White and Greenish 



very many ambitious plants besides those of the holly tribe, 4 

 tendency to separate the male and the female flowers as widely as 

 possible. 



Black Alder; Winterberry; Fever-bush 



{Ilex verticillata) Holly family 



Flowers — Small, greenish white, the staminate clusters 2 to 10 

 flowered ; the fertile ones i to 3 flowered. Stem: A shrub 

 6 to 25 ft. high. Leaves: Oval, tapering to a point, about 

 I in. wide, saw-edged, dark green, smooth above, hairy, 

 especially along veins underneath. Fruit : Bright red ber- 

 ries, about the size of a pea, apparently whorled around the 

 twigs. 



Pre/erred Hah'/af—Swiimps, ditches, fence-rows, and low thickets. 



Flowering Season — June — July. 



Distribution — Nova Scotia to Florida, west to Missouri. 



Beautiful bright-red berries, dotted or clustered along the 

 naked twigs of the black alder, add an indispensable cheeriness 

 to the sombre winter landscape. Bunches of them, commonly 

 sold in the city streets for household decoration, bring twenty- 

 five cents each ; hence the shrubs within a large radius of each 

 market get ample pruning every autumn. The leaves turn black 

 before dropping off. 



The Smooth Winterberry (/. laevigata), a similar species, but 

 of more restricted range, ripens its larger, orange-red berries ear- 

 lier than the preceding, and before its leaves, which turn yellow, 

 not black, in autumn, have fallen. Another distinguishing feature 

 is that its small, greenish- white staminate flowers grow on long, 

 very slender pedicels ; whereas the solitary fertile flowers are 

 much nearer the stem. 



Bittersweet; Wax-work; Staff -tree 



{Celastrus scandens) Staff-tree family 



Flowers — Small, greenish-white, 5-parted, some staminate, some 

 pistillate only ; in terminal compound racemes 4 in. long 

 or less. Stem: Woody, twining. Leaves: Alternate, oval, 

 tapering, finely toothed, thin, with a tendency to show white 

 variations. Fruit: A yellow-orange berry-like capsule, split- 

 ting at maturity and curling back to display the scarlet, pulpy 

 coating of the seeds within. 



Preferred Habitat— Kxch soil of thickets, fence rows, and wayside 

 tangles. 



2U 



