CLASS V. ORDER I.] RHAMNUS. 309 



1. R. cathar'licus, Linn. (Fig. 380.) common Buckthorn. Spines 

 terminal ; leaves ovate, sharply serrated, sub-cordate at the base ; 

 flowers four-cleft, dioecious. 



English Botany, t. 1 629.— -English Flora, vol. i. p. 328.— Hooker, 

 British Flora, vol. i. p. 119. — Lindley, Synopsis, p. 73. 



A spreading shrub, with nearly opposite or alternate rigid branches, 

 terminating in a strong spine, the branches round, with a smooth bark. 

 Leaves numerous, opposite, sometimes alternate, on downy channelled 

 footstalks, ovate, or o^ ate-lanceolate, with a more or less heart-shaped 

 base, strongly marked with its mid-rib and four or six lateral parallel 

 veins, pale on the under side, a brightish green above, the margins 

 sharply and finely serrated, more or less thickly scattered over with 

 simple hairs, the younger leaves have each at the base of the footstalk 

 a pair of small lanceolate bractea, which soon fall away. Flowers in 

 numerous crowded fascicles on the last year's branches, of a yellowish 

 green colour, dioecious, each elevated on a slender footstalk. Barren 

 flowers bearing stamens only, have the calyx tube somewhat bell- 

 shaped, the segments four, ovate-lanceolate, with a mid-rib and two 

 marginal ones. Petals ovate oblong, shorter than the calyx segments, 

 and alternating with them, inserted at the top of the tube of the calyx, 

 with the stamens before them, rising on four awl -shaped filaments, 

 bearing ovate two celled anthers; at the bottom of the tube of the calyx 

 is a small abortive germen, with its short style and stigma. Fertile 

 flower, with a bell-shape tube contracted at the mouth, its four pale 

 ovate -lanceolate three ribbed segments erect. Petals small, linear, 

 incurved above, inserted with the short abortive stamens before them 

 into the mouth of the calyx tube. Style short, deeply four-cleft. 

 Stigmas small, spreading. Berries bluish black, surrounded at the 

 base with the persistent calyx, somewhat fleshy, of four (or less by 

 abortion) cartilaginous cells, each containing a single erect seed, ovate, 

 marked with a deep longitudinal suture in front, rounded at the back, 

 and terminating in an acute curved cartilaginous point over the 

 foramen, embryo nearly as long as the seed, with flat kidney-shaped 

 cotyledons, with an inferior radicle, surrounded by the albumen. 



Habitat. — Hedges, woods, and thickets; common in England; about 

 Dumfries, Scotland ; Islands in Lough Erne, near Enniskillen ; on a 

 limestone rock east side of the Lee, two miles above Cork, Ireland. — 

 Mr. J. Drummond. 



Shrub ; flowering in May and June. 



Buckthorn berries were formerly much used as a cathartic medicine, 

 but their operation is so violent, and produces so much griping pain, 

 that they are now only used to make a syrup to add as auxiliary to 

 purgative enemas; when, however, taken internally in any form, they are 

 productive of considerable dryness of the mouth and throat, causing 

 great thirst, which unpleasant eS"ects are not relieved even with copious 



