EDITORIAL 79 



white like a silver ribbon, losing itself in mystery even as it began 

 in myster\'; for why should any road begin where there is no sign 

 of habitation I And after beginning, why shciild it ever end when 

 one mile of it is like even.- other mile, winding in and out among 

 the pine boles! 



In some regions, scattered among the pines were deciduous 

 trees, — oaks, probably black-jack and Spanish. Quite often a 

 sycamore would lift its great blotched branches gleaming in the 

 sunshine ; these southern sycamores are more majestic than ours of 

 the North. Also there were many straight, splendid tulip trees, 

 their branches dotted with their compound seed capsules. 



As the day wore on we occasionally passed through a cypress 

 swamp: straight grey trunks arising like columns from their 

 swollen bases, their upper branches draped with grey moss, the 

 grey, still waters below knobbed with the sharp knees, othen\'ise 

 mirroring perfectly the picture above, — a wonderftd duplicated 

 study of a waterscape in ashen grey. 



Approaching the vast marshes of the coast, the character of the 

 trees changed, the pines mostly gave way to the live oaks, the 

 water oaks, and the white cedars. These cedars have solid crowns, 

 very dark green, almost black but along their margins as they 

 stand silhouetted against the sky, are wisps of fine foliage. The 

 water oak is g'jnerally straight bodied and a far more conventional 

 tree than its neighbor the live oak. Its foliage is almost willow 

 like and in January it begins to turn brown. 



The live oak is surely one of the most picturesque of trees. Its 

 broad, solid, rounded crown of shining, polished, dark green leaves 

 is supported by a rather short, stocky bole often four feet or more 

 in diameter; th 2 magnificent lower branches come off at more than 

 a right angle and extend out perhaps for thirty feet ; these giant 

 branches are not straight, but irregular as if tht y had at different 

 periods of their existence experienced an impetus to grow up or 

 down or sidewise, the r?sult being a majesty of uncertainty; some- 

 times one of these limbs being so heavy and so long would droop so 

 that it rested on the ground ; fit support are these giant-branches 

 for the magnificent crowns that seemed like an army camp of 

 rounded tents against the sunset sky. 



What could be more interesting to a nature lover than a wide 

 car window through which to see a movie picture of pines in the 

 morning, cypress swamps at noon and live oaks in the evening! 



