The next native fruits which demand our notice are the strawberry,
raspberry, and the varieties of the bramble tribe, all of which are to
be classed under the third section of the natural order _Rosaceæ_, and
form the ninth genus of that order. The general characteristics of
these are--the calyx flattish at the bottom, and five-cleft; five
petals; many stamens inserted into the calyx with the petals; many
fleshy carpels arranged on a somewhat elevated receptacle, with
lateral style, near the points of the carpels.
We will begin with the strawberry (_Fragaria_.) The last fruits of
which we spoke--the plum and cherry--though the produce of much larger
plants, nay, one of them of a tree which ranks among the timber-trees
of our land, are not of superior, if of equal value to those which are
about to engage our attention. An old writer quaintly remarks: 'It is
certain that there _might_ have been a better berry than the
strawberry, but it is equally certain that there is not one;' and I
suppose there are few in the present day who will be disposed to
dispute this opinion, for there are few fruits, if any, which are in
more general repute, or more highly prized, than the strawberry and
raspberry; and though the cultivated species have now nearly, if not
quite superseded the wild, yet we must not forget that there was a
time when none but the latter were to be obtained in England, and that
the native sorts of which we are now to speak are the parents of
almost all the rich varieties which at present exist in the land.
There are doubtless many among the inhabitants of our towns and cities
who have never gathered or seen the strawberry in its wild state; and
many, very many more who are wholly unacquainted with the peculiar and
interesting structure of this fruit and its allies--the raspberry,
blackberry, dewberry, and their congeners. The plant which bears the
strawberry, whether the wild or garden species, is an herb with
three-partite leaves, notched at the edge with a pair of largo
membraneous stipules at their base. When growing, this plant throws
out two kinds of shoots--one called _runners_, which lie prostrate on
the ground, and end in a tuft of leaves--these root into the soil, and
then form new plants--and another growing nearly upright, and bearing
at the end a tuft of flowers which produce the fruit. The calyx, which
is flat, green, and hairy, is divided into ten parts, called sepals,
and there are five petals; the stamens, which are very numerous, and
grow out of the calyx, are placed in a crowded ring round the pistil.
This pistil consists of a number of carpels, arranged in many rows
very regularly on a central receptacle; each carpel has a style,
ending in a slightly-lobed stigma; and an ovary, wherein lies one
single ovule, or young seed. The course of the transformation of this
apparatus into fruit is highly curious and interesting. First, the
petals fall off, and the calyx closes over the young fruit;
immediately the receptacle on which the carpels grow begins to swell,
and soon after the carpels themselves increase in size, and become
shining, whilst their styles begin to shrivel. The receptacle
increases in size so much more and faster than the carpels, which soon
cease to enlarge at all, that they speedily begin to be separated by
it, and the surface of the receptacle to become apparent. In a little
time, the carpels are completely scattered in an irregular manner over
the surface of the receptacle, which has become soft and juicy, and
has all along been pushing aside the calyx, which finally falls back
almost out of sight. The receptacle finally assumes a crimson colour,
grows faster and faster, and becomes sweet and fragrant. Those which
we commonly call the seeds of the strawberry, then lie on the surface,
and these, if carefully examined, will prove to be the carpels
containing the seeds in a little thin shell like a small nut. The
strawberry is, therefore, not, properly speaking, a fruit; it is a
fleshy receptacle, bearing the fruit on it, which fruit is, in fact,
the ripe carpels. Now this structure is, as I have said, common to all
strawberries, each variety having, however, its own peculiarities of
growth and appearance.
There are but nine distinct species of the tribe Fragaria: one native
in Germany, where it is called Erdbeere; two in North, and one in
South America; one in Surinam; and one in India; the remaining three
being indigenous in Britain, where, besides these three wild species,
there are at least sixty mongrel varieties, the results of
cultivation; some of which, recently produced from seed, are of great
excellence. The finest of these native British species is the
wood-strawberry (_Fragaria vesca_), which is common everywhere; the
second, the hautboy (_F. elatior_), is much less frequently found, and
is by Hooker supposed to be scarcely indigenous; and the third, the
one-leaved strawberry (_F. monophylla_), is unknown to me, and only
named by some writers as a species. The common wood-strawberry bears
leaves smaller, more sharply notched, and more wrinkled in appearance,
than any of the cultivated species. The earliest formed are closely
covered, as is the stem, with white silvery hairs, and the leaves turn
red early in the autumn, or in dry weather. The blossoms appear very
early in the spring, throwing up their delicate white petals on every
bank and hedgerow, among the clusters of violets and primroses, and
even not unfrequently before these sweet harbingers of spring venture
to unfold and give promise of abundant fruit. But though the blossoms
are so common, from some reason or other the fruit seldom ripens
freely, unless along some of the more remote and secluded woodpaths,
where the bright red berries lurk on every sunny bank, between the
trunks of the old beech and oak trees, and are overhung by the
beautiful bunches of polypody and foxglove, and other free-growing
wild-plants which spring in such solitudes, providing the flocks of
varied song-birds which frequent such delightful glades with many a
juicy meal.
