The Description.
1 The common Bramble bringeth forth slender branches, long, tough, easily bowed, ramping among hedges and whatsoever stands neere unto it; armed with hard and sharpe prickles, whereon doe grow leaves consisting of many set upon a rough middle ribbe, greene on the upper side, and under-neath somewhat white: on the tops of the stalkes stand certaine floures, in shape like those of the Brier Rose, but lesser, of colour white, and sometimes washt over with a little purple: the fruit or berry is like that of the Mulberry, first red, blacke when it is ripe, in taste betweene sweet and soure, very soft, and full of grains: the root creepeth, and sendeth forth here and there young springs.
2 The Raspis or Framboise bush hath leaves and branches not much unlike the common Bramble, but not so rough nor prickly, and sometimes without any prickles at all, having onely a rough hairinesse about the stalkes: the fruit in shape and proportion is like those of the Bramble, red when they be ripe, and covered over with a little downinesse; in taste not very pleasant. The root creepeth far abroad, whereby it greatly encreaseth. (Dagger)This growes either with prickles upon the stalks, or else without them: the fruit is usually red, but sometimes white of colour.(Dagger)
The Place.
The Bramble groweth for the most part in every hedge and bush. The Raspis is planted in gardens: it groweth not wilde that I know of, except in the field by a village in Lancashire called Harwood, not far from Blackeburne.
I found it among the bushes of a causey, neere unto a village called Wisterson, where I went to schoole, two miles from the Nantwich in Cheshire.
The Time.
These floure in May and June with the Roses: their fruit is ripe in the end of August and September.
The Names.
The Bramble is called in Latine, Rubus, and Sentis, and Vepres, as Ovid writeth in the first booke of Metamorphosis:
Or to the Hare, that under Bramble closely lying, spies
The hostile mouth of Dogs.--
Of divers it is called in English, Bramble bush, and Blacke-berry bush.
The Raspis is called in Latine, Rubus Idaea, of the mountaine Ida on which it groweth: in English, Raspis, Framboise, and Hindeberry.
The Vertues.
They heale the eies that hang out.
The ripe fruit is sweet, and containeth in it much juyce of a temperate heate, therefore it is not unpleasant to be eaten.
The leaves of the Bramble boyled in water, with honey, allum, and a little white wine added thereto, make a most excellent lotion or washing water, and the same decoction fastneth the teeth.