OUR CULTIVATED brambles fall readily into two groups - the blackberries, characterized by the adherent receptacle or "core" which pulls off with the fruit, and the raspberries or thimble-berries, in which the receptacle parts from the fruit and remains on the bush. With the exception of the raspberries of the Fontenay and FastolfF type, all these fruits have come into cultivation within the last 70 years, and they are offspring of our common wild species. None of the varieties differ widely from the wild species, and yet, in a botanical sense, they are little understood. There has never been an attempt, so far as I am aware, to refer our cultivated sorts to their proper species and botanical varieties. The brambles are a puzzling group. In Europe, the blackberries run into almost endless natural varieties, and the knowledge of them is much confused. Our own blackberries are widely variable and they need to be systematically studied.

The common blackberry, Rubus villosus, runs into high and low forms. Of the high bush forms, four types are readily distinguished, at least by characters of fruit:

Rubus Villosus, Aiton

"Fruit firm and dry, narrow, varying from nearly globular on stunted plants to long-oblong on thrifty ones, dull in color, sweet, the drupelets small and closely packed.

Var. Sativus, New Variety

Fruit larger, loose and soft, broad, globular or globular-oblong, shining, sour until very ripe, the drupelets large and fleshy. This is the parent of nearly all the cultivated varieties of high blackberry, most of which are simply wild forms transferred to the garden. It is probable that characters of habit and of various organs are different in these two types, but I am unable yet to designate them. It will be an interesting experiment, which we are now making, to determine if cultivation will modify perceptibly the characters of the long and firm fruits of the forms which I have referred to the type of Rubus villosus.

Both these plants are characterized by broadly ovate leaflets, hairy glandular leaves, petioles and inflorescence, a more or less elongated and nearly or quite leafless inflorescence, and large long-petaled flowers. Fig. 1 shows a wild plant of Rubus villosus, with a short inflorescence.

Var. Frondosus, Torrey

(Fig. 2, p. 723.) Plant lower and more bushy than the above, the leaves smaller and more thickly placed upon the bush, persisting longer in the fall; leaves smaller, smooth or nearly so when full grown, the leaflets ovate-oblong and coarsely toothed ; inflorescence shorter, nearly smooth, scarcely or not at all glandular, the lower pedicels subtended by small entire leaves, giving the cluster a leafy or frondose appearance; flowers smaller. The Early Harvest belongs to this variety. Fig. 2 shows the essential characters of this variety, when contrasted with Fig. 1. The coarse dentation of the leaflets is an important point, which is commonly overlooked.

Var. Albinus, New Variety. ( White Blackberry,)

Lower than the type, the stems throughout greenish-yellow ; leaflets much as in the var.. frondosus in shape and dentation, but more or less hairy and glandular; inflorescence long but bearing simple bracts as in the last variety, hairy and glandular; fruit small, creamy white or amber-colored. I have known this plant from childhood. It grew sparingly in the woods in western Michigan, and it was occasionally transferred to gardens. In one garden, at least, it has grown for more than twenty years, and it has always retained its characteristics. I suppose that the white blackberries sometimes advertised by nurserymen belong here, but I have no specimens of them.

The raspberries are generally placed in two divisions, although these divisions are by no means so definitely marked as we have been led to suppose : those propagating by sprouts or suckers from the root, and those propagating by stolons or root-tips. The characters of the inflorescence or flower clusters are the most important distinguishing marks in our raspberries, although they have never been given much prominence in the botanies. The various species, I think, are as follows :

Rubus Idaeus, Linn. [European Raspberry)

Plant usually stiff and erect, the stems bearing nearly straight slender prickles or weak bristles, and usually light-colored ; inflorescence sub-corymbose - the pedicels short, and aggregated above, where they are erect or ascending; fruit large and broad, appearing more or less continuously throughout the summer, purple or yellowish. The raspberries belonging to this species are usually tender in the north, and they have not been grown to any extent since the introduction to cultivation of the native species. Here belong the Fontenay and its kin.

Rubus Strigosus, Mich. [Red Raspberry.)

Fig. 3, p. 723. More slender than Rubus Idaus; stems, at least in the wild plant, densely clothed with straight and weak bristles, usually brown or reddish-brown ; inflorescence racemose, the peduncles scattered, all slender and drooping, either simple or two or three-flowered, not aggregated at the top, smooth or bristly; petals as long as the sepals; fruit light-red, usually smaller than in R. Idaus. The racemose character of the inflorescenceof thisspecies is well shown in the Cuthbert (Fig. 3), a variety which appears to closely represent in all particulars the true Rubus strigosus. Hansell appears to be R strigosus also. The wild plant is densely clothed with weak bristles, but these mostly disappear in cultivation. They sometimes persist near the base of the cane, and traces of them can be seen in the inflorescence. I am growing a white-fruited raspberry, sent me by A. S. Fuller, which is Rubus strigosus. The stems are whitish. The leaves also possess a curious dentation, the teeth being rounded and tipped with a short cusp, but lam not sure that this is a constant character, or that the variety possesses any other distinguishing mark than albinism.