ARBUTUS-TREE. 311 



I look well in winter, when hoar-frost has gemmed my 

 leaves, and all other trees that grow around are leafless. 

 My fruit requires twelve months in coming to maturity, 

 at which time I exhibit simultaneously, and often in the 

 depth of winter, the singular phenomenon of bright-green 

 leaves, with elegant white or pink-tinted blossoms, and 

 brilliant fruit. 



Though growing beside the Lake of Killarney, and richly 

 embellishing her tributary islands, thriving on barren lime- 

 stone rocks in the west of Ireland, and on dry mountains 

 in Scotland and the Western Isles, I am seen on the 

 shores of the Levant, and in many a classic vale, where the 

 Italian peasant pastures his flocks, rising often to the 

 height of twenty feet, and casting a grateful shade on the 

 sward beneath. Poets in all ages have sung concerning me. 

 Virgil alludes to my young branches as winter food for 

 goats. Horace wrote and sought repose beneath my 

 shade ; and the old Italian poet records in his ' Arcadia/ 

 that my classic branches were employed by the Koman 



