BUKNINO-BUSHES. 



THEEE is a class of plants, not all belonging to the 

 same genus, which have received the name of Burning- 

 Bushes from the profusion of scarlet or crimson fruit 

 that covers their branches after the leaves have fallen. 

 The most beautiful of these are two species of euonymus, 

 cultivated in gardens and ornamental grounds, and bear- 

 ing the names of -strawberry-tree, spindle-tree, and burn- 

 ing-bush. The fruit is from three to five cleft, of a pale 

 crimson, and before the leaves have dropped, which in the 

 autumn are nearly of the same color, the tree might, at a 

 glance, be mistaken for a bush in flames. The euonymus, 

 though abundant in the forests of the Middle States, is 

 -not wild in any part of New England. Here it is known 

 only as a beautiful occupant of gardens. 



Another of the Burning-Bushes is the prinos, very 

 common in wet grounds, and known in the winter by 

 the scarlet berries, clinging, without any apparent stems, 

 to every twig and branch, and forming one of the most 

 attractive objects in a winter landscape. Every part 

 of the bush is closely covered with this fruit, which is 

 never tarnished by frost and remains upon it until the 

 spring. This plant has never received a good specific 

 name. It is sometimes called winter-berry, a name 

 as indefinite as May-flower to mark species, or human 

 being to distinguish persons. It is also called black 

 alder, because it has a dark rind, to distinguish it from 

 the true alder, which is also of the same color. 



The evergreen species is a more elegant shrub, with 



