THE LINDENS, ETC. 63 



was characteristic of the specimen which I have 

 drawn, to an oblongish or square-shouldered shape. 

 Its texture is hard and smooth, reminding one of 

 leather ; the teeth are extremely regular, sharp, fine, 

 and the veins are delicate and regularly arranged ; 

 there are few leaves, in fact, that can compare with 

 the perfection of form and structure which is ap- 

 parent at a glance in the shadbush leaf. Did I say 

 perfection ? That was hardly the right word ; no 

 leaf is really perfect. To demonstrate this fact to 

 our own satisfaction, we may begin what will prove 

 a fruitless search for a specimen whose outline we 

 may trace with a pencil, and then, reversing the leaf, 

 find the drawing still in conformity with it. No, 

 Nature does not trouble herself about that kind of 

 perfection which may be measured with a foot rule. 



The fruit of the shadbush is ripe in June and 

 July ; its flower is in bloom about the time the shad 

 " run." The bark of the tree is smooth, and laven- 

 der-brown ; less ruddy than that of black birch. I 

 call to mind a certain tree at least 20 feet high 

 growing wild on a river intervale among the White 

 Mountains, which would be an ornament of striking 

 beauty at its time of bloom in park or garden ; but it 

 remains a wild tree, which, like Thomas Gray's wild 

 flower, was " born to blush unseen." 



It would be well worth our while to search for 

 6 



