Trees, Shrubs and Vines 
stances ; but the species of this group have so dignified 
the title that no odium now attaches to it. As exam- 
ples of a euphonious and equally significant style of 
nomenclature that far better befits the dignity of the 
subject might be instanced the mountain maple, smoke- 
tree, weeping willow, fringe-tree, staghorn sumach, tulip- 
tree, silver-leaf poplar, red-bud, hawthorn, silver-bell- 
tree, and rhododendron (literally, rose-tree). But it is 
useless to complain: pignut it is, and pignut it will 
remain; our ancestors have a good many things to 
answer for, and this is one of the minor sins. 
PERSIMMON.—Some botanical writers seem to think 
that they will degrade their subject unless they give to 
every species a flattering notice, and the multitudinous 
synonyms of the word “ beautiful’’ are successively ap- 
plied to all the species brought under review. Thus 
one authority—probably more from habit than from an 
intention to deceive—introduces the persimmon with 
the strange remark that it is ‘‘ one of the most interest- 
ing of our native trees’’ ; yet I searched in vain in the 
subsequent biography for a single item that would justify 
such wholesale praise. Like men, trees are good, bad, 
and indifferent ; and the persimmon is one of the indif- 
ferent sort. Its form is unobjectionable, its leaf-type 
rather colorless, its fruit at its best estate cannot be 
reckoned among the standard sorts, and, although be- 
longing to the ebony family, its conversion of sap-wood 
into blackish heart-wood is so slow and limited as to 
have no commercial value. Whoever likes persimmons 
after the frost has touched them would do well to culti- 
II4 
