152 LAWSON'S HISTORY 



ble to pass the line withal and other hot countries, 

 because they will stand when others will melt, by 

 the excessive heat, down in the binacles. Ever- 

 green oak, two sorts ; gallberry tree, bearing a 

 black berry with which the women dye their cloths 

 and yarn black ; 'tis a pretty evergreen and very 

 plentiful, growing always in low swampy grounds, 

 and amongst ponds. We have a prim or privet, 

 which grows on the dry, barren, sandy hills by 

 the sound side ; it bears a smaller sort than that in 

 England, and grows* into a round bush, very beau- 

 tiful. Last of bushes, (except savine, which grows 

 every where wild,) is the famous yaupon, of which 

 I find two sorts, if not three. I shall speak first 

 of the nature of this plant, and afterwards ac- 

 count for the different sorts. This yaupon, 

 called by the South Carolina Indians, casse- 

 na, is a bush that grows chiefly on the sand banks 

 and islands, bordering on the sea of Carolina ; on 

 this coast it is plentifully found, and in no other 

 place that I know of. It grows the most like box 

 of any vegetable that I know, being very like it 

 in leaf, only dented exactly like tea, but the leaf 

 somewhat fatter. I cannot say whether it bears 

 any flower, but a berry it does, about the bigness 

 of a grain of pepper, being first red, then brown. 

 When ripe, which is in December, some of these 

 bushes grow to be twelve feet high, others ar^ 

 three or four. The wood thereof is brittle as myr- 

 tle, and affords a light ash colored bark. There 

 is sometimes found of it in swamps and rich low 



