Page:Rural Hours.djvu/90

Rh many of the scarlet maples have their foliage quite formed and colored, though scarcely full-sized yet. The old chestnuts and oaks are in movement, the leaves of the last coming out quite pinkish, a bit of finery of which one would hardly suspect the chiefs of the forest, but so it was in Chaucer's time:

Very many of the trees open their leaf-buds with a warm tint in the green; either brown, or pink, or purplish. Just now, the leaves of the June-berry are dark reddish brown, in rich contrast with its white pendulous flowers. Some of the small oak leaves, especially those of the younger trees, are the deepest crimson; the sugar maples are faintly colored; the scarlet maples, on the contrary, are pure green, seeming to have given all their color to the flowers; the mountain maples are highly colored, and the bracts of the moose-wood are quite rosy, as well as some of their leaves. Elms seem to be always green, and so are the beeches; the black birch is faintly tinged with russet at first, the others are quite green. The ashes and hickory are a very light green. It is said that this tenderness and variety of tint in the verdure, so charming in spring as we know the season, belongs especially to a temperate climate. In tropical countries, the buds, unguarded by bracts like our own, are said to be much darker; and in arctic regions, the young leaves are also said to be of a darker color. One would like to know if this last assertion be really correct, as it seems difficult to account for the fact.