CHAP. XXX in. {:elastraYe.e. £uo'nyaius. 497 



Britain, it was formerly employed in the manufacture of musical instruments ; 

 and it is still occasionally used for ke^s to pianofortes, and by turners and 

 coopers. In Scotland, it is employed, along with the wood of the alpine la- 

 burnum (Cytisus alpinus L), to form noggins, called bickers ( ? from the 

 German word ier/^T, a cup). These bickirs are formed of small staves, alter- 

 nately of the spindle tree and the laburnum ; the wood of the former being white 

 or yellowish, and that of the latter being very dark brown or black. When the 

 wood of the spindle tree cannot be got, that of the holly is used. These 

 bickers are employed both as drinking-vessels and as porridge dishes : in 

 form they resemble milkpails ; and when of a small size, are called higgles, 

 from their having but one handle, which is called a lug, or ear. In Gern)any, 

 shoots of 3 ft. or 4 ft. in length are bored and employed for the shanks of 

 tobacco-pipes, the bowls being made of earthenware ; and spindles arc made 

 of the wood in parts of the Continent where that mode of spinning is still 

 practised : hence, the names of fusain and spindelbaum. The wood, split 

 up into thin pieces, is formed into whisks for driving away flies. A charcoal 

 is made of the shoots, which is much valued by artists, from the lines traced 

 with it being easily effaced. This chaixoal is made by putting a number of 

 the shoots of two years' growth into an iron tube, and, after closing it so as to 

 exclude the air, puttmg the tube in a fire till it becomes red. It is then taken 

 out, and allowed to cool before the charcoal is removed. In using this char- 

 coal, or charcoal crayons, as they are called, it is necessary, in sharpening them, 

 to cut them to a point on one side, on account of the centre being only pith. 

 The fruits of the tree have been emplojed by dyers, who derive three colours 

 from them, green, yellow, and red. The first is obtained by boiling the seeds 

 with alum; the second, by boiling the seeds alone; and the third, by using the 

 capsules. A decoction of the capsules in alkali is said to colour hair red ; 

 and the leaves, dried and powdered, and put among the hair of the heads of 

 chiklren, is said to drive away vermin : hence one of the names. The fruit is 

 said to be purgative and emetic in an eminent degree; so much so as not to be 

 eaten by birds. After all, the principal use of the spindle tree at present, in 

 Britain, is, to form skewers for butchers and cooks, and for watchmakers; 

 the large trees in Forfarshire, that were formerly used by coopers in making 

 bickers, being, for the most part, no longer to be met with. In ornamental 

 plantations, this species, and all the others, are chiefly interesting in autumn, 

 when, as Dumont elegantly observes, "they spread, by their numerous pendent 

 capsules of a bright red colour or pure white, and their white and orange- 

 coloured seeds, some rays of brilliance over the departing season, and recall 

 the remembrance of the fine days of sunmier." [Bot. f «//., vol. vi. p. 243.) 



Casualties. The leaves are liable to be attacked by the caterpillar of the 

 YponomeutaEuonymellaLr///-. ; so much so, that the plant, both in hedges and 

 gardens, may frequently be seen wholly without leaves, and bearing numerous 

 webs of a cobwebby appearance and consistence, which are formed bv the 

 young caterpillai's, in the course of their feeding, in passing from point to 

 point. 



Stnlhtks. The largest specimens of E. europaj'us in Great Britain appear to be in Scotland ; more 

 especially in Forfarshire, where the tree aboutuis, and attains a very considerable size, being fre- 

 quently found from 'i5 ft. to 3.") ft. in height, with trunks frrm 1ft. to 18 inches in diameter. The 

 wood, in that part of the country, is, or was formerly, much in demand by coopers and turners. In the 

 neighbourhood of London, we know of but few large trees. One in Kensington Gardens, a little 

 distance west of the I5ayswater Gate, is 15 ft. high ; in the Drompton Nursery, the white-cap.siiled 

 variety has attained the height of 12 ft., with two stems, and a head covering a space of 2.5 ft. in dia- 

 meter ; at Mount (irove, Hampstead, 10 years pljnted,'the species is 6 ft. high ; in Essex, at Hylands, 

 10 years planted, it is 14 tt. high ; in Oxfordshire, in the Oxford Botanic Garden, 40 years planted, it is 

 17ft. high; in Pembrokeshire, at Golden Grove, 7 years planted, and 10 ft. high; in Rutlandshire, 

 at Bclvoir Castle, IS years planted, and 15 ft. high; in Staffordshire, at Trentham, 14 ft. high; in 

 Yorkshire, at Grimston, 11.' years planted, and 1'2 ft. high. In Scotland, in the Glasgow Jiotanic Gar- 

 den, 12 years planted, and 13 ft. high ; in Bamrtshire, at Gordon Castle, many trees are 20 ft. high. 

 In Ireland, at Cypress Grove, near Ilublin, 15 ft. high ; at Terenure, 15 ft. high ; at Coolc, 17 (t. 

 high, the diameter of the trunk, at 1 ft. from the ground, 1 ft. 2 in., and of the space covered by the 

 branches 25 ft. In France, near Paris, at Sceaux, 20 ft. high. In Austria, at Kopenzel, near 

 Vienna, 16ft. high; in Held's Nursery, at Vienna, the white-capsuled variety, 12 ft. high; at 

 Hadersdorf, 15 ft. high; at Briick on the Leytha, 14 ft. high." In Prussia, at Sans Souci, 15 ft. high. 

 In Bavaria, in the Botanic Garden at Munich, 12 ft. high. In Sweden, in the Botanic Garden at 

 I.und, 16ft high. 



51 M 2 



