268 BOTANY OF THE 
The lowermost pair of leaflets is very frequently compounded in the 
American form, each leaflet being two or even three cleft; but I have 
seen the same in the European variety occasionally ; hence this mark 
cannot be taken for a specific character, as has been done by Willde- 
now* and other authors, who state, moreover, that the berries of S. 
Canadensis are but half the size of those of S. nigra, which my own 
observations do not confirm. What the half hardy suffruticose species, 
described by Loudon T and various writers as S. Canadensis, may be, 
am at a loss to understand; I can only say I have never fallen in 
with anything answering to it in America, or met with any nearer ap- 
proach to an Elder different from our own, besides the slight variety 
mentioned above. It is not to be wondered at, that a plant, which 
can with equal facility accommodate itself to the pinching cold of 
Lower Canada and the sultry sun of Trinidad and Barbadoes (in the 
gardens of which islands I have seen it thriving and flowering luxuri- 
antly) should exhibit some variations of character and aspect under so 
great a diversity of climate, that at first view, or in the dried state, may 
appear to offer good specific distinctions. There are, perhaps, few ex- 
amples amongst ligneous vegetables of such climatie adaptation in any 
one species as is evinced by the Elder; and hence we find it distributed 
in some one or other of its aberrant forms, as Sir Wm. Hooker has re- 
marked to me, over a great part of the world. 
The weather, during my stay at Ancaster and its neighbourhood, was 
not such as to give a favourable impression of the climate of this part 
of Upper Canada. I had, indeed, before visiting it, abundant proofs. 
of its variability in a series of excellent daily observations made by Dr. 
Craigie, at Hamilton and Ancaster, for several years past, and of which, 
through Dr. C.'s kindness, I possess a complete set to the present date. 
Monthly communications by letter with my friends. in Canada West 
amply bear out the fact of this variableness, and of the extreme un- 
certainty of the seasons in the vicinity of the great lakes, where, not- 
withstanding that the winters are milder and the summers somewhat 
cooler and more humid than in parts of the country more remote from 
these vast inland bodies of water, the diurnal, monthly, and annual 
vicissitudes are still excessive. I shall adduce but a single example to 
shew the extreme discrepancy betwixt the mean temperature of the 
* Berlinische Baumzucht. Berlin 1796, 8vo. p. 355. t Arboret. Brit. art. Sambucus. 
