204. VINES 
that, before the end of the season, grow to the 
height of the building it is trained on. This 
plant demands sunlight. The foliage is a 
good green, but it succumbs to the first frost and 
you don’t have any autumn colours. It is easily 
transplanted, and young plants can be raised 
by layering. 
With its curious little berries in fall, and fine 
foliage through the summer, the bitter-sweet 
(Celastrus scandens) surpasses most vines, and 
deserves to be cultivated more generally. It is 
an especially good plant in semi-shade, its foliage 
being remarkably pretty, with the body of the 
leaf dark green, and the rim and outer edge 
tinted brilliant scarlet. The flowers, also, are 
quite pretty, but are so hidden by the foliage 
that you must get close to the vine in order to 
see the little clusters of white and black-centred 
blossoms. But it is after frost that the real 
merits of this vine show up; after the foliage has 
fallen, it is one mass of curious little scarlet 
berries, with a reflexed outer covering of orange- 
yellow, both colours showing to advantage. 
The bitter-sweet is a good twiner and a great 
grower, easily reaching a height of thirty feet. 
It is never troubled with insects or disease, and, 
on the whole, is the best of all hard-wooded 
