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Birds and Nature, Vol. XII, No 5, December 1902

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<h2 id="c16">BUDS OF PROMISE. COLD WEATHER NOTES FROM NATURE.</h2> It has become a conventional habit with us to look upon the winter season as unproductive of artistic interest so far as Nature’s decorations are concerned. And we note it as a period of rest from the exhaustion of seed time and harvest. But to the initiated and observant, it is now that the change worketh fast, and barely has the network of fretted branches, looming up so purple against an autumnal sky, become a realization, before the winter progress of the budding forest has changed the dreamy violet to a rich ruddy brown, in promise of a future fulfillment of a rich verdure of living greens. In winter, we are, as it were, behind the scenes in the green-room of some vast forest auditorium, and the closely locked buds are become the dressing rooms of thousands upon thousands of gaily decked flower-folk, who are preparing their multi-colored wardrobe of gorgeous petals, with which to entrance and delight our mortal eyes when the golden key of the sun shall have unlocked their doors, and are melted the barriers of ice and snow that now reign supreme in the great foyers of the forest. But if at present we are barred from the scene, the work of preparation is being rushed forward, and on every swelling twig there is evidence of a glorious drama of delight which shall be uncurtained at the clarion voice of Spring. How many shades and colors are outlined against the wintry sky! The bronze points of the oaks, in contrast with the gray of the pale ash buds, whose color indicates the advent of some demure debutant in Quaker costume, while the ruddy buds of the whitewood or tulip tree, which steal their rich color from the furrowed red of its bark, give promise of some gorgeous result that is later realized in the magnolia-like bloom of rich, creamy green, girdled with a crimson sash, and which within the last few years has become such a fad among nature’s devotees. But all of our fads are but a continuing in the universal circle from which, according to Lord Beaconsfield, we never evolve beyond, and it is written that the tulip tree was so esteemed by the ancients that they poured libations of wine about its roots. We put our wine to other uses in these twentieth century days, but we worship at the same tree, pro tempore. The highly polished buds of the June berry or shad bush shine forth in evidence of a future of bewildering bloom that shall envelop its now dull branches in a robe of fairy whiteness when “the shad come down.” Break open the tightly sealed, varnished bud of the lilac tree, and out pours that incomparable fragrance of Spring, an odor that challenges all of the arts and sciences or alchemy to produce. One of the most notable trees in winter is the plane-tree or buttonwood, wrongly called sycamore, a term which can only be applied correctly to the Ficus sycamorus, or true sycamore, a tree closely allied to the fig, and a native of the far East. It is the ragged appearance of the buttonwood that makes it so conspicuous a tree in winter, the white trunk gleaming so distinctly through its shattered habiliments of bark. It is said that this disastrous state of its covering is due to the inelasticity of the bark, which does not expand to meet the requirements of the tree’s growth, as does the bark of other trees, hence the impoverished condition of its outer garment. But when we see this sad state of conditions repeated on its human prototype, we feel that we have more cause for sympathy than ridicule, so why not accord the tree the same commiseration? But I am sure there is some legendary tale extant to the effect that in mythological days the tree was a derelict from duty in some line or another, and for this was condemned to pass the rest of its days in a tattered coat, for so was sentenced the white Birch, who arrived late at an important wedding of the gods, hence doomed to wear her wedding garment of snowy bark throughout all ages in penance for her dilatoriness. 