The Living Trii/nk and Branches 139 



says an old legend — is cursed, and can never 

 grow Into a tree because Judas hanged himself on 

 it. And the elder, says botany, cannot keep its 

 pith — and pith has its uses. 



All native trees, except palmettos and palms, 

 retain some pith, though these remnants may be 

 very small and scattered. Here and there are 

 little spaces where the edges of two fibro-vascular 

 bundles do not quite meet, and in these are 

 squeezed remnants of pith. 



We are told that in our own frames every par- 

 ticle of bone, skin, muscle, or nerve is renewed 

 over and over again, till in the man's body there 

 is no remnant of the substance which helped to 

 build the body of the child. 



But with trees this is not so. Some of the sub- 

 stance made by the seedling remains in the " pith- 

 rays "of the old tree which has weathered a hun- 

 dred winters. 



Lumbermen call this compressed and scattered 

 pith the " silver grain." We can see it at the 

 ends of freshly-cut logs, as light-colored streaks 

 running from the center toward the bark. 



In the cross-section of a young oak it is easy 

 to see the silver grain, and also the rings, one 

 outside another, showing the growth made by the 

 tree year after year. The little white star in the 

 very center is a remnant of pith (Fig. 33). 



The tree uses these pith-rays as larders wherein 

 to store provisions for next spring's busy growing 



