Linnean System of Plants, 139 



immersion iil water, is made into a jelly, used in Sweden as 

 we use currant jelly. The cranberry (V. Oxy coccus) 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 worth 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. 



Menzies/iZ is a small genus, very nearly allied to the 

 heaths : of the two species admitted into the English Flora, 

 the first, M. cserulea is a native of Scotland ; the other, M. 

 ^olifolia, of Ireland. 



Another near relative of the heath, and formerly included 

 in that genus, is the ling, Calluna (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 leaves of the calyx, but we deceive 

 ourselves; it is an inner calyx, coloured: 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, jErica (from the Greek, ereiko, 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 (jB. Jetralix) is a remark- 



