CHAP. LXI1I. CAPItlFOLIA^CEJE. £AMBU X CUS. 1029 



and was formerly much employed in medicine there, as the space it occupies 

 in the works of Theophrastus hears ample testimony. It has been known in 

 England from the earliest period of our medicinal history, and has formed 

 here, till lately, a rich source for medicaments to apothecaries and rustic 

 practitioners. It still holds a conspicuous place in the European materia 

 medica. 



Properties and Uses. Medicinally, the berries make a useful and agreeable 

 rob, of a slightly purgative quality, and very good for catarrhs, sore throats, 

 &c. The inner bark is more actively cathartic, and is thought beneficial, in 

 rustic ointments and cataplasms, for burns. The dried flowers serve for fo- 

 mentations, and make a fragrant but debilitating tea, useful in acute inflam- 

 mations, from the copious perspiration that it is sure to excite, but not to 

 be taken habitually. An infusion of the leaves proves fatal to the various insects 

 which thrive on blighted or delicate plants ; although there is a species of 

 aphis that feeds on the elder. Cattle will not eat these leaves ; and the mole is 

 driven away by their scent. It was formerly supposed that if turnips, cab- 

 bages, fruit trees, or corn, were whipped with branches of the elder tree, no 

 insect would touch them. The flowers are considered, in many country places, 

 injurious to turkeys, and the berries to poultry in general. The smell is said 

 to be injurious to human beings, and Evelyn mentions a tradition, " that a 

 certain house in Spain, being seated among elder trees, diseased and killed 

 almost all the inhabitants, which, when at last they were grubbed up, 

 became a wholesome place." The varieties with black berries are best for 

 medical use. A wine is made of them, with spices and sugar, which is generally 

 taken warm ; and they are said frequently to enter into the composition of a 

 less innocent beverage — artificial, or adulterated, port. (Eng. Flor., ii. p. 1 10.) 

 Elder rob is composed of the ripe fruit boiled with sugar, and is considered 

 an excellent aperient for children; but an infusion of the leaves and young 

 leaf buds is too strong a cathartic to be given, except in cases of great 

 emergency. Besides the wine, or rather syrup, which is made from the juice 

 of the ripe fruit, boiled with sugar and different kinds of spices, a wine is 

 made from the flowers, which strongly resembles, in scent and flavour, that 

 made of the Frontignan grapes. Elder flower water is used to give a flavour 

 to some articles of confectionery, and is also considered excellent as a 

 cooling lotion for the skin. The ancients used the fruit of the elder, in 

 common with that of the mulberry, to paint the statue of Jupiter red, on 

 the celebration of the fete of that god. They also employed the berries to 

 dye the hair of their heads black; and Pliny says that the leaves, when 

 boiled, are as wholesome to be eaten as those of other potherbs. The wood 

 of the elder, when it becomes old, is very hard and adhesive, of a fine 

 yellow, and susceptible of a high polish. In a dry state, it weighs 42 lb. 3 oz. 

 to the cubic foot. It is employed by tanners, mathematical instrument 

 makers, and comb-makers ; and, generally, as a substitute for the box and the 

 dogwood. The shoots, being large, and chiefly occupied by pith, are much 

 employed by children in making tubes to serve as popguns, miniature muskets, 

 and cannons ; and for flutes, pipes, &c, a use to which they have been 

 applied from time immemorial ; "more shrill pipes and louder trumpets," Pliny 

 informs us, being made of the shoots of the elder, than of those of any other 

 tree. The pith, being very light, Miss Kent tells us, is formed into balls for 

 electrical experiments. (*%/. Sketches, p. 125.) The bark is used in some parts 

 of Scotland for dyeing tartans. Butchers' skewers and shoemakers' pegs 

 are made of the wood, which splits readily longitudinally when fresh cut. 

 The young shoots, when of three or four years' growth, are much employed 

 in France, as props for vines and other plants, and are found to be of very 

 considerable duration. The plant, both in Britain and on the Continent, is 

 sometimes used for forming hedges, and also as a nurse plant for plantations 

 exposed to the sea breeze. In the latter capacity, it has the great advantage 

 of growing rapidly the first five or six years, and afterwards of being easily 

 choked by the trees it has nursed up. 



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