552 VACCINIUM. [CLASS VIII. ouder i. 



exhale is more perceptible in the cool of the evening, thus adding an 

 additional charm to the richness and beauty of their colours. The 

 CE. biennis was introduced into our gardens and extensively cultivated 

 between two and three hundred years ago, and from thence has escaped 

 and established itself in places favourable to its growth, and has thus 

 become an apparently indigenous plant. The fleshy roots were for> 

 merly cultivated as a vegetable, but the introduction of the potato has 

 superseded them : eaten raw after meals they were supposed to give a 

 relish and desire for the drinking of wine ; hence has arisen its generic 

 name of " wine hunter," or searcher. It is found equally as common 

 in some parts of Germany as with us, but that country has no higher 

 claim to it than our own, that of a long naturalized species. It is 

 also found in the northern parts of Italy, but there too it has escaped 

 from the garden; by the Italians it is called Rapunzia and Rapunzico. 



GENUS IV. VACCI'NIUM.— Linn. Whortle-berry. 



Nat. Ord. Vacci'nie^. De Cand. 



Gen. Char. Calyx of four or five teeth, or entire. Corolla of one 



piece, four or five cleft. Anthers of two cells, and with two horns. 



Fruit a globose berry, crowned with the persistent calyx, many 



seeded. — Name of doubtful origin. 



* Myrtillus. Leaves deciduous. Anthers with two awns at the bach. 



1. F. MyrtiVlus, Linn. (Fig. 629.) Bilberry, or Black Whortle- 

 berry. Leaves ovate, deciduous, smooth, serrated ; stem angular ; 

 peduncle axillary, solitary, single flowered, with a globose corolla. 



English Botany, t. 456. — English Flora, vol. ii. p. 219. — Hooker, 

 British Flora, vol. i. p. 181. — Lindley, Synopsis, p. 134. 



Root woody, fibrous. Stem erect, about a foot high, bushy, with 

 irregular green acutely angular branches, smooth, shining, leafy at the 

 top. Leaves alternate, ovate, on a short footstalk, scarcely an inch 

 long, the margin finely serrated, paler on the under side than above, 

 smooth and shining, with a stout mid rib and finely netted veins. 

 Flotvers solitary from the axis of the leaves, on short drooping pedun- 

 cles. Calyx small, the margins waved, scarcely toothed. Corolla of 

 one piece, globose, a bright pink, of a somewhat waxy appearance, 

 sometimes of a yellowish green, the limb of four or five roundish short 

 teeth. Stamens with short dilated filaments, inserted into the recep- 

 tacle, and large yellow anthers, of two linear cells, opening by terminal 

 pores, and having from about the middle of the back a bristle-like awn. 

 Style longer than the stamens, with an obtuse stigma, simple, erect. 

 Fruit a globose berry, of a dark bluish black, glaucous, crowned with 

 the persistent calyx, around a central depression. Seeds small, nu- 

 merous. 



