Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/106

warm day from the very beginning of winter, and the skunk cabbage buds being developed and actually flowering sometimes in the winter, and the sap flowing in the maples on some days in midwinter, and perhaps some cress growing a little (?), certainly some pads, and various naturalized garden weeds steadily growing, if not blooming, and apple buds sometimes expanding. Thus much of vegetable life, or motion, or growth, is to be detected every winter. There is something of spring in all seasons. There is a large class which is evergreen in its radical leaves, which make such a show as soon as the snow goes off that many take them to be a new growth of the spring. In a pool I notice that the crowfoot (buttercup) leaves which are at the bottom ,of the water stand up and are much more advanced than those two feet off in the air, for there they receive warmth from the sun, while they are sheltered from cold winds. Nowadays we separate the warmth of the sun from the cold of the wind, and observe that the cold does not pervade all places, but being due to strong northwest winds, if we get into some sunny and sheltered nook where they do not penetrate, we quite forget how cold it is elsewhere. . . . . I meet some Indians just camped on Blister's Hill. As usual, they are chiefly concerned to find where black ash grows