Hippophae.] LXIV. EL^AGNE^. 389 



Gregarious, on dry ground a low prostrate shrub, in moist places a small 

 tree 20 ft. high, with stiff thorny branches, trunk sometimes 5-6 ft. girth, 

 often forming dense thickets, extending continuously for miles, and nearly 

 impervious, except along certain beaten tracts (T. Thomson, West Himalaya, 

 195). The roots of the European shrub are long spreading, with numerous 

 root-shoots (drageons), and the shrub is very useful in the French Alps in 

 fixing the loose gravel and rubble of mountain torrents and stream-beds. The 

 bark is described by Stewart as follows— the description probably refers to the 

 Tibetan plant : " The older bark gets reddish brown, and remains for a time 

 pretty smooth, that of the trunk is 3 lines thick, inner substance brownish black 

 with white dots, externally very dark, almost black-edged, white occasionally 

 showing through long deep, very irregular, vertical and shallow short transverse 

 furrows, which divide it into tesselated plates, the surface of which is smoothish, 

 somewhat shining, but undulated, brownish grey, the base being brown, with 

 white elevated specks, circular and transverse-oblong to 6 in. long. The bark 

 has from a little distance some general resemblance to that of Acacia modesta" 

 The wood of the European shrub is yellowish brown, and has distinctly-marked 

 annual rings, the inner or spring wood of each ring being porous, and mainly 

 composed of numerous moderate-sized vessels, the outer or autumn wood being 

 more compact with fewer pores, medullary rays numerous, very fine. It is used 

 for fuel and chaicoal. The thorny branches are used for piled-up hedges, and the 

 shrub is invaluable in the dry treeless tracts of the inner Himalaya. In Lahoul 

 the thickets of HvppophaJs are " so valued as to be considered village property " 

 (Cleghom, Panjab Forests, 151). The fruit is intensely acid, but boiled with 

 sugar it forms a palatable and wholesome preserve (H.p.) In Kunawar it is 

 made into a condiment {Uhatni). 



2. EL-ZEAGNUS, Linn. 



Trees or shrubs, occasionally spinescent, with alternate' entire leaves, 

 densely lepidote at least on the under surface. Flowers hermaphrodite or 

 unisexual by abortion, regular, pedicellate in axillary fascicles. Perianth 

 tubular or dilatated alDOve, with a spreading 4-valved limb, base of the 

 tube closely constricted around the ovary ; limb at length deciduous, cir- 

 cumsciss immediately above the ovary. Stamens 4, epiphyllous, alternate 

 ■with the perianth lobes. Fruit enclose'd in the succulent persistent and 

 accrescent base of the perianth, with a bony or coriaceous kernel. 



Kernel thick, osseous ; a deciduous tree 1. ^. hortensis. 



Kernel thin, coriaceous, inside clothed with a, dense felt of 

 white hairs. 

 Free part of perianth campanulate, not more than twice the 

 length of segments ; fruit 1-1^ in. long ; an evergreen 



shrub 2. E. latifoUa. 



Free part of perianth tubidar, more than twice the length of 



segments ; fruit J in. long ; a deciduous shrub . . 3. H. umhellata. 



1. E. hortensis, M. Bieberstein. — Syn. E. angustifolia and E. 

 orientalis, Linn, (partly)j Sibth. Fl. Grseca, t. 162 ; Eeichenb. Ic. Fl. 

 Germ. t. 549 ; Bot. Eeg. t. 1156. E. Mooreroftii, Wall. Pars. Zin 

 zeid. Vem. Sanjit, sanjata, Afg. ; Sirdng, sirsliing, Tibet ; Shiulik, 

 N.W.P. 



A middle-sized tree with silvery grey foliage and branchlets ; branches 

 shining, reddish - brown. Leaves ovate- or oblong - lanceolate, obtuse,, 



