XV. 1. THE COMMON PRIVET OR PRIM. 331 



pearly ash color. The branches are grayish, recent shoots 

 greenish gray, smooth, or with a delicate, silken pubescence. 

 The leaves are small, on very short stalks, crowded in tufts or 

 opposite on the growing shoots, lance-shaped, acute at both 

 ends, entire, pale green and smooth on both surfaces. 



Flowers white, in short terminal panicles made up of opposite 

 short branchlets, with a slender bract at base of each, on which 

 the flowers are in opposite pairs. Footstalk very short, white, 

 with a minute white bract beneath ; calyx short, ending in four 

 very obtuse teeth; corolla a short tube, with four oblong, ex- 

 panded, pointed segments. Stamens two, short, growing to the 

 inside of the tube; anthers large, sulphur-colored, soon turn- 

 ing brown ; pollen sulphur-colored, fragrant. The berries are 

 of a shining black. In the south of England, the privet is 

 evergreen. Here, the leaves fall, but later than those of most 

 other plants. It is not a native, but was introduced from Eu- 

 rope, and has spread extensively in the eastern part of this 

 State. 



The leaves and bark are bitter and astringent. In Belgium, 

 and some other parts of the continent of Europe, the small twigs, 

 clipped in June, dried and powdered, are used in tanning leath- 

 er. From the berries a rose-color is obtained for tinting maps ; 

 and their juice, with the addition of alum, is used to dye wool 

 or silk green. An agreeable oil for culinary purposes and for 

 lamps, or making soap, is obtained from the berries, by a pro- 

 cess of grinding and pressure. In France and Great Britain, 

 the privet is much used as a hedge plant, either alone or with 

 other plants. Its use for this purpose is recommended by the 

 beauty of the foliage, the flowers and the berries, by its rapid 

 and easy growth, and by the fact that it grows well under the 

 drip of other trees, except evergreens. It flourishes on almost 

 any soil, as may be easily seen, from the variety of ground on 

 which it has sown itself, in the vicinity of Boston, and it is 

 propagated by seed or by cuttings, and requires very little 

 pruning. 



The privet of Nepaul, which, in its native climate, is a tree, 

 but, as cultivated in Europe, a shrub, is the only other species 

 known. 



