30 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
These frail creatures, rooted where they stand, 
a part of the “still life” of Nature, yet share 
her ceaseless motion. In the most sultry si- 
lence of summer noons, the vital current is 
coursing with desperate speed through the in- 
numerable veins of every leaflet, and the appar- 
ent stillness, like the sleeping of a child’s top, 
is in truth the very ecstasy of perfected motion, 
Not in the tropics only, but even in England, 
whence most of our floral associations and 
traditions come, the march of the flowers is in 
an endless circle, and, unlike our experience, 
something is always in bloom. In the northern 
United States, it is said, the active growth of 
most plants is condensed into ten weeks, while 
in the mother country the full activity is main- 
tained through sixteen. But even the English 
winter does not seem to be a winter in the same 
sense as ours, appearing more like a chilly and 
comfortless autumn. There is no month in the 
English year when some special plant does not 
bloom : the Coltsfoot there opens its fragrant 
flowers from December to February ; the yel- 
low-flowered Hellebore, and its cousin, the 
sacred Christmas Rose of Glastonbury, extend 
from January to March; and the Snowdrop 
and Primrose often come before the first of 
February. Something may be gained, much 
lost, by that perennial succession ; those links, 
