292 EVERGREEN LEAVES. 



nut and the shell ; and thus protected, the milky 

 juice of the nut is very cool and refreshing. 



Even in the cold countries, if the leaf or the 

 fruit has to bear both the summer and winter, we 

 have generally the shining epidermis and the 

 shining rind. The leaves of all the evergreen 

 pines, and cypresses, and yews, and the whole 

 tribe of the conifers, are smooth, while those of 

 the deciduous larch and taxodium are not. It is 

 true that the leaves of many of what we call 

 evergreens are just as unusual as those of the lime 

 and the mulberry, the latter of which is the last to 

 come and the first to go ; but still they summer 

 and winter on the tree : there are always two 

 successions wholly or partly upon it ; and the fall 

 of the leaf with such trees is in the summer. The 

 common juniper is almost the only native berry 

 which we have that lasts more than one season 

 upon the bush, and it has the firm rind and some 

 of the other characters of those that remain for 

 two seasons, in warmer countries. 



The water-melon is perhaps one of the most 

 remarkable instances that we have of the power of 

 tropical vegetables to obtain moisture in the ex- 

 treme of drought, and cold in the very violence 

 of heat. In the Indian desert, between the valley 

 of the Indus and that of the Ganges, there are 

 many places where the surface, with the exception 

 of here and there a crumbling stone, is nothing 

 but sand ; there is no water, except what has to 

 be drawn from the depth of several hundred feet, 

 and the rainy monsoon sometimes passes over 

 without refreshing the surface with one drop of 

 water. Yet even there the water-melons, planted 



