But though she takes no improper "pride in dress," even the rigid Dr
Watts would hardly be disposed to object to the exceedingly _charming_
trimming of semi-transparent green flouncing, and the rich festoons of
straw-yellow tassels, with which--not to appear insensible to the
festivities of spring--she has just now fringed her winter apparel.
Making less demands upon the earth than many of her neighbours, she
turns her supplies to better account; her acorns from early youth are
firm and mature; excrescences, the common result of excess, mar not
the rough symmetry of her hardy frame--few insects feed upon that
uncompromising rind, which, opposing itself to most cryptogamic
alliance, seldom suffers moss or lichen to spread over its incised and
tesselated surface,

"Save here and there in spots aye dank and dark,
When the green meshes fill the fissured bark."

Much does the Ilex gain by this prudent economy of her resources; for,
long after the autumnal rains have stripped her companions bare, while
they are shivering and sighing in the blast, _she_ knows neither moult
nor change. Immutably serene, she plants the dense screen of
well-clothed boughs across the road, and affords shelter to the
careless wight who has forgotten his umbrella, keeping him dry and
warm under an impenetrable water-proof and winter-proof canopy. Of all
trees that bloom, (especially when as now in full feather,) few can
rival the acacia in delicacy of white, or in profusion of blossoming.
Nodding their heavy plumes and parting their leafy tresses in the
breeze, they are the charm of every spot where they grow; whether as
here, alternating in beautiful relief by the lofty wall of the
aqueduct, commingling their snowy bunches amidst thousands of red and
white Banksian roses; or else standing sentinel with a weeping willow
over some garden fountain. Whether alone or in company, there is not a
more beautiful sylvan blonde than the acacia; but it is too apparent
that such loveliness will not last, that her stature is fully beyond
her strength. For example, there is a row of them; none counts her
twelfth birth-day, and yet all are grown up! Turn we, now, to the
great stone pines: here they stand in the morning sun, that has
already cracked their fevered bark, and caused it to peel off in red
_laminae_ from the rugged trunk. See the ground at their base strewn
with these thin vegetable tiles; and large quantities of that most
beautiful of fungus