WILD FRUITS 47 



Romans, and dates only from the sixteenth century. 

 It has been a matter of dispute whether these shrubs 

 should be considered as genuine natives of Great 

 Britain ; but, in the light of further research, this claim 

 to be indigenous, at least in the north of England, 

 will now hardly be denied. In the southern counties, 

 though the species are now common enough in woods 

 and thickets, it is possible that they may be escapes 

 from cultivation. It is interesting to notice that John 

 Ray speaks of black currants as " squinancy-berries," 

 a name which shows that they were commonly used 

 then, as now, in cases of sore-throat. 



The fruit of the wild elder which, says old Culpeper, 

 need not be described, " since every boy that plays 

 with a pop-gun will not mistake another tree instead 

 of elder," is still gathered by country people for the 

 purpose of making elderberry wine, which is held to 

 possess considerable medicinal virtue. " If," says 

 John Evelyn, " the medicinal properties of the leaves, 

 bark, and berries of this tree were thoroughly known, 

 I cannot tell what our countrymen could ail for which 

 they might not find a remedy from every hedge, either 

 for sickness or wound." These so-called natural 

 remedies are now seldom employed ; it is therefore 

 the more interesting to notice that elderberry wine 

 is still frequently used by poor people in country 

 places. 



In former years the barberry seems to have been 

 far commoner in our hedgerows than it is now. Ray 

 mentions this handsome shrub as abundant in his day 

 about Saffron Walden, in Essex, where it has now 

 entirely disappeared. In Hampshire and the Isle of 

 Wight, the district best known botanically to the 

 writer, it is a very rare plant ; and its present scarcity 



