SHRUBS WITH ORNAMENTAL BERRIES. 



clayey soil, but not in one that is frequently inundated. In higher or lower 

 ground, or in a different soil, these trees become smaller and more rare. It was 

 with a view to trace, in this manner, the botanical topography of North America, 

 that Michaux visited the Floridas, and went as far as Hudson's ]5ay. lie left 

 Charleston in April, 1T92; arrived at Quebec in June of the same year; and 

 reached Tadonssac, lat. 52'^, in October, one hundred and sixty leagues from any 

 human habitation. lie afterwards planned a journey to Mexico, for the benefit 

 of the United States ; but, after very many journeys, he returned to Paris by 

 Amsterdam, where he arrived on the 3d of December, 1790, after ten years' aVj- 

 sence. He found his friends well, but was grieved beyond measure to learn that 

 the beautiful plantations of Rambouillet, to which he had sent sixty thousand 

 young trees, had been destroyed during the Revolution, and that but a very small 

 num])er of the trees were remaining. Seeing that tranquillity was restored, he 

 instantly thought of repairing the loss. After unsuccessfully endeavoring to get 

 sent again to America, he was sent to New Holland. He stopped at the Isle of 

 France, and was very desirous of going to Madagascar, in which island he was 

 attacked by the fever, and he died there in November (an ix.), 1803, aged fifty- 

 seven years. 



Michaux not only sent many new trees and shrubs into France, but he sent 

 great quantities of the seeds of the more useful species ; such as Juglans Paccan, 

 used for making furniture, and which produces the nut oil ; Taxodium distichum 

 (the deciduous cypress), suitable for planting in very moist soil : Nyssa caroliniana, 

 useful for the naves of wheels ; Quercus tinctoria, for tanning and dyeing ; and Q. 

 virens, which, he says, grows rapidly on the sandy beach, exposed to the stormy 

 winds of the ocean, where scarcely any other tree can exist, and the wood of 

 which is excellent for ship-building ; to these may be added the Caryas of Penn- 

 sylvania, the Tulip-trees, and the American Ashes, Maples, &c., which, in many 

 parts of France, are preferable to the indigenous trees. The administration of 

 the Museum, aware of the services rendered to natural history by INIichaux, ordered 

 his bust to be placed on the fa9ade of the greenhouses, along with those of Com- 

 merson, Uombey, and other travellers who had enriched their collection. 



Michaux was too fully occupied in travelling to have much leisure to write ; 

 nevertlieless, he is the author of Histoire des CMnes de V Amerique Septentrionale, 

 published in 1804 : a Nortfi American Flora, and a Memoir on the Date Palm. 

 The particulars of his life, at great length, and proportionately interesting, will 

 be found in the Annales du Museum, tom. iii. p. 191, from which this notice of 

 his life has been al)ridged. 



[A memoir of his son, Fran9ois, who completed the North American Sylva, 

 will be given soon. — Ed.] 



SHRUBS WITH ORNAMENTAL BERRIES.— NO. 3. 



BY THOMAS MEEHAN, GERMANTOWN, PA. 



27. Rhus. The Sumac. — R. Cotinus, the Mist-tree, or Green Fringe, is per- 

 haps one of the best known. It can be scarcely said to be valued for its purple 

 berries, for it produces these sparingly, but rather for its mossy looking flower, 

 giving the plant, at a distance, the appearance of being enveloped in a Scotch 

 mist. R, typhiaa, the Stag's-horn Sumac, in addition to its beautiful crimson- 

 dyed leaves in autumn, has handsome spikes of fruit. It is a shrub of the largest 

 size. R. coriorid, if it were not so very common in our fence rows, would be 

 hly prized for its very beautiful crimson fruit. The objection to most of the 



