ries are oval, a third of an inch long, pointed, compressed, oval, blue-black when ripe, and very disagreeable to the taste. The nut is of the same shape, slightly grooved.

SECTION SECOND.-The flowers in the margin of the cymes much larger than the others and sterile.

Sp. 1. THE HIGH CRANBERRY. CRANBERRY TREE. V. ópulus. L. A handsome, low tree, five to ten feet high, ornamented throughout the year with flowers or fruit. In May or early in June, it spreads open, at the end of every branch, a broad cyme of soft, delicate flowers, surrounded by an irregular circle of snow-white stars, scattered, apparently, for show. From the common axil of the upper pair of leaves, a stout, furrowed footstalk, one or two inches long, separates into five, six, or more, radiating branches, from each of which, after successive similar sub-divisions, proceed a number of crowded flowers, diverging, on short, partial footstalks, from a single, central point. Each perfect flower is a white cup of a single piece, with a border of five round lobes, sitting in a green calyx with a few obsolete teeth, and bearing, from its base, within, five upright stamens, twice as long as itself, which support whitish anthers, opening from the top. The germ is a short, white, conical body, terminating in two or three minute stigmas, and seeming, when the corolla is gone, immediately to surmount the calyx. At the base of the flower-stems and branches, are long, linear, brown, fugacious bracts. The outer florets are on longer stalks, barren, salver-shaped, of five larger, unequal, obovate, rounded lobes.

The leaves are opposite, from two to five inches long, straight, rounded or acute at base, three-nerved, and with three very divergent, acuminate lobes, and large, unequal, obtuse teeth, strongly veined, paler beneath. The footstalks are three fourths of an inch to an inch in length, with one or two glandular stipules below, and a few glands near the base of the leaf and towards the bottom, the lower ones hair-like.

The fruit, which is red when ripe, is of a pleasant acid taste, resembling cranberries, for which it is sometimes substituted.

Drs. Torrey and Gray have shown that there is no essential difference between this plant and the European Guelder Rose, V. ópulus, a variety of which, propagated by gardeners, is the well-known Snow Ball Tree.

Sp. 2. THE WAYFARING TREE. HOBBLE BUSH. V. lantanoides. Michaux.

Figured in Audubon's Birds, II, Plate 148.

This plant received its specific name, lantanòides, from its resemblance to the English Wayfaring tree, V. lantàna, the tree which William Howitt addresses, when he says,

Whate'er it be, I love it well;

A name, methinks, that surely fell
From poet, in some evening dell,

Wandering with fancies sweet."-Book of the Seasons, p. 115.

That tree rises to the height of eighteen or twenty feet, and has an ample head of white flowers. Ours, less fortunate in its name, is a stout, low bush, found in dark, rocky woods, and making a show, in such solitary places, of a broad head of flowers, the marginal ones often an inch across. It has large, opposite, very diverging branches, often declining to the ground, and a dark brown bark, scattered with a few grayish, wart-like dots. The recent shoots, flower-stalks and leaf-stalks are profusely clothed with a brown, rusty down, which gradually disappears from the branches, except towards the joints.

The buds come out in threes, of which the middle one often contains flowers and leaves, the side ones leaves only. They have no scales, but are, instead, clothed with a close, rusty tomentum, which gives them the appearance of leather. The leaves are from four to six inches in length and breadth. leaf-stalks have an appendage at base, which, though gradually shrivelling, is very large at first, forming a broad wing near the base, and terminating in awl-shaped points.

The

The leaves are roundish, heart-shaped at base, ending in a short, abrupt point, and unequally serrate on the margin. They

are nearly smooth above, but beneath, downy on the veins, which are thereby rendered strikingly distinct. The primary veins, which are prominent, branch only on the lower side, and are intersected at right angles by the parallel secondary veins, forming a beautiful net-work.

The cymes or heads of flowers radiate from two or more points, the partial footstalks having at their base, linear or strapshaped, leathery, deciduous bracts. The fruit is ovate, large, of bright crimson color, turning afterwards almost black. The minute calyx occupies the terminal cavity. The nut is oblongoval, with an obtuse point, flattened, and grooved on both sides.

FAMILY XX. THE HEATH FAMILY. ERICA CEE.

