News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1914-12-16

~ 1DIlSllIuS ETeellS OI oui iiidI
kets, but where these cheering
plants come from and how they grow
is not so well known.
Christmas trees are furnished princl.
i pally by two families of trees-the
4 spruces and the frs. The spruces are
! the more bushy looking trees, with
| numerous small cones near the top.
| All through northern New England.
northern Michigan. Wisconsin and Min
nesota the spruces form vast forests
The black spruce grows in swamps.
where few other trees can live, while
the white spruce completes with the
noble pines for higher and better soil.
Every year millions of young spruces
are cut il the northern fOrests and
shipped to the cities aud prairie states
in carload lots. If the woodsmen can
find stand of young frs they take
them also The frs look more refined
and less bushy. and their green leaves
often stand away from the slender
branches like the teeth Of a comb.
While the use of Christmas trees has
come to us from Germany, the custom
of decorating our houses with holly and
mistletoe originated in England
Holly.
The home of our American holly Is
in the woods of New England and the
Allegheny mountains. In the north it
is a small evergreen shrub, but in the
south it sometimes grows to be tree
fifty feet high. With its glossy green
leaves and bright scarlet berries the
holly is an object of beauty in its ma
tive woods as well as in our fashion
able flats and churches. The hand OF
man has never cultivated this beauti-
full shrub. at least not on CONNER
cial scale. but the wild birds are at
tracted by its bright berries They eat
the scanty pulp and scatter the seeds
far and wide While some species of
holly grow as far south as Texas and
westward into Missouri and Arkansas,
the great forests of Michigan, Wiscon-
sin and Minnesota contain not sim
gle species of these beautiful shrubs.
Mistletoe.
A queer kind of plant is the mistle-
toe. If one saw it for the first time he |
might mistake it for the common |
witchs broom which is familiar to ev-
cry northern woodsman. In reality |
the mistetoe is a parasite which grows |
and lives on other trees, such as ma |
pie, poplar and tupelo, Its white fruit |
is eaten by birds. and the small seeds !
are accidentally dropped on the branch
es of trees The seeds adhere to the
bark. and if they happen to have been
planted on the right kind of host they
terminate and send a kind of sucker
like growth into the bark and wood
of their host, and a new mistletoe
plant begins its life and grows at the
expense of its host, from which it de-
rives nearly all its nourishment. Our
Christmas mistletoe is restricted to the
middle and southern states, growing
from New Jersey to Missouri and
south as far as Florida and Texas, but
is not found in the northern states.
Several species of mistletoe, however,
do occur in our western forests.
Christmas Greens.
The most humble plant of this happy
season is the small plant known as
Christmas greens or ground pines. 1t
Is a close relative of the ferns and
NOSES and. like these, occupies the
shady hooks and places of the forest
loor where it trails and twines among 4
he roots of the stately pines. 1t never
any flowers or true seeds.
It's small heads. which look like tiny
aars of grain. are filed with yellow
lust. This dust Is carried away by
he wind or shaken out and carried
IF by the gentle touch of squirrels.
abbits and other woodland folk From
his fine dust the new plants grow.
Few of us who enjoy the cheer of
hese Christmas plants do ever meet
hem in their native haunts in winter;
We can only study them where they
row when we take our summer out
NJ to the northern woods and to the
fountains