Rubus


RUBUS ARCTICUS.--Arctic Regions of both hemispheres. An interesting

species about 6 inches high, with trifoliolate leaves, and deep-red

flowers. For Alpine gardening it is a valuable species of dwarf growth.



R. AUSTRALIS, from New Zealand, is a very prickly species, with the

leaves reduced to their stalks and the midribs of three leaflets. Not

being very hardy it is usually seen as a wall plant.


/> R. BIFLORUS.--Himalayas, 1818. A tall-growing species with whitish,

spiny stems, and simple three-lobed leaves that are tomentose on the

under sides. The flowers are thickly produced, pure white, and render

the plant highly attractive, and of great beauty.



R. DELICIOSUS.--This Rocky Mountain Bramble (1870) is a very worthy

species, with three or five-lobed (not pinnate) leaves, and large, pure

white flowers that are each about 2 inches in diameter, and produced in

profusion from the leaf-axils. For ornamental planting this may be

placed in the first rank of the family to which it belongs.



R. FRUTICOSUS.--Common Bramble, or Blackberry. Of this well-known native

species there are several worthy varieties, of which the double-flowered

are especially worth notice, blooming as they do in the latter part of

summer. R. fruticosus flore albo-pleno (Double white-flowered Bramble),

and R. fruticosus flore roseo-pleno (Double red-flowered Bramble) are

very pretty and showy varieties, and well worth including in any

collection. There is a pretty variegated-leaved form of the common

Bramble, known as R. fruticosus variegatus.



R. LACINIATUS, Cut-leaved Bramble, might also be included on account of

its profusion of white flowers, and neatly divided foliage.



R. NUTKANUS.--North America, 1826. This has white flowers, but otherwise

it resembles R. odoratus.



R. ODORATUS.--Purple flowering Raspberry. North America, 1700. The

sweet-scented Virginian Raspberry forms a rather dense, upright growing

bush, fully 4 feet high, with large broadly five-lobed and toothed

leaves, that are more or less viscid, sweet-scented, and deciduous. The

leaves are placed on long, hairy, viscid foot-stalks. Flowers in

terminal corymbs, large and nearly circular, purplish-red in colour, and

composed of five broad, round petals. The fruit, which is rarely

produced in this country, is velvety and amber-coloured. It is a very

ornamental species, the ample Maple-like leaves and large flowers

rendering it particularly attractive in summer. The leaves, and not the

flowers as is generally supposed, are sweetly scented.



R. ROSAEFOLIUS.--Rose-leaved Raspberry. Himalayas, 1811. Another

half-hardy species, and only suited for planting against sunny walls.

Leaves pinnate, finer than those of the Raspberry. R. r. coronarius,

with semi-double white flowers, is better than the type.



R. SPECTABILIS.--The Salmon Berry. North America, 1827. Grows about 6

feet high, with ternate or tri-lobate leaves that are very thickly

produced. Flowers usually bright red or purplish-coloured, and placed on

long pendulous footstalks. It is of very dense growth, occasioned by the

number of suckers sent up from the roots.



There are also some of the so-called American Brambles well worthy of

attention, two of the best being Kittatiny and Lawton's:



The brambles are particularly valuable shrubs, as owing to their dense

growth they may be used for a variety of purposes, but especially for

covering unsightly objects or banks. They are all wonderfully

floriferous, and succeed admirably even in very poor and stony soils.

Increase is readily obtained either from root suckers or by layering.



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