56 AS THE YEAR GROWS 



mission, and will be transformed into drooping and 

 swaying bunches of winged seeds as the leaves 

 develop. The Soft Maple and Silver Maple flowers 

 fell several weeks ago, and the seeds are already 

 developing. Elms flowered still earher, and some of 

 their seed is ready to be cast on the wind. But their 

 flowering and seeding in the upper branches have 

 passed unnoticed, except for the scales of the buds 

 strewn on the pavement. The young leaves are 

 unfolding from the flower clusters of the Horse- 

 chestnut. The glistening, brown, thorn-like buds of 

 the beech are elongating and giving in their changing 

 tints a promise of coming foliage. Even the reluctant 

 Oaks unfold their lobed and half-formed leaves to 

 dangle their pendent flowers in the fertilising breeze, 

 while the branches retain some clinging bunches of 

 last year's leaves. The Basswood refuses absolutely 

 to display a trace of the richest of all greens concealed 

 in its dark-red buds. Among the evergreen tassels of 

 the White Pine the flowers appear as bristling tails 

 of lighter green. They will fill the air and the sluggish 

 water with their pollen, perpetuating the childish 

 belief that sulphur comes down in thunderstorms. 



Feathered visitors from the south found the trees 

 entirely unprepared. They looked about as if they 

 had arrived in the house-cleaning season. A pair of 

 Robins braved the embarrassment and annoyance 

 of a passing crowd of spectators and built their nest 



