In the “ Ramble ”—Fourth Excursion 
chemistry, and the astronomy of Tycho Brahe, com- 
pared with our present knowledge of the heavens. 
Our native red mulberry has a wide habitat, but is 
found nowhere abundantly, and I have seldom run 
across a specimen. It is inferior for cultivation to the 
two foreign species, the black and the white, though 
who knows how much cultivation might mend its man- 
ners? Our native sort has a very large leaf, rough-hairy 
on the upper side, and the scanty foliage forms a close 
flat spray as in the witch-hazel. But the foreign sorts 
have smaller and glossy leaves of firmer texture, with 
fruit that is acid-sweet, shaped like an elongated black- 
berry. 
Still another species, the Japanese or paper mulberry, 
has a leaf almost as soft as down on one side from the 
mass of fine hairs, and rough as a file on the other side. 
It flowers the last of May, but its lazy leaves are not 
fully developed until far into June, which detracts from 
its worth as ashade-tree. Its pronounced yellow bark 
is a peculiar feature, and this is often curiously banded 
with a darker shade. It can be seen across the path 
from the cluster of weeping beeches. ‘The black mul- 
berry is a fine shade-tree, and a rendezvous for birds in 
the fruit-season. 
FRINGE-TREE.—The popular names of plants often 
show as little evidence of good taste as those of human 
beings, and it would be fortunate if they could be 
revised like their scientific nomenclature ; but no title 
could be more apt than ‘ fringe-tree,’’ which precisely 
expresses its beautiful appearance when its mass of deep- 
II! 
