Sweet Pepperbush. White Alder.
Clethra alnifolia. Heath Family.
A shrub from three to ten feet high. Leaves.—Alternate, ovate, sharply toothed. Flowers.—White, growing in clustered finger-like racemes. Calyx.—Of five sepals. Corolla.—Of five oblong petals. Stamens.—Ten, protruding. Pistil.—One, three-cleft at apex.
Nearly all our flowering shrubs are past their glory by midsummer, when the fragrant blossoms of the sweet pepperbush begin to exhale their perfume from the cool thickets which line the lanes along the New England coast. There is a certain luxuriance in the vegetation of this part of the country in August which is generally lacking farther inland, where the fairer flowers have passed away, and the country begins to show the effects of the long days of heat and drought. The moisture of the air, and the peculiar character of the soil near the sea, are responsible for the freshness and beauty of many of the late flowers which we find in such a locality.
Clethra is the ancient Greek name for the alder, which this plant somewhat resembles in foliage.
Thorn-apple. Jamestown Weed.
Datura Stramonium. Nightshade Family.
Stem.—Smooth and branching. Leaves.—Ovate, wavy-toothed or angled. Flowers.—White, large and showy, on short flower-stalks from the forks of the branching stem. Calyx.—Five-toothed. Corolla.—Funnel-form, the border five-toothed. Stamens.—Five. Pistil.—One. Fruit.—Green, globular, prickly.
The showy white flowers of the thorn-apple are found in waste places during the summer and autumn, a heap of rubbish forming their usual unattractive background. The plant is a rank, ill-scented one, which was introduced into our country from Asia. It was so associated with civilization as to be called the “white man’s plant” by the Indians.
Its purple-flowered relative, D. Tatula, is an emigrant from the tropics. This genus possesses narcotic-poisonous properties.
Wild Balsam-apple.
Echinocystis lobata. Gourd Family.
Stem.—Climbing, nearly smooth, with three-forked tendrils. Leaves.—Deeply and sharply five-lobed. Flowers.—Numerous, small, greenish-white, unisexual; the staminate ones growing in long racemes, the pistillate ones in small clusters or solitary. Fruit.—Fleshy, oval, green, about two inches long, clothed with weak prickles.