194 Mountain and Forest Rambles, 



A few words then, in passing, on the planting of shrubs. 

 I was asked a day or two since ''what there was new in the 

 shrub line," but as I was not very accurately read in the 

 novelties of the flower catalogue, I felt at a loss for a ready 

 answer. Recalling, however, what I had seen in the rich 

 woods of the western part of this State, in the swamps and 

 mountains of New Hampshire and Yermont, during the past 

 summer, I thought I could have named several fine plants of 

 rare beauty, which if not new, were seldom seen in our lawns 

 or in our planted copses. Taking them in a series as they 

 now present themselves to my mind, we will (an please you) 

 notice them as if on some herborizing expedition, neglecting 

 not the humble companions of their habitats, whether lowly 

 moss, rich fern, or delicate blossom, we may encounter. 



Who, on the first spring weather, tempted into the woods, 

 can escape noticing the long, lithe and straggling stems of a 

 semiprostrate shrub, whose broAvn wooly buds, composed of 

 a few closely packed leaves, terminate each of its branches ? 

 Presently those bare, lithe stems will be crowned by an ex- 

 panded set of large, downy, pleasant green leaves, from 

 whose bosom a large snowy corymb of flowers will arise, 

 vicing the snowball in beauty, and fairer, by far, than it in 

 delicacy. Wait awhile until summer suns shall have brought 

 other and more brilliant blossoms into rivalry, and you, 

 perhaps, have forgotten your first love ; then take a stroll 

 into those same woods on some shining and bright day in 

 October, and recall the acquaintance under a new aspect, 

 now bending beneath a gorgeous cluster of red and black 

 berries, intermixed, and conspicuous from afar. If you would 

 like to know the name of this native shrub, fit for any coppice 

 about your dwelling, the farmers will tell you that it is 

 Hobble bush ; the botanist, Fiburnum lantanoides. I have 

 often noticed it in all its changes in the cold moist woods at 

 some distance from the seacoast, and thought what a show it 

 would make in some collection of beautiful flowering shrubs. 



There is another viburnum to be found in the beech and 

 sugar-maple woods, whose foliage is so much like that of the 

 ^^cer, that one not familiar with the difference of the bios- 



