334 CAPRIFOLIACEiE. 



medicine of the plant under notice as well as of the Divarf Elder (S. 

 Ebulus L.) Both kinds were employed in Britain by the ancient 

 English^ and Welsh ^ leeches, and in Italy in the medicine of the 

 school of Salernum. 



Description — The elder produces in the early summer, conspicuous, 

 many-flowered cymes, 4 to 5 inches in diameter, of which the long 

 peduncle divides into 5 branches, which subdivide once or several 

 times by threes or fives, ultimately separating by repeated forking into 

 slender, furrowed pedicels about ^ of an inch long, each bearing a single 

 flower. In the second or third furcations, the middle flower remains 

 short-stalked or sessile, and opens sooner than the rest. In like manner, 

 on the outermost small forks only one of the florets is usually long- 

 stalked. The whole of this inflorescence forms a flattish umbelliform 

 cyme, perfectly glabrous and destitute of bracts. 



The calyx is combined with the ovary and bordered with 4 or 5 

 small teeth. The corolla, which is of a creamy white, is monopetalous 

 with a very short tube and 5 spreading ovate lobes. The stamens 

 which are about as long as the divisions of the corolla and alternate 

 with them, are inserted in the tube of the latter. The yellow pollen 

 which thickly powders the flowers, appears under the microscope 

 3-pored. The projecting ovary is crowned by a 2- or 3-lobed sessile 

 stigma. 



For use in pharmacy, the part of the flower most desirable is the 

 corolla, to obtain a good proportion of which the gathered cymes are 

 left for a few hours in a large heap ; the mass slightly heats, the corollas 

 detach themselves, and are separated from the green stalks by shaking, 

 rubbing, and sifting ; they require to be then rapidly dried. This done, 

 they become much shrivelled and assume a dull yellow tint. When 

 fresh, they have a sweet faint smell, which becomes stronger and some- 

 what different by drying, and is quite unlike the repulsive odour of the 

 fresh leaves and bark. Dried elder flowers have a bitterish, slightly 

 gummy flavour. On the Continent they are sold with the stalks, i.e. 

 in entire cymes. 



Chemical Composition — Elder flowers yield a very small per- 

 centage of a butter-like essential oil, lighter than water, and smelling 

 strongly of the flowers ; it is easily altered by exposure to the air.^ The 

 oil is accompanied by traces of volatile acids. 



Uses — Elder flowers are only employed in British medicine for 

 making an aromatic distilled water, and for communicating a pleasant 

 odour to lard (Unguentum Sambuci). The flowers of Samhucus 

 canadensis L.* indigenous in the United States, which are extremely 

 similar to those of our species, appear to be more fragrant. The 

 leaves of the latter are sometimes used for giving a fine green 

 tint to oil or fat, as in the Oleum viride and Unguentum Sambuci 



^ Leechdoms, etc. of Early England edited ^ The Physicians of Myddfai (see Appendix) 



by Cockayne, iii. (1866) 324. ,347. Accord- used sage, rue, mallow, and elder flowers 



ing to the Rev. Edward Gillett (p. xxxii.), as ingredients of a gargle. Meddygon 



S. Ebuhis is believed to have been brought Myddvai, 219. 40.3. 



to England by the Danes and planted on '■* For further information, see Gmelin, 



the battlefield and graves of their country- Chemistry, xiv. (1860) 368. 



men. In Norfolk it still bears the name of * Fig. in Bentley anclTrimen, Med. Plants, 



banewort and blood hilder (blood elder). part 21 (1877). 



