334, 



CAPRIFOLIACEiE. 



medicine of the plant under notice as well as of the Divarf Elder {S. 

 Ebulus L.) Both kinds were employed in Britain by the ancient 

 English^ and Welsh^ leeches, and in Italy in the medicine of the 

 school of Salernnm. 



Description — The elder produces in the early summer, conspicuous, 

 many-flowered cymes, 4 to 5 inches in diameter, of which the long 

 peduncle divides into 5 branches, which subdivide once or several 

 times by threes or fives, ultimately separating by repeated forkinginto 

 slender, furrowed pedicels about J of an inch long, each bearing a single 

 flower. In the second or third furcations, the middle flower remains 

 short-stalked or sessile, and opens sooner than the rest. In like manner, 

 on the outermost small forks only one of the florets is usually long- 

 stalked. The whole of this inflorescence forms a flattish umbelliform 

 cyme, perfectly glabrous and destitute of bracts. 



The calyx is combined with the ovary and bordered with 4 or o 

 small teeth. The corolla, which is of a creamy white, is monopctalous 

 with a very short tube and 5 spreading ovate lobes. The stamens 

 which are about as long as the divisions of the corolla and alternate 

 with them, are inserted in the tube of the latter. The yellow pollen 

 which thickly powders the flowers, appears under the microscope 

 3-pored. The projecting ovary is crowned by a 2- or 3-lobed sessile 



stigma. 



the 



For use in pharmacy, the part of the flower most desirable is 

 corolla, to obtain a good proportion of which the gathered cymes are 

 left for a few hours in a large heap ; the mass slightly heats, the corollas 

 detach themselves, and are separated from the green stalks by shaking, 



rubbincf, 



they become much shrivelled and assume a dull yellow tint. Wnen 

 fresh, they have a sweet faint smell, which becomes stronger and some- 

 what different by drying, and is quite unlike the repulsive odour of the 

 trash leaves and bark. Dried elder flowers have a bitterish, slightly 

 gummy flavour. On the Continent thev are sold with the stalks, i.e- 

 in entire cymes. 



Chemical Composition— Elder flowers yield a very small per- 

 centage of a butter-like essential oil, lighter than water, and smellin 

 strongly of the flowers ; it is easily altered by exposure to the air. lae 

 oil IS accompanied by traces of volatile acids. 



Uses— Elder flowers are only employed in British medicine for 

 making an aromatic distilled water, and for communicating a pleasant 

 odour to lard {Unguentum Samhuci). The flowers of Sambucu^^ 



cpatZensis L.* indigenous in the United , 



similar to those of our species, appear to be 'more fragrant, 

 team of the latter are sometimes used for givin"^ 

 tint to oil or fat, as in the Oleum viride 



Unguentu 



a fine 



Ba 



The 

 crreen 



hi oZt^"^'- ^- ""^ ^''^y Enrjland edited 



Q ^p; 7^ -^r- E<i^ard Gillett (p. xxxii ) 

 t SK ^^f^^i*« l>^-« bee^ brought 



2 The Physicians of Myddf ai (see ff^^^] 



used sage rue, mallow a^nj '^ShjiJO^^ 

 as ingredients of a gargit. ^ 



Myddvaiy 219. 403. Gmelin^ 



3 For further information, see 



Chemistry, xiv. (18G0) 368. plants, 



part 21 (1877). 



