* 
258 Flora of the Olympics. [ZOE 
ther progress, unless hewn away, sprawling out as they do in every 
direction, but generally down hill, With your keen axe or brush- 
hook you strike the first one a strong, sharp blow, just where it 
commences to bend, and your tool goes through it as if you were 
cutting a piece of cheese. ‘‘ Very well;’’ you mutter, “if it is all 
accomplished like that, this little job will not last long.’’ Ah, little 
do you know this Machiavelli among trees! You attempt to lift it 
out of your path, and you find that its top, some thirty feet away, 
has taken root and is firmly fixed in the ground. A half dozen 
blows are now required to cut in two the limber, lively, snake-like 
remnant. You throw it out of the trail and strike another; you find 
that its elasticity has been by no means lost on account of its appar- 
ently lifeless posture, and the severed end thwacks you over the 
shins or in the face. You slash another, and succeed in cutting it 
through just far enough to have the remaining whip-like portion 
split down to or below the surface of the ground, where a dozen 
blows among the stones or rotten logs finally severs it. You think 
they are all out of the way now, and lead over the first mule, which, 
in plowing through the quagmire, loosens a before unseen stem. It 
rises, like the typical Banquo’s ghost, just under the legs of your 
mule. Mule becomes entangled in its folds, and rolls over, burying 
your pack deeply in the soft mud. be 
Everywhere common along the clay banks of the Sound grows 
a small tree (which I there found abundant), the white elder ( Sam- 
bucus glauca). This plant is called ‘‘ white” because of its fruit. 
This is, when ripe, really black, but so covered with a ‘‘ bloom” is 
it that it appears always whitish, at times nearly snow-white. A 
pretty tree it is with its flat cluster of cream-white flowers in late 
spring, or in fall its handsome fruits, which remain on the stems till 
late in the winter, if not taken by the birds. The berries are held 
in good repute among our housewives, on account of its pie- and 
wine-producing virtues. Close at hand was its blood relative, the 
red-berried elder (Sambucus racemosa ). This hardly ever ap-— 
proaches the proportions of a tree, but rather a large shrub, while 
the former attains an occasional diameter of two feet. The red-_ 
berried elder is not a particularly pretty plant, except when covered 
with its pyramids of scarlet fruit. This latter is intensely disagree- 
able to the taste, but seems to be greatly relished by wild pigeons, — 
for their diet is almost entirely confined to this fruit where it grows 
plentifully. : 
