417 



be called in question. That it is only naturalized through cultivation 

 in Scotland and perhaps the northernmost parts of England, I am dis- 

 posed to think probable, from the consideration of its geographical 

 range on the continent of Europe, where it seems to advance a little 

 beyond the limits of the wayfaring tree ( Viburnum Lantana), which 

 fails in Denmark and Scandinavia, whilst the elder reaches the south- 

 ern part of both these countries. I question whether it is anywhere 

 native beyond lat. 55° or 56° in Europe, as in all the floras I have 

 consulted that relate to districts lying under and above these paral- 

 lels, the elder is usually mentioned as found only about houses and 

 villages, and in hedges (ad domos, pagos, sepes), and if my memory 

 serves, it is in such half-wild situations alone that I have remarked it 

 in Scotland, though I do not pretend to affirm this positively. Here, 

 and over the south and middle of England it is a perfectly sylvestral 

 tree, and as such, of the commonest occurrence. The key to Lou- 

 don's opinion may, T think, be found in a farther remark of his (same 

 page) that " it is common in all parts of England in the neighbour- 

 hood of houses and gardens," situations in which that clever and la- 

 borious author would probably be oftenest in the habit of seeing it 

 here and in the north, of which last he was himself a native. It is no 

 argument against the question of spontaneity, that a shrub so useful 

 as the elder is for various domestic purposes and for fences, should as 

 often be found in the vicinity of habitations as in places remote from 

 human occupation ; the wonder would be if it were not so ; its pre- 

 sence or absence in primitive woodlands is the point to be deter- 

 mined. I should not have dwelt thus long upon the supposed intro- 

 duction of the elder into Britain, as I believe few, if any, of our 

 English botanists at least, are disposed to doubt its claim to nativity, 

 but I have done so to show on what flimsy grounds the contrary 

 opinion has been emitted respecting this and some other of our indi- 

 genous trees and herbs, and which we know how readily it has been 

 caught up and repeated from mouth to mouth, aud copied from book 

 to book,* in most instances without an attempt made or a reason ad- 

 vanced to prove the truth of the position. I may here remark, that 

 much of the scepticism we see displayed on the subject we have just 

 been considering, arises from a disposition, in some measure natural, 



* In Selby's Work on British Forest Trees, for instance, in which much scope 

 was afforded for original discussion and research into this interesting question, not a 

 step has been made in advance of previous writers on the same subject, old opinions 

 are repeated and acquiesced in, as if indisputable themselves, or it was too much 

 trouble to controvert or refute them. 



Vol. hi. 3 i 



