412 Bird - Lore 



Simmon, tulip tree, wild cherry, red-bud, flowering dogwood, black gum 

 (tupelo), honey locust, red cedar, cottonwood, river birch, hackberry {Celtis 

 crassifolia), mulberry, pawpaw, sassafras, button wood (sycamore), wahoo 

 or burning bush, wafer-ash or hop-tree, black willow, black haw, and prickly 

 ash. Besides these native trees, all growing indigenously on the place, three 

 naturalized species have, imaided by man, established themselves, these being 

 the osage orange, the southern catalpa*, and the white or Chinese mulberry. 

 The shrubs of Bird Haven include false indigo (Amorpha fruticosa), bladder- 

 nut, button-bush. New Jersey tea, hazel, wild hydrangea, two hypericums 

 {H. prolificum and H. densiflorum) , elder, smooth sumac, spice-bush, pasture 

 rose, glossy rose, sweetbrier (which in this part of the country is so common 

 and widespread that one would never suspect it is not a native), prairie rose 

 (in great abundance, many having been taken up and planted along the fence- 

 lines, where they make a magnificent flowering hedge in season), blackberries, 

 dewberries, black raspberry, and coral-berry or Indian currant, the last in 

 dense masses along the creek banks and in other places. Of woody climbers 

 there are trumpet-flower (too abundant and a great nuisance — ours are all 

 the scarlet- or red-flowered form), moonseed, Virginia creeper, at least three 

 grapes {Vitis cinerea, V. vulpina, and V. cestivalis), at least two greenbriers 

 (Smilax hispida and S. pseudo-china) , poison ivy, and a new clematis (related 

 to C. viorna) recently described by Mr. Paul C. Standley, of the U. S. National 

 Museum, from Bird Haven specimens. Herbaceous climbers include the 

 ground-nut {Apios tuber osa), yellow passion-flower, wild yam, herbaceous 

 smflax of two species, two scandent polygonums, several morning-glories 

 (Ipomcea pandurata, I. hederacea, and Convolvulus, species) , and several climb- 

 ing plants of the pea or bean family. 



For many years before its purchase by us, the land had been constantly 

 pastured, and consequently there was little chance for terrestrial plants to 

 grow; only blue-grass, and this cropped short, interspersed with clumps of 

 bofteset, ironweed, milkweed, and other kinds of weeds. Since the exclusion of 

 stock, however, the native herbaceous flora has reestablished itself, and the 

 rapidity with which this occurred was truly amazing. The list of herbaceous 

 plants which have sprung into existence, as if by magic, is far too great to be 

 presented in full, but a few of the more attractive or striking species may be 

 mentioned. The spring beauty (here caUed 'daisy'!) is perhaps the most 

 abundant plant, and our first glimpse of Bird Haven, on April 17, 1909, when, 



*The native catalpa (C. speciosa) has been practically exterminated, in the wild state, 

 in the vicinity of Olney. Even in cultivation, the southern species (C catalpa), although in 

 every respect distinctly inferior, is much more common, and has become thoroughly natural- 

 ized. The single catalpa found growing on Bird Haven when the place was purchased is a 

 C. catalpa, the seed having blown to the spot where it germinated, many years ago, from 

 some cultivated or roadside tree. At the present time, there are many fine examples of 

 C. speciosa on Bird Haven, planted by me in 1907, and already larger than trees in a grove 

 of C. catalpa on the adjoining farm, which were planted more than twenty years ago. 



