653. The native fruits of the British isles, and which, till the thirteenth or fourteenth century, must have been the only sorts known to the common people, are the following: -small purple plums, sloes, wild currants, brambles, raspberries, wood strawberries, cranberries, blackberries, red-berries, heather-berries, elder-berries, roan-berries, haws, holly-berries, hips, hazel-nuts, acorns, and beech-mast. The wild apple or crab, and wild cherry, though now naturalised, would probably not be found wild, or be very rare in the early times of which we now speak. The native roots and leaves would be earth-nut, and any other roots not remarkably acrid and bitter; and chenopodium, sorrel, dock, and such leaves as are naturally rather succulent and mild in flavour.
