Here, too, was a red
cedar; and to me, who, in my ignorance, had always thought of this tough
little evergreen as especially at home on my own bleak and stony
hillsides, it seemed an incongruous trio,--fig-tree, orange-tree, and
savin. In truth, the cedars of Florida were one of my liveliest
surprises. At first I refused to believe that they were red cedars, so
strangely exuberant were they, so disdainful of the set, cone-shaped,
toy-tree pattern on which I had been used to seeing red cedars built.
And when at last a study of the flora compelled me to admit their
identity,[1] I turned about and protested that I had never seen red
cedars before. One, in St. Augustine, near San Marco Avenue, I had the
curiosity to measure. The girth of the trunk at the smallest place was
six feet five inches, and the spread of the branches was not less than
fifty feet.
[Footnote 1: I speak as if I had accepted my own study of the manual as
conclusive. I did for the time being, but while writing this paragraph I
bethought myself that I might be in error, after all. I referred the
question, therefore, to a friend, a botanist of authority. "No wonder
the red cedars of Florida puzzled you," he replied. "No one would
suppose at first that they were of the same species as our New England
savins. The habit is entirely different; but botanists have found no
characters by which to separate them, and you are safe in considering
them as _Juniperus Virginiana_.
Pages:
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80