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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



tannin, etc., and possess stimulating medicinal 

 properties. 



The juice of the elderberry was used by the 

 Romans to paint the statues of Jupiter red on 

 festive occasions, and in convivial history has 

 been rather widely used as an adulterant of 

 grape juice. 



Its specific name is supposed to be derived 

 from sambuke, an ancient musical reed instru- 

 ment — the prototype of the crude hollow-stem 

 elder whistle of the bare-foot country boy. 



These same hollow stalks of the elder play 

 an important role in every maple-sugar camp. 

 Cut into appropriate lengths and inserted in 

 the incisions of the tapped trees, they serve to 

 conduct the rising sap into the waiting pail or 

 sugar trough. 



No shrub is more generous with its fruit 

 than the elder. Other crops may fail, but this 

 plant always produces a full harvest, never 

 yielding to the caprices of the season, be it wet 

 or dry, hot or cold. 



SHADBUSH 



Amelanchier canadensis (E.) Medic. 

 [Plate V] 



The shadbush belongs to the rose family and 

 is a cousin of the chokeberry, the apple, and 

 the hawthorn. With green, toothed leaves, 

 gray and sepia brown twigs, and red and pink 

 fruit, it is a beauty in the fall, just as it is in 

 the spring, when the white, pink-trimmed blos- 

 soms appear. Among its local names are "box- 

 wood," "Canadian medlar," "Juneberry," "sand 

 cherry," "service-berry," "sugar-berry," "sugar 

 pear," "bilberry," "shadblow," "snowy mes- 

 pilus," and "May cherry." 



This species is a shrub or small tree varying 

 from 8 to 25 feet in height, usually attaining 

 its maximum growth in swamps and along 

 river courses. Its habitat extends from New- 

 foundland to the Gulf of Mexico and through- 

 out the Middle West. The fruit forms in June 

 and July, the berries varying in size from that 

 of a currant to that of a morello cherry. When 

 they are in season, boys, robins, and bears alike 

 feast upon them. The color of the fruit varies 

 from crimson, through magenta to purple or 

 black. 



The wood of the shadbush is known as 

 "lance-wood," and many a fishing pole and um- 

 brella handle has been fashioned from it. The 

 Indians often made bows and arrows from it, 

 and it is in considerable demand for tool 

 handles. 



In some communities the shadbush is culti- 

 vated, being propagated from seeds as readily 

 as apples. It has been found a satisfactory 

 stock upon which to graft the pear and the 

 quince, both of these fruits maturing earlier 

 when so grafted and the resulting trees endur- 

 ing the winter more easily. 



The pemmican of the Indians was composed 

 of deer or buffalo meat dried and pounded to 

 a powder, to which was added dried Juneber- 

 ries or blueberries, the mixture being then 

 stirred into boiling fat. When cooled, the mass 

 was molded into cakes. When the Lewis and 



Clark expeditions made the first overland jour- 

 ney to the Pacific Ocean, their provisions ran 

 short while in the region of the upper Mis- 

 souri River, and it was one of the Amelanchier 

 species, alnifolia, that came to their rescue with 

 a bountiful supply of luscious berries. 



WINTERGREEN 

 Gaultheria procumbens E. [Plate VI] 



The wintergreen, with its warm-hued berries, 

 has many names : "checker-berry," "boxberry " 

 "deerberry," "groundberry," "ivy-berry," "gin- 

 ger-berry," "grouseberry," and "spiceberry," 

 "mountain tea," "Jersey tea," "Canadian tea," 

 and "waxy plum." Its tender leaves are known 

 as "little Johnnies," "pippins," "drunkards," 

 and by other names of like import, though 

 they have naught whatever about them to sug- 

 gest stage entrances, or gaiety, or inebriety. 



The wintergreen is a woody vine with an 

 underground creeping stem, from which spring 

 erect flowering branches from three to five 

 inches high. These branches bear at their tops 

 crowded groups of aromatic leaves. 



The habitat of the wintergreen is the quiet 

 solitude of damp woods, extending as far 

 north as Newfoundland and Manitoba. Its 

 real headquarters are the Andes Mountains, on 

 whose slopes it appears in nearly a hundred 

 different species. A few species are found in 

 Asia, but wherever it grows it will usually be 

 found under the shade of the pines. Blossoms 

 appear any time between early spring and late 

 fall, and the bright-red berries seem to have 

 all seasons for their own. They are so plenti- 

 ful in southeastern Massachusetts that they are 

 sometimes seen on the fruit stands in the Bos- 

 ton markets. 



The spicy aromatic flavor of the wintergreen 

 appears equally in leaf and flower and fruit. 

 It is the active element in oil of wintergreen, 

 used widely as a scent for soap, a flavor for 

 chewing gum, candy, etc., and as a camouflage 

 for bad-tasting medicines. 



One of the strange tricks of nature appears 

 strikingly in the analysis of the oil of winter- 

 green. How a little creeping plant can take 

 substances from the soil and air and manu- 

 facture them into a compound that is exactly 

 like another preparation compounded in the 

 laboratory of a big, deep-rooted tree, is passing 

 strange. Yet the only difference between the 

 oil of the wintergreen and that of the sweet 

 birch is a slight variation of their boiling 

 points. Well may Newhall ask, "By what al- 

 chemy can the little checker-berry vine and a 

 tree — the unrelated black birch — both elaborate 

 from the elements around them the same most 

 pleasant scent and flavor?" 



BLUELEAF GREENBRIER 



Smilax glauca Walt. [Plate VI] 



Cousin alike of the evil-odored carrion flower 

 and the fragrant lily-o f- the- valley ; sharing its 

 family relationship impartially with the grace- 

 ful Solomon's seal, the handsome wake robin, 



