Part 18

The white-fruited Cornel is very frequent by waysides, rising a little above our loose stone-walls. This seems to be the most abundant species outside of the woods in the vicinity of Boston. Its flowers are white and rather inconspicuous, and are succeeded by clusters of pearly white berries. The blue-fruited Cornel, or red osier, is remarkable for its colored branches and large round leaves with an acuminate termination. The blue fruit of this species is very ornamental, and it is distinguished after the fall of the leaf by its bright red stems and branches. The Cornel is hardly less important than the viburnum in adding variety to our wood-scenery at all seasons.

By far the most interesting and beautiful species of the genus is the Florida Cornel, so called from its abundance in the forests on the American side of the Gulf of Mexico. In all that region, the woods in May are white with its large conspicuous flowers, sometimes occupying tracts of many acres exclusively, covering them with an almost unvaried whiteness, before the leaves of the trees are put forth. The flowers are borne in semiglobular heads, enclosed in a large spreading involucre, which is often mistaken for the corolla, the florets within resembling superficially a collection of stamens. About the first of June, in New England, these trees are very attractive, seeming like masses of pure white inflorescence. In the North it does not constitute the principal growth of any wood; but it is admired by all when they see it scattered among the greenery, and admired the more from its infrequency in this region.

The small branches are greenish, striated with longitudinal and irregular white lines. The leaves are two or three inches long, oval, and of middle size. The flowers appear on the ends of the branches, included in an involucre consisting of four divisions. The head of florets thus enclosed ripens into a bunch of bright scarlet berries, surrounded by a dark purple calyx. In the autumn all the species turn to different shades of red and purple.

The little dwarf Cornel, though an herbaceous plant, deserves mention in connection with the other species. It may be compared to a flower cut off with a single whorl of leaves, and then inserted into the ground. You might suppose that the large tree Cornel was buried, and that these little whorls, with their flowers, were peeping up through the ground from the branches beneath. At some distance they are easily mistaken for wood-anemones, though on examination no resemblance is apparent. The flowers are very showy and attractive in the wild pastures and woods, and produce in the autumn a round and compact cluster of scarlet berries, which are said to be pleasant and wholesome, but rather insipid. In winter they are the food of many species of birds.

THE SUMACH.

The Sumachs are not the objects of any special admiration. They are not the favorites of nature or of art, neither adding dignity to the landscape nor expression to the canvas of the painter. But they blend their fine pinnate foliage with the wayside shrubbery, varying its appearance by their original habit of growth; and they are seen springing in little groups upon sandy plains, where they relieve the eye that might otherwise be wearied with the monotonous waste of sorrel and tufted andropogons. They display many of the characters of the tropical plants in their long compound leaves, and in the exuberant growth of their recent branches. They are distinguished by their milky, resinous, and in some cases poisonous sap.

THE VELVET SUMACH.

The most common and conspicuous species in New England is the Staghorn, or Velvet Sumach, the largest of the genus. Its name is derived from a certain likeness of its crooked branches, when deprived of their leaves, to a stag’s horn. This Sumach rises to the dignity of a tree in favorable situations, and soon becomes a handsome standard, if the suckers about the roots have no chance to grow. Though its branches are crooked and irregular, and form a spray that is absolutely ugly, the tree is very comely when wearing its leafy garniture and decked with conical bunches of crimson fruit.

The Sumach is sometimes very ornamental in situations that permit the whole ground to be occupied by it. Its natural habit of growth is in clumps, gradually spreading over a wide extent of surface. So prone is this tree to throw up suckers from its long roots, that if it meets with no opposition it is apt to monopolize the whole ground. The most appropriate places for it are the banks of railroads and other similar slopes, which are rendered firm by the network of its numerous roots. There is no other plant that would in so short a time cover a gravelly bank with wood and foliage.

The Smooth Sumach is a smaller shrub, averaging only three or four feet in height. It affects similar localities, being common on the borders of dry fields and the sides of old roads that pass over a sandy and gravelly plain. It is not readily distinguished from the larger species; but its fruit and flowers are borne in loose panicles, and its bunches have none of that downy substance that characterizes the Velvet Sumach.

THE POISON SUMACH, OR DOGWOOD.

I come now to speak of the Bohon Upas of our land,—the Poison Sumach. This is confessedly a dangerous plant, and is allied to the shrub from which the celebrated Wourali poison is made by the natives of Guiana. The poisonous properties of the sap are said to be dissipated by boiling. Hence the varnish prepared by the Chinese from the sap of this plant is free from its injurious properties. Hence also the danger of being exposed to its fumes, when its branches are burned with other brush.

