form of the thorn-apple rise from neglected heaps of rubbish, as if the noxious exhalations had assumed a material form, to warn man of the consequences of uncleanness.
There is a spot within the bounds of our county, that is classic ground to the naturalist,—where grow some plants that are not common to these northern regions. I am sure that I need only mention the laurel woods of Manchester, the farthest northern boundary of the Magnolia, to awaken the most pleasing recollections. Those who have seen these Kalmia groves, at the time of their flowering, can not soon forget the scene they present. The whole appears like an enchanted land. I have sometimes thought that this wild wood garden, full of sweet odors and graceful forms, must have been torn from some more genial clime, wafted across the calm bosom of our bay, and placed, some stilly night, just where it is, to give us a glimpse of a more favored creation. There, in the low ground, is found the Cymbidium, the Pogonia, and the beautiful Orchis fimbriata; plants that may vie with the proudest exotics, and which, in another hemisphere, are cherished among the most favored children of the earth. And shall I forget the Rhodora, that, like the almond, gives forth its lively purple flowers ere yet its leaves are expanded,—a shrub better known arid more valued abroad than in its own native land? Above all, there, too, is found the Magnolia, with its unrivalled foliage, saturating the air for miles with the odor of its flowers. We are certainly favored beyond measure in having within our borders a type of that genus of plants which is esteemed for flower and foliage the most magnificent the earth produces.
The pencil can give but a faint idea of the splendor of the Magnolia grandiflora; and the pen altogether fails in the effort to describe its charms. The South may well be proud of the possession of a tree of such noble bearing. The leaves are glossy, and of a most luxuriant softness. The young branches are of a fine, purplish brown, producing flowers at the extremity of each; and, when the tree rises to the height of sixty or seventy feet, and each branch holds up its petalled vase of ivory whiteness, as if presenting incense to the sun, it affords an appearance of beauty and grandeur that rivals the proudest productions of man.
