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THE CHEMISTRY OF 

 SOME LAKELAND SHRUBS AND BUSHES. 



P. Q. KEEGAN, LL.D., 



Patterdale, Westmorland. 



While, as everybody knows, a tree is a woody plant with a 

 single simple stem which attains a height of some twenty-three 

 feet at least, a shrub is a plant with a stem branched from the 

 base and less than twenty- three feet hig-h, or one about the 

 same height and naked at the base may be called a bush. How 

 it comes to pass that certain forms of plant develop into trees, 

 while certain others, closely allied thereto, stop short at the shrub 

 or bush stage, need not be discussed here. A searching examina- 

 tion of the physiological needs, characters, etc., incident to 

 each of these structures and forms of vegetative activity would 

 doubtless reveal the cause more or less satisfactorily ; but what 

 I propose to solicit special attention to in this paper is the 

 extremely varied and eminently interesting chemical products 

 of shrub life. In many . signal instances there is assuredly some- 

 thing 1 strong ' about them ; that is to say, while the vigorous 

 and stalwart giants that people the forest put forth ordinarily 

 healthy products as a matter of course, many of our shrubs and 

 bushes evolve such a plethora of such substances as alkaloids, 

 bitter principles, etc., as to arouse the suspicion that the stream 

 of their vital energy is sometimes and somewhat sullied by 

 disease. 



Shrubs and bushes of divers sorts are fully and vigorously 

 represented in Lakeland, and although one or two of the species 

 about to be described may be regarded as trees rather than other- 

 wise, there is, as is well known, a distinctly marked tendency as 

 they ascend into the hills to acquire a certain number of charac- 

 teristic modifications, to assume new and specially adapted 

 anatomical features and corresponding functions, and generally 

 to become dwarfed in habit and changed in composition. I will 

 commence with a rather special item, bearing a familiar name, 

 \ iz. , the common 



Juniper. Juniperus communis. This plant is not, 1 think, 

 tlie theme of any special song by any of the local poets, but it is 

 scientifically interesting to a degree. It is of extremely slow 

 growth and lives very long; its leaves last four years. During 



moo October i. 



