The trunk of the Spindle is clothed in smooth grey bark. The twigs, which are in pairs, starting from opposite sides of a branch, are four-angled. The shining leaves vary from egg-shaped to lance-shaped, with finely-toothed edges. They are arranged in pairs, and in autumn they change to yellow and red. When bruised they give off a f[oe]tid odour, the juice is acrid, and said to be poisonous--a charge which is laid against the bark, flowers, and seed as well. The small greenish-white flowers are borne in loose clusters, of the type known as cymes, from the axils of the leaves, and appear in May and June. Some contain both stamens and pistil, but others are either stamenate _or_ pistillate. The calyx is cut into four or six parts, the petals and stamens agree with these parts in number, but the lobes of the stigma only range from three to five, corresponding with the cells of the ovary. The fruit is deeply lobed, and marked with grooves, indicating the lines of future division, when the lobes open and disclose the seeds, at first covered with their orange jackets, or _arils_, after the manner of the mace that encloses the nutmeg. [Illustration: _Pl. 86._ Flowers of Spindle.] [Illustration: _Pl. 87._ Fruits of Spindle-tree.] [Illustration: Spindle-tree. A, flowers.] The hardness and toughness of Spindle-wood has long been esteemed in the fashioning of small wares where these qualities are essential, and the common name is a survival of the days when spinning was the occupation of every woman. Then spindles were in demand for winding the spun thread upon, and no wood was more suitable than that of Euonymus for making them. It shares with the Cornel (_Cornus sanguinea_) the name Dogwood; it is also Skewerwood, Prickwood, and Pegwood, all suggestive of uses to which it is or was applied. The young shoots make a very fine charcoal for artists' use. The Spindle is indigenous throughout our islands, but cannot be said to be generally common; it is rarer in Scotland and Ireland than in England. Among the exotic species cultivated in our parks and gardens are the handsome variegated forms of the Evergreen Spindle (_Euonymus japonicus_) of China and Japan, and the Broad-leaved Spindle (_E. latifolius_) from Europe. The Buckthorns (_Rhamnus_). Our two native species of Buckthorn are shrubs of from five to ten feet in height. In this one respect they agree; in almost all others they differ. Both are Buckthorns in name, but the Breaking Buckthorn (_Rhamnus frangula_) is quite unarmed, whilst many of the branchlets of the Purging Buckthorn (_Rhamnus catharticus_) are hardened into spines.