Buckthorn

“ On the hills grew high brush, some of it very beautiful. The buckthorn, for example, was just coming out; and the dogwood, and the mountain laurel. At first these clumps of bush were few and scattered; and the surface of the hills, carpeted with short grass, rolled gently away, or broke in stone dikes and outcrops. Then later, as we mounted, they drew together until they covered the mountainsides completely, save where oaks and madrone kept clear some space for themselves. ”

“ Botanical Origin—Rhamnus cathartica L., a robust diœcious shrub with spreading branches, the smaller of which often terminate in a stout thorn. It is indigenous to Northern Africa, the greater part of Europe, and stretches eastward to the Caucasus and into Siberia. We have seen stems 50 years old, having a diameter of 8 inches, sent from the government of Cherson, Southern Russia. In England the buckthorn though generally distributed is abundant only in certain districts; in Scotland it occurs wild in but a single locality. Yet in Norway, Sweden, and Finland it grows much further north. ”

“ The tender center of the plant, loved as food equally by man and beast, is protected by many bristling bayonets, an ever-vigilant guard. At an altitude of seven thousand or eight thousand feet, one passed through acres of buckthorn, honey-fragrant, this also a favorite of the deer, now visited by every bee and butterfly of the mountain side. It is to be noted that as one ascends the mountains the butterflies increase in numbers as well as the flowers which they so closely resemble, save only the latter's stationary estate. ”

“ By every mesa spring one may expect to find a single shrub of the buckthorn, called of old time Cascara sagrada—the sacred bark. Up in the canons, within the limit of the rains, it seeks rather a stony slope, but in the dry valleys is not found away from water borders.
In all the valleys and along the desert edges of the west are considerable areas of soil sickly with alkali-collecting pools, black and evil-smelling like old blood. Very little grows hereabout but thick-leaved pickle weed. ”

“ In many places the hills are covered with an almost impenetrable chaparral of scrub oak, buckthorn, greasewood, manzanita, and deer-brush, in which the wary deer have taken refuge. In and through these, guided sometimes by the tracks of the deer, or encouraged by the presence of such tracks even if he cannot follow them, up steep mountains, exposed to the heat of the sun, in dust, over rocks, and without water, toils the hunter, who accounts himself lucky if, by tramping scores of miles through this sort of impediment, he succeeds, after days of toil, in killing his deer. ”

“ In summer, Buckthorn Brown on upper parts with a dorsal band, especially distinct on specimens from Ellis and Trego counties; specimens from farther west lack the distinct dorsal band. Underparts Gray Drab and sometimes whitish, usually whitish in young specimens; basal color of pelage Deep Neutral Gray; fore and hind feet whitish. ”

“ The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 54 sq., 191. According to Mr. Murr, rhamnus is Lycium europaeum L. I learn from Miss J. E. Harrison that Sir Francis Darwin believes it to be buckthorn (Rhamnus catharticus) . In some parts of Bosnia, when peasant women go to pay a visit in a house where a death has occurred they put a little hawthorn (Weissdorn) behind their headcloth, and on returning from the house they throw it away on the street. ”

“ The annexed cut shows a 77specimen near the top of a rocky bluff or hill perhaps one hundred and fifty feet above the valley at Cedar Mills, Ohio. This southern Buckthorn still retained its shining leaves though my visit was late in November when nearly all the other trees except the oaks were bare. This, with the great quantities of black fruits, presented a charming spectacle. The plant is also reported in Stanley Coulter’s catalogue of Indiana plants, discovered in the southern counties by Mr. W. T. Blatchley, “growing on rocky hillsides.” ”

“ First snows are soft and clogging and make laborious paths. Then it is the roving inhabitants range down to the edge of the wood, below the limit of early storms. Early winter and early spring one may have sight or track of deer and bear and bighorn, cougar and bobcat, about the thickets of buckthorn on open slopes between the black pines. ”

“ The ground colour of the male (Plate II, fig. 4) is a rich sulphury yellow, with a greenish tinge. That of the female is a very pale greenish yellow. The only conspicuous markings are small saffron spots, one near the centre of each wing. The antennæ are red, short, and beautifully curved; but, unlike the two preceding species, the legs are almost white.
The eggs of this butterfly are laid in April on the two species of buckthorn (Rhamnus catharticus and R. Frangula) by the females that have successfully weathered the winter. ”

