174 THE FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE 



The gladdon flowers in May, and these flowers, of 

 a rather dull violet-blue, are succeeded by the capsules. 

 These, on ripening, cleave into three valves and reveal 

 the brilliant orange seeds that render the plant so especially 

 attractive in the Autumn. 



ELDER (Sambucus Nigra) 



The Elder, of which, on Plate XXVIII., we represent 

 the rich clustering fruit, will doubtless be familiar to all 

 our readers, sometimes pressed into the farmer's service 

 as hedge-making material, and at others living a life of 

 independence and aspiring to the dignity of a tree. 

 When arborescent it is much branched, and has often 

 a gnarled and venerable appearance, when growing in 

 an exposed position, that perhaps its age does not quite 

 warrant. Such matters, however, are but relative, and 

 an elder, the twentieth of the age of an oak, may be as 

 aged as the monarch himself, and sinking beneath the 

 weight of years. The old wood of the elder is curiously 

 hard, while the younger stems are in their interiors mere 

 pith. 



These stems, so readily hollowed, we need scarcely 

 remind those who were once boys, or those happy maidens 

 who are blessed with brothers, are the raw material of 

 the erst valued pop-gun. If any of our readers are, 

 after all, ignorant on this point, Shakespeare, at least, 

 was not, for what says he in Henry V.} — " That's a 

 perilous shot out of an elder gunne, that a poore and 

 private displeasure can doe against a monarch." Beaumont 

 and Fletcher, in Philaster, also introduce this hedgerow 



