NOTES FROM A GARDEN HERBARIUM, 



641 



enough to keep to herself. She knows it is beyond 

 compare, and she wards off traders with contempt. 

 She showed me with pride a thriving specimen of 

 the "Bride" rose (not "The Bride" of recent 

 fame, but something older, a white hybrid per- 

 petual), an immense climbing Baltimore Belle and 

 three curious cacti, among them a night blooming 

 cereus with one cherished bud. With this last 

 came the information that it came from the city. 

 My hostess, noticing how impressed I was, volun- 

 teered its further history. 



" I stole it," whispered the gentle Quaker, look- 

 ing fearfully around, though there was not a soul 

 within half a mile. " I went visiting to Cale's folks 



in town, summer-was-a-year ago, and when we went 

 through the hot-house there, I peaked off a bit of 

 this," pointing to the cereus, "before I knew what 

 I was about, and there it is. Don't do anything to 

 it much, but it does thrive wonderful. I guess I 

 was meant to have it." 



This cereus is the special admiration of the 

 neighborhood. All the women gaze on it with 

 something of awe and wonder, but I do not think 

 any of them know as much of its doubtful ante- 

 cedents as the gentle reader and I do, or I am very 

 much afraid that they would follow the example of 

 its owner and "peak a bit." 



Pennsylvania. Henry McBride. 



NOTES FROM A GARDEN HERBARIUM— I. 



The Dewberries. 



THREE species of rubus are popularly 

 called dewberry in the eastern states — 

 Rubus Canadensis^! R. hispidus, and R. 

 trivialis. These are also all known as low- 

 blackberry and trailing-blackberry. In the bota- 

 nies the name dewberry is usually restricted to 

 Rubus Catiadensts. These three species are much 

 confused in the popular mind, and it is also proba- 

 ble that comparatively few botanists have a clear 

 understanding of them. This confusion is due in 

 part to the great similarities in the species them- 

 selves, and probably fully as much to the imperfect 

 characterizations and descriptions in the books. 

 An instance of an error in the books, which is 

 everywhere copied, is found in the case of Rubus 

 hispidus. It is said to inhabit swampy places and 

 low woods, and in Gray's Manual it is called "run- 

 ning swamp-blackberry," while it is common upon 

 sand banks ! I never saw thriftier specimens of it 

 than I collected this summer upon clean and dry 



Fig. I, Frontispiece . 



white sand. Neither do the books say that its leaves 

 are glossy above, which is the fact, at least when 

 it grows in the sun, and which affords one of the 

 best distinguishing characters. 



Rubus Canadensis is generally distributed through- 

 out the region east of the looth meridian 

 from Newfoundland to, Virginia, probably. R. 

 trivialis represents it in the south, extending from 

 Virginia to Florida, and westward to New Mexico. 

 R. hispidus has much the same range as R. Cana- 

 densis, except that it reaches southward to Georgia. 



R. Catiadensis and R. trivialis are closely allied. 

 Both have pointed or acuminate leaflets, which are 

 singly serrate, or, more properly, dentate, with 

 coarse teeth, stems beset with sharp and curved 

 prickles, and both are comparatively stiff and 

 strong growers. The chief contrasting points of 

 the two species are these : R. Canadensis — Main 

 stems rather sparsely and lightly prickly ; leaves 

 thin and deciduous, either destitute of prickles or 



