Wild Harvests 
virtues that the fame of it spread among the whites, who 
adopted the plant name and all as a home remedy. It 
really has some tonic value, being bitter and astringent, and 
is collected by herb gatherers to this day wherewith to 
make a tea for coughs and colds. The seed-vessels remain 
on many of the plants throughout the winter. Held aloft 
on the slender stalks they make a very graceful study, 
reminding one of burned-out candelabra that may have 
lighted fairy revels on midsummer nights. 
Another species of pipsissewa, bearing dull-green leaves, 
streaked with white, is also abundant in winter woods. 
For some reason the herb collectors in South Jersey regard 
it as poisonous—a reputation quite unwarranted by the 
facts so far as generally known. The botanical name of 
both species, by the way, is an unusually beautiful one, in 
view of their hardy way of life—“chimaphila,” meaning 
the winter loving. 
The yellow-flowered, prickly cactus, that grows wild 
in sandy places throughout the Atlantic seaboard States, 
is now decked with its ripened fruit and making evident 
to all who see it the reason for the plant’s popular name of 
prickly pear. The fruit is a purplish berry shaped like a 
small pear, and, though very full of seeds, is edible and 
even pleasant to the human palate, possessing something of 
that thirst-quenching quality which makes the cactus 
family of such great economic importance in the deserts of 
the Southwest. 
Like miniature red-cheeked apples are the crimson hips 
of the swamp rose, sprays of which brought home from a 
November ramble make the house as cheerful as with 
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