74 THE FRIENDSHIP OF XATURE 



Small pointed cedars and young 

 oaks mix with the undergrowth, and 

 the tall staghorn-sumach, broken away 

 to make a path, hedges it, offering 

 delicious greens to our bouquet, — the 

 dull green, red-stemmed leaves and the 

 lighter panicled flowers, the whole 

 blending with slender vines of the 

 frost grape. The ground becomes 

 moister, tall lady-ferns and cinnamon 

 Osmundas wave with the heavy sway 

 of palms, and a perfume unlike wood- 

 odours, dense, tropical, suggestive of 

 Gardenias or bridal stephanotis, steals 

 on the questioning sense. A few steps 

 further and a mass of white conceals 

 the bushes, and we find the swamp- 

 azalea, called viscosa, from the viscid 

 honey of the flower. In runnels by the 

 roadside you may often meet this bush, 

 broken by cattle or by the careless 

 passer, with the blossoms browned by 



