a growth ring. The frost does not harm the smallest leaf-bud baby in its cradle, but it often grips and breaks the hearts of big trees.
Winter is the best time for studying the cone-bearers. Perhaps you call all of these trees pines. Many people do. Only one of their family is a pine, and you would never pick that one out for a Christmas tree. It has long, stiff, needle-like leaves that grow in clusters of from two to five. The clusters grow so close together that they spread in fan-like sprays. The pines, of which there are several varieties, have upright cones of thick, over-lapping, woody scales.
Pines, spruces, firs and hemlocks are alike in having cones and needle-like leaves. Most of them have tall, tapering stems, like ships' masts and telegraph poles. The spruces and firs make the prettiest Christmas trees. The spruce has inch-long needles that bristle all around the stem. In the fir, the needles are flat. They grow on only two sides of the stem, and they slant upward. Sometimes the under side of the leaves are pale and shining. Then it is called the silver fir. The cones of the two trees are much alike, long, slender, with thin, close-set scales. But the spruce cone droops, while the fir cone stands erect. Hemlock needles are short and flat, too, but they lie straight out like the fronds of a feather. The hemlock cones are shorter, with bristling, parted scales. All of these trees have a spicy, balsam-like smell that is very pleasant.
The cedars are very different from the needle-leafed trees. The tiny, flattened, or spiny leaves overlap each other, making scaly or mossy stems. The flat-leafed arbor vitae trees and shrubs are cedars. So are the round-stemmed cypresses, the junipers with their purple berries instead of cones, the gnarly yew-trees with their red or violet seed berries, and the giant redwoods of California. Much like the cedars are the club-mossed larches or tamaracks, that grow in swampy places. Some of the larches and cypresses drop their leaves in the fall.
The cone-bearers put out new leaves in the spring, after their blossoms, dropping the leaves from the older, inner parts of the tree, leaving them quite bare, and strewing the ground with brown needles. All the branches and twigs are tipped with tender green tassels of new leaves. Away up on the tip of the tallest pine is a long green feather. The Indians have a wonder story about that. When a young chief was turned into a pine tree by some bit of magic, he was allowed to keep his eagle feather.
There the feathered tip of the pine waves proudly today, above all the trees of the forest.
