INTRODUCTION. 



Iv 



or slices of the root. Many varieties of the Ohve 

 have been produced by cultivation^ as in the 

 Apple, Pear, and other valuable fruit-trees. The 

 well-known ornamental shrub Lilac is a native of 

 Persia, whence it was imported in the sixteenth 

 century ; it is so called from lilac or lilag, the 

 Persian name of the flower. Though now so 

 plentiful as to have given name to a colour, in the 

 year 1597 it was a great rarity. It possesses me- 

 dicinal virtues, and it is stated on good authority, 

 that, in a part of the province of Berri, which is 

 marshy and exceedingly unwholesome, the pea- 

 sants employ no other remedy for the intermittent 

 fever which prevails there. Of the Ash, Don 

 enumerates thirty-seven species, of which one 

 only is a native of Britain. The allied genus 

 Ornus, or Flowering Ash, contains several species 

 which afford the substance called manna, of which 

 more hereafter. Privet, a common hedge shrub, 

 also belongs to this order. Dissimilar as many of 

 these plants may appear, it is remarkable that 

 they will all graft on one another, a fact which 

 demonstrates the analogy of their juices and fibres. 

 Thus, not only will the Olive graft on the Wild 

 Olive, but on the Ash, and the Lilac will take 

 on the same tree ; so that it is not beyond the 

 skill of the gardener to produce a tree with the 

 trunk of an Ash, bearing from the same root 

 branches of Olive, Lilac, Privet, and PhvUirea, 

 &c. 



