110 BUCKTHORN. 



wood is of a yellowish colour, and covered with a smooth, dark- 

 brown bark. The leaves are alternate, simple, ovate, petiolate, 

 downy when young, subsequently smooth, finely serrated, of a 

 deep green colour, and marked with parallel and convergent 

 nerves ; the serratures glandular. The flowers are dioecious, 

 (the male and female being seldom found on the same plant,) 

 of a greenish yellow, arranged in dense fasicles in the axils 

 of the leaves ; each small flower supported on a slender pedicel : 

 the male flower has a campanulate calyx with four ovate seg- 

 ments and four oblong-ovate petals, at the base of which the 

 five stamens are inserted : the female flower has four linear, 

 incurved petals, abortive stamens, an inferior germen, and four 

 spreading styles, united half way up, and terminated by a sm.all 

 stigma. The fruit is a small, globose, black berry, containing 

 a nauseous pulp, and generally four seeds, which are ovate, 

 rounded at the back, and flattened at the sides. Plate 10, fig. 2. 

 (a) male flower ; (6) female flower ; (c) ripe berry. 



The Buckthorn is a spreading shrub, with a pleasant foliage, 

 frequent in woods and hedges in many parts of England ; about 

 Dumfries in Scotland ; near Cork and Lough Eai-ne in Ireland, 

 The flowers appear in May and June, and the purplish-black 

 berries ripen in September. 



The generic name is derived from the Latin, ramus, which 

 was formed from the Greek, pcty.^oc, and that from the Celtic, 

 ram, a branch. 



There is another species indigenous to Britain, the Alder 

 Buckthorn, (R. Frangula,) which is unarmed, with perfect 

 flowers, and ob-ovate entire leaves ; the berries are dark pur- 

 ple, and contain two seeds. Gathered before they are ripe, 

 they dye wool green ; when ripe, a blueish green. The bark 

 has been used in medicine as a purgative, and affords a yellow 

 dye. The leaves are eaten by goats and sheep; the flowers 

 are peculiarly grateful to bees. 



There are about sixty foreign species, of which the most in- 

 teresting are, the box-thorn-like, (R. Lycioides), of which the 

 Mongols make their images on account of its hardness and 

 beautiful orange-colour ; the yellow-berried Buckthorn, (R. in- 

 fectorius,) whose fruit is known in commerce by the name of 

 Avignon berries, from which the pigment called sap-green is 

 obtained; the Tea Buckthorn, (R. Tkeezans,) which has leaves 



