CAPRIFOLIACE^. 201 



an innkeeper in a university town, who revealed, on his retirement from business, that 

 elder wine, judiciously flavoured with vinegar, sugar, and small quantities of port, con- 

 stituted his famous clarets and Bourdeaux, so much admired and so highly paid for by 

 the undergraduates. 



There was formerly a notion among gardeners that the scent of the Elder was 

 distasteful to insects, which led to the planting of large numbers of trees around the 

 market-gardens about London ; but this notion seems unfounded, for moths, at least, 

 are particularly fond of the flowers, a fact well known to entomologists. 



SPECIES IT. -SAMBUCUS EBULUS. i-i-r 



^ -'^ Plate DCXXXVIII. 



A 



Rdch. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Helv. Vol. XII. Tab. DCCXXIX. Fig. 1434. / 



Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 13G. 



Herbaceous. Leaves pinnate, glabrous ; leaflets in 4 to 6 pairs, 

 shortly stalked, narrowly oblong-lanceolate, very finely and closely 

 serrate. Stipules foliaceous, resembling small leaves with one or 

 more pairs of stalked ovate or lanceolate-serrate leaflets. Plowers in 

 a sub-sessile or shortly-stalked compact compound corymbose cyme. 

 Corolla funnelshaped-rotate. Pilaments much dilated, crimped. 



In woods, waste grounds, especially near ruins, by roadsides, 

 &c. Rather rare and sporadic, but extending from Devon and 

 Kent to Eoss and Eorfar, though in many places it has probably 

 been introduced. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Late Summer 



and Autumn. 



Root very extensively creeping. Stems thick, resembling the 

 shoots of the year of S. nigra, but dying down in winter. Leaflets 3 

 to 6 inches long, with the sides much more parallel than in S. nigra, 

 and the serratures more convex on the outside. The cyme is 

 smaller, 2 to 4 inches across, less spreading, with the main branches 

 not all from one point, nor simple for a considerable length and 

 then forked, as in the common Elder. Corolla-limb more concave, 

 tipped with red. Anthers purple. Eruit resembliug that of S. nigra, 

 but often abortive. 



Danewort, or Dioarf-Mder. 



French, Sureau Yeble. German, Zwerg Holmid&r. 



The common name of this shrub is sometimes given Dane's-blood, and is said to 

 have originated at a time when the Danes were not on their present friendly terms 

 with our own nation, and that an expression of hatred was conveyed in the supposition 

 that this noxious foetid plant sprang fi-om their blood. 



Dr. Prior tells us, that at Slaughtonford, a village near Chippenham, in Wilts, 

 there is an abundance of this plant, and that there was at one time a great fight with 

 the Danes in this place, which made the inhabitants so name it. Every part of this 



VOL. IV. 2 D 



y-.}r, 



