THE BUCKTHORN. 483 
producer, it can claim no distinction; but its 
berries, both ripe and unripe, furnish a dye of 
some value. The unripe berries will produce a 
stain of saffron colour, the ripe ones, when 
gathered late in autumn, a purple dye; but 
gathered earlier, they furnish to the painter, when 
mixed with alum, his sap-green colour. 
The Buckthorn leaf is oval in shape, ser- 
rated on its margin, with a prominent mid-vein, 
from which branch on each side three or four 
veins, that—instead of proceeding diagonally to 
the sides of the leaf—take an upward curving 
direction, and terminate near its upper portion. 
Adding, by its decaying foliage, a hue of yel- 
lowish green to the autumnal tints of the wood- 
land, this Tree—with its rigid thorny branches— 
imparts also to the autumnal landscape the lustre 
of its ebon fruit. 
