A year among the trees

Chapter 131: THE BUCKTHORN.

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About This Book

The volume offers a seasonal tour of New England woodlands, combining natural history, species descriptions, and landscape observation. It profiles many native trees and shrubs, noting forms, foliage, and identifying features, and organizes scenes by seasons and habitats. Interspersed essays examine trees' relations to soil, water, climate, electricity, birds, and insects, and discuss their roles in health, shade, and ornament. Practical and aesthetic considerations mingle with reflections on poetic and folkloric associations, while guidance on planting, forest rotation, and the varied expressions of trees rounds out a handbook for both the curious walker and the practical planter.

THE BUCKTHORN.

The Buckthorn would hardly deserve mention in these pages, except that it is very generally employed for clipped hedge-rows, in the suburbs of our cities. It is a native both of Europe and America, though as it is seen only in grounds which have formerly been cultivated, or near them, it was probably introduced. It attains the height of a small tree. It is without any beauty, having a thin foliage that falls early and is never tinted. Its black shining berries are the only ornament it possesses, and its only merit is that of patiently enduring the shears of the gardener.