Cms 



ings, are between the two, and the vast majority 

 of them are similarly crowded together and take 

 their form from the multitude which surrounds 

 them, living through their span of life without 

 ever having stretched their limbs independently 

 and without ever having experienced the joy of 

 learning their capabilities in isolation. It is only 

 in solitude that the tree or the mind can develop 

 its own habit, in a freedom and originality which 

 are incompatible with the cramping and monot- 

 onous influences of a perpetually gregarious so- 

 cial existence. 



My special inamorata, for scientific nomencla- 

 ture regards all trees as feminine, the Albizzia, is 

 a blond beauty, tall and divinely fair. Her trunk 

 is smooth, light gray in color, and she begins to 

 spread her limbs soon after emerging from the 

 soil. She multiplies and expands them, gradually 

 pressing them upward through the air till they 

 overtop all her companions. At about thirty to 

 thirty-five feet from the ground her trunk divides 

 itself into some score of stems and branches sep- 

 arating from each other little by little. The first 

 foliage begins to show itself at this elevation and 



71 



