THE GREEN WORLD 217 



Such yews are covered with blossom, and I doubt if 

 any plants or trees in England, not even the dusty 

 grass-heads of summer, better illustrate the splendid 

 expenditure of Nature. 



Tap the yew branch that faces south, a quick little 

 puff of powder comes out, and is lost to view in the 

 instant of its coming: so much plasm is spent: not 

 that it matters in the least, for a little later in March 

 or April every gust will spend the substance out of 

 which the yew trees of future generations and centuries 

 alone can be formed, and yet pollen and to spare will 

 be left for the work. The pollen grains of the yew in 

 full bloom would only be reckoned by the kind of 

 figures in which the distances of star and nebula are 

 reckoned; it is a case, like that of the gossamer 

 spiders of autumn or the dancing columns of winter 

 gnats, of the infinite just without our doors. 



The female yew tree in March has not changed her 

 dress for the season of tree courtship and marriage ; 

 she is just as she was at the beginning of winter after 

 the thrushes had eaten her last red berry. Her 

 blossom is scarcely worth the name, her green dark 

 and severe as ever. The male tree is not only flushed 

 with particularly delicate colour top, sides, and even 

 hidden inner branches which no sunshine touches 

 through the little balls of blossom ; he has lengthened 

 thousands of his twigs by several inches, in some cases 

 by as many as six, and these he hangs in little festoons, 

 with leaves fresher and shades lighter than the green 



