118 OTJB, COMMON TETJITS. 



clear, cool, tasteless or slightly acidulated liquid will 

 drain from the lower incision, a provision of Nature which 

 has sometimes saved the life of thirst-stricken wanderers 

 in the woods. Fed by such a flow of liquid life, the 

 little rounded buds, which have been lying all the winter 

 wrapped in down so close as to look like mere little 

 excrescences on the pale brown bark of the branches, 

 begin rapidly to expand and shoot forth into sprays of 

 tender green; one leaf from each articulation of the 

 many-jointed twigs, and mostly a waving tendril too, to 

 bear it company, these being, according to Carpenter, 

 developed from supernumerary flower-stalks; and it is 

 said that curious experimentalists have even sometimes 

 succeeded in transmuting them into fruitful bunches of 

 grapes, by cutting the branch immediately above them. 

 Soon after appears the blossom, little bunches of tiny five- 

 petaled, five-stamened flowerets of pale yellowish green, 

 so similar in colour to the leaves and so hidden among 

 them as to be scarcely discernible without close inspection. 

 The insignificance of their appearance has furnished 

 Krummacher with not the least beautiful of his Para- 

 bles, when he represents the haughty, self-sufficient youth 

 Adoniah as led by the prophet into a vineyard in spring, 

 and shown how humble is the forerunner of the noblest 

 of fruits, that he might learn of the vine in the blossom- 

 ing time of his youth ; " and Adoniah took all these words 

 of Samuel to heart, and went on henceforth with a still, 

 soft spirit." The flowers have the reputation of being 

 odorous but the perfume is not very perceptible, except 

 in an American variety called the " Sweet-scented," which 

 grows by river-sides in some parts of the United States, 

 and the 'blossoms of which exhale an exquisite fragrance, 

 resembling that of mignonette. But ere long these 

 humble blossoms disappear, the berries which take their 

 place swell larger and larger, until the little diverging 

 stalklets on w r hich they grow, together with the central 

 stem whence these proceed, are altogether hidden by the 

 clustering mass ; finally the colour changes as they ripen, 

 and the vine attains its full glory. And a glorious object, 

 indeed, it is! Whether in the pole-supported plant of 