Few things can be more agreeable than a day of strawberry-picking in
the woods and glens where they abound, when troops of happy little
children are scattered about, singly, or in groups of three or four,
each with a basket to receive the delicious spoil, and all grubbing
among the moss and herbage, and shouting with exultation as one
cluster after another reveals itself to their eager researches. Some
are too much engaged in the quest to notice the brilliant flowers
which at another time would have engrossed all their thoughts; whilst
others, wreathed round with the bright blue wood-vetch, the shining
broad-leaved bryony, and the rose and honeysuckle, will have to lay
down the large handfuls of flowers with which they have encumbered
themselves, before they can share in the enjoyment of collecting the
fragrant berries. Then comes the hour of assembling, to take their tea
and eat the sweet, fresh fruit, and talk over their adventures with
the happy parents who have awaited the gathering together of the young
ones. Perhaps this assembling takes place in the nearest farmhouse,
where fresh milk and rich cream are added to the repast; or it may be
under the boughs of one of those masters of the forest, which we may
fancy to have seen such gatherings, year by year, for centuries past,
and could tell us tales of groups of little people, arranged in the
costumes depicted by Holbein, Vandyk, or Lely, the garb of ancient
days, seated by their stately seniors, whilst the antlered deer, then
the free denizens of the forest, stood at bay, half-startled at the
merry party which had invaded their solitude; and the squirrel, little
more vivacious in its furry jacket than the stiffly-dressed little
bipeds, sprang from bough to bough overhead; and the hare and rabbit
bounded along over the distant upland. But we must return to our
description of
The blushing strawberry,
Which lurks close shrouded from high-looking eyes,
Shewing that sweetness low and hidden lies.
The whole tribe takes its generic name from its fragrance; the word
_fragrans_, sweet-smelling, being that from which Fragaria is derived.
The wood-strawberry is seldom larger than a horse-bean, of a brilliant
red, and the flesh whiter than that of any cultivated species; the
flavour is remarkably clear and full--a pleasant subacid, with more of
the peculiar strawberry perfume in the taste than any other. They are
very wholesome, indeed considered valuable medicinally. The other wild
species is the hautboy: this is larger than _F. vesca_, more hairy,
and its fruit a deeper red; the flavour, like that of the
garden-hautboy, rather musty; in its uses and qualities, it resembles
_F. vesca_. The strawberry does not seem to have been noticed by the
ancients, though it is slightly named by Virgil, Ovid, and Pliny. It
appears to have been cultivated in England early, as an old writer,
Tusser, says:
'Wife, into the garden, and set me a plot,
With strawberry-roots the best to be got;
Such growing abroad among thorns in the wood,
Well chosen and pricked, prove excellent good.'
Gerarde speaks of them as growing 'in hills and valleys, likewise in
woods, and other such places as be something shadowie; they prosper
well in gardens, the red everywhere; the other two, white and green,
more rare, and are not to be founde save only in gardens.' Shakspeare
speaks of this fruit. We find the Bishop of Ely, when conversing with
the Archbishop of Canterbury on the change of conduct manifested by
the young King Henry V., on his coming to the throne, says:
'The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighboured by fruits of baser quality,
And so the prince,' &c.
And the Duke of Gloster, when counselling in the Tower with his
allies, and plotting to strip his young nephew of his crown and
honours, says:
'My Lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn,
I saw good strawberries in your garden there:
I do beseech you send for some of them.'
