A year among the trees

by Wilson Flagg

This experiment with the Ailantus proved a failure; but the tree, being very stately and ornamental, continued to be cultivated in pleasure-grounds. It was introduced into the United States in the early part of this century, and is now very common in almost all the States as a wayside tree. It possesses a great deal of beauty, being surpassed by very few trees in the size and graceful sweep of its large compound leaves, that retain their brightness and their verdure after midsummer, when our native trees have become dull and tarnished.

The leaves of the Ailantus are pinnate, containing from nine to eleven leaflets, each of these being as large as the leaf of the beech-tree. It has a great superficial resemblance to the velvet sumach, both in its foliage and ramification, so that on first sight one might easily be mistaken for the other; for its branches, though more elegant, have the same peculiar twist that gives the spray of the sumach the appearance of a stag’s horn. The flowers are greenish, inconspicuous, and in upright panicles, resembling those of the poison sumach. They emit a very disagreeable odor while the flowers are in perfection, impregnating the air for a week or more.

BURNING-BUSHES.

There is a class of plants, not all belonging to the same genus, which have received the name of Burning-Bushes from the profusion of scarlet or crimson fruit that covers their branches after the leaves have fallen. The most beautiful of these are two species of euonymus, cultivated in gardens and ornamental grounds, and bearing the names of strawberry-tree, spindle-tree, and burning-bush. The fruit is from three to five cleft, of a pale crimson, and before the leaves have dropped, which in the autumn are nearly of the same color, the tree might, at a glance, be mistaken for a bush in flames. The euonymus, though abundant in the forests of the Middle States, is not wild in any part of New England. Here it is known only as a beautiful occupant of gardens.

Another of the Burning-Bushes is the prinos, very common in wet grounds, and known in the winter by the scarlet berries, clinging, without any apparent stems, to every twig and branch, and forming one of the most attractive objects in a winter landscape. Every part of the bush is closely covered with this fruit, which is never tarnished by frost and remains upon it until the spring. This plant has never received a good specific name. It is sometimes called winter-berry,—a name as indefinite as Mayflower to mark species, or human being to distinguish persons. It is also called black alder, because it has a dark rind, to distinguish it from the true alder, which is also of the same color.

The evergreen species is a more elegant shrub, with bright green leaves of a fine lustre. It is abundant in Plymouth County in Massachusetts, around New Bedford, and in Connecticut. It it highly prized in ornamental grounds and by florists, who bind it into their bouquets and garlands of cut flowers. The leaves of this plant have some pleasant bitter properties, and were used by our predecessors as a substitute for the tea plant, under the name of Appalachian tea.

THE BUCKTHORN.

The Buckthorn would hardly deserve mention in these pages, except that it is very generally employed for clipped hedge-rows, in the suburbs of our cities. It is a native both of Europe and America, though as it is seen only in grounds which have formerly been cultivated, or near them, it was probably introduced. It attains the height of a small tree. It is without any beauty, having a thin foliage that falls early and is never tinted. Its black shining berries are the only ornament it possesses, and its only merit is that of patiently enduring the shears of the gardener.

THE PRIVET.

The Privet is a much handsomer shrub of an allied family. Its foliage is more delicate, both in hue and texture, not so thin, and almost evergreen. It has become extensively naturalized in our woods, and is distinguished by its clusters of white flowers in summer and its black, shining berries in autumn. It is abundant in all lands once tilled which have become wild, in the vicinity of our old towns, and was probably introduced at an early period for an ornamental hedge plant.