THE VALUE OF WHITE FLOWERS 359 



Nature is never crude except through an unsuc- 

 cessful human attempt to reproduce the uncopyable. 

 Give one of these critics all the colour combinations 

 of the evening sky and let him manipulate them with 

 wires and what a scorched omelet he would make of 

 the most simple and natural sunset ! 



While Nature does not locate the different colours 

 on the palette to please the eye of man, but to carry 

 out the various steps in the great plan of perpetuation, 

 yet on that score it is all done with a sense of colour 

 value, else why are the blossoms of deep woods, as well 

 as the night-blooming flowers that must lure the moth 

 and insect seekers through the gloom, white or light- 

 coloured ? 



In speaking of white or pale flowers there is one low 

 shrub with evergreen leaves and bluish-white flowers 

 that I saw blooming in masses for the first time 

 not far from Boston in early May. There was 

 a slight hollow where the sun lay, that was well 

 protected from the wind. This sloped gently 

 upward toward some birches that margined a pond. 

 The birches themselves were as yet but in tassel, 

 the near-by grass was green in spots only, and yet here 

 in the midst of the chill, reluctant promise of early 

 spring was firmness of leaf and clustered flowers of 