Parkinson speaks, in 1629, of their having been introduced 'but of
late days.' As an article of diet, this fruit offers but little
nourishment, but it is considered useful in some diseases, and
generally wholesome, though there are some constitutions to which it
is injurious. Linnæus states, that he was twice cured of the gout by
the free use of strawberries; and Gerarde and other old authors
enlarge much on their efficacy in consumptive cases. Phillips tells
us, that 'in the monastery of Batalha is the tomb of Don John, son of
King John I. of Portugal, which is ornamented by the representation of
strawberries, this prince having chosen them for his crest, to shew
his devotion to St John the Baptist, who lived on fruits.' This is
rather a curious notion, for though the Scripture tells us of St John
the Baptist, that when in the wilderness 'his meat was locusts and
wild honey,' we have no reason to suppose that he lived always even on
these. What these locusts were is problematical, but it is likely they
were the fruit of the locust-tree, _Hymenæa_, which bears a pod
containing a sort of bean, enclosed in a whitish substance of fine
filaments, as sweet as sugar or honey. The wild bees frequent these
trees, and it is probable that here St John found his twofold aliment;
but we have no particular reason to suppose that he wholly lived on
fruit, and certainly could have little to do with strawberries, as
there is no species indigenous in the Holy Land.
But we must now proceed to examine and record the structure of the
raspberry, raspis, or hindberry, by all which names it is called. This
is a species of the Rubus, of which Hooker records only ten species as
native in Britain, though Loudon extends the number to thirteen; of
which one, the dwarf crimson (_Rubus araticus_), is to be found only
in Scotland. We cannot, of course, notice each of these species
separately, nor will it be necessary to do so, as the varieties which
mark the different kinds of common bramble are such as would not be
observed except by an accurate botanist. This tribe, which takes its
name from the Celtic _rub_, which signifies _red_, and is supposed to
be so named from the red tint of its young shoots, as well as from the
colour of the juice of its berry, consists chiefly of shrub-like
plants, with perennial roots, most of which produce suckers or stolons
from the roots, which ripen and drop their leaves one year, and resume
their foliage, produce blossom shoots, flowers, and fruit, and die the
next year, of which the raspberry and common bramble are examples. In
some of the species the stem is upright, or only a little arched at
the top, but in the greater number it is prostrate and arched, the
ends of the shoots rooting when they reach the ground, and forming new
plants, sometimes at the distance of several yards from the parent
root. The branches and stems are all more or less prickly; those of
the common bramble being armed with strong and sharp spines, and even
the leaf-stems lined with very sharp reflected prickles, which hitch
in everything they come near, and inflict sharp wounds. The corolla is
formed of an inferior calyx of one leaf, divided into five segments,
of five petals in some species; and in others pink, but always of very
light and fragile texture, and more or less crumpled, on which the
caterpillar of the beautiful white admiral butterfly (_Limenitis
camilla_) sometimes feeds. It has many stamens, arranged like those of
the strawberry; and the pistil is composed, as that is, of a number of
carpels rising out of a central receptacle.
But now let us examine the structure of the fruit, which we shall find
differs materially from that of the strawberry in its formation. We
will take that of the raspberry as our example; for though the berries
of the whole tribe are on the same construction, we cannot have one
better known or which would better illustrate the subject. If you pull
off the little thimble-shaped fruit from its stem, you will find
beneath a dry, white cone; this is the receptacle, and the very part
which you eat in the strawberry. If you look attentively at a ripe
raspberry, you will find that it is composed of many separate little
balls of fleshy and juicy substance, each entirely covered by a thin,
membraneous skin, which separates it wholly from its neighbour, and
from the cone. Each of these contains a single seed, and from each a
little dry thread, which is the withered style, projects. You will
find none of the dry grains which lie on the surface of the
strawberry, the part which corresponds with the inner part of those,
lying in the juicy pulp below, whilst that which once corresponded
with their outer part or shell, has itself been transformed into that
juicy pulp which covers them: the fact is, that the carpels of the
raspberry, instead of remaining dry like the strawberry, swell as they
ripen, and acquire a soft, pulpy coat, which in time becomes red,
juicy, and sweet. These carpels are so crowded together, that they at
last grow into one mass, and form the little thimble-shaped fruit
which we eat, the juices of the receptacle being all absorbed by the
carpels, which eventually separate from it, and leave the dry cone
below. Lindley says: 'In the one case, the receptacle robs the carpels
of all their juice, in order to become gorged and bloated at their
expense; in the other case, the carpels act in the same selfish manner
on the receptacle.'
