526 FLOWERS OF FIELD, HILL, AND SWAMP 



a curious green color, which by refining becomes almost transpar- 

 ent. Of this they make candles, which are never greasy to the 

 touch, and do not melt with lying in the hottest weather; neither 

 does the snufif of these ever offend the sense like that of a tallow 

 candle, but, instead of being disagreeable, if an accident puts a 

 candle out, it yields a pleasant fragrance to all who are in the 

 room, insomuch that nice people often put them out on purpose 

 to have the incense of the expiring snuff." 



123. Sweet Fern 



Compionia peregr)na,ox Myrica asplenifbUa, is the favorite 

 common, low shrub whose leaves are cut into long, lance- 

 shaped, fern-like divisions; when crushed, pleasantly fragrant. 

 They wilt quickly after being picked. Time, April and May. 



The fertile flowers are in ball-like catkins, the fruit being a 

 little hard green nut, surrounded by 8 long, awl-shaped, per- 

 sistent green scales. In the sterile catkins the scales are 

 pointed, heart- or kidney-shaped below. 



Found in all our woods and on our hillsides, in light soil. 



124. Low Birch 



Betula pumila. — Family, Birch. Leaves, broad, oval or 

 roundish, sometimes narrowed at base, coarsely toothed, prom- 

 inent veins reaching to the teeth, short-petioled, pale green 

 below, 4 to i^ inches long. Time, May and June. 



Many flowers in bracted catkins of 2 sorts, without corolla. 

 Pistillate catkins peduncled, about i inch long, with 2 or 3 

 flowers in the axils of 3-lobed bractlets. Staminate flowers, 

 3 together, of 2 stamens, surrounded by a 4-toothed, mem- 

 branous calyx, with 2 bractlets lying underneath. Fruit a 

 small winged nut. 



A shrub found in bogs, 2 to 15 feet high, with brown bark and 

 twigs, the young branches and leaves softly downy and brown. 

 New England to New Jersey, and westward. 



