all 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 _Idaeus_, 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