There were two or three guelder-rose bushes--the wild shrub--which were covered in June with white bloom; not in snowy balls like the garden variety, but flat and circular, the florets at the edge of the circle often whitest, and those in the centre greenish.

In autumn the slender boughs were weighed down with heavy bunches of large purplish berries, so full of red juice as to appear on the point of bursting.

As these soon disappeared they were doubtless eaten by birds.
Besides the hawthorn and briar there were several species of willow--the snake-skin willow, so called because it sheds its bark; the 'snap-willow,' which is so brittle that every gale breaks off its feeble twigs, and pollards.

One of these, hollow and old, had upon its top a crowd of parasites.

A bramble had taken root there, and hung over the side; a small currant-bush grew freely--both, no doubt, unwittingly planted by birds--and finally the bines of the noxious bitter-sweet or nightshade, starting from the decayed wood, supported themselves among the willow-branches, and in autumn were bright with red berries.