ELDER, ETC. 159 



very long, straight, and thick, but weak and with copious 

 round whitish pith. They are smooth, and occasionally 

 slightly angular; grey or yellowish green, and have 

 particularly large corky dark-coloured wart-like lenticels. 

 The large buds have several olive or greenish brown dry 

 membranous scales below, but the green leaf-tips project 

 above. The buds start opening very early, and the loose 

 scales give them a want of compactness : the irregularly 

 projecting leaf-tips also give the bud a frayed-out look. 

 There are often smaller buds superposed, or even at the 

 sides of the others. Leaf-scars more or less V-shaped or 

 crescentic, with 5 prominent leaf-trace bundles, and often 

 meeting round the twig. The suckers are often very 

 thick, long, and weak. 



S. racemosa, the Red Berried Elder, has large, reddish 

 or violet, globoid angular buds loosely enveloped in broad 

 scales, and on short broad stalks. 



(2) Terminal bud, when present, not large, and 

 all usually very small before expansion; 

 twigs slender; leaf-scars always narrow 

 or small, never shield-shaped, and leaf-traces 

 minute and few, 1--3 in number. 



[The buds of the Honeysuckles open so rapidly and 



early in spring, that they may be regarded as large : it is 



therefore necessary to remark that they have loose open 



scales, and are on slender twigs, climbing or not, with 



inconspicuous leaf-scars and leaf-traces; see pp. 163 and 



164.] 



(a) Twigs mostly ending in thorns; buds erect, 

 appressed, sub-opposite, ovate-acute, and show- 

 ing about 45 pairs of scales; dwarf-shoots 

 strongly ringed and usually ending in a bud. 



Rhamnus catharticus, L. Buckthorn (Figs. 76, 77, and 

 28). The buds are ovate-pointed, dark brown to blackish, 



