i 5 4 HAMPSHIRE STREAMS AND WOODLANDS 



the hand, the multiplied myriads of tiny curves change 

 the whole aspect of the tree. In the sycamore, the 

 points of the lower buds are slipping from their sheaths, 

 like long green olives of Italy. The downy sumach 

 tips are rough with swelling knobs, the laburnums 

 are flecked with silver-grey, and even on the planes, 

 where last year's fruit still hangs, the buds are swelling. 

 But perhaps the most beautiful of all are the sprays 

 of the hawthorn. Where each thorn leaves the stem, 

 a tiny, gemlike globe has appeared upon the bark, 

 laced on the sides with green and gold, and tipped 

 with rosy carmine. The sharp thorn mounts guard 

 above it, and protects it from harm, one thorn to 

 a bud, all the tree over. But where the young shoots 

 end where there is no protecting spear there the 

 buds are clustered, that if one fail another may take 

 its place. 



It is true of most English woods and gardens that 

 the larger the tree the smaller is its flower. Few 

 people could describe the blossom of the oak, or trace 

 its change from the tiny pale-green flower to the 

 infant acorn, in its miniature cup no bigger than 

 an ivy-berry ; or paint from memory the flower- 

 clusters which nestle among the beech-leaves in early 

 June. Except the horse-chestnut, we have no native 

 flowering timber-tree to take the place of the tulip- 

 tree of North America, or the mimosa groves of the 

 African plains. Yet the tulip-tree, with its broad, 

 flat-headed leaves, and fine orange blossoms, like single 

 inverted bells of the crown imperial, will flourish like 



