ELDER 195 



Piiccinia albescens, remarkable for the cluster-cup stage being white 

 not yellow, and P. adoxce are found upon Moschatel. 



Adoxa, Linnaeus, is from the Greek, a, privative, doxa, esteem, 

 from its inconspicuous character, and the second Latin name refers 

 to its musk-like perfume. It is called Moschatel, Musk Wood Crow- 

 foot, the last because its leaves resemble those of a Crowfoot. 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



136. Adoxa Moschatellina, L. Rhizome fleshy with white soboles, 

 leaves radical, on long petioles, triternate, stem-leaves sessile, flowers 

 buff or pink, 4 below, parts in fives, in a whorl, and i above, parts in 

 fours, fruit deflexed on fruit-stalk, scarlet. 



Elder (Sambucus nigra, L.) 



Commonly associated with human dwellings and activities, Elder 

 occurs in deposits of Interglacial, late Glacial, Neolithic, and Roman 

 age. In the North Temperate Zone it is distributed to-day in Europe 

 and North Africa. In Great Britain, universal as it is, it is not found 

 in Cardigan or the Northern Isles. From Fife and Forfar, however, 

 it extends to the English Channel. In Yorks it grows at 1350 ft. In 

 Scotland, according to Watson, it is only a denizen. 



The Elder is so common a tree by the side of our roads and in 

 hedgerows that it is difficult to consider it as introduced, in spite of its 

 undoubted association with houses and human dwellings generally. It 

 was planted here and there formerly on account of a much prevalent 

 superstition regarding its value as a herb, &c. It is doubtless also 

 much planted now in woods and plantations, and its distribution by 

 birds renders it a very common species in a variety of habitats. 



The Elder has the tree or shrub habit. The trunk is as much as 

 20-30 ft. high sometimes, and the girth 2 ft. at most, but usually it is 

 about 10 ft. high and 6 in. to i ft. in girth. The bark is rough and 

 corky, light brownish-grey. The buds are scaly. 1 The branchlets are 

 angular, and the young shoots are light green with darker corky warts. 2 

 The leaves are pinnate, compound, in opposite pairs. The leaflets are 

 in 23 or 4 pairs, egg-shaped, lance-shaped, or oblong, rarely rounded, 

 toothed, with a terminal one. The stipules are small or absent. 



The flowers are creamy-white in flat-topped, erect, terminal cymes 

 on radiating flower-stalks, with 5 main branches. The corolla is white, 

 wheel-shaped, with rounded lobes. The anther-stalks are slender. 



1 With lenticles, or oval areas, with wide air-spaces in place of stomata. 



2 The scales which protect the buds are leaf-stalks, the first very small. 



