APOCYNACE^. 61 



every wood and in the hedgerows of our London gardens. " It is not," he says, " found in 

 the country of Polonia and other parts adjacent." In this assertion, however, Loudon 

 tells us he is mistaken, for it is found wild in the neighbourhood of Warsaw. In 

 British gardens the Privet is chiefly esteemed for its use in making hedges, and has 

 been used for centuries for this purpose. It grows very easily, is readily propagated, 

 and bears clipping and trimming better than most shrubs. It will grow almost 

 anywhere, and thrives in London in the midst of smoke. It forms the prettiest sort of 

 hedge for a suburban garden, and with its delicate white flowers and bright dark 

 foliage, greatly resembles a very vigorous myrtle. The leaves are bitter and astringent, 

 and have had a reputation in medicine as a gargle or wash. The berries form 

 excellent food for blackbirds, thrushes, bulfinches, pheasants, and other birds. A rose- 

 colour is extracted from them for tinting maps and prints, and their juice, with the 

 addition of alum, is used as a green dye. One of the most remarkable products of the 

 berries is a greenish, mild, agreeably-flavoured oil, which is used for culinary and other 

 purposes in Germany. The clippings of the shrubs are collected in Belgium, dried, 

 and used in the tanneries. All entomologists know the larva of the Privet hawk- 

 moth, which is one of the most beautiful of caterpillars, of a grassy-green colour, with 

 bands of white, purple, or flesh-colour. It feeds on the Privet and Ash, but is sometimes 

 found on the Lilac, Lauristinus, &c. The perfect insect measures 4^ inches when its 

 wings are expanded. 



OEDEE XLV.— A POOYNACEiE. 



Trees or shrubs (rarely lierbs), often climbing, frequently having 

 milky juice, with, opposite or more rarely verticillate or very rarely 

 alternate leaves, without stipules or with merely rudimentary ones. 

 Plowers perfect, regular, often showy, generally in terminal cymes, 

 more rarely solitary and axillary. Calyx persistent, free from the 

 ovary, monosepalous, 5-cleft or 5-partite, very rarely 4-cleft. 

 Corolla deciduous, hypogynous, regular, monopetalous, salver- 

 shaped or funnel-shaped; limb 5-cleft or 5-partite, very rarely 

 4-partite ; segments almost always oblique. Stamens 5, very 

 rarely 4, inserted in the tube or in the throat of the corolla ; 

 filaments generally very short, adhering to the tube of the 

 corolla, alternate with its lobes ; anthers 2-celled, splitting lon- 

 gitudinally, sometimes cohering by their edges and adhering to the 

 style ; pollen granular, applied directly to the stigma. Ovary 

 free, superior, 2-celled, the cells often distinct ; style 1 ; stigma 1, 

 generally contracted in the middle. Ovules generally numerous. 

 Pruit of 2 follicles (or by abortion of only 1), more rarely syn- 

 carpous, sometimes a drupe or berry. Seeds usually compressed, 

 generally albuminous ; albumen fleshy or cartilaginous ; embryo 

 straight, with the cotyledons often foliaceous. 



