FLOWERING RASPBERRY.
_Rubus Odoratus._
IN English gardens our beautiful Red-Flowered, Sweet-Scented Raspberry
is deemed worthy of a place in the shrubberies, but in its native
country it is passed by because it is not an exotic, and therefore
regarded as of little worth.—Like a prophet it has no honour in its own
country.—Yet what can be more lovely than its rose-shaped blossoms,
from the deep purplish-crimson bud wrapped in its odorous mossy calyx,
to the unfolded flower of various shades of deep rose and paler reddish
lilac. The flowers of the Red Raspberry derive their pleasant aromatic
odour from the closely-set coating of short bristly glandular hairs,
each one of which is tipped with a gland of reddish hue, containing a
sweet-scented gum, as in the mossy envelope of the moss-rose of the
garden. These appendages, seen by the aid of a powerful microscope, are
objects of exquisite beauty, more admirable than rubies and diamonds,
living gems that fill us with wonder while we gaze into their marvellous
parts and glorious colours.
All through the hot months of June, July and August, a succession of
flowers are put forth at the ends of the branches and branchlets of our
Sweet Raspberry—
“An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds.”
The shrub is from two to five feet in height, branching from the woody
perennial root-stock; the leaves are from three to five lobed, the lobes
pointed and roughly toothed. The leaves are of a dullish green, varying
in size from several inches in length, to mere bracts. The blossoms are
often as large as those of the sweet-briar and dog-rose, but when first
unfolded more compact and cup like. The fruit consists of many small red
grains arranged in the form of an inverted saucer on the receptacle, and
is somewhat dry and acid, more tempting to the eye than the palate, but
not injurious in any degree. The shrub is more attractive for its
flowers than its insipid fruit. We have indeed few that are more
ornamental among our native plants than the RUBUS ODORATUS. Canada
cannot boast of the Rhododendrons and Azaleas that adorn the Western and
Northern States, but she possesses many attractive shrubs that are but
little known, which flourish year after year on the lonely shores of our
inland lakes and marshy beaver meadows, Ledums and Kalmias, with many a
fair flower that withers unnoticed and uncared for in its solitary
native haunts.
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