99 
THE WILD CHERRY. 
PRUNUS CERASUS. 
“ See, Nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring 
With all the incense of the breathing spring.” 
“ What are those living hills of snow, or of some sub¬ 
stance purer in its brightness even than any snow that 
falls, and facies in one night, on the mountain-top ? 
Trees are they, fruit trees—the wild cherry: and can 
that be a load of blossoms ? Fairer never grew before 
poet’s eye of old in the fabled Hesperides. See, how 
what we call snow brightens into pink*, yet still die 
whole glory is white ! ” 
What woodland wanderer will say this description, 
glowing as it is, is overcharged ? He who has once seen 
this beautiful tree, covered with pearly blossoms, reliev¬ 
ing with its lighter graces the massy foliage of die forest, 
will be rather tempted to think that no description can 
* The full-grown blossoms are perfectly white, but the buds have a faint 
tinge of pink ; the calyx and stem also exhibit stronger shades of the same 
dolour, so that at a distance the appearance of the trees justifies the above 
description. 
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