THE ELDER. 489 
plenty of light and plenty of air. Its white 
flowers are borne on five-branched cymes, pre- 
senting, when fully expanded, a broad head of 
. bloom, which changes anon into a cluster of round, 
purple-black berries. Though its leaves are de- 
scribed sometimes as being compound, and con- 
sisting of two pairs of opposite leaflets and one 
terminal leaflet, we shall prefer to regard this 
compound leaf as a twig of leaves, and to speak 
of each leaflet as a leaf. In shape, then, the 
Elder leaf is ovate, acutely pointed and sharply 
serrated, its mid-vein giving origin to wavy 
veinlets, which proceed diagonally to the leaf- 
margin, and are usually forked near their apices. 
Its colour is a dark green. 
To enumerate in detail the medicinal virtues of 
the Elder would be beside the immediate purpose of 
this volume; but we may mention that its pith, 
its inner bark, its young buds, its fully-expanded 
leaves, its flowers, and its fruit, have all, in 
varying degrees, medicinal properties. The 
pleasant wine made from its berries has become 
a household word, and though the timber, from 
its great abundance of pith, might appear to lose 
