^be IRetgn of tbe ITmmortals 201 



we confront a mystery. We are so accustomed to 

 this annual fall of the leaf that " use has dulled us 

 to its strangeness." Let us think of this work of 

 late autumn stripping the branches. We know 

 something of " how " it is done, but " why " is it ? 

 We are told it is a token of hard times on our earth. 

 Once all the world was warm the year round, and 

 all the woods were leaf-green year in and out. 



Now the immortals among the trees live chiefly 

 in the tropics. The far north of the temperate zone 

 has a few varieties of evergreens, and our winter 

 woods have samples of these. When the age of ice 

 and the ages of long winters north and south of the 

 tropics came upon the world most of the trees as- 

 sumed a habit of dropping their leaves and with- 

 drawing from business in the cold season. These 

 bare-of-leaf trees were the glory of summer; the 

 evergreens, the tree immortals, are the glory of 

 winter. 



Here in our winter woods that large shrub— tower- 

 ing into a tree betimes — the holly, attracts attention ; 

 its broad, darkly green, i;liorn-guarded leaves cannot 

 hide the rich clusters of red berries. These sharp 

 spines on the edges of the leaves are the hardened 

 woody fibre extended beyond the green cellular fill- 

 ing-in. 



These leaf-spines have queer tales to tell us. They 



