The Bramble 



blackberry differs essentially from crab-apple, rose 

 and strawberry. In this case each little separate 

 ovary in a flower becomes fleshy, juicy and sweet, 

 and can be distinguished apart, though all — twenty 

 or more — cohere to form the blackberry, which is, 

 therefore, known botanically as an " aggregate 

 fruit." In each sweet granule of the mass is a single 

 seed. If we compare a strawberry with a blackberry, 

 the hard yellow specks on the strawberry are the 

 equivalent of the black juicy knobules of the black- 

 berry, while the red flesh of the strawberry is equiva- 

 lent to the dry stalk end of the blackberry. (In 

 the raspberry, which is very similar to the black- 

 berry, this dry stalk end, in the shape of a cone, can 

 be puUed out of the fruit clear and entire.) Naturally 

 so sweet and luscious a fruit makes a special appeal to 

 the birds, and it is eagerly seized and eaten by them ; 

 apparently the dry little seeds pass unharmed through 

 their bodies. As the autumn comes on, a species of 

 decay sets in, which is doubtless the cause of the 



old legend that on the day of St. Simon and St. Jude 

 63 97 



