White and Greenish 



Flowering Season — ^June. 



Distribution — North Carolina, New Mexico, and far north. 



Not to be hung above mirror and picture frames in farmhouse 

 parlors, as we have been wont to think, do the brilliant clusters 

 of orange-red wax-work berries attract the eye, where they 

 brighten old walls, copses, and fence rows in autumn ; but to 

 advertise their charming wares to hungry migrating birds, which 

 will drop the seeds concealed within the red berry perhaps a thou- 

 sand miles away, and so plant new colonies. On the smaller, 

 less specialized bees and flies the vine depends in June to carry 

 pollen from its staminate flowers to the fertile ones, whose thick, 

 erect pistil would wither without fruiting without their help. 



But the best laid plans of other creatures than mice and men 

 "gang aft a-gley." What mean the little cottony tufts all along 

 the stems of so very many bittersweet vines, but that these have 

 foes as well as friends ? Curious little parasitic tree-hoppers 

 {Membracis biiiotata), which spend their entire lives on the stems, 

 sucking the juices through their little beaks, just as the aphides 

 moor themselves to the tender rose-twigs (p. 99), might be mis- 

 taken for thorns during one of their protective masquerades. 

 Again they look like diminutive flocks of fowl, their heads ever 

 pointing in one direction, no matter how the vine may twist and 

 turn — always toward the top of the branch, that they may the 

 better siphon the sap down their tiny throats. Toward the end 

 of summer the females, which have a sharp instrument at the 

 rear of their bodies, cut deeply into the juicy food-store, the cam- 

 bium layer of bark, and there deposit their eggs. Presently, a 

 nest being filled, the mother emits a substantial froth at the end 

 of her ovipositor, and proceeds to construct the cottony, corru- 

 gated dome over her nursery which first attracted our attention. 

 This is especially skilful work, for she works behind her, evi- 

 dently not from sight, but from instinct only. Inasmuch as the 

 young hoppers will not come forth until the following summer, 

 some such snug protection is required during winter's cold and 

 snows. With hordes of little parasites constantly preying on its 

 juices, is it any wonder the vine is often too enfeebled to produce 

 seed, or that the leaves lose part of their color and become, as we 

 say, variegated } Occasionally one finds the cottony nursery 

 domes of this little hopper on the locust tree — the favorite home 

 of its big, noisy relative, the so-called locust, or cicada. 



New Jersey Tea; Wild Snowball; Red-root 



{Ceanothus Americaiius) Buckthorn family 



Flowers — Small, white, on white pedicels, crowded in dense, ob- 

 long, terminal clusters. Calyx white, hemispheric, 5-lobed; 



215 



