In England the same misfortune has fallen upon both the American and Oriental Plane. The late spring frosts are mentioned as the probable cause of the phenomenon, though there is but little resemblance between our climate and that of England. This tendency of the two species has prevented the general planting of them for shade and ornament. English writers give their preference to the American Plane, which they assert equals the other in size, and surpasses it in beauty of foliage. In England the American Plane has frequently attained a very great magnitude. Selby mentions one which, at forty years from the time it was planted, measured a hundred feet in height. The specific differences between the two Planetrees consist chiefly in the size and shape of their leaves, those of the Oriental Plane being smaller, and more deeply lobed or divided into segments. Both species have the same habit of annually shedding their bark, leaving the trunk with a smooth and whitish surface.
THE MYRTLE.
Among the Greeks and Romans, the oak was dedicated to Jupiter, the olive to Minerva, and the Myrtle, from the delicacy and beauty of its foliage, to Venus; and the temple of this goddess was surrounded by Myrtle groves. Hence the Myrtle and the rose have always been twined with garlands and prizes for beauty,—the one being admired for its flowers, the other for its delicate and aromatic leaves. A great deal of the romance of botany is lost to us, the inhabitants of the New World, on account of the absence from our woods of many of the plants most celebrated in classic poetry and medieval romance. We have not the heath, nor the olive, nor the ivy; and many of the humble flowers of the meadow, familiar to the reader of classical lore, are absent from our soil. Their absence, notwithstanding the beauty and elegance of many flowers and shrubs that seem to stand in the place of them, can never cease to be felt. The sacredness which a plant acquires by its association with ancient poetry and romance and with Holy Writ cannot be transferred to one of our indigenous plants of equal beauty. But there is romance in our own lives, and there are plants never mentioned in the literature of the romantic ages which are associated with certain hallowed periods and events in our youth that render them ever sacred to memory.
There are two or three plants in our own land that bear the classical name of Myrtle, not from any botanical resemblance or affinity to this plant, either in leaf or in flower, but from the aromatic odor of the leaves, like that of the true Myrtle. These plants are the Sweet-Gale, the bayberry, and the sweet-fern.
THE DUTCH MYRTLE, OR SWEET-GALE.
Along the low banks of rivers, and on the wooded shores of ponds and lakes that do not rise above the water-level, grows a slender and rather elegant bush, with dark and dull green foliage, possessing a very agreeable odor, which is perceived when the leaf is crushed. The Sweet-Gale is indigenous both in Europe and America. It is found only in wet places, where it forms knolls and copses, excluding all other plants by the density and vigor of its growth. This exclusive habit is owing to the multitude and tenacity of its roots, that form a subterranean network almost impenetrable. The Sweet-Gale is about half aquatic; it grows out of the water like the button-bush, and is, I believe, never found except in lands which are annually inundated.
It is this shrub that regales the sight with fresh verdure, rising out of the bosom of shallow waters in compact masses and forming little islets of shrubbery, without the mixture of any other plant. Through these wooded islets, on angling excursions, we propel our boat, while the surface of the lake is spangled with water-lilies, which, intermingled with the long blue spikes of pickerelweed and other aquatic flowers, while the notes of the veery and the red mavis are heard from the shore, afford the scene a kind of tropical splendor.
THE BAYBERRY.
This species has an odor very similar to that of the sweet-gale, and from its fragrance and its waxy fruit it has obtained the name of the Candleberry Myrtle. It delights in dry pastures upon the hills and uplands, to which it is a humble, but not insignificant ornament. This plant can make no very evident pretensions to beauty, having rough and crooked branches, and imperfect flowers and fruit, without any elegance of form. But its foliage is so regular, so dense, and of so bright a verdure, that it never fails to attract attention. Indeed, it displays some of the finest masses of pure green leafage to be seen among our upland shrubbery. But seldom does any tint except the green of summer appear in the Bayberry. It takes no part in the grand pageant of autumn. The fruit of this plant is a subject of great curiosity. It consists of little greenish-gray berries, stemless, and completely covering the branches like warts, thickly coated with a waxy substance, which is soluble in boiling water. This substance, when collected, makes a very hard wax of a greenish color.