44 PHENOMENA OF PLANT-LIFE. 



along with the mulberry, and some other trees that 

 are very slow, made by the ancients the emblem of 

 prudence. When they come in leaf, all danger of late 

 spring frosts is considered to be gone by, and the tree 

 is safe from damage. In looking for the buds of the 

 ash, we cannot fail to be struck (in most of the trees) 

 with the very odd appearance of the flowers. These, 

 while young, resemble clusters of ripe blackberries ; 

 afterwards they open out into branching sprays of a 

 peculiar blackish-olive color. In structure they are 

 the simplest known to occur among trees. The sta- 

 mens and the pistil (the parts which produce the 

 seed), that in other plants are protected so carefully, 

 here are left without any fence whatever ; yet the 

 tree never fails to be covered plentifully with ripe 

 seed, as though independent of all asperities of weath- 

 er, and with power to triumph over every hindrance 

 and deficiency. These exceptions to the usual order 

 of things in nature, form one of its most striking char- 

 acteristics, and are more wonderful, it appears to me, 

 as an illustration of the Divine wisdom, than even the 

 method and symmetry with which they stand in such 

 powerful contrast. They show, as it were, with such 

 a grand independence, so self-containedly, that Infi- 

 nite Wisdom, though it has chosen to construct the 

 great mass of nature according to a given plan, is yet 

 quite us much at home with plans and arrangements 

 quite the opposite ; and that what we suppose to be 



