A LABRADOR SPRING 
broken bones, until the tree presents a woe- 
fully crooked and crippled appearance. One 
of these warty calli as big as a man’s head 
was shown me at Natashquan, where it had 
been preserved as a curiosity. The difficulties 
of Labrador tree-life are great! 
Perhaps the most active week in this brief 
spring drama was that of the third to the tenth 
of June. On the third I found white violets 
covering a sunny bank hitherto bare, while 
a few marsh marigolds, their bright yellow 
flowers contrasting well with their dark, almost 
black leaves, appeared on the edges of a brook 
fed by a snowbank. Near by a few ferns were 
pushing up their “ fiddle-heads”’ from the 
rich mould, and the cow parsnip was sending 
up its buds of folded leaves beside the gigantic 
dead stalks which had survived the winter 
storms. The dwarf willows and birch were trying 
to show green in their leaf-buds, and the larger 
buds of the mountain ash were slowly unfolding. 
On the next day I found the first white flower 
of the goldthread, and on the fifth the cur- 
rant, the first shrub to leaf out, was in blossom. 
June 7th was a red letter day in the spring 
calendar. The red osier, hitherto so bereft 
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