“Yes, that’s the tamarack,” said the director. “See how it runs to a perfect pyramid, and not like the other greens of that character, this one does lose its green in winter.”
“Sort of molts, I guess,” said Cleo, “for those branches are covered with green pin feathers.”
They stopped for a few minutes to study this tree of the larch family. It would add to their nature knowledge and give at least one item of value to their picnic hike.
“Isn’t it very straight and tall?” observed Isabel. This feature was so obvious the others had not mentioned it.
“Yes, that’s why they make the telephone poles of it, although, I believe, it is not so durable as the tall cedars,” explained Miss Mackin.
“The little tuffs are just like rosettes,” commented Julia. She was trying to reach the lowest branch with a long stick.
“Like pom-poms, I think,” added Grace, who was barely looking at the big trees but kept searching past them, to the low log cabin that seemed now like a bird house under the trees, and against the big hills.
Miss Mackin described to the girls the blossom of these trees, told them of the “rosey plummets that shade from pink to purple,” and soon exhausted her personal knowledge to supply their interest; then they journeyed forth again on the next “leg of their hike.”
Grace and Cleo tarried behind the others. They were still on the lookout for Peg.
Giving the familiar woods call they waited a few minutes but received no answer.