TREES IN UNDRESS. 147 



roglyphics which the boys and squirrels easily 

 read, notifying them where are to be found the 

 thinnest-shelled and the fullest, sweetest-meated 

 nuts. No other tree in the genus Carya has such 

 individuality, or is so characteristic in the lines 

 and strokes of its sign manual, as the shell-bark. 



What odd, fantastic sky-markers are the button- 

 woods, when denuded of their leaves ! They are 

 made especially conspicuous in our northern 

 woods, and along the roadside, by the action of 

 the frosts, or by some kind of disease which has 

 of late years attacked the young shoots at the 

 extremities of some of the winding and twisting 

 boughs, so that they appear at a distance like 

 immense, rigid serpents, stayed in their contor- 

 tions while rearing their heads toward the light. 

 To give these trees a still more striking appear- 

 ance, as if they were struggling to thrive, thick 

 clusters of young sprigs are pushed out at irregu- 

 lar intervals along the sides of the branches, while 

 on some of those shoots of older growths hang the 

 long, pendulous racemes of button-balls, full of 

 small, seed-like nutlets. The peduncles on which 

 these persistent balls are suspended are jointed, 

 and await the warmer sun and the flowing sap to 

 dislocate them, when they fall to the ground. 



The round tassels are then soon raveled out, 

 and the seeds, on the under parts of which are 

 attached fine, tawny hairs, are by these means 



