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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



April and May. With their reddish white and 

 pink petals in rich and fragrant profusion, the 

 blossoms have a world of insect visitors who 

 dance and feast away the day amid trie abun- 

 dance of nectar and pollen. ., 



Japan is par excellence the cherry country. 

 It has a hundred or more varieties, with white, 

 yellow, pink, and rose-colored blossoms.. They 

 grow throughout the length and breadth of the 

 empire and are planted in vast numbers every- 

 where — in temples, castle grounds, parks, gar- 

 dens, along streets and highways, and by ponds 

 and rivers. A three-mile avenue of cherries 

 planted nearly two hundred years ago by the 

 Shogun Yoshimune, in the vicinity of Kogenal, 

 some ten miles from Tokyo, forms a sight 

 never to be forgotten by the visitor. Some of 

 the trees are 70 feet tall, with crowns^ Slaving 

 a spread equal to their height, and with girths 

 of trunk up to 12 feet. 



When William Howard Taft visited the 

 Orient on his tour of the world before becom- 

 ing President, the Japanese gave Mrs. Taft a 

 wonderful collection of flowering cherry trees. 

 These have been planted along the Speedway 

 in Washington, and a century hence that won- 

 derful driveway will rival the great Shogun 

 avenue at Kogenal. 



HIGHBUSH BLUEBERRY 



Vaccinium corymbosum E. [Plate III] 



Who that has eaten a real blueberry roll or 

 partaken of a piece of genuine, unadulterated, 

 well-baked blueberry pie can doubt that Fred- 

 erick V. Coville was right when he declared 

 that the blueberry had the cranberry beaten, 

 because "y° u can't use cranberries without 

 buying a turkey to eat with them !" This emi- 

 nent authority has written about the blueberry 

 in previous issues of The Geographic (see the 

 National Geographic Magazine for Feb- 

 ruary, 1911, May, 1915, and June, 1916). 



THE EARLY HIGHBUSH BLUEBERRY 



Vaccinium atrococcum (A. Gray) Heller 

 [Plate III] 



The early highbush blueberry has practically 

 the same range as its cousin mentioned above. 

 It flourishes from Maine and Ontario to 

 North Carolina and westward. The shrub has 

 shreddy bark and its green branches are cov- 

 ered with minute warty excrescences. The 

 young twigs are downy, as are also the under 

 surfaces of the leaves. The foliage does not 

 develop until after flowering time. The blos- 

 soms are yellowish or greenish white, tinged 

 with red ; they are small and appear about ten 

 days earlier than those of Vaccinium corym- 

 bosum. The fruit likewise ripens earlier. The 

 berries are black and shine like beads, but are 

 without the waxy bloom that serves as a nat- 

 ural mackintosh for so many plants. 



AMERICAN BITTERSWEET 



Celastrus scandens E. [Plate IV] 



Member of the staff-tree family, the Amer- 

 ican bittersweet is less a tree and more a vine, 



with numerous common names, including 

 "climbing orange root." The fruit, which is 

 a capsule and not a berry, bursts in the frosty 

 days of fall, and, crinkling back, thrusts for- 

 ward the bright scarlet arils inclosing the seeds. 



Not content to twine itself around other 

 vegetation, this vine often outdoes the kitten 

 that plays with its- pwn tail, twisting its own 

 stems together, frequently into a rope of great 

 strength. It does not cling like the friendly 

 ivy, but, with the constricting power of the 

 python, it winds and twines about a sapling 

 with such persistent strength that the young 

 tree is often killed. 



The range of the American bittersweet is 

 from eastern Canada to South Dakota and 

 from North Carolina to New Mexico, the 

 shrub being especially abundant in the Middle 

 West. The flowers put in their appearance in 

 June. They are creamy white, small, incon- 

 spicuous, and scentless. The berry-like cap- 

 sules reach their full development in Septem- 

 ber. They remain on the stems all winter, un- 

 less eaten by the birds. If gathered and dried 

 on the branches before frost, they become hard 

 and durable and will retain the bright fresh- 

 ness of their coloring for several years. 



If one may judge from the use made of this 

 plant by the primitive Indians, it has a right 

 to be called the staff tree. When their little 

 patches of maize and other crops failed and 

 famine threatened, the red man resorted to the 

 use of the American bittersweet. 



SILKY CORNEL 



Cornus amomum Mill [Plate IV] 



The dogwood family, to which the silky cor- 

 nel belongs, is one of ancient lineage and dis- 

 tinguished associations. Virgil refers to the 

 javelins made of myrtle and cornel wood which 

 pierced the body of Polydore. Pausanias men- 

 tions a festival celebrated in honor of Apollo 

 at Lacedsemonia, which was instituted by the 

 Greeks to appease the wrath of the god at their 

 having cut down the cornel trees on Mt. Ida. 

 Romulus, wishing to enlarge the boundaries of 

 Rome, hurled his spear to mark the extension 

 permitted by the gods. It stuck into the ground 

 on Palatine Hill, and from the handle, made 

 of cornel wood, grew a fine tree — an event held 

 to foreshadow the greatness and strength of 

 the Roman State. 



The silky cornel is one of the aristocrats of 

 the family. It prefers swamps and low, damp 

 ground, and grows almost exclusively amid 

 such surroundings. In territorial limits it is a 

 little less restricted ; for it is found from New 

 Brunswick to Florida and wanders as far west 

 as Nebraska. Indigenous to North America, 

 it is usually found in company with the true 

 arrowwood. In the North a shrub that sel- 

 dom grows over 10 feet tall, in the South it 

 becomes a fair-sized tree. It flowers in June 

 and develops fruit before frost time. The ber- 

 ries are a beautiful pale blue with a silvery 

 sheen. 



Among the common names by which the 

 sih<y cornel is known are ''blue-berried dog- 



