Trees, Shrubs and Vines 



Even in horticulture utility is sometimes paramount 

 to beauty, which is almost the only excuse for alluding 

 to the Myricas — coarse-fibred shrubs that can withstand 

 all attacks of wind and weather, and are serviceable as a 

 defensive growth for other low plants in sea-side lawns. 

 So tenacious that they seem to court hardship, there 

 appears to be no exposure too severe for them, and two 

 of them thrive in the most barren soil. Yet it must be 

 conceded, despite their commonness, that the foliage is 

 most pleasantly aromatic, and the dark-green leaf al- 

 most glossy and of good texture. 



The most useful is M. cerifera, also called wax-myrtle 

 and bayberry ; and in winter this is covered with whit- 

 ish pellets — minute globular cones coated with a waxen 

 substance that has some commercial value for soap and 

 candles, one pound of wax being obtained by boiling 

 four pounds of berries. This species is three to six or 

 even eight feet high ; but M. Gale, or sweet gale, is a 

 lower plant with a smaller leaf, growing close to the 

 water. The third native species is M. asplenifolia, or 

 sweet fern, whose task seems to be to cover the most 

 sterile and unattractive spots it can find. The hum- 

 blest object in nature is full of suggestion if we only 

 know how to look at it, and nothing is to be despised. 

 Sweet fern is a case in hand. If one will look at the 

 leaf illustration (Plate IX.) of shrubs, a curious bit of 

 nature's forethought in structure will be apparent, 

 which had never occurred to me until I prepared the 

 drawing. As a rule the two parts of a leaf, on opposite 

 sides of the mid-rib, are very symmetrical, and in the 

 most intricate configuration, as in oak and maple, lobes 



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