THE WOOD 17 



is broken by the groups of intervening tree-trunks; 

 but their brightness is all the more apparent seen from 

 under the nearer roofing mass of tree-top, and the 

 yellowing light makes the intended colour-effect still 

 more successful by throwing its warm tone over the 

 whole. 



But nearer at hand the Fern walk has its own 

 little pictures. In early summer there are patches of 

 Trillium, the white Wood Lily, in cool hollows among 

 the ferns, and, some twenty paces further up, another 

 wider group of the same. Between the two, spreading 

 through a mossy bank, in and out among the ferns 

 and right down to the path, next to a coming patch of 

 Oak Fern, is a charming little white flower. Its 

 rambhng roots thread their way under the mossy 

 carpet, and every few inches throw up a neat little 

 stem and leaves crowned with a starry flower of 

 tenderest white. It is Trientalis, a native of our most 

 northern hill-woods, the daintiest of all woodland 

 flowers. 



To right and left white Foxgloves spire up among 

 the Bracken. When the Foxglove seed is ripe, we 

 remember places in the wood where tree-stumps were 

 grubbed last winter. A little of the seed is scattered 

 in these places and raked in. Meanwhile one forgets 

 all about it, till two years afterwards there are the 

 stately Foxgloves. It is good to see their strong spikes 

 of soUd bloom standing six to seven feet high, and then 

 to look down again at the lowly Trientalis and to note 

 how the tender little blossom, poised on its thread- 

 like stem, holds its own in interest and importance. 



