hedges; but the wild roses of
Maryland and Virginia might be the choicest favourites of the
flower garden. They are rarely very double, but the brilliant
eye atones for this. They are of all shades, from the deepest
crimson to the tenderest pink. The scent is rich and delicate;
in size they exceed any single roses I ever saw, often measuring
above four inches in diameter. The leaf greatly resembles that
of the china rose; it is large, dark, firm, and brilliant. The
sweetbrier grows wild, and blossoms abundantly; both leaves and
flowers are considerably larger than with us. The acacia, or as
it is there called, the locust, blooms with great richness and
profusion; I have gathered a branch less than a foot long, and
counted twelve full bunches of flowers on it. The scent is equal
to the orange flower. The dogwood is another of the splendid
white blossoms that adorn the woods. Its lateral branches are
flat, like a fan, and dotted all over, with star-like blossoms,
as large as those of the gum-cistus. Another pretty shrub, of
smaller size, is the poison alder. It is well that its noxious
qualities are very generally known, for it is most tempting to
the eye by its delicate fringe-like bunches of white flowers.
Even the touch of this shrub is poisonous, and produces violent
swelling. The arbor judae is abundant in every wood, and its
bright and delicate pink is the earliest harbinger of the
American spring. Azalias, white, yellow, and pink; kalmias of
every variety, the too sweet magnolia, and the stately
rhododendron, all grow in wild abundance there. The plant known
in England as the Virginian creeper, is often seen climbing to
the top of the highest forest trees, and bearing a large trumpet-
shaped blossom of a rich scarlet. The sassafras is a beautiful
shrub, and I cannot imagine why it has not been naturalized in
England, for it has every appearance of being extremely hardy.
The leaves grow in tufts, and every tuft contains leaves of five
or six different forms. The fruit is singularly beautiful; it
resembles in form a small acorn, and is jet black; the cup and
stem looking as if they were made of red coral. The graceful and
fantastic grapevine is a feature of great beauty, and its
wandering festoons bear no more resemblance to our well-trained
vines, than our stunted azalias, and tiny magnolias, to their
thriving American kindred.

There is another charm that haunts the summer wanderer in
America,