 
was removed on account of certain peculiarities in the calyx 
and capsule; and may be readily distinguished from its 
former companions, by what appears at first sight to be a 
double flower. It is a very common plant on dry barren 
land, and no person who ever snatches a glimpse of the coun- 
tryin the summer months, need be at a loss for a specimen of it. 
When we first gather it, we believe that we see the corolla 
between the four green ieaeed of the calyx, but we deceive 
ourselves; it is an inner calyx, colour ed: the corolla is 
shallower, paler, and wholly concealed within it; like a deli- 
cate little woman who loves finery, and suffers herself to be 
eclipsed by the splendour of her dress. 
The heath, Hrica (from the Greek, erezk6, to break ; why 
so applied is uncertain), though a very extensive genus, is not 
so widely disseminated as might be supposed; the vast con- 
tinent of America does not produce a single species, while the 
Cape of Good Hope has more than three hundred. We pos- 
sess but three native heaths, and of these three one is confined 
to the county of Cornwall. The foreign heaths are so ten- 
derly bred in this country, and so carefully preserved from 
the roughness of the elements, and vicissitudes of the season, 
that we see them always, as it were, in full dress: did we see 
them in their native land, as we do our own heaths, we 
should not, perhaps, treat the latter with such comparative 
contempt. The cross-leaved heath (Z. 7étralix) is a remark- 
