142 



FLOWERING SHRUBS. 



disappear from their old localities, and in time will be exterminated. 

 Many too that might be introduced into cultivated grounds, and prove 

 floral ornaments in gardens, or useful lor kitchen purposes, are doomed 

 to be lost or utterly neglected. 



Is there no wealthy botanist, with ample means to do so, who will 

 form a garden on a large scale, and gather together the forest flowers, 

 shrubs and ferns of Canada. It would be a work of great interest. 



Button-bush — Ceplialantluis occidentalis, (L.) 



A pretty shrub about five feet high, belonging to the RubiaceiV or 

 Madder family, with light-green, smooth leaves, and round heads of 

 closely set whitish-green flowers. The corolla is tubular, slender ; style 

 thready and protruding beyond the petals. The flowers have a sweet 

 faint perfume. This shrub is chiefly found on the borders of swamps 

 in low thickets. The receptacle remains persistent on the bush in dry 

 round button-like heads, whence its common name. I am not 

 acquainted with any particular qualities possessed by this shrub. It 

 flowers in August. 



Poison Ivv— Poison Oak — Poison Elder — Rhus Toxicodendron, (L.) 



The Sumac family boasts of two of the most venomous vegetables 

 yet known in Canada, viz., Rhus venenata or Poison Sumac, and Rhus 

 Toxicodendron or Poison Ivy. The former, R. venenata (DC.) is an 

 elegant shrub growing in swamps, with shining, smooth, odd-pinnate 

 leaves, and from ten to fifteen feet high, producing when touched a 

 violent sort of Erysipelas, in some cases fatal in its effects. The leaflets, 

 from seven to thirteen, oval, entire, pointed ; the flowers, small, 

 insignificant, greenish, in loose panicles from the axils of the upper 

 leaves ; berries green, smooth, of the size of peas. This is spoken of 

 as the most deadly of the poisonous Sumacs, but fortunately it is of 

 rare occurrence. The common Poison Ivy, however, is only too 

 frequently met with ; it grows in low ground or on barren rocky islands, 

 among wild herbs and grasses, in open thickets, at the roots of stumps, 

 and will often find its way into our gardens. It may be found in 

 cultivated fields, flourishing on stone heaps — indeed, wherever its roots 

 can find soil to nourish the plant the Poison Ivy may be found. Of its 

 injurious effects on the human body I can speak from experience 

 having witnessed its baneful influence in many instances. Gray, 

 describing its noxious qualities, says : " Poisonous to the touch, even 

 the effluvium in sunshine affecting some persons." 



There are various opinions regarding the way in which the virus 

 is coaimunicated, and also in what part of the plant it exists, some 



