IN SILENT WOODS QQ 



possessed both of shrubs with evergreen leaves and 

 exquisite blossoms and also of many strange, lowly - 

 growing plants, transcends them all. 



When, in May, Flowering Dogwood, either as 

 a shrub or a slender -limbed, flat-branching tree, 

 flashes the dazzling white of its flower wrappings at 

 us from between the trunks of tall trees, whose leaf- 

 age is quite up out of range, it seems as if this 

 luxuriant blossoming among the stern woodgrowths 

 must be wrought by magic. It is little to be 

 wondered that Indian lore took this flower as the 

 flag of truce between frost and growth, and that 

 the Red Men hastened to plant their maize as 

 soon as it unfurled before the breeze. Yet, con- 

 spicuous as are these wrappings, for the flowers 

 themselves make the small green central cluster, 

 at a little distance they too blend away mysteri- 

 ously, appearing like mere spots of light among 

 the other shadows. 



At this season if the eye drops to the ground, 

 where it slopes sunward and the undergrowth is 

 herbaceous rather than densely shrubby, it may see 

 the Lily family making its entrance, clad also in 

 purity, where the clean leaves and graceful petals of 

 the White Wood Trillium nod as they seem to bend 

 and hurry down the slope, crowding at the bottom 



