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.