2<^0 CAPBiFOLiACE^. [Sambucus. 



CDUclusion, with Michana, that they are esseiitially one and the same. The 

 Aineiican Elder it is true does not usually attain to so great a thickness of stem as 

 the European, nor does it ordinarily rise above a shrub of mode);ite height, but 

 our own is often seen of as humble a growth; and the smaller diameter of the 

 trunk may proceed from the greater disposition ui S. canadensis to propagate itself 

 by suckers, whence the nourishment which would else go to feed a single stem is 

 diverted to the supply of several, as we see in S. nigra when growing in such low 

 moist places as ihe other principally affects. The American Elder is thought to 

 be less woody than the European (Gray says " stems scarcely woody "), but I have 

 billets of Elder, which I cut from old trunks in swampy ground at Savannah, the 

 heart-wood of which is as close-grained and firm as in specimens of much greater 

 diameter felled in this island, and in no way distinguishable from the latter. The 

 leaflets in S. canadensis are stated to be usually 7 lo 11 (I find 7 in my New-York 

 specimens, and from 7 to 9 in those from Georgia), whilst with us the leaflets of 

 .S'. niyra rarely exceed 5 or at most 7, which is sometimes the number in the Ame- 

 rican variety, as I consider it to be. In ihe Savannah specimens the leaflets are 

 unusually narrow or quite lanceolate, but on some the transition is obvious to the 

 broader form of the more northern examples from New York. Tt has been truly 

 observed that in S. canadensis the leaflets of the lowermost pair are often com- 

 pound, either double or ternale, which some of my specimens well show ; this I 

 find to hold good in the European tree, though rarely, and therefore, being a 

 purely casual distinction, is wholly inconclusive against the question of identity. 

 Neither in the leaves, flowers, fruit, seed, nor general habit, can I detect any dif- 

 ference whence to frame a specific character that shall distinguish the cis- and 

 trans-Atlantic forms of the Elder from one another on paper, .since even the eye 

 fails io finding distinctions which are not at once vain and evanescent. * The 

 diff'erence in stature I have, I think, satisfactorily shown to be explicable by the 

 more stoloniferous habit of the American form, itself a mere climatic attribute, 

 dependent probably on the swampy soil which the hotter summers of that conti- 

 nent make more suitable for a plant belonging to a shade- and water-loving natu- 

 ral order like the present.f 



Many other American plants formerly regarded as species have of late been 

 very judiciously referred to European originals, from which they scarcely deviate 

 even as varieties. Some of these are noticed, under Viburnum, Scrophularia, 

 Castanea, &c., in this work. 



2. S. Ebuhis, L. Dwarf Elder. Ddnewort. Vect. Ground 

 Elder. Stem herbaceous, stipules leafy, filaments mucli thickened 

 and uneven. Br. Fl. p. J 84. E. B. t. 475. Curt. Fl. Lond. 



In wrMe ground, about hedges, ruins, by roadsides, and in pastures, but rarely. 

 Fl. July, August. Fr. September. If.. 



E. Med.~ln a field called West close, on Ford farm, near Redhill, jl/r. W. 

 Juliiffe. Between Lnccombe and Bunchurch, Mr. S. ll'onds, Bot. Guide!!! 

 I found a plant or two almost choked with bushes between Chine cottage and 

 Rose cliff'. Near Housborn (Osborne?), Mr. E. Forster,jun., Bot. Guide. It 

 grows, as I learn from a labouring man at Newchurch, in plenty in an arable 

 field under Ashey down, a little above Kerne, where it proves extiemely trouble- 

 some, from its tough creeping roots obstructing the plough in its progress over 

 the soil !!! It also grows, I am informed by the same person, in one or two other 

 spots near Kerne, but more sparinuly. 



W. Med. — It formerly grew in the orchard of Crook's cottage, at Middleton 



* [Mr. Borrer observes that the Samhucus canadensis is deslitule of the pecu- 

 liar odour of the English S. nigra. — Edrs.l 



f I was surprised to see a species of Sambucus, very nearly allied to our com- 

 mon Elder {S. canadensis P), flourishing and flowering freely in the sultry climate 

 of Barbudoes and Trinidad, where it is cultivated in gardens for medical pur- 

 poses. 



