My Garden in Spring 



Azara microphylla has done well here until this Spring, 

 and I had two fine standard specimens, then on one gusty 

 afternoon that in the rock garden was blown down, and 

 all its roots snapped beyond cure, and about half of the 

 other was torn out, yet no other tree in the garden was 

 injured, and these two were a long distance from each 

 other. I missed the Vanilla-ice-cream scent of its funny 

 little blossoms that had always pervaded the rock garden 

 at flowering time, and called my attention to the bloom 

 which is so much hidden under the leaves that it needs a 

 careful scrutiny to notice it. Xanthorhiza apiifolia was not 

 blown over, nor ever could be, for it is a lowly shrub, 

 and makes so many suckers that an interlacing mass 

 soon develops. It grows close to the vacant site of the 

 defunct Azara, and I like its quaint beauty. In late March 

 and on through April it bears its tassels of tiny livid 

 flowers, but so freely that when the sunlight catches it, 

 especially the low beams of a setting sun, the whole group 

 appears reddish-purple. It is quite an oddity, for it 

 belongs to the great Ranunculus family, and yet is a 

 woody shrublet, and except in Paeonia and Clematis 

 woody stems are not common in that family. Its leaves 

 do not appear until the flowering is well advanced, and they 

 are prettily divided, but the root is astonishingly yellow, 

 and it is worth pulling up some of the too-widely spread- 

 ing suckers to see the golden roots which give it its generic 

 name of Golden root in Greek words, while the specific ap- 

 pellation is simply Celery-leaved turned into Latin. I seem 

 to have taken you to the rock garden, for the Magnolia, the 

 largest Aegles, and Xanthorhiza live there, and the poor 

 overturned Azara used to, so now you are there you might 

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