EVEEGEEEN TREES — THE AMERICAN HOLLY. 



EVERGREEN TREES. — THE AMERICAN HOLLY. 



BY EEV. JAMES EICHAEDSON, JR. 



We took occasion so often, wliile our universally lamented friend Downin^g was at tlie 

 head of the Horticulturist, to discourse on evergreens and their culture — their value 

 in giving warmth and shelter to tillage land, their use in adding an air of comfort and 

 elegance to the wintry landscape, and the peculiar beauty of our native trees, — that, 

 to some of our readers, we may have grown wearisome, and seem already to have 

 exhausted the subject. So peculiarly beautiful, however, and at the same time so little 

 known is the tree whose name makes part of the heading of this article, that, at the 

 risk of being regarded as tedious, we can not but f^el it a duty to urge a few words in 

 its praise, for the sake of calling the attention of planters to its particular characteris- 

 tics — its beauty and its value. 



But few of the denizens of our brick-and-mortar cities, and our busy, crowded towns, 

 are aware of the wealth of beauty that our native American forests, and the very woods 

 about them, contain, to adorn the lawns, the shrubbery, and the hedges of our home 

 landscape, — the rich and luxuriant vines and plants and shrubs and trees, with their 

 various foliage and blossom, and especially the variety, grace, and elegance, of our own 

 native evergreens. When a boy, with what a thrill of delight did we hail the sight 

 of the princely blooming Rhododendron, as, through vistas of mossy Cedars, the 

 oriental magnificence of its perfumed blossoms burst upon our vision, as we fearlessly 

 trusted ourselves to the quaking bog of the solitary swamps* where they unfolded 

 their regal glories. With what eager enthusiasm, down in the deep, dark dells, or on 

 the airy mountain steeps, did we follow, on and on, gathering, with a never satiated 

 passion for beauty, the superb native boquets of Mountain Laurel, — now seeming like 

 masses of drifted snow hidden away in the cool woods, as they paled in the deeper 

 shadows — now blushing in the broad light of day into richer loveliness — or growing 

 rosy and scarlet, as, higher up, they became flushed with the more exhilarating air 

 and brighter radiance of the mountain cliffs. Search the world over, and where will 

 you find more magnificent and splendid evergreen shrubs than these brilliantly bloom- 

 ing Kalmias and Rhododendrons of our chill and homely New England forests ? And 

 what sight more rich and enchanting, than a mass of these charming flowering shrubs 

 half-concealed, half-revealed, beneath the groups of trees that shade our dwellings, or 

 resting their glossy leaves and queenly flowers on the green and shadiest portions ot 

 our lawns ! Dear to us, too, is the bright Prinos glaher, or Lik-berry bush, humble 

 though it be and unknown to feme, with its crown of dark, shining foliage, whose 

 depth of rich brilliant green the severest frosts of winter never deaden, and the polished 

 gloss of whose varnish neither the roughest storms nor the most freezing wintry winds 

 can tarnish : but, in sunshine and in storm, in winter's cold as in summer's heat, there 

 it is, always so bright, so deeply, radiently green, reflecting the light and glory of the 



* BiGELOw and otliers are mistaken in sujiposing them to be found in only one swamp, near Boston ; we have 

 known several in different towns. 



