48 THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



on the back of the ferns, thus linking the oak-leaf and 

 the fern-leaf the highest and the lowest type of vege- 

 tation together in the wondrous unity of nature by a 

 strange similitude of appearance. 



But it is among the plants that we find the most beautiful 

 occupants of the oak-tree. The ivy climbs up its trunk, 

 which affords admirable support for its myriads of little 

 feet, and changes its glossy leaves, as it creeps higher 

 and higher, from the deeply-cut angular pattern to the 

 oval and pointed one ; and at the top it waves its airy 

 sprays among the oak-leaves, and produces beside the 

 acorns at the extremities of the branches, the light 

 green flowers that blossom only when the plant has 

 nothing to cling to, and must shift for itself; as if 

 nature were taking care that when the life of the indi- 

 vidual was in danger, the life of the race should at least 

 be made sure. Then there is the mystic mistletoe, with 

 all its dim and sacred associations with the Druid 

 worship of our remote ancestors. It clings still closer 

 to the oak, for it is not an epiphyte like the ivy 

 merely making use of the tree for support, and finding 

 its own food independently from the soil and air but 

 a partial parasite that strikes its root into the substance 

 of the oak, and while to some extent feeding upon its 

 prepared juices, is capable of showing a little indepen- 

 dent spirit and working for its own support, as is 

 evident from the fact of its having green leaves, which, 

 however pale, can still decompose, to some extent, the 

 sunshine into materials of growth. The mistletoe is 

 thus a partial boarder of the oak ; it gets, so to speak, 



