ish
on the starry leaves and drip from the little many-pointed balls. I
found that day that a camera would work quite well under an umbrella,
and I obtained also a mind-negative that will last, I believe, as long
as I can think of trees.

The next experience was in another state, where a quaint character,
visited on business, struck hands with me on tree-love, and took me to
see his pet liquidambar at the edge of a mill-pond. That one was taller,
and quite stately; it made an impression, deepened again when the third
special showing came, this time on a college campus, the young tree
being naked and corky, and displayed with pride by the college professor
who had gotten out of his books into real life for a joyous half day.

He wasn't the botany professor, if you please; that dry-as-dust
gentleman told me, when I inquired as to what I might find in early
bloom, or see with the eyes of an ignorant plant-lover, that there was
"nothing blooming, and nothing of interest." He added that he had a
fine herbarium where I might see all the plants I wanted, nicely dried
and spread out with pins and pasters, their roots and all!

Look at _dead_ plants, their roots indecently exposed to mere curiosity,
on a bright, living early April day? Not much! I told my trouble to the
professor of agriculture, whose eyes brightened, as he informed me he
had no classes for that morning, and--"We would see!" We _did_ see a
whole host of living things outdoors,--flowers peeping out; leaves of
the willows, just breaking; buds ready to burst; all nature waiting for
the sun's call of the "grand entree." It was a good day; but I pitied
that poor old dull-eyed herbarium specimen of a botanical professor, in
whose veins the blood was congealing, when everything about called on
him to get out under the rays of God's sun, and study, book in hand if
he wanted, the bursting, hurrying facts of the imminent spring.

But a word more about the liquidambar--the name by which I hope the tree
we are discussing may be talked of and thought of. Old Linnaeus gave it
that name, because it described euphoniously as well as scientifically
the fact that the sap which exudes from this fine American tree _is_
liquid amber. Now isn't that better than "gum" tree?

With trees in general as objects of interest, I have always felt a
special leaning toward tropical trees, probably because they were rare,
and indeed not to be seen outside of the conservatory in our Middle
S