“ This gives rise to a wide-spreading bushy crown. The leaves are sparse, delicate, evergreen, alternate, simple, small, scale-like, pale green to dull or bluish-green, ovate or rhombic, sharp pointed, sometimes with thin, dry margins, and without petioles. The foliage presents a leathery appearance. The wood is hard, heavy, white to light straw colored, shows a prominent mottled wavy pattern when quarter-sawn, and takes a high polish.
BUCKTHORN BUMELIA (Buckthorn)
(Bumelia lycioides [L.] Pers.) also called ironwood, is found along the Southeast Coastal Region of Texas. ”

“ Akin to the bugloss, though less striking and less abundant, is the hound's-tongue, with its long downy leaves and numerous purple-red buds of a sombre and sullen hue that is not often to be matched. It has the misfortune, so we are told, to smell of mice; were it not for this hindrance to its career, it might justly be held in high esteem. Among the larger plants prominent on ledges of the chalk, or in near neighbourhood, are the mullein, the teazle, the [Pg 72] ploughman's-spikenard, and the deadly nightshade or dwale. The buckthorn is frequent in the hedges and thickets ”

“ In size the bighorn is between the domestic sheep and the common red-deer of America, but is more strongly built than the latter. It is of a brownish-dun colour, with a somewhat white streak on the hind-quarters. The tail is shorter than that of the deer, and tipped with black. As the age of the animal increases, the coat becomes of a darker tinge. The horns, of the male especially, are of great size, curving backwards about three feet in length, and twenty inches in circumference at the roots. ”

“ In wet weather, no man can climb any of them, and at such times they are greasy, muddy, sliding grounds. Oftentimes when a Bighorn is seen on a hill-top, the hunter has to ramble about for three or four miles before he can approach within gunshot of the game, and if the Bighorn ever sees his enemy, pursuit is useless. The tops of some of these hills, and in some cases whole hills about thirty feet high, are composed of a conglomerated mass of stones, sand, and clay, with earth of various sorts, fused together, and having a brick-like appearance. ”

“ The bighorn is also an inhabitant of these mountains, and the natives have several robes made of their skins. The mountains near this place are high, steep, and strewed with rocks, which are principally black. Several species of fir, white pine, and white cedar, forms their covering, while near the river we see the cottonwood, sweet-willow, a species of maple, the broad-leafed ash, the purple haw, a small species of cherry, the purple currant, gooseberry, red-willow, the vining and whiteberry honeysuckle, the huckleberry, sacacommis, two kinds of mountain holly, and the common ash. ”

“ Owing to the small waste in cutting, due to uniformity in thickness, these shells are sold to button manufacturers for more than the niggerhead, which in turn is more valuable than the bullhead.
The buckhorn (Tritigonia verrucosa) is very long and narrow; on the dark brown exterior it is rough, as is the horn from which it takes its name, while the interior shows a beautiful display of colors. This is not found in beds, but lies scattered among other species. It sells at a relatively high price—usually in excess of $20 per ton—for button manufacture. ”

“ But the bighorn, the wild sheep, able to bear the bitterest storms with no signs of stress, cannot cope with the loose shifty snow. Never such a storm goes over the mountains that the Indians do not catch them floundering belly deep among the lower rifts. I have a pair of horns, inconceivably heavy, that were borne as late as a year ago by a very monarch of the flock whom death overtook at the mouth of Oak Creek after a week of wet snow. ”

“ One spring, needing the skins of bighorn to tan into soft leather for clothing, the tribe moved up here to the foot of the Lower Two Medicine Lake, and began hunting. Many men would surround and climb a mountain, driving the bighorn ahead of them, their dogs helping, and at last they would come up to the game, often [Pg 24] several hundred head, on the summit of the mountain. The dogs were then held back, and the hunters, advancing with ready bow and arrows, would shoot and shoot the bighorn at close range and generally kill the most of them. ”

