ARBORETUM ET FRUTICETUM BRITANNICUM. 



437. Priinus spin6sa. 



planted in grass fields or in parks, to protect them from cattle. They are in 

 general use for this purpose in France. They are also used as a substitute for 

 stones and tiles in draining ; and, formed into faggots, they are sold for heating 

 bakers' ovens, and for burning lime or chalk in kilns, &c. The living plant 

 cannot be recommended for hedges, on account of the rambling habit of its 

 roots, and the numerous suckers they throw up ; and because it is apt to get 

 naked below, from the tendency of the shoots to grow upright and without 

 branches. These upright shoots make excellent walking-sticks, which, ac- 

 cordingly, throughout Europe, are more frequently taken from this tree than 

 from any other. Leaves of the sloe, dried, are considered to form tiie best 

 substitute for Chinese tea which has yet been tried in Europe ; and they have 

 been extensively used for the adulteration of that article. The juice of the 

 ripe fruit is said to enter largely into the manufacture of the cheaper kinds of 

 port wine ; and, when properly fermented, it makes a wine strongly resembling 

 new port. In planting groups and masses in parks, by the addition of a few 

 plants of the sloe, a degree of intricacy may be given sooner and more ef- 

 fectively, than by the use of the common thorn ; but, at the same time, the sloe 

 produces a degree of wildness from its numerous suckers, and the want ot 

 control which they indicate, which is not displayed by any of the species of 

 Cratte^gus, which do not throw up suckers. For producing wildness and in- 

 tricacy, therefore, in park scenery, the sloe As of great value, and its effect is 

 much heightened by the addition of the common furze or the broom. The 

 sloe prefers a strong calcareous loam. It may be propagated freely by suckers, 

 or by seeds : the latter should be gathered in October, when the fruit is dead 

 ripe, mixed with sand, and turned over two or three times in the course of the 

 winter ; and, being sown in February, they will come up in the month of May. 



"t- 2. P. insiti'tia L. The engrafted Plum Tree, or Bullace Plum. 



Identification. Lin. Sp., 680. ; Dec. Prod., 2. p. 632. ; Don's Mill., 2. p. 49S. 



Synonymes. P. sylvestris prseVox altior Tourn. ; P. sylv^stris major Ray ; Prunier sauvage, Fr. ; 



Alfatous, in Dauphiny ; Kirschen Pflaunie, Ger. 

 Engrav)7igs. Kng. Bot., t.84I.; Hayne Abbild., 1.0.5.; the plate in Arb. Brit., 1st edit., vol. v.; 



and our fig. 438. 



Spec. Char., ^-c. Branches becoming spiny. Flowers in pau's. Leaves ovate 

 or lanceolate ; villose beneath, not flat. Fruit roundish. (Dec. Prod.) A 

 low tree. England, Germany, and the South of France, and also Barbary.' 

 Height 10ft. to 20ft. Flowers white; March and April. Drupe black;) 

 ripe in October. I 



Varieties. 



5! P. i. 1 fructu nigra Hort. The biack-fruited, or common, Bullace. J 

 t P. i. 2 fructu lideo-dlbo Hort. Fruit yellowish-white. i 



