108 RHAMNACETK. [Rliamitus. 



Whippingham and Palmer's farm. Near Newchurch, in Bordwood, abundantly. 

 Lake Common. Abundant in some parts of Yimngwood's Copse. Apse-heath 

 withy-bed. Alverston Ljnuh. About America, and Apse Castle, common. 

 Copse called Beechwood, on the left of the road a little beyond Fernhill going to 

 Newport from Ryde, plentifully. Between Fernhill and Woodliouse. Abun- 

 dantly in Fatting-Park copse. Briddlesford wood, in great abundance. In Cla- 

 vell's Copse, by Whippin^'ham street, abundant. 



W. Mfrf.— Nunswood or Nunningswood Copse, by Niugwood. Marvel Copse, 

 by Newport. 



A slender shrub, from 4 or 5 to 10 or 12 feet high, rarely in cultivation a small 

 tree,* with a dark leaden-gray or purplish black bark, clouded with ash-gray and 

 sprinkled with white, oblong, waity .spots ; the epidermis of a lilood-red internally, 

 the true bark of a bright greenish yellow within. Stems mostly numerous, 

 rounded, erect and virgate, sometimes solitai-y, and from a finger thick to the size 

 of the wrist and upwaids ; dividing into many irregular, spreading, twiggy, terete 

 branches that are naked below, and bearing leaves only on the young wood of the 

 lateral and teruiinal shoots, which are reddish and downy. Leaves scattered or 

 alternate, or partly opposite, stalked, plane, varying in shape, ovato- ohovato- or 

 rotundato-elliptical, pointed or acuminate, a few here and there rounded and 

 obtuse, a little shining, quite entire, or, as remarked by Berloloni, sometimes 

 minutely subserrulate towards their apex, glabrous, of a light somewhat glaucous 

 green above, paler beneath, with a very prominent midrib and numerous parallel 

 sharp lateral costae, arcuately anastomosing with each other at the margin of the 

 leaf, depressed on the upper side of the disk, to which, from its peculiar Hatness, 

 they impart an artificial appearance, as if cut out with a stamp. Petioles terete, 

 subcompressed, somewhat channelled above, finely downy, usually reddish. Sti- 

 pules linear-lanceolate, acuminate, glandulose on the margin, falling away for the 

 most part very early. Floivers all hermaphrodite, axillary, fascicled, from about 

 2 — 5 together, sometimes solitary, small and inconspicuous. Peduncles single- 

 flowered, glabrous, lax, nodding or decuvved, shorter than the petioles or about 

 equal to them. Calyx glabrous, about 2 lines in length, cleft abont half its length 

 into 5 triangular, broad-pointed, nearly erect segments, that are whitish or freck- 

 led with brownish red, fleshy, concave behind, gibbous within, ciliate on the mar- 

 gins with a few short filamentous points, with a tuft of the same at their apex. 

 Petals very small, white, broadly ovate or ovato-rotundate, deeply emarginate, 

 cucuUato-conduplicate, shorter thin and inserted betwixt the calyx-segments, 

 opposite to and infolding the anthers as in a hood. Stamens very short, erect, 

 inserted on a narrow glandular rim, their^/ame«(s very broad at base, nearly tri- 

 angular ; anthers large, dark violet ; pollen white. Style shorter than the sta- 

 mens, thick and greenish like the sessile, 2-lobed, glanduloso-pilose stiyma. Ber- 

 ries the size of peas, black, subdepresso-globose, very juicy, 2- or sometimes, it is 

 said, 3-seeded. Seeds large, yellowish, smooth, nearly orbicular, subplano-convex, 

 the hilum very large. 



The berries, which ripen in August and September, have merely a sweetish 

 aqueous flavour, and yield to water on expression a fine purple colour, which 

 seems confined in the subcutaneous pul|iy matter, as the proper juice is only 

 slightly green or nearly colourless. The wood yields by distillation in close ves- 

 sels a very superior charcoal for making gunpowder, for which purpose, the Rev. 

 G. E. Smith informs me, it is planted in some parts of Kent and Sussex. The 

 leaves droop perpendicularly, and take fine shades of yellow or reddish before they 

 fall. 



The caterpillar of the Brimstone Butterfly {Gonepleryx Rhamni) feeds indiffe- 

 rently on both our Buckthorns, but I have usually found it on the present and 

 with us more abundant .species. The occasional appearance of the perfect insect 

 clearly indicated to me the existence of the Buckthorn long before I was enabled 

 to add it to our island Flora. 



* There is an unusually large tree-like specimen in the Glasnevin Botanic 

 Garden at Dublin. 



