the panicle is usually unarmed, in R. plicatus rathercopiously
prickly.
The stem of R. plicatus is biennial, erect, curved at the
summit only, and scarcely exceeds 3 or 4 feet in height,
except in closely shaded places, where it is sometimes longer
and more inclined, but seems never to take root: it is without
furrows, green, with a red tinge towards the sun, hairless,
or with only a few scattered hairs the first season; in
the second summer usually bright red and shining. The
prickles have a somewhat dilated base: those of the leafstalks
are rather more hooked, as well as those on the
panicle, except the small innocuous ones on the ultimate
flower-stalks. Some of the lower stem-leaves are ternate;
the rest quinate: the lower ones of the flowering branches
usually ternate; the upper simple. The leaflets are thin
and flexible, sharply and mostly simply serrated, often de-
flexed from the curvature of their stalks: the upper surface
naked, or sprinkled with a few hairs, bright green, seldom
shining; the underside more hairy and paler, not hoary.
The flowering branches are numerous, frequently several
from the same point, hairy, but green, each terminated by
a simple raceme or by a panicle of which the lower branches
only are subdivided, and the uppermost flower-stalk shorter
than those immediately next to it. The calyx segments are
spreading, or slightly reflexed, broad and short, with an acute
point, downy, usually without, sometimes with a few minute
prickles; the petals roundish, or longer and obovate, white;
rarely tinged very faintly with pink. The berry is rather
small, nearly globular, finally of a full shining black; its
flavour acid until quite ripe, then sweetish.
The specimens from Dr. Williams, described in English
Flora as R. plicatus, bear a close resemblance to R. rhamni-
folius, and probably belong to it. The R. nitidus of Weihe
and Nees, as well as their R. affinis and R.fastigiatus, have,
according to the descriptions and figures, stems 5—15 feet
long, arched and rooting, and leaves with considerable
stalks to all the leaflets; and all of them seem to have
larger prickles than this which we now take for their R.
plicatus. Authentic specimens of R . plicatus, R. nitidus,
and R . affinis, kindly communicated by Professor Mertens
of Bremen, present no distinguishing characters in the
flowering shoots. A bramble which occurs in Sussex and
in Surrey is probably one or the other of the two last; but
whether these are specifically distinct from each other, and
whether the British plant in question is more than a rooting
variety of R. plicatus, remains as yet in doubt. Our authentic
specimens of R. fasligiatus differ considerably from each
other. One of them might be taken for R. suberectus; but
the leaves and prickles of the barren stem, as well as the
length and mode of growth ascribed to it, disagree.—W. B.