SEA-SIDE PLANTS. 45 



has a very hard wood. Fuller refers to the prac- 

 tice of making cups of this wood in his time ; and 

 Gerarde records, as a fact, the fiction that ale or 

 beer is the more wholesome when drunk from a 

 cup of Tamarisk wood. Our forefathers thought, 

 too, that their meat was the sweeter if roasted on 

 a spit made of the wood of this shrub. It has one 

 sad historic association, however, for the Romans 

 were accustomed to bind a garland of its cypress- 

 like boughs around the brow of the criminal con- 

 demned to execution ; and from its frequent use in 

 these mournful wreaths, it was called the unhappy 

 Tamarisk. 



More frequent than any other wild shrub on our 

 shores is the common sallow-thorn, or sea Buck- 

 thorn (Hippophce rhamnoides), which, because of 

 its pretty silvery foliage, is often honoured with a 

 place in our garden or shrubbery. It is common 

 on the sand-hills and cliffs of the east and south- 

 eastern coasts of England: and the small green 

 flowers come out at the same season as the young 

 slender leaves, in the month of May. It is a 

 thorny shrub, and smaller when wild than when 

 planted in gardens, seldom reaching, on the cliff, 

 the height of five feet. In autumn the shrub is 

 bright with the deep orange-coloured berries, 

 which it bears in great profusion, and which are 

 really very pleasant fruits, of an acid flavour, and 

 very juicy. These berries are much eaten by the 

 Tartars, and the fishermen of the Gulf of Bothnia 

 gather baskets full of them in autumn for the use 

 of their families ; and a preserve is made of them 

 which imparts a delicious flavour to fresh fish. The 

 leaves are of a very dark green above, but beneath 

 are very silvery. Stems, roots, and foliage, are all 



