522 DECANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. Arbutus. 
A. alpi'na. Stems trailing: leaves wrinkled, somewhat serrated, and 
fringed with hairs. 
(. E . Bot. 2030. E.)— FI. Dan . 73— Lightf. 11. A. B. at p. 216— Clus. i. 61— 
Ger. Em. 1417. 4<—Park. 1456. 3—Ger. 1230. 4—</. B. i. A. 519. 
(Woody trailing stems clothed with deciduous bark. Leaves deciduous 
alternate, ofcovate, serrated, rugged with reticulated veins, smooth, 
except a fringe at each side of their taper base. E. Bot. Bloss. pink¬ 
ish, almost white. E.) Berries black, globular, sessile on a very small 
red cup, (the size of black currants. E.) 
Mountain Strawberry-tree. (Black-berried Alpine Arbutus. 
Black Bear-berry. Dry mountains, in Scotland and the Western Isles. 
Garny Moor, Scotland. Mr. Winch. Abundant about Cape Wrath in 
Sutherland. Hooker. E.) S. May.* 
“ Co’ fiori eterni eterno il frutto dura 
E mentre spunta l’un, l’atro matura; ” 
fit emblem of that perpetual spring which, in original perfection, pervaded the whole earth, 
when 
“ Green all the year; and fruits and blossoms blush’d, 
In social sweetness, on the self-same bough.” 
Wheeler observed the fruit in the market at Smyrna; and at Constantinople it is offered 
for sale threaded on a straw or grass. E.) The country people, however, in Ireland, eat 
it, but always drink water after. (A warmer climate may possibly render the berries more 
palatable, though the testimony of the ancients is not in favour of their being whole¬ 
some food ; vid. Pliny, Dioscorides, and Galen. The leaves may be usefully employed in 
tanning leather. Virgil alludes to the young branches as winter food for goats:— 
-—-“ jubeo frondentia capris 
Arbuta sufficere; ” 
and to its use for making agricultural instruments, or basket work 
“ Arbutece crates : ” 
while Ovid celebrates its blushing fruit:— 
-“ pomoque onorata rubenti 
Arbutus 
yet so bitter withal, that Pliny is supposed to have denominated it Unedo , because one only 
can be eaten at a time. Tournefort informs us that a spirituous liquor is distilled from the 
fruit, especially in the Isle of Andros. The old Italian poet Sannazaro, in his Arcadia, 
represents this truly classical evergreen as employed by the Roman shepherds to decorate 
their flocks, on the festival of the goddess Pales. It is generally supposed to thrive most 
luxuriantly in a moist situation. We learn from the “ Bon Jardinier” of Mr. Pirolle, 
that Arbutus trees raised from English seed are hardier than those produced from the seed 
of warmer climates. In the Levant it attains to a great size : in our pleasure grounds 
sometimes to twenty feet in height; and we can imagine no tree to afford a more refresh¬ 
ing canopy in its luxuriant growth ; for we may presume even Horace, (no incompetent 
judge of luxury,) occasionally sought repose beneath its shade:— 
“ Nunc viridi membra sub Arbuto 
Stratus.” 
The right of this plant to be considered an aboriginal, 
tc Arbutus , with his scarlet grain, 
That richly crowns Irene’s plain,” 
has been contested by Mr. Smith in his History of the County of Kerry, in which he con¬ 
jectures it may have been introduced by the monks of St. Finnian, who founded the Abbey 
in the sixth century. E.) 
* The berries of this species have something the flavour of black currants, but are not 
so good. Goats refuse it. 
