THE WIND FLOWERS 53 



trees of the roadside or the garden will be puffing as 

 vigorously, though the first primrose will distract our 

 notice, and we shall not see them. But every one 

 will discover when the larches take up the firing. 

 The air will be heavy with the scented particles, and 

 the glowing red tips of the sweeping lower branches 

 will get attention at the expense of every flower of 

 the field. 



The larch captures us by the most material of the 

 aesthetic senses, the nose, the vestibule of the stomach. 

 There is no spring delight keener than the scent of 

 the larch when it is in bloom. We have declared 

 the presence of the larch and other conifers to be 

 health-giving, only, it seems, because we can smell 

 the good that they are doing us. Possibly they are 

 good because they make us sniff our lungs full 

 occasionally. Perhaps the actual particles, whatever 

 they may be at other times, and especially the pollen 

 grains in spring, do us some good, may even feed 

 us through the mucous membrane. There is no food 

 quite like pollen. So the bee finds, which on pollen 

 does the greatest work of its size of any creature 

 living, and so we believe the chemist finds when he 

 analyses this richly nitrogenous substance. It may 

 be because in spring the whole atmosphere of the 

 world is full of assimilable nitrogen from the stamens 

 of the wind flowers that a more learned generation 

 than ours ordained the Lenten fast. 



The snow has scarcely checked the ardour of the 

 sallows and the willows which are pushing on towards 

 the golden glory that brings them into vogue for 

 Palm Sunday. The poplars, too, are heavy, almost 

 as though with fruit, their velvety red catkins almost 



