all well-known varieties of the American species; while the Black Prince, Bullock's Blood, and others, are varieties of F. grandiflora. The black and blush Chili strawberries are derived from F. Chiloensis, a South American species, which produces some of our largest and richest fruits. Many writers believe that all the species from which they are said to be derived are one and the same in reality, assuming different forms and qualities under different circumstances of soil and situation.

The chief supply of strawberries for the London markets is derived from Twickenham and Isleworth; and, as a writer on this fruit has observed, "one of the most remarkable instances of the power of the human body to endure great and continued fatigue, is shown by the strawberry women, who, during the season, carry a heavy basket twice daily from Twickenham to Coventgarden, walking upwards of forty miles. Fatigue like this would soon destroy a horse, but these Cambro-Britons, who come purposely from the Welsh collieries, endure the labour for weeks without injury or complaint."

St. Pierre's observations on the number of insects which are nourished by a strawberry plant are very interesting. He had placed one of these plants near his window, and was amused by observing that in the course of three weeks no less than thirty-seven species visited the strawberry, and at length they came in such numbers and variety that he desisted from attempting to count or describe them. They were, he says, distinguished from each other by their forms, colours, and manners. "Some," says St. Pierre, "were of the colour of gold, others of silver, and others of bronze; these

were spotted, those were striped; some were blue, some green, and others shining. In some the head was rounded like a turban, in others lengthened into a point like a nail; in some it appeared dark, like a spot of black velvet, in others it sparkled like a ruby." Besides all these less known insects, butterflies, wasps, and bees hovered about the plant; caterpillars and snails feasted on the leaves, and spiders wove their airy nets to betray some of the brilliant lesser creatures. That little plant, which is so pleasant and so refreshing to man, was not framed for him alone.

This naturalist then, by means of a lens, examined the leaves of the plants, which, he says, he found divided into compartments, covered with hair, separated by canals, and interspersed with glands. These compartments appeared like large verdant carpets, and their hairs seemed to resemble vegetation of a particular order, some of them were straight, others inclined, others forked, and hollow like tubes, from the extremities of which issued drops of liquid, and their canals as well as their glands seemed to be full of a sparkling fluid.

It were well if those who have much leisure would, like this naturalist, use a microscope, and examine the different minute natural objects which are near them. The structure of various plants, or parts of a plant, would offer to one little conversant with the subject a most interesting source of recreation and improvement, and surely might tend to lead the thoughts to the Creator, whose hand had wrought these hitherto unseen wonders. The hairs on plants afford great variety. They exist occasionally on almost every part

of a plant, and, as in the Water-lily and some other aquatic plants, are even found, though rarely, in the cavities of the stem. They are composed of a transparent tissue, consisting wholly of cells, and they vary in length, rigidity, and density, sometimes being so soft and close as to render the plant downy, sometimes being stiff and rigid, and making it hairy and rough. Now they form a fringe or margin like an eyelash, or are so silky as to silver over the surface of a leaf with grey glossiness. Sometimes they curve backwards, forming hooks; sometimes they become barbs by having forked hooks. In some cases, as in the nettle, they give out an acrid juice when touched; sometimes they are tipped with an exudation, as in the Chinese Primrose. Occasionally they send forth little branches throughout their whole length, and sometimes they are interwoven into a mass which can be easily separated from the surface, or they are long and loosely entangled, and look like cobweb. Hairs compose the substance which, in the Cotton Plant, envelopes the seeds, and furnishes the manufacturer with his material: it is the minute hairs on the leaf of the Cowhage which, entering the skin, produce in him who touches it an intolerable irritation; and the lovely snowy plumage of the cotton grass which waves over the moorland, as well as the feather grass of the garden, owes its beauty to these minute and delicate organs. Hairs are useful in protecting plants from the extremes of heat and cold; of the beauty which they bestow we need say nothing, for the shining foliage of the Silver weed grows by every highway, and our gardens are full of leaves made more or less beautiful by them.

9. RUBUS (Bramble Raspberry).

* Leaves pinnate or ternate. Stem nearly erect,
biennial, woody.

1. R. idéus (Common Raspberry).-Stems round; prickles straight; leaves pinnate, with 5 or 3 serrated leaflets, white with down on their under surface; footstalks channelled; flowers axillary and terminal, corymbose and drooping; petals as short as the calyx; fruit downy. Plant perennial. The raspberry-bush, though a familiar object in the garden, is not a frequent plant in the woods and hedges of England, though in the north of this kingdom it is not of very rare occurrence in rocky woods, and it grows also in several southern counties among trees and bushes. A writer, describing the plants about Lexden, in the neighbourhood of Colchester, says, "The boggy ground in which the springs have their rise is covered with low alders, and produces much that is interesting to the botanist. Rubus idaus abounds in it, and when the fruit is ripe presents a temptation to venture on the soft and treacherous soil." The greenish white flowers of the plant appear in May and June; its fruits are smaller than those of the cultivated raspberry, of which it is the origin, and are either red or yellow. They are very wholesome, and not likely by becoming acid to disagree with delicate persons, while they are considered very salutary in some complaints. The uses of the raspberry, however, in desserts, in confectionary, in making a pleasant summer beverage when mingled

with vinegar, in giving their peculiar flavour to brandy and other liquors, are too well known to require much comment. The raspberry is a native of most of the countries of Europe, and has its name from Mount Ida, in Crete. It is the Framboisier of the French, the Himbeerstrauch of the Germans, the Braamboos of the Dutch, the Rovo ideo of the Italians, the Zarza idea of the Spaniard, and the Malinik of the Russians. Our forefathers called the fruit Raspis, or hindberry. Doctor E. D. Clarke says that the manner in which the raspberry is found in Sweden might afford useful hints as to the mode which should be adopted in its cultivation. Of all places it seems to thrive best among wood-ashes and cinders, as among the ruins of houses which have been destroyed by fire. This traveller always also found it most luxuriant in those forests where the Swedes had kindled fires in the wood, and left the land strewed with the ashes of the trees. "In the north of Sweden," this writer says, "neither apples, pears, nor plums can be produced by cultivation, but Nature has been bountiful in a profusion of wild and delicious dainties. No less than six species of raspberry, besides white, red, and black currants, grow wild in all the forests." He found our common raspberry abundant in a wild state, and producing highly-flavoured fruit. Wild gooseberrytrees were less common, and four species of whortleberry were decked with plenty of red or black berries, while the soil was covered with this low shrub to a great extent, and the mouths of the children were constantly blackened by eating the fruits. "All round the Gulf of Bothnia," says this writer, "the traveller at this season