488 BUSH-FRUITS 



sprightliness. Frost is said to greatly improve its quality, and it 

 may be gathered from the bushes at any time during winter, if 

 not previously taken by birds. It makes a very good jelly, and 

 is said to be gathered in quantities by the Navajo Indians, who 

 probably dry it. 



The plants appear to be very productive, for they are loaded 

 with berries, yet Dr. Hoskins reports* that with him they yield 

 about one -fourth as much as barberries, and that the fruit is 

 not very good. It may prove less fruitful in cultivation than in 

 its native haunts. 



THE GOUMI (Fig. 110) 

 EL^AGNUS LONGIPES, Gray. 



The goumi is a low, bushy shrub, with dark gray or rusty 

 brown branches, commonly unarmed, though sometimes bearing 

 spines. The leaves are green above, silvery beneath, and 

 sprinkled with dark colored spots. The flowers are small, yel- 

 lowish within, silvery and roughly scurfy on the outside, often 

 dark-dotted like the lower surface of the leaves. They appear 

 by the middle of May, and are borne at the base of short side 

 shoots of the current season's growth. The fruit is oval, blunt, 

 or slightly flattened at the ends, half an inch or more in length, 

 cinnabar-red or orange colored, and covered with silvery white 

 dots. It ripens in July, and is juicy and fine looking, but at 

 first very astringent, leaving a disagreeable taste in the mouth. 

 This quality disappears to some extent when the fruit is fully 

 ripened. 



The plant grows wild in eastern Asia, from Himalaya and 

 Nepal, north to China and Japan. It appears to have been first 

 brought to notice in England in 1873, having been exhibited 

 before the Royal Botanical and Eoyal Horticultural Societies that 

 year. William Falconer reports! that in August, 1889, Ellwanger 

 & Barry had but a single plant of it. Eeports differ as to the 



*Rural New-Yorker, 1895:826. 

 tAmerican Garden, 11:119. 



