RosacE&. 27 
charge. After being proclaimed piecemeal for 69 shires during the period 
since the issue of the Thistle pamphlet (1893) as it reached each shire, 
it has been proclaimed for the whole State (1908). 
Rubus fruticosus, L. The Blackberry Bramble. The struggling stems 
arise from a perennial root-stock, without underground creeping shoots ; 
the flowering stem, biennial, or of a few years duration, sometimes nearly 
erect, but more frequently ‘arched, straggling or prostrate, often rooting, 
and ‘forming fresh plants at the extremity, usually armed with prickles, 
either stout “and hooked or thin and straight, with stiff hairs, or glandular 
bristles, or a short down, ‘all variously intermingled or occasionally wanting. 
Stipules awl-shaped, or linear, inserted a short way up the leaf stalk. 
Leafiets rather large and coarse, either three or five, the two or four lower 
ones inserted together at some distance below the terminal one, egg-shaped 
toothed, mere or less downy, the midribs as well as the stalks. usually 
armed with small hcoked prickles. Flowers white or pink in panicles at 
the ends of the branches. Fruit black, or very rarely dull red, not 
separating readily from the receptacle, the calyx usually turned down under 
it, or seldom closing over it. 
It is an introduced plant from Europe and Asia now widely spread 
on readsides, in thickets, hedges, and on uncultivated pasture land, 
neglected fields or waste places. After it has been mown down, it can 
easily be kept under by cultivation wherever the plough can reach. If 
near to gardens, it should be dug out root and branch, piled and burnt 
before flowering, since the plant shoots from below when the stems are 
cut down above. On pasture land frequent cutting soon weakens it, if 
the new shoots are removed before the leaves have time to feed to any 
extent; and four cuttings in one yer are much more valuable than the 
same number spread over two vears. On rocky or hilly ground of insufh- 
cient value to make direct eradication profitable, suitable trees should be 
closely planted. Two cuttings a year will keep it down and prevent 
flowering and fruiting, stopping further spread without entirely suppres- 
sing it. The tender vcung shoots could be used as fodder in silage or 
afier steaming, but would hardly be worth while collecting. They have 
even bean used as food for man. The fruits can be used for jam or for 
making blackberry wine. 
Proclaimed for the whole State after being separately proclaimed for 
32 shires at the request of the shire councils concerned. 
Acena. Sheep’s Burr. Two species of Acena (A. Sanguisorba, Vahl., 
4. ovina, A. Cunn.) are great nuisances in pastures on account of their 
little heads of fruits, each fruit with four or five little hooks curved at 
the end. The plant has a slight fodder value when young and the same 
applies to the greater Burnet (Sanguisorba officinalis, L.) and the Salad 
Burnet (Poterium Sanguisorba, L.) which are similar in character but whose 
fruits bave no adherent hooks. The former does best in rather damp 
meadows, the latter on dry soils especially if calcareous, z.c., on soil where 
good pasture plants do not do well. When old, these plants become hard 
and woody at the base and sufficiently unpalatable to be rejected by stock 
unless hungry. All three plants have more or less closely paired leaflets 
on long stalks, and small flowers in stalked heads, red in the Greater 
Burnet, more greenish in the Salad Burnet. 
The seeds of burnet are often found in pasture mixtures, and such 
seed should te rejected if the pasture is a good one, neither too wet or 
too dry. 
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