246 
The Garden Magazine, June, 1920 
are most decorative, marking the plant for easy identification. 
Its foliage becomes rusty where too warm. 
F OR upland plants let us name Ledum groenlandicum, 
Taxus canadensis, Empetrum nigrum, Myrica carolinensis, 
Cornus stolonifera, Rhododendron canadense, Rhododendron 
lapponicum, Arctostaphylos Uva-ursi, and Vaccinium corymb- 
osum. Although the Labrador tea (Ledum groenlandicum) 
grows in wet sphagnum bogs it grows also in drier locations. 
It is an attractive plant — but spare me from drinking it while 
there is yet Black Ceylon ! The leaves are fragrant when crushed 
and interesting because of the thick rusty wool on the lower side. 
Specimens growing in a sphagnum bog in mid-Wisconsin were 
smaller than those growing in the same latitude on a hard clay 
bank exposed to all the northerly weather on the eastern shore 
of Lake Michigan. 
A fine trailing evergreen found as far north as Newfoundland 
is Taxus canadensis. It grows in thick woods customarily, 
individuals winding among 
the trees to the length of 
fifty feet or more. In the 
shade it is thinly branched, 
growing waist high. In the 
open sun it becomes very 
thick and ^bushy. It bears 
a soft red, dimpled berry in 
the fall of the year. 
The Crowberry (Empe- 
trum nigrum) is classed as 
a degenerate Heath. It has 
the rare quality of forming 
a solid evergreen carpet. In 
the vicinity of Frenchman’s 
Bay, Maine, it grows in solid 
mats several feet wide, be- 
tween the evergreen forest 
and the rocky water edge. 
Attempts to grow it on the 
Massachusetts coast have 
failed, possibly through 
faulty propagative methods. 
It will not endure the sum- 
mer heat of low latitudes, 
but may be found on moun- 
tain tops of New York and 
New England. 
The Bayberry (Myrica 
carolinensis) is a familiar 
shrub. The berries are a 
feast to the birds on cold 
winter days and the wax is 
made into candles by patient 
people. Most property own- 
ers consider it a nuisance but 
to the landscape architect it 
is a friend and ally. It pre- 
fers a well drained soil, thriving on sand and gravel, even down 
by the salt breath of the sea. In locations where much beaten 
by the wind it is thicker and finer in foliage. Its range is north 
to Prince Edward Island. 
Its red stalks making a rich mass of color against the snow, 
Cornus stolonifera is a valuable and much used plant. As we 
go north it is plentiful in swampy places and bv the water courses 
even to the Mackenzie River. Rhododendron canadense is a 
deciduous plant growing northward to Newfoundland and very 
fine when in bloom. In Massachusetts 1 have seen it in sphag- 
num moss of low wet hollows but these conditions are not es- 
sential to it. The Lapland Rose Bay (R. lapponicum) is a 
boreal plant growing at high altitudes from New York to the 
Arctic. It is a small recumbent plant, in broad tufts, evergreen. 
One of the finest evergreen ground covers is the Bearberry 
(Arctostaphylos Uva-ursi) which thrives in sandy places. 
There is moreover little competition for the ground which it 
covets, such usually hopeless spots as the sandy slopes of railway 
cuts suiting it to perfection. It forms large solid mats when 
young, but as it ages it winterkills with unfavorable winter 
conditions. Its range is not so far north as that of the plants 
hitherto mentioned. Like some of its relatives (the Oxycoccus 
Vacciniums or Cranberries) it is kept in better condition by a 
yearly light covering of sand, which induces it to throw out 
much new wood with larger and brighter foliage. The bumble- 
bees are fond of it in blossom, but I have never seen any bears 
gathering the abundant crop of red berries! More northerly in 
range is a very similar plant, Vaccinium Vitis-Idaea, the Upland 
Cranberry. The foliage of this is scanty but much like the 
Bearberry; its fruit is smaller but solid and acid— quite like 
the Bog Cranberry indeed, and from Maine northward it is 
gathered for food, making fine jelly. Except for its fruit the 
swamp Huckleberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) is shown little 
consideration, yet give one 
a chance and see what fine 
landscape material it be- 
comes; strong wooded and 
bushy, and white with 
corymbs of large flowers. 
Its fragrance is very enticing 
to bumblebees — and how im- 
patient are their clumsy ef- 
forts over the flowers, which 
are really too small for them. 
HE herbaceous plants 
are not of course to be 
forgotten. Far north, partic- 
ularly in Ontario and the 
western part of Quebec are 
many plants that are also 
common southward into the 
states, but there are in ad- 
dition some very distinctive 
ones which do best only in 
cold situations. There is 
the Pitcher-plant (Sarracenia 
purpurea) common in the 
cold sphagnum bogs from 
Wisconsin northward, grow- 
ing to perfection unaffected 
by summer heat. There are 
Orchids too, and Lilies re- 
sembling Orchids, that hide 
in the shade of wet woods. 
(These must be patiently 
sought for). The Snowberry 
(Chiogenes hispidula) may be 
included too, although it is 
not herbaceous. It dwells in 
the wet and cold of Tama- 
rack swamps, and though its fruit — waxy white and spotted — 
is its only attraction, it helps to make interesting the wet, 
shady places where few plants grow. Cornus canadensis has 
no competition in its class, and it is a much better plant near 
its northern limit. Where Spruce forest meets the meadow 
how often in the north I have seen this plant from a surprising 
distance, its scarlet berries vivid against the leaves. 
I cannot remember that the first acquaintance of any other 
flower has impressed me asdidthe Twin-flower (Linnea borealis). 
The charm of its delicacy and the great fragrance from so small 
a flower come as a double surprise in the cool wet northern 
woods where flowers are scarce; and you must get down to 
mother earth to sense the intimacy of these two exquisitely 
delicate flowers, borne on a stalk so slender that it would seem 
to break. They seem to be individuals with responsive faces, 
Photographed in Maine 
THE GROUND HEMLOCK IN A CONGENIAL SPOT 
Liking shade as it does, this evergreen (Taxus canadensis) adapts itself 
readily to the sun and the garden, where it becomes less straggling 