The Poison Sumach is a very elegant shrub. It is prim and slender, and draws attention by its want of resemblance to other trees and shrubs in our woods. The main stems and principal branches are of an ashen-gray color, though the recent shoots, before they harden into wood, and the leaf-stems are of a fine crimson or purple. The leaves are beautifully pinnate, of a light green hue with purple veins. The flowers and fruit are greenish, inconspicuous, and without any beauty. This plant, unlike the other species, is found only in low boggy situations.

There are some unaccountable facts connected with the poisonous qualities of this tree. While some persons are affected with dangerous swellings and inflammation on the least exposure to it, others handle it, breathe its burning fumes, and even chew its leaves and branches with impunity. Some are rendered more susceptible by having been once poisoned; others, who were often injuriously affected by it in their youth, outgrow their susceptibility, and may afterwards handle the plant without danger. As certain persons are exempt from the malignant effects of this plant, there is occasionally an instance of similar effects suffered by individuals from other plants. I am acquainted with a lady who has been frequently poisoned by handling the branches of the black wild cherry. Such isolated facts serve to increase the mystery attending the subject.

A notion prevails in the country, that the recent shoots of the pitch-pine, if frequently chewed, will render any one safe from the effects of this poison. The forest undoubtedly abounds in antidotes to the injurious action of the Poison Sumach and other similar plants; and I have often thought that the impunity with which the goat browses upon narcotic herbs may be caused by the counteracting effects of other plants among the many species which he devours in the field and pasture. It is admitted that persons who spend much of their time in the woods are not liable to be affected by this poison. They may, in some way or other, become inoculated with its antidotes. I have never suffered in the least degree from it, though I have passed a considerable part of my lifetime in the forest. Catesby mentions a fact, which he says was well attested, of an Indian who daubed himself with the juice of the purple bindweed, and then handled a rattlesnake with his naked hands with impunity. Some high authority may be quoted to sustain any similar improbable fact or absurd opinion.

THE ELDER.

Everybody is familiar with the Elder, with its large corymbs of white flowers, hanging over ditches and watercourses, rivalling the linden in sweetness and equalling the balm in its healing virtues. It is common in all wet fallows, flowering in the latter part of June. No shrub is so generally known, both as a tenant of the fields and as an ingredient in the packages of the simpler. We have seen its dried flowers in nice paper bags, neatly done up by some benevolent hands for the benefit of the sick, and we breathed their odors as they were wafted from the vessel in which they were steeped, before we ever saw them in the fields. The Elder is one of the flowering shrubs that first attracts our attention after the blossoms of the orchard have faded. The bee is seen to hunt for it before the vine is in blossom, leaving the flowers of the garden for these abundant stores of native sweets. In autumn we have seen the fences and brooksides laden with its fruit, while the purple clusters were stripped day after day by the robin and catbird, until not one was left to fall to the ground. When the leaves are gone, the branches are sought by children, who use its hollow wood for making various juvenile implements.

“The Elder,” says Barnard, speaking of the English plant, “is common, almost universal, in cottage gardens, hedge-rows, and ruins. It is in fact a thoroughly domesticated tree, and seldom is it found in England far from human habitation, although I have seen it in the wildest valleys of the Pyrenees, when it appeared to have the richest scarlet berries, instead of black.” The species seen in the Pyrenees is probably identical with the American panicled Elder, a rare species in New England, bearing its flowers in spikes, and producing scarlet berries.

The Elder has not much beauty when unadorned either with flowers or fruit. Its pinnate leaves are of a dull green, and seldom add any tints to the glory of autumn. Its flowers, borne in large flat cymes, are very showy, and emit a peculiar though agreeable odor, and are used in Europe to give to wine the flavor of Frontignac. The berries of the European Elder, which is believed by Michaux to be the same as the American common Elder, differing only in its superior size, are said to be poisonous to poultry. But the fruit of the American shrub possesses no such properties. It is eagerly devoured by the insectivorous birds, and is used in the manufacture of a harmless dietetic wine, whose benefits have been very generally appreciated by nostrum venders.

THE HEATH.