“ The bighorn is a fearless and skilful mountaineer, and will climb or descend precipices by bounding from ledge to ledge where the most reckless hunter dares not follow. Its ability to find a sure footing on even smoothly glaciated rocks is due to the peculiar structure of the feet, which have a rubber-like pad beneath the sharp-pointed and sharp-edged hoofs. ”

“ The Bighorn, in fact, finds in every rough country sufficient for its requirements, and it demands only that there shall be steep and difficult heights to which it may retreat when pursued. Every species of sheep would prefer a hilly habitat, but the Bighorn could scarcely exist on a level plain.
Somebody has said that Mountain Sheep would be aptly described as having the head of a sheep with the body of a deer. In size, however, it exceeds the largest deer, and a full-grown specimen will weigh from 300 to 350 pounds. ”

“ The bighorn generally lives in small or large companies, on the declivities and tops of the mountains, but in the evening, and at night, comes down to the lower ground, where there is more food; and, even in the daytime, is often seen towards the foot of the mountains. They are shot with a rifle, and good marksmen do not find it difficult to kill them, because, standing in elevated positions, they afford him a good aim. ”

“ The American buckeyes are less sturdy in form and less [Pg 67] showy in flower than the European species, but they have the horse-shoe print with the nails in it where the leaf-stalk meets the twig. The brown nuts, with the dull white patch which fastens them in the husk, justifies the name "buckeye." One nibble at the nut will prove to any one that, as a fruit, it is too bitter for even horses. Bitter, astringent bark is characteristic of the family. ”

“ In some places there are piles of earth from eight to ten feet high, or even more, the tops of which form platforms of a hard and shelly rocky substance, where the Bighorn is often seen looking on the hunter far below, and standing immovable, as if a statue. No one can imagine how they reach these places, and that too with their young, even when the latter are quite small. ”

“ Shortly we descend into a narrow glen, then zigzag up the flank of the fell. After a hard pull (the day is hot; the distant hills are swinging in vapour) we come to easier angles. The road is delved out of the hillside, the home of bracken and creeping stagshorn, with, by rills almost silent with drought, trees of hawthorn, alder and rowan. Below us—over spears of larch, over chevaux-de-frise of oak and ash and birch, over green and bronze cupolas of sycamore and beech, is the vale of Derwent, from Lodore to the furthest Man of Skiddaw. ”

“ The mountains where he makes his home are so high that the tops of many of them are in the clouds and covered with snow even in summer. Above the line where trees can no longer grow Bighorn spends his summers, coming down to the lower hills only when the snow becomes so deep that he cannot paw down through it to get food. ”

“ This, indeed, is a melancholy sight, like the Stag’s Horn Oak by the roadside between Farnham and Woolmer, in the ancient boundary of Alice Holt Forest; yet this has a young tree growing by its side, perhaps one of his own children, which gracefully conceals much of his gaunt nakedness. In the same forest are many old staggy trees, their contorted horn-like branches sticking out in a most picturesque manner from the top and sides of a still leafy head. In these the white owls may yet be seen peering out of dark cavernous hollows as they did in Gilbert White’s day ”

“ My young readers may remember that many similar feats have been witnessed in the Rocky Mountains of America, performed by the “bighorn”—a wild sheep that inhabits these mountains, so closely resembling the Ovis ammon of the Himalayas, as to be regarded by some naturalists as belonging to the same species. The hunters of the American wilderness positively assert that the bighorn fearlessly flings himself from high cliffs, alighting on his horns ”

“ A few years ago we knew but one species of mountain sheep, the common bighorn of the West, but with the opening of new territories and their invasion by white men, more and more specimens of the bighorn have come into the hands of naturalists, with the result that a number of new forms have been described covering territory from Alaska to Mexico. ”

“ The scenery is constantly grander as we ascend. The day is not wholly clear; but high on our right are the vast snow-fields of the Weishorn, and out of the very clouds near it seems to pour the Bies Glacier. In front are the splendid Briethorn, with its white, round summit; the black Riffelhorn; the sharp peak of the little Matterhorn; and at last the giant Matterhorn itself rising before us, the most finished and impressive single mountain in Switzerland. Not so high as Mont Blanc by a thousand feet, it appears immense in its isolated position and its slender aspiration. ”