TKRben Grass is Green 



where in the wide landscape was there evidence of 

 anything but youthful, active life. For the new 

 leaves upon the wooded hillside make the old hills 

 and gnarly oaks new again. Why, I cannot tell, 

 but as I rested in the hickories, I heard no birds 

 and saw no butterflies ; and for a brief moment 

 was alone with plant-life. I sat upon the mossy 

 root of the tree, and noticed, by mere chance, that 

 the bark far above the ground was green ; clothed 

 with a growth that would have needed a microscope 

 to detect it, had it not been present in untold mill- 

 ions of individual plants. A single one is little 

 more than a single cell, with an infinitely small trace 

 of the green that nature is so lavish with when she 

 carpets the meadow and clothes the mountain- 

 side. All the chlorophyl in a handful of these cells 

 on the tree's bark would not color more than one 

 blade of grass ; and yet the insignificant growth is 

 a plant as well as the hickory that towers just 

 eighty-two feet above me. What a world of va- 

 riety between the mould on damp bricks and the 

 trees! But wide apart as they are, there is no 

 break in the chain from the one to the other. The 

 meadow was very uniform in appearance as I care- 

 lessly glanced over it, wondering what had become 

 of the birds ; but how common it is to get an er- 

 roneous impression by contenting ourselves with 

 careless glances. Nature never rewards a languid 

 interest in her. 



What I called a "grassy " meadow was in truth 

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