There are no heaths in New England, or on the American Continent. We know them only as they are described in books, or as they are displayed in greenhouses. We are strangers to those immense assemblages that furnish an uninterrupted vegetable covering to the earth’s surface, from the plains of Germany to Lapland on the north, and to the Ural Mountains on the east. These plains, called heaths or heathlands, are a kind of sandy bogs, which are favorable to the growth of the Heath, while other plants with these disadvantages of soil cannot compete with them. The tenacity with which they maintain their ground renders them a great obstacle to agricultural improvement. They overspread large districts to the almost entire exclusion of other vegetation, rendering the lands unfit to be pastured, and useless for any purpose except to furnish bees with an ample repast but an inferior honey.

It is often lamented by the lovers of nature that the Heath, the poetical favorite of the people, the humble flower of solitude, the friend of the bird and the bee, affording them a bower of foliage and a garden of sweets, and furnishing a bulwark to larks and nightingales against the progress of agriculture,—it is often lamented that this plant should be unknown as an indigenous inhabitant of the New World. But if its absence be a cause for regret to those who have learned to admire it as the poetic symbol of melancholy, and as a beautiful ornament of the wilds, the husbandman may rejoice in its absence. We have in America the whortleberry, whose numerous species and varieties occupy, like the heaths of Europe, those lands which have not been reduced to tillage, without depriving them of their usefulness to man. They become in their beneficent products a source of profit to thousands of indigent gleaners of the pastures, and of simple luxury to all our inhabitants. Though Nature has denied us the barren flower, and left the imagination unrequited, she has given us, in the place of it, a simple fruit that furnishes annual occasions for many a delightful excursion to the youths and children of our land, and is a simple blessing to the poor.

The farmers of Eastern Massachusetts, who have seen the dyer’s broom spread itself over the hills, occupying the whole ground, and entirely displacing all valuable herbs and grasses, may form some idea of the mischiefs attending the spread of the Heath in Europe. The heaths might be described as tree-mosses, bearing a multitude of minute campanulate flowers of various colors. They are not exceeded by any other plants, except mosses, in the uniform delicacy of their structure. Hence they are admired by florists, who find among them those multitudinous varieties which, in other plants, are produced by culture.

THE ANDROMEDA.

The plants of New England which are most nearly allied to the heath are the different species of Andromeda. These plants vary in height from one foot to seven or eight feet. They resemble the whortleberry in their general appearance, and in their leaves and flowers, but their fruit is a dry capsule, not a berry, and their foliage is not tinted in the autumn. They are, I believe, without an English name. Several species are indigenous in New England, but only two or three of them are common. One of the most beautiful, though extremely rare, is the Water Andromeda, which is found near the edges of ponds. This is the species which suggested to Linnæus the name given by him to the genus. He describes it in his “Tour of Lapland” as “decorating the marshy grounds in a most agreeable manner. The flowers are quite blood-red before they expand; but when full-grown the corolla is of a flesh-color. Scarcely any painter’s art can so happily imitate the beauty of a fine female complexion; still less could any artificial color upon the face itself bear a comparison with this lovely blossom.” He thought of Andromeda as described by the poets, and traced a fancied resemblance between the virgin and the plant, to which it seemed to him her name might be appropriately given.

One of the most common of our small water shrubs, very homely when viewed from a distance, but neat and elegant under close inspection, is the Dwarf Andromeda. It covers in some parts of the country wide tracts of swampy land, after the manner of the heath, and is not very unlike it in botanical characters, with its slender branches and myrtle-like foliage. It opens its flowers very early in spring, arranged in a long row, like those of the great Solomon’s-seal, extending almost from the roots to the extremities of the branches. The flowers all lean one way, each flower proceeding from the axil of a small leaf. Though an evergreen, the verdure of its foliage is so dull and rusty that it is hardly distinguished in the meadows which are occupied by it.

Another remarkable species is the panicled Andromeda, a tall and very common shrub in Eastern Massachusetts, distinguished from the whortleberry by its large compound clusters of densely crowded white flowers of a nearly globular shape. These flowers are much neater and more beautiful on examination than those of the blueberry, and resemble clusters of white beads. They are succeeded by a dry capsular fruit, bearing a superficial resemblance to white peppercorns. The fishermen of our coast have always employed the branches of this shrub, with those of the clethra, on account of their firmness and durability, as coverings to the “flakes” which are used for the spreading and drying of codfish. These two shrubs were formerly distinguished by them as the “black and the white pepper-bush,” one having berries of a lighter color than the other.

THE ROSE.