XV. 1. THE COMMON PRIVET OR PRIM. 33 
pearly ash color. The branches are grayish, recent shoots 
greenish gray, smooth, or with a delicate, silken pubescence. 
The leaves are small, on very short stalks, crowded in tufts or 
opposite on the growing shoots, lance-shaped, acute at both 
ends, entire, pale green and smooth ou both surfaces. 
Flowers white, in short terminal panicles made up of opposite 
short branchlets, with a slender bract at base of each, on which 
the flowers are in opposite pairs. Footstalk very short, white, 
with a minute white bract beneath; calyx short, ending in four 
very obtuse teeth; corolla a short tube, with four oblong, ex- 
panded, pointed segments. Stamens two, short, growing to the 
inside of the tube; anthers large, sulphur-colored, soon turn- 
ing brown; pollen sulphur-colored, fragrant. The berries are 
of a shining black. In the south of England, the privet is 
evergreen. Here, the leaves fall, but later than those of most 
other plants. It is not a native, but was introduced from Eu- 
rope, and has spread extensively in the eastern part of this 
State. 
The leaves and bark are bitter and astringent. In Belgium, 
and some other parts of the continent of Europe, the small twigs, 
clipped in June, dried and powdered, are used in tanning leath- 
er. From the berries a rose-color 1s obtained for tinting maps ; 
and their juice, with the addition of alum, is used to dye wool 
or silk green. An agreeable oil for culinary purposes and for 
lamps, or making soap, is obtained from the berries, by a pro- 
ecss of grinding and pressure. In France and Great Britain, 
the privet is much used as a hedge plant, either alone or with 
other plants. Its use for this purpose is recommended by the 
beauty of the foliage, the flowers and the berries, by its rapid 
and easy growth, and by the fact that it grows well under the 
drip of other trees, except evergreens. It flourishes on almost 
any soil, as may be easily seen, from the variety of ground on 
which it has sown itself, in the vicinity of Boston, and it is 
propagated by seed or by cuttings, and requires very little 
pruning. 
The privet of Nepaul, which, in its native climate, is a tree, 
but, as cultivated in Europe, a shrub, is the only other species 
known. 
