[AMERICAN BARRENWORT—Vancouveria parviflora.]

The service-berry seems to be at home throughout our borders, but it reaches its greatest perfection north of us, on the rich bottom-lands of the Columbia River. In spring the bushes are beautiful, when snowily laden with masses of ragged white flowers; and from June to September they are no less welcome, when abundantly hung with the black berries, which usually have a bloom upon them. These berries are an important article of food among our Western Indians, who make annual pilgrimages to the regions of their growth, gathering and drying large quantities for winter use. The drying they effect by crushing them to a paste, which they spread upon bark or stones in the sun. It is said that many a party of explorers, lost in the woods, has been kept alive by this little fruit.

Almost the same shrub in the Atlantic States is called "shad-bush," because it blooms at about the season when the shad are running up the streams.

CHRISTMAS-BERRY. CALIFORNIAN HOLLY. TOYON.

Heteromeles arbutifolia, Rœmer. Rose Family.

Shrubs four to twenty-five feet high. Leaves.—Alternate; short-petioled; oblong; serrate; leathery; two to four inches long. Flowers.—Small; white; four lines across; in dense terminal panicles. Calyx.—Five-toothed. Petals.—Five; roundish; spreading. Stamens.—Ten; on the calyx. Filaments awl-shaped; flat. Ovaries.—Two; one-celled. Styles slender. Berries.—Red; four lines in diameter; in large clusters. Hab.—Coast Ranges, from San Diego to Mendocino County.

Christmas could hardly be celebrated among us without our beautiful Californian holly. Florists' windows and the baskets of street-venders at that season are gay with the magnificent clusters of rich cardinal berries, which are really ripe by Thanksgiving. The common name, "Californian holly," refers more to the berries than to the leaves, as the latter have not the form of holly-leaves. We have often seen the venders mix the berries with the prickly foliage of the live-oak, to make them seem more like holly.

The large clusters of spicy white flowers appear in July and August. Nothing in all our flora yields a finer contrast of lavish scarlet against rich green. The berries have a rather pleasant taste, somewhat acid and astringent, and are eaten by the Indians with great relish. The Spanish-Californians used them in the preparation of an agreeable drink.

This is a very handsome shrub in cultivation.

VIRGIN'S BOWER. CLEMATIS.