Martinmas Summer 383 
all about it the leaves are falling, and when the 
brook by: which it loves to grow runs turbidly, 
swollen by the heavy rains of the latter year. 
The flowers provide a last feast for the flies and 
bees which are tempted abroad by the sunshine 
of Indian summer, and the pale gold of the strap- 
shaped petals is conspicuous in the general color- 
lessness of the thickets. 
There are two sets of stamens,—longer ones which 
produce pollen, and shorter ones which do not and 
which have dwindled to mere reminiscent scales. 
The fruit, like that of the orange-tree, takes nearly 
a year to ripen, and will not be fully matured till next 
September, so that last year’s fruit and this year’s 
blossoms may be seen on the branches together. 
The flowers issue in trios from little downy buds € 
and begin to open as the leaves fall. Spring and 
summer, which called forth all the other blossoms 
of field and woodland, failed to draw out the hid- 
den beauties of the witch-hazel buds, but now at 
the threshold of winter they don their gold. And 
as we gather them for the last wild-flower bouquet 
of the season, we think of their analogies in human 
lives—the late-developed talent, the fulfilling of 
the long-deferred hope, the coming of the happi- 
ness, denied in youth, to one whose hair is gray. 
