White and Greenish 



disperse far and wide. Their droppings form the best of fertilizers 

 for young seedlings ; therefore the plants which depend on birds 

 to distribute seeds, as most berry-bearers do, send their chil- 

 dren abroad to found new colonies, well equipped for a vigor- 

 ous start in life. What a hideous mockery to continue to call 

 this fruit the pigeon-berry, when the exquisite bird whose favorite 

 food it once was, has been annihilated from this land of liberty 

 by the fowler's net! And yet flocks of wild pigeons, containing 

 not thousands but millions of birds, nested here even thirty 

 years ago. When the market became glutted with them, they 

 were fed to hogs in the West ! 



Children, and some grown-ups, find the deep magenta juice 

 of the ink-berry useful. Notwithstanding the poisonous proper- 

 ties of the root, in some sections the young shoots are boiled and 

 eaten like asparagus, evidently with no disastrous consequences. 

 For any service this plant may render to man and bird, they are 

 under special obligation to the little Halictus bees, but to other 

 short-tongued bees and flies as well. These small visitors, flying 

 from such of the flowers as mature their anthers first, carry pollen 

 to those in the female, or pistillate, stage. Exposed nectar rewards 

 their involuntary kindness. In stormy weather, when no benefac- 

 tors can fly, the flowers are adapted to fertilize themselves 

 through the curving of the styles. 



White Alder; Sweet Pepperbush; Alder- 

 leaved Clethra 



(Clethra alnifolia) White Alder family 



Flowers Very fragrant, white, about ^ in. across, borne in long, 

 narrow, upright, clustered spikes, with awl-shaped bracts. 

 Calyx of 5 sepals ; 5 longer petals ; 10 protruding stamens, the 

 i style longest. Stem: A much-branched shrub, 3 to loft. high. 

 Leaves: Alternate, oblong or ovate, finely saw-edged above 

 the middle at least, green on both sides, tapering at base into 

 short petioles. (Illustration facing p. 224.) ( 



Preferred Habitat Low, wet woodland and roadside thickets ; 

 swamps ; beside slow streams ; meadows. 



Flowering Season July August. 



Distribution Chiefly near the coast, in States bordering the Atlantic 

 Ocean. 



Like many another neglected native plant, the beautiful sweet 

 pepperbdsh improves under cultivation ; and when the departed 

 lilacs, syringa, snowball, and blossoming almond, found with 

 almost monotonous frequency in every American garden, leave a 

 blank in the shrubbery at midsummer, these fleecy white spikes 



230 



