226 NATURAL HISTORY 
but the above are perhaps more than fufficient to fhew that the 
* Cornu-britans did not denominate places and perfons from this feem- 
ingly contemptible fhrub without great propriety : its peculiar pro- 
perties are not to be wondered at, though numerous ; they are indeed 
chiefly medicinal, and thofe of other plants are fometimes principally 
nutritious and domeftic. Nature has differently diftributed her boun- 
ties among plants, and placed them together fometimes in great num- 
bers. The palm-tree, as Strabo fays, has 360 ufes, and the cocoa 
or coker-nut-tree yields wine, bread, milk, oil, fugar, fait, vine- 
gar, tindtures, tans, fpices, thread, needles, linen-cloth, cups, diflies, 
bafkets, mats, umbrella’s, paper, brooms, ropes, fails, and almoft 
all that belong to the rigging of a fhip ' , if we may believe Fr. 
Hernandez and other authors. Befldes this Sambucus aquatilis feu 
paluftris , we have another fort, which we call Scau-an-Cuz, or 
the Elder of the wood, fome call it the Maiden Elder k . Its ufes 
have not been hitherto difcovered to be as various and falutary as 
thole of the foregoing, but its wood is more flexile, and will divide 
lengthways as perfectly almoft as whalebone, and is thereiore much 
Greenhoufe coveted by joyners. Greenhoufe fhrubs may be preferved in Cornwall 
& rubs - with lefs care and attendance than in any part of England, and without 
any artificial heat. Myrtles even of the tendered: kind, as the ftriped 
fmall leaved, the double flowering, and the reft, (all which are green- 
houfe plants in other parts of England) we keep out all winter, yet 
in the fummer they flower plentifully ft. Geraniums and jeffamins ftand 
out all the winter, unlefs when the cold is extream, and then they 
muft be houfed till the feverity of the weather is over, when they 
may out again. In the month of January, 1737, tuberofes in the 
dwell ing-houfe at Ludgvan, jonquils and the fmall pearl-aloe in 
the garden, were in high bloflom ; but the general mildnefs of 
the Cornifti air cannot be better evidenced than by the great Ame- 
rican aloe *, which bloffomed in the garden of Mr. George Keigwin 
of Moufhole in Mount’s Bay in the year 1757, and at the writing 
of this 1 ftill furvives. This plant is common in hot climates, and, 
though it feldom bloffoms, is well known to the learned in this ; 
but as this is the firft inftance of its bloftoming in England in the 
natural earth, I fhall defcribe and trace it. It was planted in the 
natural earth in the year 1724, and having flood thirty-three win- 
ters without the leaft covering, on the 9th of June, 1757, the 
flower-ftalk began to emerge from among the middlemoft leaves. 
The ftalk was round and taper, and befet with fmall marginal 
alternate leaves, above which was the infertion of each branch, as 
1 Ray’s Hiftory of Plants, lib. xxi. chap. vir. ftands altogether in natural ground, and yet in its 
and Creation, page 208. feafon is covered with flowers — the fame may be 
k Qu. an fambucus humilis Raii. faid of many others. 
■f The Phlomis firuticofa falvise folio latiore et * Agave, Litinxi. 
rotundiore, Tourn. ( vulgo fage of Jerufafem ) 1 February 1758. 
Fig. 
