Page 50 - John Erskine: 'Under the Forest'

ISSUE : Issue 33

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1983/6/1

THE A THE Ceilidh XL Cabot Trail ''Trail WILL YE NO COME BACK AGAIN*. No nnatter where you stay in the county of Inverness you will enjoy spectacularly beautiful There are countless little coves to countryside complemented by e'P'ore, the warmest beaches in a rugged dramatic coastline, ''e Maritimes, hiking trails up to focky mountain glens. Ask for the day trip brochures at any provincial tourist booth. "Our beaches have the v'rmest waters, our people have the kindest hearts." THE INVERNESS COUNTY MUNICIPAL TOURIST COMMITTEE BOX 179 PORT HOOD, NOVA SCOTIA So the masters of the forest fall like gov? ernments, and new trees replace them like new governments. The beech went, and the birch filled in the broken canopy of leaves; birch went, and maple is taking its place. Yet beneath the canopy, condi? tions are little changed • There are the young trees waiting hopefully, sometimes for a hundred years, until a great treee falls and lets a sapling climb to the light. And beneath these there are small plants, the untouchables of forest society, who carry on their marginal specialized ca? reers , living on the leavings of light that the master-trees spare them. Under the Forest Under hardwood forest there is a season of sunlight in our dead spring that lies be? tween the passing of the snow and the com? ing of the leaves, and many plants live out their effective lives in this short period. While the Christmas ferns are still uncurling their first croziers, the trilliioms come into flower, the deep red trillium that calls flies by its rank smell, the nodding white trillium of banks, the painted trillium of sandy woods. The multitude of violets, blue and white and yellow, have their few days of glory, the Starf lower CUntontg boreatls Common Speedwell Verorttca officinalis SHADE TOLERANT PLANTS-

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