Central Park 
Clambering over low shrubbery is the scarlet-fruited 
nightshade or bittersweet, more brilliant but less abun- 
dant than the orange fruit of the other bittersweet or wax- 
work. Late in September the brilliant berries of the 
spice-bush gleam like coals of fire amid the dark foliage. 
This plant has already done considerable of its work 
for next year, for the branches are thickly strewn with 
flower-buds for early spring display. Hanging from a 
rocky wall, drooping, or prone on the ground are the 
long branches of the matrimony-vine (Lycium) with a 
medley of unseasonable blossoms trying to make it sum- 
mer again, and a harvest of oblong, pink-scarlet berries, 
and the flowering dogwood begins to glow in leaf and 
fruit. 
A sharp surprise is the winterberry that, having had 
nothing particular to say thus far in the season, has 
wisely kept silent, but now suddenly comes out with 
some felicitous after-thoughts, in the shape of a prodigal 
abundance of bright red berries, the size of a pea. 
This and its near relative the inkberry find their way 
into florists’ windows to help the suffering rich to endure 
the severities of winter. Now the mountain-ash is 
heavily laden with its large clusters of dull red, and 
the various thorn-trees are beginning to please the eye 
and to prepare a winter’s feast for hungry birds, which 
ignore the thorn-berries at first, but become less fastidi- 
ous toward spring, and have learned from experience or 
from Shakespeare that hunger is the best sauce. In 
October the black haw, last May in bridal robes, seems 
almost in mourning, so thickly hang its blue-black clus- 
ters. For weeks and months snowberry and coral- 
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