When a plant has a spreading root such as the willow, yonder, sends down, the leaves spread outward and downward, from base to tip, letting their gathered moisture down upon it. When the plant grows under water its leaves are long and thread-like; for the supply of carbon is limited, and they divide minutely, that the greatest possible surface may be exposed to absorb it. If the stem grows until the leaves reach the surface of the water they broaden and spread out, for here they get an abundant food supply which they may freely appropriate, as none of it need be diverted to build up a supporting stem. The water affords the leaves ample support ❧ The grasses grow in blades for the same reason that the plants growing under water put out slender, thread-like leaves. The air-supply would seem abundant, but the grass-leaves are many, and low-growing plants are numerous. So they divide and sub-divide, that greater surface may be presented to the sunlight and the air. In this form the blades are fittest to obtain their necessary food supply and thus to survive. We see this same tendency in the leaves of the wild poppy, the buttercup and all the great crowfoot family. Across the road stretches a line of locusts, just now in dainty, snowy, fragrant blossom. The individuality of a tree is a constant and delightful fact in Nature. The locust is as unlike the oak or the willow as can well be imagined, yet like them in taking on an added and characteristic loveliness in the rain. How delicately the branches pencil themselves against the blue and silver of the cloudy sky and the dark green of the orchard beyond them! The leaves have such a purely incidental air. The lines of the tree were, themselves, lovely enough in their green and mossy wetness, to delight the eye. To deck them so laceywise in an openwork of leaf and blossom was beneficent gratuity on the part of Mother Nature, for the pleasing of her children. Down below, where the creek widens, the sycamores have grown to great size. How they help the heart, these gnarly giants, with the white patches against the greys and blacks of their rough trunks! ❧ How they spread their patches against the sky and beckon and point the beholder upwards. The sylvan prophet bears a promise of good, and demands of every passer-by the query of the wise old stoic: “Who is he that shall hinder thee from being good and simple?”