58 



SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



that an entire tree, with all its branches, leaves, and fruit, 

 was placed within a phial, holding about six ounces of 

 alcohol^ in which state it has been preserved even with 

 its colour unaltered, and may be so for any length of 

 time, provided it be kept as free from the external air as 

 if it were hermetically sealed. The smell of the fruit? 

 when fresh gathered, is delicious 



Dr. Clarke speaks no less gratefully of another Swedish 

 plant of this genus than Linnaeus does of the Arctic 

 Raspberry. He considered it, indeed, the preserver of 

 his life; a circumstance which gives an interest to this 

 plant, sufficient to authorise our citing his own words, 

 though at some length : 



" In the evening Mr. Grape's children came into the 

 room, bringing with them two or three gallons of the 

 fruit of the Cloudberry, or Rubus chamcemorus. This 

 plant grows so abundantly near the river, that it is easy 

 to gather bushels of the fruit. As the large berry ripens, 

 which is as big as the top of a man's thumb, its colour, 

 at first scarlet, becomes yellow. When eaten with sugar 

 and cream, it is cooling and delicious, and tastes like the 

 large American hautboy strawberries. Little did the 

 author dream of the blessed effects he was to experience 

 by tasting of the offering brought by these little children, 

 who, proud of having their gifts accepted, would gladly 

 run and gather daily a fresh supply, which was as 

 often blended with cream and sugar by the hands of 

 their mother; until at last he perceived that his fever 

 rapidly abated, his spirits and his appetite were restored, 

 and when sinking under a disorder so obstinate that it 

 seemed to be incurable, the blessings of health were 



* Clarke's TraveiS;, v. ill, p. 459, 



