Rural School Leaflet 933 



The partridge berry. — The partridge berry, squawberry, or twinberry 

 is a pretty trailing evergreen herb common in dry woods, especially under 

 evergreen coniferous trees. The leaves are small, round-ovate, very smooth 

 and glossy, bright green, sometimes with whitish lines, short-petioled. 

 The flowers are attractive and sweet-scented. The fruit is edible. It is 

 scarlet (rarely white), remaining over winter. 



The partridge belongs to' the madder family. Here we find the bed- 

 straw, buttonbush, bluets, and buttonweed. 



The cherry. — The cherry is closely related to the peach and plum, and 

 like them it has a fleshy fruit with a hard stone. It usually grows to be 

 a good-sized tree, but some species are only shrubs. The flowers, usually 

 white, vary from small to large and are borne sometimes in clusters of a 

 few flowers springing from one point or as a number of blossoms on an 

 e^-ongated axis. There are five petals and five sepals. The inner layer 

 of bark is usually somewhat bitter. The fruit varies from yellow or red 

 to black or purplish black. 



The sweet, or mazzard cherry, and the sour, or morello cherry, are rather 

 commonly cultivated in orchards and gardens. The flowers of both are 

 large, but the fruit of the mazzard is sweet and juicy, while that of the 

 morello is sour and acid. The sweet cherry tree has a pyramidal form 

 and reddish brown bark, while the tree of the sour cherry has a lower and 

 rounder head and gray bark. 



The wild black, or rum cherry is a very widespread and hardy tree. The 

 leaves are rather long and have sharp teeth along the margin. The fruit 

 is small and purplish black. The small white flowers are borne in graceful 

 clusters on a long axis. 



The chokecherry is also a rather common wild tree. The inner bark has 

 a rank, disagreeable odor, and the fruit, which is red turning to dark 

 crimson, is rather bitter. 



The wild red, bird, fire, or pin cherry springs up somewhat commonly in 

 rocky woods, and especially in places in which the forest has been recently 

 cleared. The fruit is light red, very small, and sour. The flowers are 

 borne many in a cluster. 



The daisy. — The daisy belongs to the composite family, as do also the 

 thistle, aster, chrysanthemum, goldenrod, and dandelion. What we call the 

 daisy flower is really a cluster of a great many flowers borne close together 

 on a head. The corolla of the flowers in the outer circle of the cluster is 

 developed into a long, white, strap-like part, called a ray, giving the 

 whole head the appearance of one flower, and the circle of green bracts 

 about the cluster seems to correspond to the calyx of a single flower. 



There are a number of species of this family that are called daisies. 

 The oxeye, or white daisy, sometimes called whiteweed, is one of the com- 



