The boughs cut in summer, and left to decay during the winter, serve the purpose of manure.

The Hoary, or Silver-leaved Alder, Alnus incana, is of smaller growth than the common Alder; the leaves are not so round, and are quite white on the under side; the wood is white, and of a closer texture. This is a native of Switzerland, Dauphiné, Siberia, the islands beyond Kamtchatka, &c.-In direct opposition to the common Alder, it flourishes in a dry, sandy soil. It was first brought into England in the year 1780, by Mr. John Bush.

The Alder is said to have afforded the first material for boats:

"Tunc alnos primum fluvii sensere cavatas."

VIRGIL. Georgic I.

MARTYN'S Translation.

"Then did the rivers first feel the hollow'd alders."

sup

Referring to this passage, Martyn observes, that the Alder may also have given the first idea of navigation. It grows commonly on the banks of rivers; and he poses that one of these trees, hollowed by age, may have fallen into the water, and so given the first idea of a boat to the spectators. Evelyn remarks, that the Alder is of all others the most faithful lover of watery and boggy places, a taste to which Virgil frequently alludes :

"Fluminibus salices, crassisque paludibus alni
Nascuntur."

Georgic. II.

"Willows grow about rivers, and Alders in muddy marshes."

MARTYN'S Translation.

Homer also more than once mentions it as growing

near the water:

"from out the caverned rock,

In living rills, a gushing fountain broke :
Around it and above, for ever green,

The bushing alders formed a shady scene.”

The caverned way descending from the town,
Where from the rock, with liquid lapse, distils
A limpid fount, that, spread in parting rills,
Its current thence to serve the city brings:
A useful work, adorned by ancient kings,—
Neritus, Ithacus, Polyctor, there

In sculptured stone immortalized their care:
In marble urns received it from above,
And shaded with a green surrounding grove,
Where silver alders in high arches twined,

Drink the cool stream, and tremble to the wind."

ODYSSEY, book xvii.

In the second Georgic, the Roman poet again refers to its use in boats:

"Necnon et torrentem undam levis innatat alnus

Missa Pado;"

"The light alder swims also on the rough flood, when it is launched on the Po."

MARTYN'S Translation.

Fairfax, in his translation of Tasso, enlarging upon the original in so inviting a passage, describes

"The Alder, owner of all waterish ground."

Lucan designates it as

“The floating Alder by the current borne.”

PHARSALIA, book iii.

Spenser, in his "Colin Clout's come home again,” speaks of the Alders on the banks of the Mulla, where it is probable he may have reposed under their shade:

"One day, quoth he, I sate, as was my trade,
Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hore,
Keeping my sheep among the cooly shade

Of the green Alders on the Mulla's shore.'

The Heliades, fabled by the ancients to have been transformed into poplars, have been said by some writers to have been changed to Alders: others will have it to be larches. Porcacchi, in his explanatory notes to the Arcadia of Sannazaro, apparently unconscious of the contradiction, ascribes this origin both to the Alder and the poplar*. It is probable, says Dr. Hunter, that the poets chose such aquatics as best suited their purpose+.

* Venetian edition, 1583, pp. 24, 259.

+ See Poplar.

ALDER BUCKTHORN.

RHAMNUS FRANGULA.

RHAMNEE.

PENTANDRIA MONOGYNIA.

Black berry-bearing Alder. Black dogwood.-French, burgene.Italian, alno nero.

THIS is one of the unarmed species of the Rhamnus; it is a black-looking shrub, growing in the woods: the leaves are about two inches long, and one broad in the middle; the flowers make but little show, being very small, and of an herbaceous colour; and these are succeeded by black berries.

In its wild state this shrub seldom exceeds four feet in height, but by cultivation may be reared to ten or twelve feet. It is a native of the greater part of Europe, and of Siberia. From the bark and the berries are prepared dyes of various colours, blue, green, yellow, and black. The blossoms are particularly grateful to bees, and the leaves are voraciously devoured by goats.

The wood is very light, and the charcoal formed from it is much prized by the manufacturers of gunpowder, who buy up all they can procure of it, and use it only for the very best gunpowder.

The juice expressed from the berries being boiled down with some gum arabic and a little alum, and then poured into bladders to grow hard, is the colour called sap green.

ALEXANDRIAN LAUREL.

RUSCUS RACEMOSUS.

SMILACEÆ.

DIECIA SYNGENESIA.

According to Miller, this genus is named Ruscus, from Rusticus, because the countrymen in old times, "used to lay the leaves on their bacon and hams to defend them from mice." It is called Alexandrian Laurel, continues he, (for rather a curious reason) because it is fit for making Laurel garlands; and from one of the species growing in Alexandria.

THIS is an elegant shrub, as Rousseau justly terms it,— a beautiful evergreen; and is, at full growth, about four feet high: the leaves are of a lucid green, ending in acute points, and placed alternately upon the branches, without foot-stalk. The flowers, of a greenish yellow, grow any in bunches at the ends of the branches, and are succeeded by small red berries.

It is a native of Portugal, and of the islands of the Archipelago; and was cultivated in the Chelsea Botanic Garden, in the year 1739.

It has been supposed to be the plant with which the ancients crowned their victors; the same notion prevailed of some other species of this genus, before this was so well known,-equally without foundation in both cases. It is now well ascertained that the bay of the ancients was the sweet bay, Laurus nobilis.