CHAPTER XVIII 

 IN WINTER WOODS 



The JNight is Mother of the Day, 



The Winter of the Spring; 

 And ever upon old Decay 



The greenest mosses cling. 



Behind the cloud the starlight lurks, 

 Through showers the sunbeams fall ; 



For God, who loveth all his works, 

 Has left His Hope with all. Whittier. 



WHEN the " leaves have forsaken the trees and 

 the forest is chilly and bare" it seems that the 

 wandering botanist will find nothing there to inter- 

 est or amuse him. 



But botany, like evil doing, has all seasons for 

 its own, and even when leaves and flowers are gone, 

 there are still in the woodlands a few signs that 

 the world's heart is beating still under its slumber- 

 robe of snow. 



Some humble plants go on growing, even at a 

 season when one would suppose all vegetation to 

 be benumbed with winter's icy breath. 



In sheltered hollows, where the sunshine causes 

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