CXIX.— THE BLACKBERRY AND THE DEWBERRY. 
Rubus thyrsoideus Wimmer and R. casius Linne. 
I T is, as we have said in writing of the Raspberry, more especially among the 
“ fruticose Brambles,” the RuU fruticosi of Babington, or the sub-genus Eubaius 
as Dr. Focke terms them (from the Greek eS, eu-, truly ; /3aTo<;, batos, a bramble), 
that the extreme variability of the genus is exhibited. The multitude of forms 
comprised in this sub-genus are shrubby, i.e. have woody stems, have compound 
leaves of a palmate type with adnate stipules, and have their ripe drupels individu- 
ally adherent to the conical receptacle. The Rev. W. Moyle Rogers is compelled 
to arrange our British forms into no less than fourteen groups, corresponding 
roughly to the species of Babington and the sub-species of Mr. J. G. Baker’s 
arrangement in Sir Joseph Hooker’s “Student’s Flora.” He is, however, able to 
arrange these groups into four larger groups dependent mainly upon characters 
derived from the mode of growth of their stems and the prickles and other armature 
of the surface. The two forms here selected for representation, both common in 
our hedgerows, R. thyrsoideus Wimmer, a pink-flowered Blackberry, and R. casius 
Linn6, the Dewberry, belong respectively to the first and last of these larger groups. 
In the first main group, the stems are tall and very often, even if they do arch 
over, do not, as many Brambles do, root at their tips : their general surface is 
glabrous or slightly hairy, and the prickles are equal in length or nearly so, and 
are mostly restricted to the angles of the stem. Of the five minor groups belonging 
to this main group, the Blackberry here represented belongs to the fifth, called, from 
their usually pink flowers, Discolores. In this group the stem does arch and may 
become prostrate, but seldom roots : it is generally covered with adpressed stellate 
hairs ; and the leaves are covered with a whitish felt on their under surfaces, which 
disappears, leaving them green in autumn. The widely distributed R. thyrsoideus 
Wimmer (named from the Greek 0vpao<;, thursos, the wand twined with ivy and 
vine-leaves and surmounted by a pine-cone which was carried by the devotees of 
Bacchus) has little of the pubescence general among the Discolores. Its stem arches 
high up and is self-supporting ; its prickles are stout at the base, and, if not straight, 
only slightly hooked : the leaves have five leaflets, almost smooth on their upper 
surfaces and pale beneath, with irregularly cut margins ; and the flowers are in a 
long showy panicle or cluster, with a few recurved prickles and reflexed felted sepals ; 
whilst the drupels are comparatively few in number, rather large, smooth, and sub- 
acid. Dr. Focke treats this as a species collectiva, and, of the species into which he 
subdivides it, Mr. Rogers places our common form in or near R. thyrsanthus Focke, 
with a broad central leaflet and short close branches to the panicle. 
The long, quick-growing, prickly stems of the Blackberries are often known in 
the country as Lawyers, because when you once get entangled in their clutches you 
have some difficulty in escaping them. They are used for fastening down thatch 