If you observe the berries of the common brambles, the dewberry, and
the cloudberry, you will find them to be all thus formed, though the
number of _grains_, as these swollen carpels are called, differ
materially--the dewberry often maturing only one or two, while the
raspberry, and some kinds of the brambleberry, present us with twenty
and more.
The raspberry was but little noticed by the ancients. Pliny speaks of
a sort of bramble called by the Greeks _Idæus_, from Mount Ida, but he
seems to value it but little. He says, however: 'The flowers of this
raspis being tempered with honey, are good to be laid to watery or
bloodshotten eyes, as also in erysipelas; being taken inwardly, and
drunk with water, it is a comfortable medicine to a weak stomach.'
Gerarde speaks of it under the name of hindeberry, as inferior to the
blackberry. The wild raspberry, which is the stock whence we get the
garden red raspberry, grows freely in many parts of England. It is
found in Wilts, Somerset, Devonshire, and other counties, but is most
abundant in the north. Except in size, it is little inferior to the
cultivated kinds, and possesses the same colour, scent, and flavour.
This fruit, and the strawberry, are especially suitable for invalids,
as they do not engender acetous fermentation in the stomach. In
dietetic and medicinal qualities, these fruits are also much alike.
The bramble, which grows everywhere, creeping on every hedge, and
spreading on the earth in all directions, abounds in useful
properties, most parts of the plant being good for use. The berries
make very tolerable pies, and are much in request for such purposes,
and for making jam in farmhouses and cottages, where they are often
mixed with apples to correct thereby the rather faint and vapid
flavour that they possess when used by themselves. This jam, as well
as the raw fruit, is considered good for sore throats, and for
inflammation of the gums and tonsils. We are also told, that the young
green shoots, eaten as salad, will fix teeth which are loose; probably
(if it be so) it is from the astringent qualities in the juice
strengthening and hardening the gums. The leaves pounded, are said to
be a cure for the ringworm; and they are also made into tea by some of
the cottagers, which is very useful in some ailments; and the roots
boiled in honey, are said to be serviceable in dropsy. The green twigs
are used to dye silk and woollen black; and silk-worms will feed on
them, though the silk produced by those so fed is not equal to that of
those fed on the mulberry. The long trailing shoots are important to
thatchers for binding thatch, and are also used for binding
straw-mats, beehives, &c.; and even the flowers were anciently
supposed to be remedies against the most dangerous serpents. Loudon
says: 'The berries, when eaten at the moment they are ripe, are
cooling and grateful; a little before, they are coarse and
astringent; and a little after, disagreeably flavoured or putrid.' He
adds: 'Care is requisite in gathering the fruit, for one berry of the
last sort will spoil a whole pie.' Great quantities of them are
collected by the women and children in the country, and sold in the
neighbouring towns by the quart. There is a double-flowered species of
bramble, and one which bears _white_ berries. The fruit of the dwarf
crimson (_R. araticus_), and that of the cloudberry (_R. chamæmorus_),
are highly prized in Scotland and Sweden, and in the latter country
are much used in sauces and soups, and for making vinegar; and Dr
Clarke says, that he was cured of a bilious fever by eating great
quantities. The cloudberry, which grows on the tops of the highest
mountains, is the badge of the clan Macfarlane. The bramble seems to
be of almost universal extent, at least it is found at the utmost
limits of phænogamous vegetation; and we are led to remark the
goodness of God in thus providing a plant which combines so many
valuable qualities, and so many useful parts, capable of extending
itself so freely in defiance of all impediments, and of standing so
many vicissitudes of climate, without the aid of culture or care. The
bramble is emphatically the property of the poor; its fruit may be
gathered without restriction; its shoots, both in their young
medicinal state, and in their harder and tougher growth, are theirs to
use as they will; and their children may enjoy the sport of
blackberry-picking, and the profits of blackberry-selling, none saying
them nay; and many a pleasant and wholesome pudding or pie is to be
found on tables in blackberry season, where such dainties are not
often seen at any other time, unless, indeed, we except the
whortleberry season. The poet Cowper sings of--
Berries that emboss
The bramble black as jet;
and truly a plant which diffuses so many benefits, even under the
least advantageous circumstances, may well deserve encomium.