Earliest Signs of Spring 
Nature never displayed a more unobtrusive 
yet profound contrast of the transient and eter- 
nal in plant-life, than in placing side by side, 
on trees and rocks, in all the woods and fields, 
this brilliant and ephemeral moss—a hectic flush 
upon a dying root—and the scarious, passion- 
less lichen, cadaverous, yet having in itself al- 
most the strength of endless life—a life, as one 
naturalist expresses it, ‘‘ which bears in itself no 
cause of death, and is only to be ended by exter- 
nal injuries, or by the alteration of climatic and 
atmospheric conditions.’’ Whoever recognizes 
this nature of the lichen beneath its humble, 
frigid exterior, must feel a genuine and peculiar 
respect for it, as the very tissue of heroism, the 
type of grim and inexhaustible tenacity of pur- 
pose. Deriving its nutriment from the moisture 
and floating particles of mineralsubstance in the 
atmosphere, it can withstand almost the severest 
changes of climate, and is nearly impervious to 
the extremes of cold and heat, of flood and 
drought. Ithas an unparalleled capacity for 
dormancy ; and, when its surroundings are so 
insufferable as absolutely to prevent its further 
development, it simply goes to sleep, and waits 
for better times to come. Profoundly philosoph- 
ical! It is correspondingly slow in coming to 
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