A year among the trees

Chapter 67: THE BEARBERRY.

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About This Book

The volume offers a seasonal tour of New England woodlands, combining natural history, species descriptions, and landscape observation. It profiles many native trees and shrubs, noting forms, foliage, and identifying features, and organizes scenes by seasons and habitats. Interspersed essays examine trees' relations to soil, water, climate, electricity, birds, and insects, and discuss their roles in health, shade, and ornament. Practical and aesthetic considerations mingle with reflections on poetic and folkloric associations, while guidance on planting, forest rotation, and the varied expressions of trees rounds out a handbook for both the curious walker and the practical planter.

THE BEARBERRY.

The Bearberry is a more common plant, and more elegant in its foliage, with less conspicuous flowers, than the ground laurel. This plant covers extensive tracts on the borders of woods and partially under their protection. The foliage, resembling that of the box, has always been admired, and nothing makes a neater or more beautiful covering of the turfs which it adorns. The Bearberry is a native of both continents. It abounds in light sandy soils, forming a frequent undergrowth of a pitch-pine wood. The berries are eaten by quails and robins in winter, when they can seldom find any animal food except a few dormant insects.