54 SYLVA FLORIFERA. 



There are many other aspiring plants that 

 might, be more safely permitted to 



catch the neighbouring shrub 



With clasping tendrils, and invert his branch, 

 Else unadorn'd, with many a gay festoon 

 And fragrant chaplet, recompensing well 

 The strength they borrow with the grace they lend." 



Cowper. 



Although the arbor vitae will thrive in a 

 shaded situation, it never produces seed but 

 where it enjoys a free circulation of air. We 

 have observed it on the elevated part of 

 Pere-Ja-Chaise, the romantic burial-ground of 

 Paris, accompanying almost every tomb, com- 

 pletely covered with its singularly shaped but 

 beautiful coloured fruit. We could not learn, 

 whether the French planted it as a substitute 

 for the mournful cypress, or because they 

 consider its wood imperishable ; or whether 

 the name arbre de vie has been the induce- 

 ment. In a few years more, this burial- 

 ground will become a mountain filled with 

 dead bodies, and a forest composed of the 

 trees of life. 



The celebrated professor Kalm, in his 

 travels into North America, observes, that 

 these trees were very plentiful in Canada ; 

 but not much farther south than 42° 10' 

 north latitude. 



