UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



feits in nature — known to me. Some of our wild 

 flowers are named *' false " this and that, as false 

 indigo, false Solomon's-seal, false mitrewort, and 

 others; but in designating them thus we are simply 

 slandering Nature and exposing our own ignorance. 

 Other things come to mind that are not what 

 they seem, or what they are popularly called; 

 *' cedar plums,'* for instance, — those yellow fungous 

 growths upon the branches of the red cedar which 

 suddenly develop with the rain and warmth of May 

 or June, and that look like ripe fruit upon the tree. 

 In sun and dryness they soon shrink and wither; on 

 the return of a wet day they are again clammy ge- 

 latinous masses. Later in the season they disappear 

 entirely. They are not the work of an insect, but the 

 result of some disease like black-knot on our plum- 

 and cherry-trees. They can scarcely be called coun- 

 terfeit fruit. The so-called oak-apple bears a some- 

 what closer resemblance to a genuine fruit. Its 

 stringy texture might be taken for the skeleton of 

 the pulp of the apple. It is a gall caused by the 

 sting of an insect. The oak is made to grow the cell 

 or house in which the young of the insect is hatched 

 and developed. The May apples which children 

 gather from the wild azalea and eat with much rel- 

 ish are also a sham fruit — the work of an insect. 



Can we call the infertile flowers of certain plants, 

 like those of the fringed polygala, shams or counter- 

 feits? They seem to exist for show merely, while 



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