BUCKTHORN 17 



from defective translation, imperfect knowledge of the 

 plants and other causes, that it becomes often quite 

 impossible to arrive at any safe conclusion as to the plant 

 intended. 



BUCKTHORN (Rhamnus Catharticus) 



Another common plant bearing black berries is the 

 buckthorn. This is found in hedges and copses fairly 

 abundantly throughout the country, but thrives best in 

 chalk districts. When growing really wild and beyond 

 the levelling influence of the hedge-cutter's shears it 

 reaches a height of some twelve feet or so. The main 

 branches bear thorns not a few, while the smaller 

 branches often terminate in a sharp spine. The wood 

 of the buckthorn is hard, and is sometimes used in 

 turnery from its density of texture, but is too small in 

 section to be of any extended value in the arts. The 

 leaves are of a bright clear green colour, elliptical in 

 form, strongly veined, and deeply toothed. They grow 

 in alternate arrangement on the stems, and from their 

 axils spring rather large clusters of four-petalled greenish- 

 yellow blossoms ; these will be found in May and June. 



After the flowers have passed away they are succeeded 

 by numerous round berries of shining surface, at first green, 

 but by September of a bluish-black colour ; these are about 

 as large as a pea, and each contains four smooth hard 

 seeds. When these berries are bruised they are found to 

 contain a greenish pulp that is bitter and nauseous to the 

 taste, and from this pulp is prepared the syrup of buckthorn, 

 a rather potent and uncertain medicine. Though long 

 holding a place in the pharmacopoeia, it is little used in 



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