The appearance of the blossom bespeaks the arrival of the spring and the birth anew of the year; this blossom is the very pride and delight of the trees. Then it is that they show themselves quite renewed, and altogether different from what they really are; then it is that they quite revel in the contest with each other which shall excel in the various hues and tints which they display. This merit has, however, been denied to many of them; for they do not all blossom, and there are certain sombre trees which do not participate in this joyous season of the year. The holm-oak, the pitch-tree, the larch, and the pine are never bedecked with blossoms, and with them there is no particular forerunner sent forth to announce the yearly birth of their respective fruits. The same is the case, too, with the cultivated and the wild fig,[1] which immediately present their fruit in place of any blossom. Upon the fig, too, it is remarkable that there are abortive fruit to be seen which never ripen.

The juniper, also, is destitute[2] of blossom; some writers, however, distinguish two varieties of it, one of which blossoms but bears no fruit,[3] while the other has no blossom, but presents the berries immediately, which remain on the tree for so long a period as two years: this assertion, however, is utterly fallacious, and all the junipers always present the same sombre appearance. So, too, in life, the fortunes of many men are ever without their time of blossoming.