472 
Philadelphia, New Jersey, See. for the most part in wet places, round the water-pits. It is known 
by the name of Pishamin or Persimon . 
CULTURE. 
Species 1, 2, are both propagated by seeds, which will come up very well in the open ground; 
but if they are sown upon a moderate hot-bed, the plants will come up much sooner, and make a 
greater progress; but in this case the seeds should be town in pots or boxes of earth, and plunged 
into the hot-bed, because the plants will not bear transplanting till autumn, when the leaves fall 
off; so that when the plants are up, and have made some progress, they may be inured by degrees 
to the open air; and in June they may be wholly exposed, and may remain abroad until November, 
when it will be proper to set the pots under a hot-bed frame to protect them from hard frost, which, 
while they are very young, may kill the tops of the plants; but they must have as much free air 
as possible in mild weather. The following spring, before the plants begin to shoot, they should be 
transplanted into a nursery, in a warm situation, where they may be trained up for two years, and 
then removed to the places where they are to remain. These are both hardy enough to resist the 
greatest cold of this country, after the plants have acquired strength. 
Genus 15. El^agnus. Oleaster. Class IV. Tetrandria. 
Order I. Monogynia. 
Species 1 . Narrow-leaved Oleaster . (Elteagnus Angustifolia.) 
This is a tree, which branches from the bottom, growing sometimes to the height of twenty 
feet, with a trunk the thickness of a man’s arm or thigh, elegant in its appearance, especially 
from the silvery brightness of the leaves. Bark smooth, brown. Wood pale, prettily veined with 
grey and brown, but not hard. Branches and branchlets slender, frequent, alternate, smooth, un¬ 
armed, or having thorns, especially in young trees. Leaves petioled, in the more northern parts 
lanceolate, in the more southern broader, rather obtuse, and larger; silvery white underneath, on 
their upper surface hoary greenish, and shining very much. The flowers come out at the middle 
leaves of the smaller branches, usually solitary or together, sometimes but very seldom three from 
each axil, in which case one or two are on shorter peduncles and barren, having no germ, though 
they have a style and anthers. In the desert near the Volga the fruit is hardly bigger than the 
berries of the Barberry, whereas in the more southern parts it is the size of the cornelian Cherry.* 
Native of the South of Europe, the Levant, near the Caspian sea, in the deserts near the Volga, 
and the farther Tartarian desert, and other parts of the Russian empire of Asia. It flowers there 
in May. It was cultivated by Parkinson in 1633.J* 
Mr. Miller distinguishes specifically the thorny and unarmed narrow-leaved Oleaster. The latter, 
he says, is that which is most commonly preserved in the English gardens. The leaves are more 
than four inches long, and not half an inch broad; they are very soft, and have a shining appear¬ 
ance like sattin. The flowers come out at the footstalks of the leaves, singly, or two, and frequently 
three at the same place; the outside of the calyx is silvery and studded, the inside of a pale yellow; 
having a very strong scent. The flowers appear in July, and sometimes are succeeded by fruit. 
* Pallas. 
*f* Hort. Kew. 
