04 THE ELDEK, ETC. 



ing and curious history and association, so that these chapters, wore it 

 desirable at the present time, might be trebled. Who, for instance, is 

 unacquainted with the Elder, the blossoming of which is a sign that 

 summer is matured, and the fruit of which shows, in its blackness, that 

 summer is over ? Then there are the wild pear, the wild apple, the 

 wild medlar, and the wild cherry, trees mostly loaded in spring with 

 snowy bloom. After these we find the guelder-rose, the tamarisk, the 

 box, and the spindle-tree ; the Frangula, the buckthorn, and the dog- 

 wood. The white-beam is remarkable for the snowy aspect of its foliage 

 when stirred by the wind; the bag-nut for its chandeliers of pinky 

 white in May, followed in autumn by round bags containing each a 

 brilliantly- polished brown bead; the bird-cherry, Prunus Padits, com- 

 pletely covers itself with racemes of white flowers exhaling the odour of 

 honey. Then there are the innumerable smaller kinds of willow and 

 sallow ; the holly, covered in winter with those glorious scarlet bracelets ; 

 and the hawthorn or "May," so deservedly famed in verse. The sloe, 

 though rarely of the dimensions of a tree, has likewise many claims 

 upon our interest. So has the berbery ; so has the sweet-gale ; so have 

 those very curious trees the sea-buckthorn and the juniper ; so have 

 the hazel, the hornbeam, the arbutus, and the wayfaring-tree. 



After those which stand independently, there are whole tribes of 

 roses and brambles, the sweet-briar, the honeysuckle, and the clematis, 

 and longer-living, and farther reaching, and greener than any, the 

 incomparable old ivy of the ruin and the aged tree. Another set, of still 

 smaller dimensions, attracts us injthe wild currants, the privet, and the 

 whortle -berry ; here, too, we find the broom and prickly furze, with 

 their myriads of golden butterflies. In truth there is no absolute 

 stopping-place. Trees are the maximum ; between their majesty and 

 the minimum there is so beautiful a descending scale of size and 

 stature, that unless an arbitrary line be drawn, we cannot stop till we 

 are abreast of the merest herb. Technically, even the wild thyme, that 

 makes those lovely purple knolls on the grassy common, is a " shrub," 

 for the branches, though only of the thickness of a needle, are woody 

 and permanent, and the leaves endure through the winter. 



