Natural history -- Massachusetts; Natural history -- Outdoor books; Plymouth County (Mass.)
Such are its changing moods on November nights and days. The
constant features are the pines and cedars. Summer and winter
alike these stand unchanged, types of constancy and vigor. Yet,
though there is no change, one who loves them both can at a time
of year see a certain variation. This comes with the spire-like
cedars, that stand so erect and point ever heavenward in close-drawn
robes of priestly solemnity, in early May. Then for a few
brief days the glow of spring sunshine gets into their blood and
they gleam with hidden bloom through the olive green of their
gowns, lighting up like sombre faces that unexpectedly smile and
are flooded with sunlight. The pines, too, bloom in spring, but
conspicuously on their branch tips. The candles they light then
serve only to accentuate the sober, dark green of their gowns. But
in September, the pines shed their last year's leaves that have
grown a little dull and rusty with long service, and now stand
forth clean and more vividly green than at any other time of year.
The deciduous trees follow the fashions and change their suits for the
prevailing mode three or four times a year, yet it is true of them
that nature unadorned is adorned the most. There is a beauty in
the bare wood standing revealed in November that they never had in
the flush of June or the glory of early October. There is nothing
in flower or leaf that can match the exquisite harmony of the bark
tints, nor can the foliage in mass so please the eye as the
delicate tracery of twigs and the matchless contour of tapering
limbs. In the November birch or maple the dryad herself stands
revealed.
*****
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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