| Teneriffe, and the Cape of Good Hope. 
560 BUCKTHORN. 
The olive-like species, Rhamnus oleioides, was 
introduced from Spain about the middle of last 
century. Its stem grows to the height of eight 
or ten feet, and sends out numerous spine-termi- 
nating branches; its leaves are small, oblong, 
obtuse, entire, veined, smooth, and of a thick 
consistence, and grow two or three together on 
their own separate footstalks; its flowers are 
small and whitish-green, and come out from the 
sides of the branches in spring; and its berries 
are round, black, and about the size of those of 
the purging buckthorn. The theezan-tea species, 
Rhamnus theezans, is an evergreen shrub of about 
a foot in height, a native of China, producing 
green flowers in May and June; and its leaves 
are used as a substitute for tea by the poorer 
classes of the Chinese—The small-leaved and the 
Surinam species are hothouse evergreens, from 
respectively Mexico and Surinam; the glandular, 
| the entire-leaved, the winter-berry, the celtis- 
| leaved, the crenulate, and the four-angled species, 
are greenhouse evergreens from the Canaries, 
Clusius’, 
the alaternus, and the dyers’ species are hardy 
evergreens; and all the other species are hardy 
deciduous shrubs. But the quondam Christ’s- 
| Thorn species now constitute the small genus 
Paliurus; and some other species have been re- 
moved to three other genera. 
BUCKTHORN (Sa), — botanically Hippo- 
phae. A small genus of hardy and ornamental 
low trees or tall shrubs, of the oleaster family. 
The European species, Hippophae rhamnordes, is 
_ a native of the sea-shores of England and of most 
| other maritime countries of Europe. 
Its stem 
usually attains a height of about twelve feet ; its 
branches are numerous, irregular, and dark- 
brown, and are thinly armed. with long and 
powerful spines, similar to those of the common 
buckthorn; and its leaves are long, narrow, en- 
tire, sessile, somewhat like those of rosemary, 
ark green above, hoary below, and fading away 
into a light brown before their fall in December. 
In winter, the young shoots of the preceding 
summer are thickly set on all sides with large, 
turgid, uneven, scaly buds, of a darker brown 
than the branches themselves; and they give the 
tree so curious an appearance as to make it ar- 
rest every person’s attention, and to be as much 
inquired after as the choicest shrub in the nur- 
series. In February, the turgid buds have a 
comparatively great size; and a little before 
their opening, if the tree be struck with a stick, 
they will discharge a yellow dust somewhat 
similar in appearance to flowers of sulphur. The 
timber has a brittle texture, and a bright brown 
colour.—The willow-leaved species, Hippophae 
salicifolia, was introduced from Nepaul about 
twenty-four years ago; it grows to only two- 
thirds of the height of the common species.— 
The species formerly called Canadian sea-buck- 
thorn is now assigned to the genus Shepherdia. 
BUCK WHEAT,—botanically Polygonum. Sey- 
BUCKWHEAT. 
eral annual and cultivated species, of the poly- 
gonum genus or dock tribe. The principal species 
is Polygonum Fagopyrum, called blé noir and 
blé sarrazin by the French, miglio by the Italians, 
trigo negro by the Spaniards, buchweitzen by 
the Germans, brank by the farmers of Norfolk 
and Suffolk, and, par excellence, buckwheat by 
the educated classes of Great Britain. The Ger- 
man name buchweitzen signifies beech - wheat, 
and alludes to the resemblance which the seeds 
of Polygonum Fagopyrum present to beech-mast; 
the British name buckwheat is a corruption of 
the German buchweitzen ; the name wheat al- 
ludes to the similarity of the ground seeds to 
the flour or farina of “wheat; and the French 
name sarrazin is a corruption of the old Celtic 
name had-razin, which signifies ‘red corn.’ The 
generic botanical name Polygonum alludes to 
the angular shape of the seeds; and the specific 
botanical name Fagopyrum, like the German 
popular one, alludes to the similarity of their 
appearance to beech-mast. The plant is so ex- 
tensively diffused as, in spite of obviously pos- 
sessing the properties of an exotic, to be usually 
classed as a native of England and of many other 
countries of Hurope. 
writers to have been introduced from the Levant 
by the crusaders, and, by others, to have been 
brought from Africa by the Moors into Spain. 
Its stem is strong, cylindrical, reddish, branch- 
ing, and about two feet in height; its leaves are | 
It is supposed by some | 
ivy-shaped and alternate ; its flowers have a pink | 
or reddish colour, are produced in bunches at the | 
ends of the branches, and begin to make a beau- | 
tiful appearance soon after the plant rises above 
the ground, and continue to bloom in a succession 
throughout the months of July and August; and 
its seeds are black, angular, and nearly tetra- 
hedronal, and ripen through a succession of 
periods corresponding to the successive bloom of 
the flowers. It is so tender in its young state 
that the slightest spring frost completely destroys 
it, and so far from being hardy in even its ma- 
ture state that a night-frost in the end of Sep- 
tember or early in October destroys the principal 
part of acrop. Yet the grain of it, when fully 
set, sustains not the slightest injury from frost ; 
and whole crops of the grain, in good condition, 
have been carried off the field after every leaf of 
the plants has perished. ‘To compensate also for 
its tenderness of habit, the plant grows with 
such rapidity as to yield a full harvest of grain 
only three months after being sown; so that 
though it cannot be safely sown in many parts 
of England till about the middle of June, it 
ripens the principal or largest average of its 
seeds in September, and is then in a state of the 
most profitable readiness to be reaped. 
The Tartarian species, Polygonum tataricum, 
was introduced to Great Britain from Siberia 
a little after the middle of last century. Its 
stem is taller and more slender than that of 
the common species; its flowers have a whitish- 
