THE RUSTIC LANE AND WOODSIDE. 191 



these flowering thickets. What excites my surprise is that 

 so few persons praise this modest little climber. How 

 would its varied foliage, interwoven with that of more 

 luxuriant plants, the deep but contrasted colors of its 

 flowers and fruit, and its constant presence in the borders 

 of. all wet fallows, attract the admiration of a painter who, 

 imbued with a love of nature equal to his love of art, 

 should attempt to paint a New England stone-wall with 

 its many native accompaniments ! 



A more conspicuous climber, and more common by the 

 woodside than by the rustic lane, is the bitter-sweet. 

 It is seen climbing over trees, not attaching itself by 

 rootlets or tendrils, but twining round its supporter, like 

 the morning-glory. It is often fifteen or twenty feet in 

 height, covering some unfortunate tree with its own dense 

 foliage, and finally causing it to perish by excluding light 

 and air from it. This plant is well known to simplers, 

 who have named it bitter-sweet, from the mingled sweet 

 and bitter of the scarlet and orange-colored berries which 

 they collect for medical use. I cannot learn that they 

 contain any medicinal virtue ; but it is well understood, 

 in these days, that the possession of decided efficiency 

 renders any medical substance unpopular. All popular 

 remedies are physic only to the faith ; hence the incom- 

 parable virtues of saffron and elder-flowers, whiteweed 

 and everlasting ! 



We are prone, when thinking of plants merely as orna- 

 ments of nature, to forget that the fruit-bearing shrubs and 

 vines have in general anything to recommend them except 

 their fruit. It will be admitted that very many of these 

 plants are deficient in beauty ; yet I will confess that I 

 have often admired the different species of bramble, which 

 are so common in the rustic lane and woodside, trailing 

 over fences and abrupt elevations, or hanging down from 

 projecting cliffs, and exposing their clusters of red, black, 



