156 THROUGH GLADE AND MEAD, 
“Thus the Birch Canoe was builded 
In the valley, by the river, 
In the bosom of the forest ; 
And the forest’s life was in it, 
All its mystery and its magic, 
All the lightness of the birch-tree, 
All the toughness of the cedar, 
All the larch’s supple sinews ; 
And it floated on the river 
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, 
Like a yellow water-lily.” 
With the birches I associate the honeysuckles 
(Lonicera), as shrubs of spring. I have found in the 
neighborhood of this city three of the four species ac- 
credited to this state; and I find in Bigelow’s ‘“Florula 
Bostoniensis” of 1840 that the fourth is ‘‘said to grow 
also in Worcester.” I am afraid, however, that like the 
Linnza and some other rare flowers, it is now extinct in 
its old habitat here. Perhaps it will some day return. 
There are others of the trees and shrubs which are 
now in bloom that I like to see yearly: among them 
are the black ash, the beech, the andromeda, the pale 
laurel, the Labrador tea, the mountain holly, the choke- 
cherry and the barberry. Few persons, unless specially 
interested, would notice the mountain holly when in 
bloom; but few could overlook the barberry, so hand- 
some both in flower and in fruit. Yet the mountain 
