AMENTACE^— CATKIN-BEARING TRIBE 141 



purpose of holding down the shifting sands, and is most useful in this 

 respect. The small, solitary, greenish, pistil-bearing flowers are tubular in 

 form, and the barren flowers are placed in small cones, each scale bearing a 

 mimite flower. They expand in May, just before the bursting open of the 

 leaves, or at about the same period. The narrow leaves are deep green on 

 the upper surface and white beneath ; while some of the boughs are of a silver 

 colour, their shining surfaces looking almost metallic. In the Crimea the 

 Buckthorn is planted, not only to bind the sands, l)ut also that it may shelter 

 the young fir-trees which are placed near it ; and the Buckthorn there 

 acquires great size and vigoiu\ In Germany, where it grows well, cultivated 

 plants are commonly twenty feet high ; and a Sea Buckthorn which was 

 planted at Syon Park, Isleworth, attained the height of thirty -three feet, and 

 had a trunk whose diameter was eleven inches. 



The berries of this shrub grow in numerous clusters among the leaves in 

 September ; they are rather larger than holly-berries, sometimes of a deep 

 orange, at others of a much paler yellow, and they have a pleasant acid 

 flavour. They are seldom eaten in this country, even by children, owing to 

 the idea that they are unwholesome, yet they are perfectly harmless. The 

 Tartar children eat great numbers of these fruits ; and a preserve made 

 of them, and served up with milk or cheese, is regarded in Tartary as a 

 luxurious dish. The fishermen of the Gulf of Bothnia also make of these 

 fruits a pleasant acid jelly, which they take with their fish, and a kind of 

 fish-sauce is made from them in the south of France. In Dauphiny, as well 

 as in Spain, they are, however, believed to be poisonous ; and at Calais, where 

 the Buckthorn is abundant on the sands, the fishermen refuse to touch the 

 fruits, which they say, however, are greedily devoured by the sea-fowl. 

 J. J. Rousseau relates an amusing anecdote respecting this plant. While 

 botanising in the neighbourhood of Grenoble with a local botanist, he found 

 this shrub, and gathered and ate the berries which were on its boughs. His 

 com]3anion, who regarded them as poisonous, was too polite to say so to one 

 whom he deemed so learned ; but he afterwards confessed, that while seeing 

 these fruits eaten plentifully by Rousseau, he thought that death would 

 certainly ensue. The land as well as sea birds make many meals of the 

 berries, which continue on the shrub throughout the winter, and which, if 

 untouched by birds, may be seen even in the early spring just when the 

 spikes of buds are thickening on the bough. 



The French call this shrub L'Argoussier ; and the Germans, Der Haftdorn. 

 It is the Didnbessen of the Dutch, the Espino amariUo of the Spaniards, and 

 the Eakiinik of the Russians. Every part of the plant abounds in a colouring 

 matter, which is used as a yellow dye. 



Order LXXX. AMENTACEiE— CATKIN-BEARING 



TRIBE. 



Stamens and pistils in separate flowers, and often on different plants ; 

 barren flowers in heads or catkins, composed of scales ; stamens 1 — 20, 

 inserted in the scales ; fertile flowers clustered, solitary, or in catkins ; ovary 



