MAY. 125 



one can scarcely pass through them are called. When 

 these trees occupy but a comparatively little space, and 

 are surrounded by open country or deciduous growths, 

 they certainly are as prominent a feature of the landscape 

 as are the isles of the sea. All such to-day, and there 

 were several in the course of my walk, were hurriedly 

 passed by, although deserving of attention ; nor were the 

 afflicted gum trees, weighted with mistletoe, more than 

 glanced at. There was too great a wealth of bloom 

 wherever I turned, and to this I gave all my thoughts, 

 wondering the while if I might not introduce some of 

 them into the woods and along the waysides at home. 



The lupine with sky-colored clusters ; yellow rock-rose 

 — with no rocks within half a hundred miles ; snowy 

 sandwort — little else within that distance; sand myrtle, 

 a pretty evergreen, with clustered ivory bloom; purple 

 toad-flax and even scraggly, dwarfed beach plum ; these 

 all, the pretty playthings as I pass through the village, 

 and thrown aside for greater novelty when I reach the 

 edge of a wood. There crimson lambkill dulled all other 

 blooms and stayed my willing footsteps. A by-road, 

 over which wagons seldom pass, was lined upon one side 

 with this sweet shrub. It was not strange that folly 

 gained the upper hand in such a spot, and I had almost 

 completed an ill-rhymed stanza, when the road itself be- 

 came more interesting than the flowers attractive, and I 

 was promptly restored. This road was simply a long ribbon 

 of white sand, dotted with low bushes ; but the ruts were 

 remarkably distinct. Examining them, I found what at 

 first sight appeared to be grass, proved to be thread-like 

 sun-dews, as thickly set as blades in the rankest pastures. 

 They glittered, too, with the gummy sap that ever bathes 

 them — a condition that made them the more noticeable, 

 for it was now high noon, and nowhere was moisture vis- 

 ible. This gummy " dew " proves terribly fatal to insects. 



