In the " Ramble " — Fourth Excursion 



chemistry, and the astronomy of Tycho Brahe, com- 

 pared with our present knowledge of the heavens. 



Our native red mulberry has a wide habitat, but is 

 found nowhere abundantly, and I have seldom run 

 across a specimen. It is inferior for cultivation to the 

 two foreign species, the black and the white, though 

 who knows how much cultivation might mend its man- 

 ners ? Our native sort has a very large leaf, rough-hairy 

 on the upper side, and the scanty foliage forms a close 

 flat spray as in the witch-hazel. But the foreign sorts 

 have smaller and glossy leaves of firmer texture, with 

 fruit that is acid-sweet, shaped like an elongated black- 

 berry. 



Still another species, the Japanese or paper mulberry, 

 has a leaf almost as soft as down on one side from the 

 mass of fine hairs, and rough as a file on the other side. 

 It flowers the last of May, but its lazy leaves are not 

 fully developed until far into June, which detracts from 

 its worth as a shade-tree. Its pronounced yellow bark 

 is a peculiar feature, and this is often curiously banded 

 with a darker shade. It can be seen across the path 

 from the cluster of weeping beeches. The black mul- 

 berry is a fine shade-tree, and a rendezvous for birds in 

 the fruit-season. 



Fringe-tree. — ^The popular names of plants often 

 show as little evidence of good taste as those of human 

 beings, and it would be fortunate if they could be 

 revised like their scientific nomenclature ; but no title 

 could be more apt than " fringe- tree, " which precisely 

 expresses its beautiful appearance when its mass of deep- 



