368 PINE WOODS. 



their curiously painted dots and patches. All green herbs, 

 however, are checked in their growth by the darkness of 

 the wood. The verdure of a pine wood is chiefly over our 

 heads; there is but little under our feet. But the few 

 plants whose habits permit them to grow here are the 

 more conspicuous because they are not mingled with a 

 crowded assemblage of different species. Hence the 

 little creeping michella, with its checkered green leaves, 

 its twin flowers resembling heath-blossoms, and its scarlet 

 fruit, is very beautiful, clustering at the roots of some tall 

 pine, or garlanding some prostrate tree covered with 

 mosses that mark its decay. 



In the Southern States, extensive regions called " pine 

 barrens " form a very conspicuous part of the scenery. 

 Their growth at the present time is seldom so dense as 

 that of a Northern pine wood. Whole forests are so 

 thinly set that you may drive some miles through them 

 on horseback. Still in these pine barrens there is the 

 same breathing of solemnity that makes a Northern pine 

 wood so impressive. The tall, gaunt, and grotesque forms 

 of the trees, the flat, interminable plains which they occu- 

 py, the dark drapery of moss that hangs from their boughs, 

 their silence and solitude and their primitive wildness, 

 yield the scene an expression of melancholy grandeur that 

 cannot be described. Occasionally a log-hut varies the 

 prospect, as primitive in its appearance as the wood. 



The pine barrens of the Southern States are celebrated 

 as healthful retreats for the inhabitants of the seaports, 

 whither they resort in summer to escape the prevailing 

 fevers. They are generally of a mixed character, consist- 

 ing of the Northern pitch-pine, the long-leaved pine, and a 

 few other species, intermixed with the Southern cypress, 

 occasional red maples, and a few other deciduous trees. 

 Pines, however, constitute the dominant growth ; but the 

 trees are, for the most part, widely separated, so that the 



