x USING THE KEYS 



Reading the winter-description of that genus on p. 187 con- 

 firms me in this conviction. The analysis of species under 

 Rhus leads as directly and certainly to Rhus radicans (L 4) 

 as the name of my plant. 



As I return to the house, I stop to look at a velvety vine 

 rooted against a tree-trunk where I remember having seen 

 something different from poison ivy last summer. Without 

 touching this climber I look it over carefully, first with the 

 unaided eye, then under a lens, and find that it differs from 

 Rhus in a number of respects. Besides the roots by which it 

 is fastened to its support, it produces short hand-like tendrils 

 at many of its nodes and the fingers of these are dilated into 

 broad adhering tips. These tendrils are opposite the half- 

 round leaf-scars, each of which has a series of rather indis- 

 tinct bundle-traces just inside its margin; and a narrow sti- 

 pule-scar runs off at either side of the short round bud above 

 each leaf -scar. The sequence in the key here is no. 1 to 140; 

 140 to 150; 150 to 151; 151 to 152; and 152 to 153. The disks 

 at end of the tendril-branches satisfy me that this is a Vir- 

 ginia creeper, and the key to the several kinds of Partheno- 

 cissus (p. 225) shows that I have seen the rooting ampelopsis, 

 Parthenocissus quinquefolia Saint-Paulii, which I may trans- 

 plant to my house next spring without fear, and in the cer- 

 tainty that it will cling closely and tenaciously to the wall. 



My neighbor grows a fleecy, tall shrub that has the pecu- 

 liarity of discarding many of its very slender twigs every 

 fall, reclothing itself in a similar array the next season. I 

 find that instead of ordinary broad leaves, this produces small 

 scales, one at a node though often crowded close together. 

 These scale-leaves have not fallen as most leaves do, but are 

 present in winter. In the axil or angle over each of them is 

 a small round bud, and the outer scales of some of these 

 have parted, showing a nest of smaller buds. Cutting across 

 one of the reddish branchlets, I see that its pith is toward 

 one side rather than exactly central in the zone of wood by 



