FLOWERIXG SHRUBS. 



113 



berries may be seen, looking as if some cunning hand had moulded 

 them from virgin wax and hung them among the dark green foliage for 

 very sport. 



The blossoms of the Snow-berry are small, red and white bells, in 

 clustered loose heads along the ends of the light, flexible sprays; during 

 the flowering season the branches are upright but droop downward in 

 Autumn from the weight of the large round snow-white berries. The 

 brown, bony seeds lie embedded in the granular cellular pulp. Though 

 quite innoxious, the fruit is insipid and more useful for ornament than 

 for any other purpose, as far as man is concerned, but forms a bountiful 

 supply of food to many of the birds that remain with us late in the 

 Autumn. The plant multiplies by suckers from the roots and by seeds. 

 The leaves are small, oval, slightly toothed, of a dull, dark bluish-green. 

 This shrub is a native of all the Northern States of America, extending 

 northward and westward in Canada. It belongs to the same Natural 

 Order as the Honey-suckle, that lovely creeping plant the Twin-flower, 

 and the Elders. 



Sweet-Fern. — Comptoiiia aspkiiifolia^ (Ait-) 



The popular name by which this shrub is known among Canadians 

 — Sweet-Fern — is improperly applied and leads to the erroneous 

 impression that the plant is a species of Fern. It is a member of the 

 Sweet-Gale family and belongs to the Natural Order Myricacece. 



The Sweet-Fern grows chiefly on light loam or sandy soil, in open 

 dry uplands, and on wastes by road-sides, forming low thickets of small, 

 weak, straggling bushes, which give out a delicious aromatic scent — 

 somewhat like the flavour of freshly grated nutmegs — but the smell is 

 evanescent, and soon evaporates when the leaves have been gathered 

 for any length of time. The twig-like branches are of a fine reddish 

 colour; the leaves are long, very narrow, and deeply indented in 

 alternate rounded notches, resembling some of the Aspleniums in 

 outline, whence the specific name. The flowers are of two kinds : 

 the sterile in cylindrical catkins, with scale-like bracts, and the fertile 

 in bur-like heads. 



Sweet-Gale. — -Myrica Gale, (L.) 



This sweet-scented low shrub may be found bordering the rocky 

 shares of our inland Northern lakes in great abundance, and maybe 

 readily recognized by its bluish dull green leaves, and the fine scent 

 of the plant. The leaves when stirred or crushed giving out a fine 

 aroma of higher flavour, but resembling that of the Sweet-Fern, 

 Coiiiptoiiia aspknifolia. The sterile catkins, closely clustered, appear 



