FLOWERING SHRUBS 



when the beauty of the foliage of the surrounding trees and 

 shrubs has been swept away before the autumnal frosts and 

 wintry winds. 



In spring and early summer the white fragrant flowers, 

 in crowded flat heads, adorn the low shores. Later in the 

 fall the white berries on the bright red sprays are hardly 

 less attractive. The fruit is unpalatable for man, but is 

 eaten by some of the water-fowl that have their haunts in 

 the lakes and inland waters. This species is the Kinnikinnic 

 of the western and prairie Indians. 



PARTEIDGEBERRY TRAILING WINTERGREEN Mitchella 

 repens (L.). 



Another of our pretty red-berried creeping forest plants is 

 the Partridgeberry/. The flexile branchlets of this little plant, 

 spreading from the joints of the trailing stem, form a mat 

 of dark green foliage covering unsightly patches of decaying 

 wood, roots, and stones with many a graceful wreath, as if 

 Nature kindly placed them there to veil the rugged ground 

 with grace and beauty, in the same way as the green ivy 

 clothes and adorns the mouldering ruin with its enduring 

 verdure. 



Each slender leafy spray of our pretty Wintergreen is 

 terminated by tubular star-shaped twin blossoms, which 

 are divided at the margin into five sharply-pointed segments, 

 white, sometimes slightly tinged with pink. The ovaries are 

 united at the base of the flowers and form one double-eyed 

 round berry for each pair of flowers; the interior of the 

 flower-tube is hairy. The scent is sweet, faintly resembling 

 that of the White Jessamine. 



The berries remain persistent all through the winter. 

 They ripen to brilliant scarlet in the autumn and so con- 

 tinue till the return of spring. Thus we may find fresh 



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