204 WINTER SKETCHES. 



fruit, which you must carry home and examine 

 under a powerful lens, if you would see the beau- 

 tiful etching on its sides. How delicately trans- 

 lucent are its cell walls ! The central axis or 

 continuation of the pedicel, and the dark spore 

 grains within, are seen as plainly as grains of sand 

 through a thin porcelain urn. The leaves, too, 

 are peculiarly figured. Those colorless, «limpid 

 spaces, in such a variety of shapes, bounded by 

 the bright-green net-work of veins, are indeed curi- 

 ous, when viewed through the microscope. How 

 perfectly some of the lines are drawn, as if a pen 

 with the finest point, and dipped in chlorophyll ink, 

 had traced the tiny, shell-like leaves, and nicely 

 marked them into diamonds, hexagons, or narrow 

 wavy lines, according to the several species. 

 Besides this dainty marking, the leaves are often 

 bordered with fine teeth, or grooved lengthwise 

 into furrows or channels, or beset with knobs and 

 bosses. 



Truly Nature's soul is in her work. Diligent, 

 unwearied, but reserved and reticent, she is as 

 painstaking in forming a fruiting moss-stem, as in 

 building the tower-like trunk of the Sequoia. In 

 preparing the rich mold to nurture the higher 

 plants, she must needs indulge her fancy and aes- 

 thetic taste. So with her eyes, as it were, to the 

 microscope, that not a fillet or thread shall be 

 misplaced, she weaves the beautiful green tapes- 



