The Elder- Berry. 153 



October with its heavy harvest of glossy purple, pre- 

 sented one of the most striking examples of tree-beauty 

 to be found anywhere thereabouts. One even taller and 

 more majestic, and for the species singularly arboreal, 

 stands at this moment in the grounds of Thorpe Perrow, 

 Yorkshire. The universality of its occurrence comes of 

 the ease with which the elder accommodates itself to 

 every diversity of situation and soil. By means of it 

 an air of cheerfulness may be given to the darkest and 

 gloomiest recesses ; it endures exposure on the bleakest 

 hillside ; it grows well near the sea ; it thrives under the 

 shade and drip of other trees; it will establish itself 

 even upon old walls and crumbling ruins then usually 

 springing from casually scattered seeds, as indeed is very 

 commonly the case elsewhere. After all, whether in 

 England truly wild or not is uncertain. Possibly it was 

 introduced in the time of the monasteries as a medicinal 

 plant, the fame of the elder in the hands of the herb- 

 doctor being immemorial ; the frequent existence of very 

 old elders near the relics of ancient ecclesiastical build- 

 ings gives encouragement to this opinion. On the other 

 hand, it is scarcely possible to imagine an aspect of more 

 genuine spontaneity than is presented by the grey and 

 tattered representatives of past ages at Holdwick Scars, 

 Upper Teesdale. Like the patriarchs of their kind upon 

 the eastern declivity of the Malvern Hills (the Hereford- 

 shire Beacon), they seem to be part of the primitive 

 vegetation, not a day younger than the parsley-fern and 

 the mosses at their feet. Wherever seen in Scotland, 

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