GETTING AC^AINTED IFITH THE TREES 



— if the delicate chromatic tints they reflect 

 to the eye may be so strongly named — that 

 they harmonize, and do not contrast, with the 

 flowers. It is with them almost as with a 

 fearless chipmunk whose acquaintance I culti- 

 vated one summer — he was gay with stripes of 

 soft color, yet he so fitted any surroundings 

 he chose to be in that when he was quiet he 

 simply disappeared ! The oak's flowers and its 

 exquisite unfolding of young foliage combine 

 in one effect, and it is an effect so beautiful 

 that one easily fails to separate its parts, or to 

 see which of the mass of soft pink, gray, 

 yellow and green is bloom and which of 

 it is leafage. 



Take the pin -oak, for instance, and note 

 the softness of the greenery above its flowers. 

 Hardly can we define the young leaves as 

 green — they are all tints, and all beautiful. 

 This same pin-oak, by the way (I mean the 

 one the botanists call ^ercus palustris) , is a 

 notable contradiction of the accepted theory 

 that an oak of size and dignity cannot be 

 reared in a lifetime. There are hundreds of 

 lusty pin-oaks all over the Eastern States that 



30 



