THE PLUM. 53 



The essential properties of the plant vary strangely at 

 different stages of growth, for the flowers are moderately 

 purgative ; the fruit when first ripe extremely astringent, 

 yet soon lose that character, and when very fully ripe 

 become decidedly laxative. The bark is used in tanning ; 

 it affords, in conjunction with alkali, a yellow dye, and 

 with sulphate of iron a fine black ink, and is also em- 

 ployed in intermittent fevers as a tolerably efficient sub- 

 stitute for Peruvian bark. The upright branchless 

 shoots of the Sloe are more used throughout Europe than 

 any other wood for walking-sticks, the glossy, horse- 

 chestnut-coloured bark needing no polish, and the bases 

 of the thorns variegating it with a beautiful appearance 

 as of knots. 



One Sloe, the double-flowering variety, is exalted above 

 all others to a well-merited place in the garden, for in 

 its blossoming season in May it is scarcely surpassed in 

 beauty by any vernal blooming shrub, its slender shoots, 

 10 or 12 ft. high, being thickly covered with charming 

 little white double blossoms about the size of a sixpence, 

 and resembling miniature roses. It is a special favourite 

 in China, and, according to Koempfer, is cultivated in 

 Japan, on account of its flowers, with such success that 

 they acquire the size of a large double rose, and are so 

 abundant as to cover the whole tree with a surface of 

 snowy whiteness speckled with blood red. " These -trees,'* 

 says he, " are the finest of their ornaments ; .they are 

 planted in preference around their temples, and are also 

 cultivated in pots or boxes for private houses, as orange- 

 trees are in Europe." The beauty of this Sloe is the 

 more remarkable as the plum tribe in general present no 

 very ornamental appearance, the double- blossoming plum, 

 though sometimes bearing a large handsome white flower, 

 being very prone to degenerate and become single, and 

 it is always inferior in effect to the former plant. 



The next step in plum progress is the Bullace, also a 

 wild growth in England, Germany, and France, which, 

 like the Sloe, is armed with spines, and bears a fruit 

 which is globular in shape, but larger and varied in colour, 

 being sometimes black, sometimes yellowish tinged with 