Few families embrace a greater variety of extremely beautiful plants than this. Few are so universally the favorite objects of cultivation. They recommend themselves to the cultivator by their hardiness, many of them being natives of this or of similar climates, by their showy and lasting flowers, and often by their evergreen leaves. There are three, very distinct sub-divisions of the family; the Heaths, the Rhododendrons, and the Andromedas. The Pyrolas and Monotropas, still more distinct, are by some authors considered as forming a separate family. Of the true heaths, we have no native species. The greater part of them are indigenous to the Cape of Good Hope, whence they have been most extensively introduced into the conservatories of Europe and America; a few are natives of Europe. Of the other allied tribes we have many representatives in New England. Distinguished by their singular beauty, peculiar appearance, and usually their social or gregarious habits, they are found in all climates and in almost all parts of the world, except New Holland, in which their place is taken by their near allies, the Epacrideæ.

The plants of this family are shrubs, under shrubs, or trees, with leaves mostly entire, coriaceous and sempervirent, without

stipules. The flowers are usually perfect, symmetrical and regular. The calyx is usually four- or five-cleft; the corolla four-parted, rarely five-parted, with the parts alternate with those of the calyx; the stamens are as many as the segments of the corolla and alternate with them, or twice as many, inserted in the base of the corolla, or in the edge of a disk at the bottom of the calyx; anthers two-celled, opening by a terminal pore or cleft, and with often a pointed bristle projecting above or below. The ovary is free, with cells as numerous as the segments of the calyx and alternate with them, and many-seeded; or rarely one-celled. The fruit is capsular, or rarely berrylike, and generally many-celled and many-seeded.

In their properties, they are almost universally more or less astringent and diuretic, and many of them abound in tannin. But the different tribes have different properties. The heaths of the north of Europe are used by the inhabitants to tan leather, to dye yarn, as an ingredient in beer, and as a material for thatching; and the seeds afford food to many kinds of birds. Most of the plants of the Rhododendron group are of a doubtful character, and to some animals several of them are poisonous. The fleshy berries of some of the Andromeda group are an agreeable and healthy article of food. Honey made by bees that feed on the flowers of the European heaths is said to be of an inferior quality, and that from bees fed on some species of rhododendron is considered poisonous. The pleasantly acidulous berries of the Strawberry Tree, A'rbutus unedo, are eaten in the south of Europe, and in Corsica an agreeable wine is prepared from them. Its bark is very astringent, and, in Spain and the East, is employed in tanning.

THE ANDROMEDA TRIBE. ANDROME DEÆ. DON.

Shrubs with a capsular fruit and deciduous corolla.

XX. 1. THE ANDROMEDA.

ANDROMEDA. L.

Humble shrubs, found in North America and also in northern Asia and Europe; with a five-cleft calyx, with acute segments, simple at base; a globose corolla with a contracted mouth; and ten included anthers with bearded filaments, and short, oneawned anthers.

THE WATER ANDROMEDA. A. polifòlia. L.

It was for this modest and delicate plant, which is a native of the north of Europe as well as of this country, that Linnæus selected the poetical name of the genus. The following is the account which himself gives of it in his "Tour in Lapland," I, 188. "Andrómeda polifòlia was now (June 12,) in its highest beauty, 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 fleshcolor. 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. As I contemplated it, I could not help thinking of Andromeda, as described by the poets; and the more I meditated upon their descriptions, the more applicable they seemed to the little plant before me; so that, if these writers had it in view, they could scarcely have contrived a more apposite fable. Andromeda is represented by them as a virgin of most exquisite and unrivalled charms; but these charms remain in perfection only so long as she retains her virgin purity, which is also applicable to the plant now preparing to celebrate its nuptials. This plant is always fixed on some little turfy hillock in the midst of the swamps, as Andromeda herself was chained to a rock in the sea, which bathed her feet, as the fresh water does the roots of this plant. Dragons and venomous serpents surrounded her, as toads and other reptiles frequent the abode of her vegetable resembler, and, when they pair in the spring, throw mud and water over its leaves and branches. As the distressed virgin cast down her blushing face through excessive affliction, so does this rosy-colored flower hang its head, growing paler and paler till it withers away." "At length, comes Perseus, in the shape of summer, dries up the surrounding water, and destroys the monsters, rendering the damsel a fruitful mother, who then carries her head (the capsule) erect."

This, as it is found here, is a low shrub, a foot or more in height, growing naturally in boggy places, but capable of being successfully cultivated in any common, moist soil. The stem