My Garden in Spring 



side had grown much faster than the other, and alternating 

 lengths are generally curved in opposite directions ; fre- 

 quently they are twisted spirally as well, so that the whole 

 bush is a collection of various curves and spirals, a tangle 

 of crooks and corkscrews from root to tip. They do not 

 straighten out with age and thickening, and in winter, when 

 leafless, the interlacing twigs are beautiful as well as curious, 

 but when covered with the large crumpled leaves it has a 

 heavy and somewhat diseased look, for each leaf is twisted 

 or a little rolled, and they look as though attacked by 

 leaf-rolling caterpillars. I have not seen catkins or nuts 

 on it, and wonder whether the former would be curly 

 lambs' tails, and the latter coiled like rams' horns. A 

 young plant of a similarly twisted Hawthorn has now come 

 to be a companion to the nut, but has not had time to 

 develop its mania very fully. As a contrast there is the 

 fastigiate form of the common Elder, the wood of which 

 grows as stiff and straight and upright as a grenadier. A 

 good specimen is an attractive object, as the leaves come in 

 congested bunches at intervals on the straight wood, and 

 though the leaflets are large, they are closely packed owing 

 to the shortness of the central leafstalk, and look very much 

 more like those of a Mulberry than an Elder. 



Close to its feet grows a pigmy form of Elder that 

 was a discovery of mine. It appeared one Spring in an 

 old tree in the garden as a dark, heavy mass, and at first 

 I watched it to see what strange bird's nest it was, but it 

 constantly increased in size and altered its shape and I 

 never saw a bird near it, so I climbed up to investigate 

 closer, and found it was a Witch's Broom and then about a 

 foot in diameter. When the leaves fell from the rest of the 

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