TETRANDRIA. DIGYNIA* Alnus. 245 
(AL'NXJS. Barren and fertile flowers on the same plant. Pe¬ 
ricarp naked ; not winged as in Betula. 
A. GLUTiNO f SA. • Fruit-stalks branched, wedge-shaped, very blunt; 
leaves roundish, glutinous; veins, underneath woolly at the 
base. 
Hook. FI. Land. 59— E. Bot. 1508. E.)— Mattk. 140— Ger. 1294— Clus. i. 
12. 2—Lob. Ic. ii. 191. I —Ger. Em. 14TT. 2— Park. 1409— Gars. 138— 
Clus i. 12. 1 —Bod. 839. i .—Ger. Em. 1477. i —Hunt. Evel. p. 240. i. p. 
233. Ed.il—Trag. 1084. 
{Bark rugged, brown. Wood reddish. E.) Leaves nearly circular, clammy, 
serrated. Barren Catkin cylindrical, deep mulberry colour. Segments 
of the blossom unequal. Fertile Catkin egg-shaped. Style purplish red* 
(Var. 2. Leaves hoary, more acute, and less viscid. Lightf. E.) 
Alder. Owler. (Scotch : Eller. Welsh: Gwernen. Gaelic: Amfearna :• 
E.) Betula Alnus. Linn. Huds. Lightf. With. FI. Brit. E. Bot. Alnus 
glutinosa. Gsert. Willd. De Cand. Pers. Ait. Hook. Sm. Not uncom¬ 
mon near water. In remarkable luxuriance in the moist valleys of the 
Highlands of Scotland. Hooker. T. Feb. —Mar.* 1 
* The Alder flourishes best in low marshy situations, in which it is frequently planted t@ 
make hedges. It will not live in a chalky soil. It is easily propagated by seeds, but net by 
slips or cuttings. Grass grows well beneath its shade. The wood is soft and brittle ; endures 
a longtime underwater, and therefore is used for pipes and piles, and to lay under the 
foundations of buildings situated upon bogs. (According to Vitruvius the ancients were 
well acquainted with the imperishable nature of this timber, when used for piles in swamp9 
or under water ; in such situations it becomes black as ebony, and almost hard as iron. 
The Rialto of Venice is thus founded ; nor has its use been neglected in the Netherlands. 
The branches may be cut for poles every five or six years. E.) Women’s shoe-heels, 
ploughmen’s clogs, cogs for mill-wheels, and various articles of the turner, and in the 
Highlands handsome chairs, are made of it. The bark yields a red colour, and with the 
addition of copperas, a black. It is also used to dye brown, particularly thread, and for 
colours to he saddened with copperas. It is principally used by fishermen to stain their 
nets. (We are glad to learn from Mr. Hall’s report, that the country people in Scotland 
still practise so commendable a degree of thrift as often to make their own shoes ; and, 
following the example of their forefathers, to avoid the tax upon leather, privately tarn 
hides with the bark of Birch and Alder. How far more comfortable and independent 
would the condition of the English peasant be, were he thus ingeniously and economically 
to pass his winter evenings, instead of wasting both his hard earnings and his vacant hours 
at the seductive ale-house, or in acquiring habits of artificial luxury. Various passages m 
the ancient classics seem to intimate, that the trunks of Alder trees were among the 
first converted into boats. Martyn ingeniously surmises that one of these trees, hollowed 
by age, might have fallen into the water, and so given the first idea of navigation. E.) 
In the Highlands of Scotland near Dundonald, Mr. Pennant says, the boughs cut in the 
summer, spread over the fields, and left during the winter to rot, are found to answer as 
a manure. In March the ground is cleared of the undecayed parts, and then ploughed* 
The fresh gathered leaves are covered with a glutinous liquor, (which concretes into a 
spurious manna. E.) They are sometimes strewed upon floors to destroy fleas ; which are 
said to be entangled in the tenacious fluid, as birds by birdlime. The catkins dye green. 
The whole plant is astringent. It affords food to many kinds of moths and other insects, 
as Or chest es Alni , Psylla Alni, Adimonia Alni, Livia Alni, and Tenthreda luctuosa 
AIniy of which latter Barbut says “this pretty, quiet, melancholy ffy, is often fatally in- 
tangled in the clammy juice that oozes from the leaves. Its colours are chiefly yellow and 
brown, body black.” Of vegetable parasites Erineum alneum, Grev. Scot. Crypt. 157. 2 
“ convex, dotted, in irregular patches ; white, changing to purple and brown,” is frequently 
found on the leaves ; also Xyloma alneum, “ single, roundish, crowded, black j” and Dothi- 
