Trees, Shrubs and Vines 
Even in horticulture utility is sometimes paramount 
to beauty, which is almost the only excuse for alluding 
to the Myricas—coarse-fibred shrubs that can withstand 
all attacks of wind and weather, and are serviceable as a 
defensive growth for other low plants in sea-side lawns. 
So tenacious that they seem to court hardship, there 
appears to be no exposure too severe for them, and two 
of them thrive in the most barren soil. Yet it must be 
conceded, despite their commonness, that the foliage is 
most pleasantly aromatic, and the dark-green leaf al- 
most glossy and of good texture. 
The most useful is JZ. cerifera, also called wax-myrtle 
and bayberry ; and in winter this is covered with whit- 
ish pellets—minute globular cones coated with a waxen 
substance that has some commercial value for soap and 
candles, one pound of wax being obtained by boiling 
four pounds of berries. ‘This species is three to six or 
even eight feet high; but JZ. Gale, or sweet gale, is a 
lower plant with a smaller leaf, growing close to the 
water. The third native species is JZ. asplenifolia, or 
sweet fern, whose task seems to be to cover the most 
sterile and unattractive spots it can find. The hum- 
blest object in nature is full of suggestion if we only 
know how to look at it, and nothing is to be despised. 
Sweet fern is a case in hand. If one will look at the 
leaf illustration (Plate IX.) of shrubs, a curious bit of 
nature’s forethought in structure will be apparent, 
which had never occurred to me until I prepared the 
drawing. Asa rule the two parts of a leaf, on opposite 
sides of the mid-rib, are very symmetrical, and in the 
most intricate configuration, as in oak and maple, lobes 
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