478 WILD FLOWEBS OP 



soon it is but a few that make an effort to effect this 

 onward but premature movement.* Our contempla- 

 tions, then must be directed to the wild interior of 

 the forest glade, seated on some rustic seat, as the sun 

 pours its glories from an unclouded sky, and lights 

 up the silent tranquil noon of October with reflected 

 light that burns upon the withering foliage as if with 

 pyrotechnic fire and all is still ; the frolicsome squir- 

 rel sits with curled-up tail upon the oaken bough, 

 the hare crouches moveless in her bracken form, and 

 amidst the reeds and tall bulrushes, the black coot 

 dreams on the mirrored pond, on whose glazed surface 

 not a circlet stirs. Now mark we the varied hues 

 that glow around us. In the following list I have 

 enumerated the characteristic tints that usually mark 

 the leaves of the trees named, before they drop off. 



Scarcely an autumn passes, however, without an attentive observer 

 perceiving some tree or shrub, which has put forth a second crop of 

 flowers, Irom which of course fruit would arise, if " a. killing irost" did 

 not arrest their progress. Even wild flowers are often proliferous in this 

 way, as if capricinu>ly throwing their beauties into " old Hiem's lap; " 

 but these anomalies may be oltcner noticed in cultivated plants. From 

 such sportive treaks of nature, permanent varieties have arisen, endowed 

 with the properties of their progenitor, and I should account in this way 

 for the "Holy Thorn" of Glastonbury, Caldenham Oak, in the New 

 Forest, and other famou pruilromic exhibitors of flowers or foliage, of 

 course enlisted into the legendary credulity of the day. A superstitious 

 relic of this kind now exists in a garden close to the west end of the 

 cathedral at Gloucester, in the shape of an Apple tree, commonly called 

 by the inhabitants of the fair city " the forbidden fruit!' 1 '' very proba- 

 bly a legacy from the monks of the former abbey. The fruit of this tree 

 is never gathered, nor does it fall off like the generality of apple trees, 

 remaining till after the flowering of the following year, so that flowers 

 and Iruit appear on the tree together, as I can witness. The superstition 

 respecting the tree is, that it is the offspring of Eve's too celebrated apple, 

 and that death or some direful calamity would inevitably befall the daring 

 individual that plucked this " forbidden fruit." It is certainly curious to 

 see the fruit clustering upon the tree late in the spring;, and to witness 

 the respect in which it seems to be held, though its beauty is not very 

 remarkable. Some fanciful monk, I should imagine, first noticed and 

 nursed this odd variety of the apple. 



