526 FLOWERS OF FIELD, HILL, AND SWAMP 



a curious green color, which by refining becomes almost trans 

 ent. Of this they malce candles, which are never greasy to 

 touch, and do not melt with lying in the hottest weather; nei' 

 does the snuff of these ever offend the sense like that of a ta! 

 candle, but, instead of being disagreeable, if an accident pu 

 candle out, it yields a pleasant fragrance to all who are in 

 room, insomuch that nice people often put them out on purj 

 to have the incense of the expiring snuff." 



123. Sweet Fern 



Compibnia peregrlna, or Myrica asjilenifhlia, is the favo 

 common, low shrub whose leaves are cut into long, lai 

 shaped, fern-like divisions; when crushed, pleasantly fragr 

 They wilt quickly after being picked. Time, April and M 



The fertile flowers are in ball-like catkins, the fruit beir 

 little hard green nut, surrounded by 8 long, awl-shaped, 

 sistent green scales. In the sterile catkins the scales 

 pointed, heart- or kidney-shaped below. 



Found in all our woods and on our hillsides, in light soil. 



124. Low Birch 



Betula pumila. — Family, Birch. Leaves, broad, oval 

 roundish, sometimes narrowed at base, coarsely toothed, pr 

 inent veins reaching to the teeth, short-petioled, pale gi 

 below, \ to i^ inches long. Time, May and June. 



Many flowers in bracted catkins of 2 sorts, without cor< 

 Pistillate catkins peduncled, about i inch long, with 2 c 

 flowers in the axils of 3-lobed bractlets. Staminate flow 

 3 together, of 2 stamens, surrounded by a 4-toothed, m 

 branous calyx, with 2 bractlets lying underneath. Fru 

 small winged nut. 



A shrub found in bogs, 2 to 15 feet high, with brown bark 

 twigs, the young branches and leaves softly downy and br( 

 New England to New Jersey, and westward. 



