150 AMENTACE^ 



It is for its wood that the Alder is prized in modern times. It is used 

 in turnery and cabinet-making, and is Avrought into shoes, clogs, and other 

 articles. Very pretty tables are made of the old knotted trunks of the trees, 

 which are varied like the most beautiful maple-wood, and are of a reddish- 

 brown hue. The new wood is dyed brown for many ornamental purposes ; 

 and in peat-bogs, where the fallen Alders have lain for ages, it has l)econie 

 as black as ebony, and many articles believed to be of ebony are, in fact, made 

 from this bog-wood. 



But the great superiority of the Aider-wood above that of any other 

 tree, is its durability when under water. This quality was well known to 

 the ancients, and Virgil says, that the first boat was made from it : — 

 "Then rivers first the hollow'd Alder knew." 



Vitruvius records its fitness for piles ; and in Pliny's time it was used 

 not only for piles, which he calls "eternal," but also for water-pipes. It is 

 still much employed in the embankments of Holland ; and the city of 

 Ravenna, as well as the far-famed bridge, the Rialto of Venice, is built on 

 Alder-piles. It is well fitted for water-pipes, as being easily perforated, but 

 modern inventions have almost superseded its use. It affords one of the 

 best charcoals for gunpowder, and no other wood forms carbon so fitted for 

 galvanic experiments. Alder charcoal having been long used in voltaic 

 batteries. The astringent bark and young shoots furnish the tanner with a 

 good material, and these shoots, as well as the catkins, yield a good green 

 dye. The short, oval, fertile catkins are sometimes used by fishermen 

 instead of corks to buoy their nets above water. 



4. Willow {Sdlix). 

 Group I. MoNANDR.^^.. — Borr. 



Filaments 2, partially or entirely united ; capsules sessile ; catkins lateral, 

 sessile, very compact, with small bracts at the base, appearing before the 

 leaves ; leaves green, not silky or downy beneath ; small trees or twiggy 

 shrubs. 



1. Purple Willow (»S^. imrpiirea). — Capsule egg-shaped, downy, sessile ; 

 styles very short ; stigma egg-shaped ; leaves often opposite, broader upwards, 

 tapering to a point, finely serrate ; stipules none ; branches in one form 

 bending down and purple, in another (the S. lambertiana of Smith) erect, 

 with the branches purple, and the leaves oblong, linear-lanceolate ; while in 

 a third form, Woolgar's Willow (S. woolgariana) the leaves are wedge-shaped, 

 lanceolate, the branches yellowish, and the stigmas notched. This Willow, 

 when growing wild, is but a shrub, with a stem from five to ten feet high, 

 having long slender branches, which in the trailing variety are of a rich 

 purple colour, with a somewhat glaucous tint, and very smooth and glossy. 

 It grows about marshes, and — 



" Where the runnel winds its weedy way, 

 And \vhere the Willows on its margin grow." 



The catkins appear in March and April on the yet leafless boughs, and the 

 anthers are at first purple, becoming finally black. This Willow is sometimes 



