ness. But if the biittonwood wears the 

 coat of poverty, it is more than abund- 

 antly supphed with buttons, which are 

 so tightly sewed on that it is no easy 

 task to secure a bunch of these droop- 

 ing balls for decorative purposes, and 

 for which they are so effective when hung 

 among clusters of the scarlet berries of 

 the bitter-sweet. Their secure hold on 

 the parent stem has thus aroused the in- 

 terest of John Burroughs : 



"Why has Nature taken such particu- 

 lar pains to keep these balls hanging to 

 the parent tree intact till spring? What 

 secret of hers has she buttoned in so 

 securely ? for these buttons will not come 

 ofif. The wind can not twist them off, 

 nor warm nor wet hasten or retard 

 them. The stem, or penduncle, by 

 which the ball is held in the fall and 

 winter, breaks up into a dozen or more 

 threads or strands, that are stronger 

 than those of hemp. When twisted tight- 

 ly they make a little cord that I find it 

 impossible to break with my hands. Had 

 they been longer the Indian would surely 

 have used them to make his bow strings 

 and all other strings he required. One 

 could hang himself with a small cord of 

 them. Nature has determined that these 

 buttons should stay on. In order that 

 the needs of this tree may germinate, it 

 is probably necessary that they be kept 

 dry during the winter, and reach the 

 ground after the season of warmth and 

 moisture is fully established. In May, 

 just as the leaves and the new balls are 

 emerging, at the touch of a warm, moist 

 south wind, these spherical packages sud- 

 denly go to pieces — explode, in fact, like 

 tiny bombshells that were fused to carrv 

 to this point — and scatter their seeds 

 to the four winds. They yield at the 

 same time a fine pollen-like dust that one 

 would suspect played some part in fertil- 

 izing the new balls, did not botany teach 

 him otherwise. At any rate, it is the 

 only deciduous tree I know of that does 

 not let go the old seed till the new is well 

 on the way." 



Next to the cedar tree, this tree is the 

 strongest power in mythology and was, by 

 the ancients, consecrated to Genius, and 

 who knows what mighty stores of in- 

 telligence is buttoned under its tattered 

 coat? and I myself can bear witness to 

 its strong will and determination under 



adverse circumstances, for a huge tree 

 that has fallen from a high Ijank into the 

 river below, has floated down stream to 

 a lodgment, and there put forth a vigor- 

 ous growth of foliage, and is thriving 

 well under these abnormal conditions. 

 The maple bloom is now closely housed, 

 with but little show of promise, but if 

 one were favored with a specially alert 

 ear, I am sure that he could hear the rush 

 of the ascending sap blood, hurrying up- 

 ward in answer to the call of the quick- 

 ening Spirit of Spring. In many of the 

 creepers, the lilies and the gourd, a kind 

 of fever heat is perceptible at the time 

 of inflorescence, and the heat has been 

 observed to increase daily from sixty to 

 one hundred and ten or e vcn one hundred 

 and twenty degrees, and without doubt 

 the forest temperament rises accordingly. 



As yet the birds have not taken all of 

 the scarlet berries of the bitter-sweet 

 vine, which clings lovingly, but with a 

 somewhat parasitical clasp about the hos- 

 pitable boles of the great trees. In color 

 rivalry looms up the dark red panicles 

 of the sumach, whose acrid fruit, which 

 is a last resort for hungry birds, must 

 prove a pungent pill to the feathered 

 folk. But it is a line of beauty across 

 the hillside: 



Like glowing lava streams the sumach crawls 

 Upon the mountain's granite walls. 



Peeping out from the sheltered cran- 

 nies are numerous long, slender fronds 

 of the Christmas fern, Polystichum 

 acrostichoides, gleaminp- like emerald 

 bars against the white of the snow bank. 

 Outlining against the sky are the aristo- 

 cratic hemlocks which belong to the regal 

 pine family, and which have established 

 a social precedence by wearing their 

 holiday clothes all the year round, in op- 

 position to their more humble, deciduous 

 kin, who are now in working habiliments, 

 and thev flaunt their heads haughtily, but 

 their thickly clothed branches form a 

 warm shelter for snow bound birds, so 

 that their distinction is not without its 

 advantages. In a sheltered nook still 

 flourish a few plants of ''Life Ever- 

 lastin'," so dear to the hearts of Mary 

 Wilkin's quaint New England characters 

 as an allayer of rheumatic ills, and it 

 still exhales its aromatic fragrance in the 

 air. Here and there a witch-hazel waves 

 its scraggy brarches, still laden with 



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