FRAGRANT EVERGREENS. 
33 
but tliey are in season late in autumn and in the succeeding 
spring. The snow under which they he for months ripens them, 
though they are perhaps more spicy in the autumn. Their form 
when perfect is remarkable for a fruit ; it has five sharp drooping 
points at the apex, and within these hes, as it were, a second 
smaller rose-colored berry, containing the tiny seed ; they are 
seldom found in this mature state until a year old, and it is in 
June that the berries break open and drop the seed. The birds 
are very fond of this berry, and some eat the spicy little seeds 
while they reject the fleshy part. A pair of Florida nonpareils, 
kept in a cage in the village, used to delight in these. 
The squaw-vine, with its long creeping branches, is a con- 
stant companion of the partridge berry the year round, com- 
mon in all the woods. Its pretty rounded leaflets are regularly 
strung in pairs on thread-like vines, often a yard or more in length, 
with here and there a large red berry in their midst ; these last 
are edible, though insipid. The flowers are slender delicate pink 
bells, pale without, deep rose-color within; they are very fra- 
grant, and oddly enough the two blossoms form but one large 
berry, the fruit being marked with a double face, as it were, bear- 
ing the remains, of the two calices. 
It would seem that among our evergreen plants a larger pro- 
portion are fragrant than among their deciduous companions ; it 
cannot, however, be the strength of the plant which gives it this 
additional charm, for what is so sweet as the mignionette, or the 
European violet, both fragile plants ? 
Saturday, 8ih. — Delightful day. A white-breasted nut-hatch 
among the trees on the lawn ; these active, amusing birds are res- 
ident in the State, but one cannot vouch for their remaining all 
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