WITCH-HAZEL.
This little tree blossoms in the fall of the year. After the leaves are gone, and sometimes after the snow has come, it stands in the edge of the woods dressed in a fairy costume of yellow lace-like flowers. After the flowers come the pods. They are very hard and horny and do not ripen until the next fall.
It is fun to gather ripe witch-hazel pods, for when they have been in the house a little while and have become thoroughly dry they “go off.”
You may be sitting by the table reading, when pop!—a hard, shining little black seed strikes you in the face. It is the witch-hazel beginning its cannonade. Pop!—spat!—crack!—the battery has opened, and the seeds are flying with great force in all directions. They are sometimes shot several yards.
Of course in the woods this shooting is intended to start the seed children on their journey in the world.