528 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III 



the hedges are formed of this plant, as they are of the hawthorn in Britain ; 

 it is also the common hedge plant in Asia. Du Hamel recommends it for 

 being employed for hedges in the south of France, where it abounds in a 

 wild state. Medicinally, the entire plant is considered diuretic ; and it is 

 said to have been given with success in dropsical cases. Virgil, when 

 describing, in figurative language, Nature as mourning for the death of 

 Julius Caesar, says the earth was no longer covered with flowers or corn, 

 but with thistles, and the sharp spines of the paliurus. Columella recom- 

 mends excluding the plant entirely from gardens, and planting it with 

 brambles for the purpose of forming live hedges. In the south of France, 

 where it has been tried in this way, the same objection is made to it as to 

 hedges of the common sloe (Prunus spinosa) in this country ; viz. that it 

 throws up such numerous suckers as in a short time to extend the width of 

 the hedge considerably on both sides. As this species abounds in Judaea, 

 and as the spines are very sharp, and the branches very pliable, and easily 

 twisted into any figure, Belon supposed the crown of thorns, which was 



Sut upon the head of Christ before his crucifixion, to be composed of them, 

 osephus says " that this thorn, having sharper prickles than any other, in 

 order that Christ might be the more tormented, they made choice of it for 

 a crown for him." (Ant. of the Jews, book i. chap, ii., as quoted by Gerard.) 

 Ilasselquist, however, thinks that the crown of thorns was formed of another 

 prickly plant, the Zfzyphus spina-Christi W., 72hamnus spina-Christi Lin. ; 

 but, according to Warburton, it was the Acanthus mollis, which can hardly 

 be considered prickly at all. 



Statistics. The largest plant of this species in the neighbourhood of London is at Syon, where 

 it is 33 ft. high, the trunk 1 ft, and the diameter of the head 30 ft. (See our engraving of 

 this tree in Vol. II.) There is a fine old specimen in the Botanic Garden at Oxford about 20 ft. 

 high, and one in the Chelsea Botanic Garden of considerable age, but not remarkable for 5t 

 height. Plants, in the London nurseries, are Is. 6d. each ; at Bollwyller, 1 franc 20 cents each ; 

 and at New York, 50 cents each. 



GENUS III. 



\i\ 



BERCHE'M/^ Neck. THE BERCHEMIA. Lin. Syst. Pentandria 



Monogynia. 

 Identification. Neck. Elem., 2. p 122. ; Dec. Prod., 2. p. 22. j Brongn. Mem. Rham., 40. ; Don's 



Synonymes. (Eu6plia Hedw. F. Gen., 1. p. 151., and Schult. Syst., 5. p. 962. 

 Derivation. From Berchem, probably the name of some botanist. 



Description, $c. Twining deciduous shrubs, of which there is only one 

 species considered hardy. 



JB 1. B. VOLU V BILIS Dec. The twining Berchemia. 



Identification. Dec. Prod., 2. p. 22. ; Don's Mill., 2. p. 27. 



Synonymes. .Khamnus volubilis Lin. Fil. Suppl., 132., Jacq. Icon. Rar., t 336. : Zfzyphus volubilis 



WiUd. Spec., 1. p. 1102. ; (En6plia volubilis Schult. Syst., 5. p. 332. ; Supple Jack, Virginian. 

 Engravings. Jacq. Icon. Rar., t. 336. ; E. of PJ., No. 2895. ; and our fig. 196. 



Spec. Char., fyc. Branches glabrous, rather twining. 

 Leaves oval, mucronate, somewhat waved. Flowers 

 dioecious. Drupes oblong. (Dec. Prod., ii. p. 22.) 

 A deciduous twining shrub, a native of Carolina and 

 Virginia, in deep swamps near the sea coast. Intro- 

 duced in 1714. According to Pursh, it ascends the 

 highest trees of Taxodium distichum, in the dismal 

 swamp near Suffolk in Virginia ; and it is known 

 there by the name of Supple Jack. The stems 

 twine round one another, or any object which they 

 may be near ; but, in British gardens, they are sel- 

 dom seen above 8ft. or 10ft. high, probably from 

 little attention being jpaid to place the plant in a 