221 But if the buttonwood wears the coat of poverty, it is more than abundantly supplied with buttons, which are so tightly sewed on that it is no easy task to secure a bunch of these drooping balls for decorative purposes, and for which they are so effective when hung among clusters of the scarlet berries of the bitter-sweet. Their secure hold on the parent stem has thus aroused the interest of John Burroughs: “Why has Nature taken such particular pains to keep these balls hanging to the parent tree intact till spring? What secret of hers has she buttoned in so securely? for these buttons will not come off. The wind can not twist them off, nor warm nor wet hasten or retard them. The stem, or penduncle, by which the ball is held in the fall and winter, breaks up into a dozen or more threads or strands, that are stronger than those of hemp. When twisted tightly they make a little cord that I find it impossible to break with my hands. Had they been longer the Indian would surely have used them to make his bow strings and all other strings he required. One could hang himself with a small cord of them. Nature has determined that these buttons should stay on. In order that the needs of this tree may germinate, it is probably necessary that they be kept dry during the winter, and reach the ground after the season of warmth and moisture is fully established. In May, just as the leaves and the new balls are emerging, at the touch of a warm, moist south wind, these spherical packages suddenly go to pieces—explode, in fact, like tiny bombshells that were fused to carry to this point—and scatter their seeds to the four winds. They yield at the same time a fine pollen-like dust that one would suspect played some part in fertilizing the new balls, did not botany teach him otherwise. At any rate, it is the only deciduous tree I know of that does not let go the old seed till the new is well on the way.” Next to the cedar tree, this tree is the strongest power in mythology and was, by the ancients, consecrated to Genius, and who knows what mighty stores of intelligence is buttoned under its tattered coat? and I myself can bear witness to its strong will and determination under adverse circumstances, for a huge tree that has fallen from a high bank into the river below, has floated down stream to a lodgment, and there put forth a vigorous growth of foliage, and is thriving well under these abnormal conditions. The maple bloom is now closely housed, with but little show of promise, but if one were favored with a specially alert ear, I am sure that he could hear the rush of the ascending sap blood, hurrying upward in answer to the call of the quickening Spirit of Spring. In many of the creepers, the lilies and the gourd, a kind of fever heat is perceptible at the time of inflorescence, and the heat has been observed to increase daily from sixty to one hundred and ten or even one hundred and twenty degrees, and without doubt the forest temperament rises accordingly. As yet the birds have not taken all of the scarlet berries of the bitter-sweet vine, which clings lovingly, but with a somewhat parasitical clasp about the hospitable boles of the great trees. In color rivalry looms up the dark red panicles of the sumach, whose acrid fruit, which is a last resort for hungry birds, must prove a pungent pill to the feathered folk. But it is a line of beauty across the hillside: <div class="verse"> Like glowing lava streams the sumach crawls Upon the mountain’s granite walls. </div> Peeping out from the sheltered crannies are numerous long, slender fronds of the Christmas fern, Polystichum acrostichoides, gleaming like emerald bars against the white of the snow bank. Outlining against the sky are the aristocratic hemlocks which belong to the regal pine family, and which have established a social precedence by wearing their holiday clothes all the year round, in opposition to their more humble, deciduous kin, who are now in working habiliments, and they flaunt their heads haughtily, but their thickly clothed branches form a warm shelter for snow bound birds, so that their distinction is not without its advantages. In a sheltered nook still flourish a few plants of “Life Everlastin’,” so dear to the hearts of Mary Wilkin’s quaint New England characters as an allayer of rheumatic ills, and it still exhales its aromatic fragrance in the air. Here and there a witch-hazel waves its scraggy branches, still laden with 222 their velvety seed capsules, which have but now bursted open and shot forth their glistening seeds, and whose inconsequent yellow bloom has only just shed its slender petals to the winds. A few lingering wild rose haws are withering upon the parent stem, yet glowing like cherries against the wintry sky, but break off a tiny branch and a whiff of Richard Jefferies’ “sweet briar wind” is wafted across one’s nostrils, filling one’s brain with visions of the gladdening spring time. A gaily plumaged jay dashes his brilliant blue through the branches of a thickly needled pine, and a scarlet crowned “downie” taps diligently up and around the worm-infested trunk of an old apple tree, in search of an unwary morsel, and one comes to the conclusion that after all, winter is not all gloom and grayness, but filled with bits of glowing color and vitality, if only one’s eye is set for its beauty, instead of its bleakness. Alberta Field. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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