THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



183 



the charming painted trillium, and the dashing 

 tiger lily, the blueleaf greenbrier is a rustic 

 member of the aristocratic lily family, which 

 has its full share of worthy scions as well as 

 its quota of black sheep. It is commonly 

 known by such names as "saw brier," "false 

 sarsaparilla," and "bull bay." Sometimes it is 

 confused with the "cat brier." 



The blueleaf greenbrier may be found from 

 Maine to Florida and as far West as Texas. 

 Gregarious in its tastes, it grows in thickets, 

 where it adds much to the impenetrability of 

 the brushy mass. The plant is a persistent 

 climber, with many irregular branchlets, and 

 with tendrils of astonishing strength. 



The vine is woody, but usually is armed with 

 slender prickles that make up in sharpness 

 what they lack in sturdiness. In the summer, 

 the leaves are a bluish green with a powdery 

 bloom on their under surfaces. They are 

 beautifully crimsoned by the cold of the late 

 fall. The berries are black, each having two or 

 three seeds. 



CORAL BERRY 



Symphoricarpus orbiculatus Moench 

 [Plate VI] 



The coral berry is another member of the 

 series pictured here that belongs to the honey- 

 suckle family, in which are included the elder, 

 the viburnums, the snowberry, etc. It is vari- 

 ously known as "Indian currant," "low wood- 

 bine," "buck bush," "turkey berry," and "snap- 

 berry," and is an erect shrub, growing from 

 two to five feet high, with purple or madder- 

 brown branches, slightly hairy in their younger 

 days. 



The region gladdened by the presence of 

 this shrub is bounded by New York and North 

 Dakota on the north and by Georgia and Texas 

 on the south. It is a native of the Mississippi 

 Valley. 



With a preference for a normal loam or 

 clayey soil, the coral berry thrives best in some 

 grove-like wood where the rivalries of the 

 undergrowths do not make life too hard a 

 struggle. In the summer the delicate short- 

 stemmed leaves are a soft, neutral gray green. 

 In the fall the bush is transformed; each 

 branchlet, bending beneath its weight of fruit, 

 becomes a wand of delicate red. And as each 

 branch has many spray-like twigs, the whole 

 forms a complex profusion of color, making 

 it deservedly one of America's favorite decora- 

 tive shrubs. 



The Ojibwa Indians call the coral berry "gus- 

 sigwaka-mesh" and use a decoction of it as a 

 remedy for sore eyes. 



BUNCHBERRY 



Cornus canadensis (L.) [Plate VI] 



This species is the smallest member of the 

 dogwood family, attaining a height of less than 

 a foot. It is an immigrant, a native of East- 

 ern Asia that came as a stowaway to America, 

 where it has spread over a considerable area. 



Never flaunting itself in profligate profusion 

 in the haunts of men, it is timid as a wild 

 turkey, seeking the cool quiet of damp, deep 

 woods, where it lives a modest life in company 

 with the partridge vine, the golden thread, the 

 fern, and the twin-flower, forming a carpet 

 that matches in color and design the rarest 

 rugs of Kermanshah or Bokhara. The bunch- 

 berry is equally at home in Labrador and 

 Alaska, and in New Jersey and California, 

 which broadly mark the four corners of its 

 irregular range. 



The leaves appear reasonably early, but its 

 delicate little greenish white flowers, with their 

 four surrounding bracts of white that pass for 

 petals, do not come until May. They usually 

 remain until July, after which the plant, tired 

 of debutante days, settles down to the duty of 

 rearing a family of berries. These begin to 

 appear in August, in compact clusters, dressed 

 in as vivid a scarlet as can be imagined. They 

 are as insipid to taste as they are glorious to 

 sight, so far as man is concerned, but for the 

 birds the berries seem to be "done to a turn" 

 in the kitchen of Nature. 



SNOWBERRY 



Symphoricarpus albus (L.) Blake 

 [Plate VII] 



The snowberry is a member of the honey- 

 suckle family and is variously known as "snow- 

 drop," "waxberry," "egg-plant," etc. 



The snowberry seeks dry limestone ridges 

 and rocky banks. It is a native of North 

 America, but finds a home almost anywhere, 

 spreading across the continent from Quebec to 

 Alaska and from central Pennsylvania to Cali- 

 fornia. The green, short-stemmed, elliptic-ob- 

 long leaves are downy underneath. The bell- 

 shaped flowers, which come in May and June, 

 are pink, but so small as to be inconspicuous. 



The berries, which are inedible, form in 

 clusters along the slender branches from late 

 June until after early frosts. Their size ranges 

 from that of a pea to that of a marble, as a 

 substitute for which children often use them. 



This species is easy to cultivate. It spreads 

 rapidly from suckers. Often it is planted with 

 its cousin, the coral berry, and a fine green 

 dooryard studded with snowberry pearls and 

 coral-berry beads is a sight fair to behold. 



LONGSPINE THORN 



Crataegus succulenta Schrader 



[Plate VII] 



This plant, growing as a low shrub in some 

 localities and as a small tree in other regions, 

 has a range extending from Nova Scotia 

 through Quebec and Ontario to Minnesota, and 

 thence southeastward to the mountains of Vir- 

 ginia. It has a preference for rich uplands and 

 limestone soil. 



The weapons that give the longspine thorn 

 its name are numerous and grow from i^ to 

 3^ inches long. They are slender, shining 

 chestnut-brown spines, almost as sharp as nee- 



