In Winter Woods 397 
into blooming any month of the year. Their foli- 
age is practically evergreen, so that their untimely 
energy results in nothing worse than the production 
of a few futile flowers, which ripen no seed. But 
if the trees were to put forth when summer was 
not nigh at hand, their indiscretion might cost us 
the bloom of spring orchards and the luxuriance 
of midsummer woods. 
When vegetable life resumes its functions the 
starches and other food-substances stored in the 
wood follow the route of the elaborated sap. The 
starch-grains are dissolved and changed into fluid 
glucose, which, with other nutrient fluids, feels 
its way into the inner bark, and then creeps 
along through it into the buds where life is 
stirring. 
But were the little sieves all open through the 
winter the plant-food stored in the wood could 
make its way to the buds at any time, and the buds, 
thus generously fed, could unfold in a few days. 
Lured by the false promise of a January thaw, 
baby-blossoms and delicate leaves would issue, all 
too quickly, into what would speedily prove a cold 
and inhospitable world. And all the energy used in 
putting them forth would be so much dead loss 
to the tree. So wise Nature keeps the stores of 
