1883. J BEAUTIES OF BRITISH TREES. 103 



lectively the conspicuousness that they would not have singly. The 

 flowers are very regular, consisting of four small sepals united into a 

 cup, four petals also united, but in varying degrees, sometimes form- 

 ing a long tube ; two stamens, generally represented by anthers only, 

 inserted upon the corolla-tube, and two carpels united to form the 

 berry, capsule, or samaroid fruit. Our native Ash is exceptional in 

 the abseace of both calyx and corolla, and the five sepals and petals 

 usually present in the Jasmines, f(jrm the most obvious distinction 

 between the JasminacecB and the Oleacecc. 



The latter Order, which is not a large one in point of the number 

 of its species, is mainly represented in northern temperate latitudes, 

 the genus Ligustrum being confined moreover to the Old World. 

 Several of the few species it contains are natives of Japan, that home 

 of those evergreen shrubs that rejoice in a tyi)ically equable or 

 insular climate ; and it is perhaps the nearly evergreen character of 

 our British species, that enables it to flourish amid the smoke and 

 -soot of London. The leaves, it is true, become blackened and 

 choked, and perhaps fall off sooner than they would iu clear country 

 air ; but there are some on the tree during so many months of the 

 year, that if its growth is slow it is almost continuous. 



It has every appearance of being wild in our woods to the south of 

 Durham, and in the south of Ireland ; but is only naturalised iu 

 Scotland. It grows from four to ten feet high, and the suppleness of its 

 slender, smooth-barked branches very probably gave it the name 

 Ligustrum, from 'ligare,' to bind. Patient of the shears, it has long 

 been a favourite for crardcn hedgerows. The botanical student should 

 notice between the thin, brown cork-layer of a year old shoot the rich 

 greencolour of the 'phelloderm,' orchlorophyllcontaininglayerof bark. 



Both the bark and the oblong-lanceolate leaves were formerly used 

 in medicines for their bitter astringent character, and a rose-coloured 

 dye and an oil have been extracted from the berries ; but it is certainly 

 mainly as a hedgerow shrub that the Privet is of any real value. 



The tint of its leaves is never beautiful, being perhaps fairly desig- 

 nated as dull ; but they are more cheerful in hue than the blue tinted 

 foliage of the Laufcsd/i us, which is to some extent the rival of the 

 Privet, and I would venture, on account of these despised yellowish 

 green leaves and the white clusters, that appear among them so 

 abundantly in June and July, to put in a plea that the Privet may 

 be sometimes allowed a place un trimmed among the laurels and other 

 high-grown bushes in the shrubbery. I have a lively recollection of 

 high hedgerows gay with these dense white clusters, seen in county 

 Waterford some years ago. 



The short funnel-shaped corollas arc succeeded by the blackest and 

 glossiest of round berries ; but these soon lose their gloss and with it 

 any beauty they may have ; so that 1 think it must be admitted that 



