BEAUTIFUL VINES TO BE FOUND IN OUR WILD WOODS. 



As the summer closes and the trees, 

 flowers and vines have all reached their 

 greatest perfection, have fulfilled their 

 mission in life, and in addition have 

 beautified all the spring and summer our 

 lawns and verandas, and have been ad- 

 mired as wonderful children of the flor- 

 ists' skill, how many of us know that 

 many of them and especially most of 

 these beautiful vines, could be found in 

 our wild woods just for the looking? 

 That we could with our own hands 

 transplant them to our homes and have 

 just as beautiful vines on our little 

 porches and verandas as any millionaire 

 on our boulevards? 



One vine that we see covering our 

 stateliest mansions and growing over 

 our most humble little cottage, is com- 

 mon in all the woods of the United 

 States from Maine to Florida, from 

 New York to California, is the Ampe- 

 lopsis quinquefolia — or Virginia creep- 

 er — American ivy or woodbine — its 

 name changing with the portion of the 

 country you happen to be when you find 

 it, for we see it frequently under its va- 

 rious names in cultivation, and it cer- 

 tainly grows in great abundance and in 

 the most graceful ways in our woods, 

 over trees and shrubs and old rock 

 fences, clinging in the most loving way 

 to any surface with which it comes in 

 contact. It belongs to the order Vitaceae 

 or Vine family, which is a family of 

 climbing shrubs, and to which all of our 

 wild grapes belong. 



Its name Ampelopsis is from two 

 Greek words, meaning vine and appear- 

 ance : quinquefolia, five leaved or fin- 

 gered ; its leaves being alternate and 

 compound, with five leaflets, long and 

 pointed, radiating from the center. It 



may be that it was meant to signify that 

 our five fingers may handle it recklessly 

 and not run any risk of poisoning, as so 

 many people are fearful of being — they 

 being unable to distinguish it from the 

 Rhus radicans or poison ivy — which be- 

 longs with the sumachs, and has only 

 three leaflets or divisions in its leaves. 

 This poison ivy could be so easily ex- 

 terminated if every one who finds a plant 

 of it would dig it up and burn it. It 

 surely is as much one's duty to help ex- 

 terminate a poisonous plant as it is to 

 cultivate and nourish an ornamental, 

 beautiful, harmless one. Yet there is 

 hardly a park in our larger cities where 

 you will not find the Rhus radicans or 

 poison ivy growing. 



In the Virginia creeper we will find 

 tendrils growing from the base of its 

 leaves, that swell at their tips into sucker 

 like disks, by means of which the plant 

 clings firmly to walls and trees in its 

 extensive climbing. The flowers of this 

 beautiful vine are small, inconspicuous 

 and greenish in color, with five concave 

 thick spreading petals, with a calyx 

 slightly five toothed, a two celled ovary 

 or seed vessel, each cell containing two 

 seeds. It blooms early in June and in 

 the early autumn, when its leaves are 

 turning the most exquisite shades of 

 scarlet and crimson, these little flowers 

 develop into clusters of deep blue or 

 purple berries about the size of peas. 



The whole vine is really more beauti- 

 ful in the autumn than it is in the spring, 

 and it surely does more than its part in 

 making our American woodlands such 

 great expanses of gorgeous coloring in 

 the fall as to attract the attention and 

 remarks of all visiting foreigners. 



Miss I. O. Cochrax. 



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