l66 LEAVES IN WINTER QUARTERS. 



the center of the whorl, always so vigorous and 

 persistent, which crowns the head of the tree, is 

 the cradle and swaddling clothes of the young 

 shoot, which is really the continuation of the main 

 trunk. As the Winter approached, the parent 

 pine wrapped it up, and lulled it to sleep by 

 the soft, melancholy music of its many aeolian 

 harps. The next season it will awaken and spring 

 straight into the air, like the present growth, 

 while the ring of smaller buds, if undisturbed, will 

 form a circle of lateral branches, such as are seen 

 below. Thus the tree is disposed in whorls 

 throughout ; a kind of irregular pile of wheels, 

 with the axles and hubs grown together, and grad- 

 ually increasing in diameter, while the series of 

 curved, radiating spokes, with needles and crosses 

 attached, are lengthened according to the growths 

 of years. 



Besides the myriads of buds set in order, and 

 prepared in so many interesting ways on bush 

 and tree, their names are legion that are lurking 

 beneath the snow or underground. All stems do 

 not rise in the air, but are inclined to skulk in the 

 soil, as if humbled, and cared not to flaunt them- 

 selves, or cast graceful shadows and reflections on 

 fields and mirroring ponds. In the bogs, beneath 

 the russet uplands or Winter coverlet, are life and 

 health. Runners, root-stalks, tubers, corms and 

 bulbs, are only lowly, modified stems, gorged with 



