PLANTS THAT OCCUR IN BOTH NORTH AND SOUTH 



ATLANTIC STATES; TOGETHER WITH NOTES ON 



THE AMERICAN SPARROW HAWK 



BY MAJOR R. W. SHUFELDT, M. C, U. S. A., 

 MEMBER CHICAGO ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, ETC. 



(Photographs by the Author) 



IT IS a well known fact, especially in the northern 

 sections of the country, that some of the plants bloom- 

 ing during the early summer months have very incon- 

 spicuous flowers, but when autumn comes around and 

 these same 

 plants go to 

 seed, their seed- 

 pods stand 

 among the most 

 o r n a m e n tal 

 growths of the 

 kind met with 

 in nature. One 

 of the most 

 conspicuous of 

 these is seen in 

 the Climbing 

 Bitter- sweet 

 (Fig. 2), whose 

 flowers are 

 notably small, 

 greenish, and in 

 little clusters at 

 the termination 

 of the branch- 

 es. Hardly 

 anyone would 

 notice them, 

 unless special- 

 ly s e a r c hing 

 for a spec- 

 imen. How- 

 ever, late in the 

 fall an entire 

 transformation 

 takes place in 

 this "twining 

 shrub," as some 

 botanists have 

 called it. Its 

 be a u t i f ully 

 shaped leaves 

 turn to a bril- 

 liant Naples 

 yellow and its 

 seed-pods to a deep orange. Nor is this all ; for the latter, 

 upon splitting open into three partitions, display the 

 gorgeous scarlet-tinted covering to the seeds. The dis- 



,A GRANDFATHER CHESTNUT ALL READY 

 Fig. 1 Along the hill-top 



just over the western boundary 

 of Columbia. 



play they then make is one of marked beauty, and 

 branches or runners bearing the pods are gathered by 

 many for home decoration. It is truly wonderful the 

 length of time these seed-pods will retain their original 



colors without 

 fading in the 

 least degree 

 sometimes for 

 many years. A 

 fine branch, at 

 hand at this 

 writing, was 

 gathered some 

 ten years ago 

 in New York 

 State, yet the 

 yellow and 

 orange tints are 

 as intense as 

 the day it was 

 gathered. 



Beyond the 

 fact that this 

 vine is related 

 botanically to 

 the Spindle 

 Tree (Eoomy- 

 mus), it is dif- 

 ficult to under- 

 stand why some 

 insist upon call- 

 ing it a tree 

 the "Staff 

 Tree." Doctor 

 Gray called it 

 a "twining 

 s h r u b." Ma- 

 thews speaks 

 of it as a"twin- 

 i n g , shrubby 

 vine, common 

 on old stone 

 walls and road- 

 s i d e thickets, 

 and sometimes 

 climbing trees to a height of twenty, or more feet. The 

 light green leaves are smooth and ovate, or ovate-oblong, 

 finely toothed, and acute at the tip ; they grow alternately 



801 



FOR THE FIRST SNOW BLANKET 



of Rock Creek Park, Washington, District 



