This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1849. Excerpt: ... sentative in the United States of the natural order Thymeleacese. The aborigines, it is said, made the bark into cordage, for which its extreme tenacity admirably fits it. A worthy friend in Charleston, S. C, related to me, that in a conversation he once had with a surviving actor in the war of independence, the latter assured him, that towards the close of that event (when, previous to the final evacuation of the country by the British, Carolina was a prey to the last fierce struggles for ascendency between the Whig and Tory or American and royalist factions, and a relentless partizan warfare was carrying on throughout the States), the bark of the Leatherwood supplied a too ready and fitting instrument of vengeance in the summary executions which usually followed defeat on either side, during their sanguinary and lawless conflicts amid the swamps and forests of the interior. Nor did my friend's informant hesitate to avow himself a particeps eriminis in having assisted to "string up " certain unfortunate adherents of the party opposed to his own, who fell into his hands, with this very primitive kind of halter. Pine woods seem wanting to the neighbourhood of Hamilton; but when the deciduous woods are felled, the Weymouth Pine, P. Strobus, springs up in the cleared places abundantly. This and the Hemlock, P. Canadensis, appear to be the only indigenous pines hereabouts. At Binkley's Corner, where the Dundas and Ancaster roads unite, I gathered Staphylea trifolia and Clematis virginiana; the latter, which is the representative of our C. Vitalba, besides having ternate leaves and dioecious flowers, is a more delicate or less woody and rqbust species, though otherwise much resembling it; nor does it grow in such overwhelming masses as our Travellers' Joy, but...