214 
BITTERSWEET 
This robust and sturdy climber gives the most 
cheering manifestation of life and vigour in the 
winter woods* Its bright scarlet and orange berries, 
with their three-lobed pods standing carelessly open, 
are indifferent to rain, snow, and frost* They do 
not resent the importunities of admirers, and will 
survive the winter as comfortably in a vase on a 
parlour table as under the sheltering sprays of a 
tolerant Cedar or exposed in the naked top of a 
Maple or Wild Cherry* They will even submit to 
an occasional washing, and will come out fresh and 
glossy — relieved of accumulations of the inevitable 
dust. These bunches of brilliant colour often relieve 
the dark-green shades of the Cedar, a tree with which 
the vine seems to take all manner of liberties. Each 
berry has a showy, orange rind, that opens in three 
parts like a half-peeled orange, displaying the bright 
scarlet fruit* This has three minute ridges formed in 
its efforts to open the divisions of the rind* When 
the clustered berries wither on the Night-shade and 
grow dull on the Mountain Ash with the advance of 
winter, the bright colours of the Bittersweet seem to 
grow more and more brilliant* 
