Our Trailing Arbutus is not the Arbutus of the ancients - nor indeed by modern botanists would it be regarded as an Arbutus at all - but its relationship to the famous Arbutus of the ancients gives an interest to the " folk lore " of the family. According to Mr. R. Folkard, the tree is one of great antiquity, for he informs us in his book on Plant Lore, etc, that it was held sacred by the Romans. " It was one of the attributes of Cardea, a sister of Apollo, who was beloved by Janus, guardian of gates and avenues. With a rod of Arbutus, Cardea drove away witches, and protected little children when ill or bewitched. The Romans employed the Arbutus, with other symbolic trees and flowers, at the Palila, a festival held in honor of the pastoral goddess Pales. It was a Roman custom to deposit branches of the Arbutus on coffins; and Virgil tells us that Arbutus rods and oak twigs formed the bier of young Pallas the son of Evander. Horace, in his Odes, has celebrated the shade afforded by the Arbutus. Ovid speaks of the tree as the Arbutus heavy with its ruby fruit,' and tells us that in the golden age, the fruit afforded food to man. This fruit is called unedo, and Pliny is stated to have given it that name because it was so bitter, ' that he who ate one would eat no more.

But I have met with people who eat the fruit and appear to like it. Some of the most fruitful specimens of this shrub I have ever seen, were growing on elevated positions, which appeared to suit it exactly".