ICOSANDRIA. POLYGYNIA. Rubus. 
625 
Stems upright, or slightly bent, pale, or purplish brown, three or four feet 
high, biennial, producing fruit the second year, after which they die down, 
beset with small prickles. ( Leaves serrated, their ribs slightly prickly. 
Fruit-stalks rough. Blossoms white, pendent, panicled. Calyx perma¬ 
nent, woolly, sharp-pointed. E.) Fruit red, fragrant, composed of nu¬ 
merous succulent, single-seeded, grains. E.) 
Raspberry Bush. Framboise. Hindberry. (Irish: Maohan Conaire. 
Welsh: Afanllwyn ; Mafouen : Gaelic: Preas-subh-craoibh. E.) Woods 
and hedges, rocky mountains, and moist situations. Grass Wood, near 
Kilnsay, Yorkshire. Curtis. Thorpe, near Norwich. Mr. Crowe. Berk- 
hampstead, Herts. Mr. Woodward. Woods to the west of Bishop's 
Aukland. Mr. Hutchinson. (Abundant in woods near Kidderminster, 
and Coleshill. Purt. Crackley wood, near Kenilworth. Perry. On the 
summit of Hingsdon Down, near Moreton, Devon. Rev. J. Pike Jones. 
Wood on the south side of Edgbaston pool, Warwickshire, (though per¬ 
haps artificially introduced. E.) In wet woods, and in thickets and 
rough places near rivulets, common about Birmingham : (under circum¬ 
stances equally suspicions. Plentiful in the wild woods of Wales. Ros- 
lyn, Auchindenny, and Arniston woods. Dr. Greville. In the Highlands. 
Prof. Hooker. E.) S. May—June.* 
inaptly been designated Leaf-cutter Bees . Of the process, Reaumur gives a very in¬ 
teresting account. Nothing can be more expeditious ; she is not longer about it than 
we would be with a pair of scissars. After hovering for some moments over a Rose¬ 
bush, as if reconnoitring, the bee alights upon the leaf she has chosen, usually taking 
her station upon its edge so that the margin passes between her legs. With her 
strong mandibles she cuts without intermission in a curve line so as to detach a trian¬ 
gular portion. When this hangs by the last fibre, lest its weight should carry her to 
the ground, she balances her little wings for flight, and the very moment it parts from 
the leaf, flies off with it in triumph; the detached portion remaining bent between her 
legs in a direction perpendicular to her body. Thus without rule or compass do these 
diminutive creatuies mete out the materials of their work into portions of an elipse, into 
ovals or circles, accurately accommodating the dimensions of the several pieces of each 
figure to each other! Easy is it to perceive by whom this humble insect has been taught. 
The excrescences above mentioned were formerly in repute as a medicine, and kept in the shops 
under the name of Bedeguar. None of these variations are accidental or common to several of 
the tribe, but each peculiar to the galls formed by a distinct species of Cynips. Superstitious 
persons may still be found to attest their efficacy in restraining the intemperate passions 
of the wearer, but as these are chiefly old women, the improved temper may be accounted 
for more satisfactorily. At least, equally obsolete and ill-founded is the very ancient idea, 
that “ years of store of haws and heps, do commonly portend cold wintersfor, what¬ 
ever our almanacs may do, few persons of credit will venture now to predict, from what 
are called natural causes, either a hot summer, or a severe winter. Towards autumn, 
scattered on the under side of the leaf, “single and in groups, on a yellow ground; with 
stems long, and heads elongated, bluntish, black; ” will be found the minute fungus, 
Puccinia Rosce. Grev. Scot. Crypt. 15. Purt. t. 28; nor is it altogether peculiar to this 
species. Different parts of living Rose-bushes are often infested with whitish tufts of 
Erotium Rosarum , “ silky, creeping at the margin; peridia greenish, sessile, globose, 
very minute; filaments enveloping the peridia, simple, elongated, jointed. Of rapid 
growth.” Grev. Scot. Crypt. 164. 2. E.) 
* The fruit is extremely grateful as nature presents it; but made into a sweetmeat, 
with sugar, or fermented with wine, the flavour is improved. It is fragrant, sub-acid, and 
cooling. It dissolves the tartarous concretions of the teeth, but for this purpose is infe¬ 
rior to the strawberry. The amber-coloured berries of the garden are sweeter than the 
crimson; but frequently contaminated by insects. The fresh leaves are the favourite food 
of kids. (The foliage suffers from the attacks of a little beetle, Melolontha horticola ; 
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