224 
ie 
An Asian bittersweet; showing how the orange 
husks open and disclose the scarlet berries. I 
bought this under the name Célastrus paniculatus 
out to the big rose collection at the New York 
Botanical Garden last winter to see if they 
had anything that could beat it and it is 
certainly the most graceful of them all. Its 
open, many-fruited cluster is shown on page 
222. Most rose fruits become unsightly by 
Christmas but this lasts all winter. 
The “great American genus” of shrubs is 
Viburnum. We certainly beat the world 
on these flat-clustered white flowers that are 
followed by berries of so many hues. I have 
a collection of every kind of hardy viburnum 
but the one that cheers me most in winter is 
what the nurserymen call Viburnum Opulus 
—in plain English “high-bush cranberry.” 
(Picture on page 223.) This is commonly 
considered a European species but it is 
American also. There are other viburnums 
with red berries that last all winter but this 
is the only one I can afford to have in big 
masses. Besides, it has the largest berries. 
The greatest prodigy I have among red- 
berried shrubs is the peculiar barberry 
pictured on the cover of this magazine. The 
THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
Gather native bittersweet in September for 
Christmas decoration. Theleaves will shrivel but 
last all winter and add greatly to the effect 
astonishing fecundity of it may be seen by 
comparing it with the ordinary purple bar- 
berry pictured on page 223. I got this 
wonder from two importers of Japanese 
plants under two names — Berberis Sie- 
boldii and Hakodate. I intend to propagate 
a lot of it for my own grounds. 
When it comes to red-berried vines my 
standard of beauty is our native bittersweet 
or waxwork pictured on this page. That 
is the cheapest climber I know of for 
producing in a reasonable time big masses 
of red that are a comfort all winter. I like 
it best when it scrambles over a big stump, 
but I also send it up dead trees in my woods 
and I have one vine of it on my porch. 
I also have on my porch another bittersweet 
which I believe makes an even better show 
(seethis page). I hardly know what to call it. 
I bought it for the Himalayan bittersweet 
(Celastrus paniculatus), but that is not sup- 
posed tobehardy inthe North. Perhaps itis 
the Japanese (C. orbiculatus) for that is said 
to fruit more profusely than our native kind. 
DEcEMBER, 1908 
Among red-berried trees everyone knows 
the mountain ash, but few people realize 
that we have two different species in our own 
country. The one pictured on this page is 
the Western mountain ash (Sorbus or Pyrus 
sambucijolia) which has larger flowers and 
fruit than the Eastern kind. The mountain 
ashes will thrive only in the North, and 
seem to have been divinely appointed to 
redeem our winter landscape from desolation. 
The Southerners can beat us on holly, ivy 
and all manner of broad-leaved evergreens, - 
but the mountain ash is one of our compen- 
sations. True, its berries often fade by 
February or are eaten by the birds, but some- 
times as late as March I have seen it furnish 
the only bright spot amid a world of snow. 
I go in heavily for mountain ash. I love its 
flat clusters of whitish flowers, its compound 
foliage, the admirable smoothness and lustre 
of its bark, its mystical suggestion of the Far 
North. Its fruit is not a bright scarlet, but 
like everything which has a dash of orange 
it is more brilliant than a true red under 
artificial light. A few bunches make a 
magnificent decorative material. 
Another red-berried tree I have taken a 
fancy to is the red chokeberry. __ It is related 
to the mountain ash, as its scientific name . 
(Sorbus arbutijolia) implies, but it has 
ordinary, instead of compound, leaves. In 
my collection there are half a dozen species 
of Sorbus answering this description, and 
some of them have larger fruit, but I believe 
this is the reddest and most promising. 
The flowers are white or tinged with red and 
the foliage turns orange red in autumn. 
It is easy to spoil a good idea by overdoing 
it. I have no wish to pose as a “crank on 
berries.” I have seen too many gardens 
and grounds where an idea has been pursued 
remorselessly to the logical end. I don’t like 
logic in gardens — I like beauty of form and 
color, harmony, personality and all that. 
But there is neither logic nor sense in having 
home grounds in city or country bleak and 
dull for more than a third of the year. Why 
confine the Christmas spirit to one week or 
two? Why not have it all the year? And 
particularly why not enjoy holly berries out- 
doors all winter in our own yard? 
““The Western mountain ash has _ larger 
Eastern kind” 
flowers and fruits than the 
““The red chokeberry, a relative of the mountain ash, which has ordinary, not - 
compound, leaves’’ 
