386 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 



But if we turn and look northwards through the 

 woods the trunks appear bare. By this little bit 

 of wood-lore Indian hunters used to " get their 

 bearings" in the pathless forests. 



Raising our eyes we notice the great beauty of 

 the patterns which interlacing boughs and twigs 

 trace against the sky. Each tree has its own 

 beauty, for the form of the bare branches is al- 

 most as distinctive as that of the leaves, while 

 bark is so characteristic that a hunter or a lumber- 

 man can often tell the name of a tree from its 

 bark alone. 



By time the dark days of November come the 

 trees are all asleep and each is wrapped from its 

 topmost twigs to its lowest roots in a slumber-robe of 

 Nature's own weaving, a close tissue of cork-cells. 



Though every plant of the field and every tree 

 of the wood is entirely built of cells, these cells 

 may differ widely from one another in shape, size, 

 and use. 



They may be filled or partly filled with color- 

 less jelly, they may contain resin, tannin, mucilage, 

 oil, or mineral crystals, or they may be empty. 

 They may be many sided, or cylindrical, or spindle- 

 shaped, or thread-like, and the thread-like ones 

 may be straight or twisted or branched. Some- 



