A Quest of Fall Berries 



elder, though not strictly a swamp plant, 

 loves low ground, and is oftenest found in 

 cleared spots formerly mucky and swampy, 

 where it lifts its dark purple, umbrella-like 

 clusters of berries higher often than a man's 

 head. 



Everybody in our Eastern States is famil 

 iar with the common bog cranberry, that 

 grows so readily and profusely along the 

 New England seacoast in particular, wher 

 ever a piece of low-lying, waste land is 

 sufficiently flooded or irrigated. During my 

 walk I found a flourishing cranberry marsh 

 in the very heart of the woods, the circular 

 bed lying exposed to the sky like the bed of 

 some pond long since dried up. If that was 

 not its origin, most likely the spot was a 

 cultivated cranberry bog in years gone by, 

 before the woods had sprung up on the de 

 serted farm. The common American cran 

 berry, however, grows wild all over New 

 England, and is mentioned by early writers 

 as one of our native plants. 



Skirting the swamp, I climbed a ridge 

 beyond, that was all ablaze with the crimson 

 plumes of the common or staghorn sumach, 

 each plume a compacted cone of small, 



