THE BABBEEEY. 53 



after another to take its turn in monopolizing to itself 

 those praises which are due to the primitive rose. 



THE BARBERRY. 



ALL the inhabitants of New England are familiar with 

 the common Barberry, one of those humble objects of the 

 landscape that possess great merit with little celebrity. 

 It is allied in picturesque scenery with the whortleberry 

 and the bramble. We see it in hilly pastures, upon soils 

 less primitive than those occupied by the vaccinium, 

 though it is not uncommon as an under-shrub in many of 

 our half-wooded lands. I have not yet been able to ob- 

 tain a definite idea of the nature of those qualities that 

 entitle a plant to the praises of florists and landscape 

 gardeners, since we find them admiring the ugly ma- 

 fa onia more than the common Barberry, and the glutinous 

 and awkward rose-acacia more than the common locust. 

 The praises of the Barberry have not been spoken ; 

 but if our landscape were deprived of this shrub, half 

 the beauty of our scenery would be wanting in many 

 places. Its flowers hanging from every spray in golden 

 racemes, arranged all along in the axils of the leaves from 

 the junction of the small branches to their extremities, 

 always attract attention. But though elegant and grace- 

 ful, they are not so conspicuous as the scarlet fruit in 

 autumn. There is not in our fields a more beautiful 

 shrub in October, when our rude New England hills 

 gleam with frequent clumps of them, following the 

 courses of the loose stone walls ,and the borders of rustic 

 lanes. Even after it is stripped of its fruit, the pale red 

 tints of its foliage render it still an attractive object in 

 the landscape. 



