FLOWERING SHKUBS 



are upright, but they droop downward in Autumn from the 

 weight of the large round snow-white berries. The brown 

 bony seeds lie embedded in the granular cellular pulp. 

 Though quite innocuous, the fruit is insipid and more useful 

 for ornament than for any other purpose, as far as man is 

 concerned, but forms a bountiful supply of food to many of 

 the birds that remain with us late in the Autumn. The 

 plant multiplies by suckers from the roots and by seeds. 

 The leaves are small, oval, slightly toothed, of a dull, dark 

 bluish-green. This shrub is a native of all the Northern States 

 of America, extending northward and westward in Canada. 

 It belongs to the same natural order as the Honeysuckle, that 

 lovely creeping plant the Twin-flower, and the Elders. 



SWEET-FERN Comptonia asplenifolia (Ait.). 



The popular name by which this shrub is known among 

 Canadians Sweet-fern is improperly applied, and leads to 

 the erroneous impression that the plant is a species of Fern. 

 It is a member of the Sweet-gale family and belongs to the 

 Natural Order Myricacece. 



The Sweet-fern grows chiefly on light loam or sandy soil, 

 in open dry uplands, and on wastes by roadsides, forming 

 low thickets of small, weak, straggling bushes, which give 

 out a delicious aromatic scent somewhat like the flavor of 

 freshly grated nutmegs; but the smell is evanescent, and 

 soon evaporates when the leaves have been gathered for any 

 length of time. The twig-like branches are of a fine reddish 

 color; the leaves are long, very narrow, and deeply in- 

 dented in alternate rounded notches, resembling some of the 

 Aspleniums in outline, whence the specific name. The 

 flowers are of two kinds: the sterile in cylindrical catkins, 

 with scale-like bracts, and the fertile in bur-like heads. 



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