Wood Notes 



same family are the alternate-leaved and the poison 

 dogwood — oftener shrub than tree — the latter having 

 the unenviable notoriety of being the most virulently 

 poisonous growth in our woods; but fortunately it is 

 rare. 



The thoughts of the Eternal mind are not all of equal 

 moment, any more than are those of finite creatures. 

 There is something grander in universal gravitation 

 than in the mere chase of ether-waves. Tipping the 

 earth's axis a few degrees out of the plane of its orbit, 

 whence instantly comes the entire succession of the sea- 

 sons, with all this signifies to the human race — this is a 

 more far-reaching thought than the moon's tides. The 

 night sky shows more prodigious thought than any 

 flurry of fire-flies; and evolution, rightly understood, 

 seems more stupendous than the entire aggregate of nat- 

 ure's works. A little consideration shows that, in vege- 

 tation, we have distinct evidence of superior skill in the 

 origination of the compound leaf; for this simple de- 

 vice secures an immense unrealized variety in foliage- 

 effect. The exquisite symmetry of foliage in such trees 

 as the ailanthus, locust, mountain-ash, and Kcelreuteria, 

 is due to the precision of growth in leaves whose leaf- 

 lets are arranged with wellnigh mathematical exactness 

 along the common leaf-stem. Now, if these long stems 

 were true branches, enduring from year to year, the in- 

 juries to which they and their buds would be constantly 

 exposed would very soon result in such irregularity of 

 leaf-arrangement as would utterly efface the original 

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