CHOICE OF FLOWERS 



though It Is best to show consideration for the 

 pubHc, and to check this, rather than extend It. 

 It Is not an Ill-looking vegetable, and In the fall 

 it often takes on ripe and delicate tones of pink 

 and orange which make It ornamental, and the 

 harm it does, to such as can be harmed, is com- 

 monly due to the fact that It is so little recognized. 

 It is sometimes mistaken for woodbine, albeit 

 the plants are quite unlllie. If the leaves occur 

 in fives you are to know that It is woodbine, and 

 you may put a finger on each leaflet; but If they 

 are in threes, It is poison-ivy, and you are to treat 

 it with respect. I handle it without gloves and 

 with Impunity, as I fancy most people can do; 

 yet I have known persons to break Into unseemly 

 eruptions merely because they had passed to lee- 

 ward of a thicket of this plant. In Chlckamauga, 

 the site of the great camp during the Spanish 

 War, this weed grew as plentifully as the black 

 snakes, yet there were hardly more than tv/o or 

 three soldiers to a company who showed the ill- 

 effects of contact with It, though the tales they 

 told of the power of " poison-ivory" were dismal 

 enough, and their appearance, with swollen faces, 

 patched with ointment, which gave to them a 

 i6i 



