314 



THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[October, 



mouth of the Chilcat, I came across a plant that 

 was ten feet high ; the leaves were as large as 

 luxuriant Concord grapes, and the racemes of fruit 

 six inches long. The Indians pound the fruit up, 

 with what I suppose to be grease, and dry it in 

 cakes. Then they take a piece, put it in water 

 and whip it up, when it looks like purplish ice 

 cream. They seem very fond of it. There are 

 many species of wild gooseberries — one with very 

 large fruit — fully as large as the best English 

 gooseberries, and the surface so clammy that a 

 large berry will almost stick to the hand without 

 falling to the ground. They are deep red, and 

 very tempting. I tried to taste one, when a strong 

 flavor of formic acid told me I had eaten an ant 

 with the berry. I found numerous insects all over 

 the berries afterwards. I can imagine that a leaf 

 may have these glands for the purpose of catching 

 insects to use as food — but what a ripening fruit 

 wants with such a covering is more than I can 

 tell. It keeps insects from eating them. 



Bears abound here, and they are very fond of 

 gooseberries, as I myself can testify to, by seeing 

 one black fellow daintily puUing the branches 

 down with his claws, and picking them off with 

 his mouth — this was a small black gooseberry, as 

 large as a pea — but these clammy fruited kinds 

 were loaded where bears abound, so I suppose 

 they are not touched by them. The flavor is not 

 much to boast of — something like a cactus fruit. 

 There are several kinds of huckleberry and a cran- 

 berry. The huckleberries are fair. One with a bright 

 coral-red berry, Vaccinium parvifolium perhaps, is 

 extremely ornamental ; but not as good to eat as the 

 others. The Salal berry isGaultheria Shallon— Shal- 

 lon being the name as originally pronounced, or 

 supposed to be pronounced by the Indians, among 

 whom it was first found — though "Salal" is the 

 name they use now. Our Gaultheria procumbens, 

 or "Teaberry," has an aromatic taste which this 

 has not. Indeed, it is slightly acidulous; and 

 does not seem to be a favorite among the bears. 

 They like sweet things, and a lump of white sugar 

 is a capital lure towards the bear-trap. Usually 

 this Gaultheria grows but about two feet high — 

 but in some parts of Alaska, I saw them six feet or 

 more high, and making dense thickets, through 

 which it was impossible to pass. I found a few 

 bushes of the Amelanchier — the June Berry or In- 

 dian cherry, as large as our best huckleberries, 

 quite as good and just as black — on the borders in 

 British Columbia, and I suppose it penetrates to 

 Alaska also. A wild cherry also, is in the Domin- 

 ion, which may go to Alaska. 



This was all the real fruit I saw wild, though 

 there are numerous berries and fruits eaten by the 

 Indians. Indeed they eat nearly everything that 

 grows. I met with an Indian woman gathering 

 an armful of the young tops of the Salmon berry 

 canes. I made signs to know what she did with 

 them; she laughed and put the ends of the shoots 

 between her teeth, and I suppose they cook and 

 eat them. They always looked on curiously at 

 my gathering plants for my herbarium, and anxious 

 to know what I did with them. It was difficult to 

 make each other understand, in the absence of all 

 oral language. Once, in desperation, I "stretched" 

 the case by pointing to myself and saying, "me 

 Doc-tin," — I had learned that much Indian, as 

 their name for medicine man. Like all " stretches," 

 this one only got me into further trouble, for they 

 would pick at my handful of plants, and want to 

 know what this was good for and what was the 

 good of that, till I became convinced I had better 

 be a " Doc-tin " no more, and shook my head there- 

 after when my botanical pursuits were questioned. 



H. B. ELLWANGER. 



BY JOHN THORPE, QUEENS, N. Y. 



In the death of H. B. EUwanger, we have sus- 

 tained a national loss. It was my good fortune to 

 be intimately acquainted with him and his untiring 

 efforts to produce new varieties of roses. No 

 student ever worked more conscientiously ; no 

 raiser of seedhngs ever waited more patiently for 

 results, nor could be more anxious that others 

 should be benefited by his successes, or prevented 

 from disappointment in his failures. 



A little more than a year since, Mr. Lonsdale 

 and I spent half a day with him at his home, 

 where he showed us the different crosses he had 

 effected on hundreds of flowers ; how modestly 

 he hoped for results, discussing the probabilities 

 and possibilities of each. With the same feelings 

 we viewed and hoped among his seedlings that had 

 not yet flowered. Again, when we came to others 

 that had flowered, how faithfully he pointed out 

 their defects or praised their good features. With 

 what pleasure and hope he sowed his seed last 

 winter. The day afterwards I received a long letter 

 with numbers of seeds and names of each cross 

 sown ; a little later another letter saying, his ba- 

 bies had begun to grow nicely; only in June last, 

 when at New York, how he described the distinc- 

 tive variations in the fohage of his baby roses; 

 what we might hope for and what additions would 

 be valuable. In his Rose Book, how honestly and 



