TURTLE-HEAD AND JEWEL-WEED 129 



a nymph whose purple life-blood runs clear in 

 delicate veins under a skin of transluscent green. 

 Out of what trees they stepped seems not difficult 

 to tell. Surely this one came down out of a 

 pasture elm to bathe slim feet in the cool spring 

 water. Here are smaller, more slender creatures 

 that came from white birches, and that group of 

 stately -ones stepped out of the tall white pines 

 that stand on the slope nearby. No wonder the 

 other creatures of the glade adore these slim 

 green dryads of the swamp. The misty green 

 bedstraw fawns about their feet and makes lace 

 for their gowns. The polygonum blushes pink 

 and stretdhes long arms toward them. The 

 white alders, to whose tips beauty and fragrance 

 still cling bend over them and toss white petals 

 and perfume their way, while even the homely 

 bur-marigold seems to glow a little better yel- 

 low in fondness, though it very properly keeps 

 its distance. Rough rushes nod three-cornered 

 approval and I am sure the spinulose wood ferns 

 crowd down into wetter spots than anywhere else, 

 just to get sight of them. In fact they stand in 

 such wet ground that you might think them 

 Nephrodium cristatum instead of Nephrodium 

 spinulosum were it not for the delicate fringing 



