98 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 



The Ash is a useful timber tree. Privet and many 

 of the other types cited are ornamental shrubs. 



Privet (Ligustrum vtdgare). 



Universally distributed, the Privet is one of our 

 most generally planted shrubs. Few thickets or 

 plantations are without a fair-sized patch of Privet, 

 which serves as a good covert for game. 



In the British Isles the Privet is generally distri- 

 buted in England as well as in Scotland, and it 

 occurs in Ireland ; but is not considered to be native 

 anywhere but in the south, and in England it is 

 held to be native only in those areas where a chalk 

 soil occurs, or upon cliffs by the sea. 



The habitat is woods and thickets. Privet is 

 found in damp oakwoods on clays and loams, in 

 ashwoods on limestone, in the scrub association on 

 chalk soils, on marls and calcareous sandstones in 

 ash oakwoods, and in fen associations, and in the 

 ultimate carr developed from swamp or fen carr. 



Privet is a shrub with the usual shrub habit. It 

 is almost an evergreen. The plant is without hairs. 

 The branches are long and slender, with smooth 

 bark. The leaves are entire, on short stalks, oblong 

 to lance-shaped, acute. 



The flowers are in terminal cymes forming a 

 thyrsus, short and compact, the flowers white, 

 small, densely arranged. The calyx is four-cleft, 

 tubular, with small teeth, and it falls. The corolla is 

 funnel-shaped, the limb spreading, with four lobes. 



