Page:Florida Trails as seen from Jacksonville to Key West and from November to April inclusive.djvu/367

 honeysuckle of the South, Lonicera grata, its fragrant white tubes turning yellow with age, and now and then a high wall of green foliage is all hung with bead-like decorations of the coral honeysuckle, giving it a curious, gem-like effect in red and yellow. Viewing these things, less obtrusive but equally beautiful, one is inclined to forget his regret for the vanished jasmine yellow and the pure white of the passing cherokee roses. Behind it all, looming toward the high sky line of the swamp in such places is the feathery softness of the new cypress leaves, delicately fluffed in the softest tints of pure spring green. Young cypress leaves are more like feathers than any other leaves I know. Collectively it seems as if they had as much right to be called plumage as foliage.

It is at this time of year that the frost weed slips shyly at first into sandy dooryards, and later makes them all gold of a morning with crowded heads of clear yellow flowers. With these two comes the phlox, almost unnoticed among low-growing herbs till it blooms. Then some morning the dooryard begins to blush and by night has grown all rosy with pink and purple flowers, a heterogeneous assortment of shades that blend nevertheless in a pleasing whole. Such marvels does April build out of sand and sun and rushing rain that has hardly time to fall so eager is the sun to be out and at it again.