_A HUNT FOR THE PYXIE_
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No storm raged to defeat a long-cherished plan, and we must laugh at
threatening clouds or miss many an outing. In dreams the pyxie had been
blooming for weeks, and to prove that not all dreams go by contraries, I
started on a flower-hunt. This is not always so tame and adventureless a
matter as one might think. There are wood-blooms that scorn even a trace
of man’s interference, and the pyxie is one of them. Nature alone can
provide its wants, and only where Nature holds undisputed sway can it be
found. To find this beautiful flower we must plunge into the wilderness.
It was a long tramp, but never wanting a purpose for every step taken.
Each turn in the path offered something new, and if ever for a moment a
trace of weariness was felt, it was because even to our hungry eyes the
wilderness was overfull. Bewildering multitudes are more to be feared
than possible dangers. There is no escape from the former. Not a tree or
bush, not a bird or blossom, but to-day offered excellent reason why
with them we should spend our time; and how often they all spoke at
once!
Except the ceaseless rattle of small frogs, there was no sound, for that
sad sighing of the tall pines seems but the rhythmic breathing of
silence; or, passing from the wet grounds to the higher, drier, and more
barren tracts, we heard only the crisp crackling of the reindeer-moss we
crushed at every step. Although
“It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,
And that craves wary walking,”
we gave no thought to possible danger,—for rattlesnakes are still to be
found. Not even when we stooped to pick the bright berries of
winter-green did we think of a coiled serpent buried in dead leaves; and
what opportunity for murder the serpent had as we buried our faces in
pillows of pink and pearly arbutus!
At last we reached South River (in Southern New Jersey), and just here
was no place to tarry, unless to court melancholy. It was not required
that my companion should enumerate the reasons why the one-time farm
along the river-bank had been abandoned. A glance at the surrounding
fields told the whole story. There was, indeed, barrenness,—and very
different, this, from what obtains in localities near by to which the
same term is applied. In the so-called pine barrens there is a luxuriant
vegetation; but here about the deserted house and out-building there was
nothing but glistening sand, moss, and those pallid grasses that suggest
death rather than life, however feeble. And how widely different is it
to be surrounded by ruin wrought by man, and to be in a forest where man
has never been! Could I not have turned my back upon the scene and
looked out only upon the river, the day’s pleasure would have vanished.
But we were soon away, and a naturalist’s paradise was spread before us.
What constitutes such a place? Not necessarily one where man has never
been: it will suffice if Nature has withstood his interference; and this
is true of these pine barrens, this weedy wilderness, this silent
battle-field where the struggle for existence never ceases, and yet, as
we see it, peaceful as the fleecy clouds that fleck an April sky.
Though the wind that swept the wide reach of waters close at hand still
smacked of wintry weather, there was a welcome warmth on shore. The oaks
even hinted of the coming leaf. Their buds were so far swollen that the
sharp outlines of bare twigs against the sky were rounded off. The ruddy
stems of the blueberry bushes gave to the river-bank a fire-like glow,
and yet more telling was the wealth of bright golden glow where the tall
Indian grass waved in all its glory. The repellent desolation of
midwinter, so common to our cold-soil upland fields, was wholly wanting
here; for, while nothing strongly suggested life as we think of it, even
in early spring, yet nothing recalled death, the familiar feature of a
midwinter landscape.
The scattered cedars were not gloomy to-day. Their green-black foliage
stood out in bold relief, a fitting background to the picture of
Spring’s promises. That the sea was not far off is evident, for even
here, a dozen miles from the ocean, many of these trees were bent and
squatty at the top, as are all those that face the fury of storms along
the coast. Every one harbored north-bound migrating birds; restless,
warbling kinglets principally. No other tree seemed to attract these
pretty birds, many a flock passing by scores of oaks to the next cedar
in their line of march. The clustered pines were not similarly favored,
not a bird of any kind appearing about them, and life of all kinds was
wholly absent in the long aisles between their stately trunks. Our path
led us through one great grove where every tree grew straight and tall
as a ship’s mast. The light that filled this wood was strangely
beautiful. Nothing stood out distinctly. To have passed here in the
gloaming would have tried weak nerves. Even in the glare of noonday my
imagination was abnormally active, every stunted shrub and prostrate log
assuming some startling shape. Think of such a place after sunset! Let
an owl whoop in your ears when hedged in by thick-set trees!
Philosophize as one will in daylight, it goes for little now, and the
days of Indians, cougars, and all ill-natured beasts come trooping back.
This distrust of darkness is not mere cowardice, and I would accept no
one’s statement that he is wholly free of it. Every sound becomes unduly
significant when we are alone in a wilderness; often unpleasantly so,
even during the day, and
“in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!”
Out of the pines and into the oak woods: the change was very abrupt, and
as complete as possible. Every feature of the surroundings was bathed in
light now, and the emergence from the pine forest’s gloom restored our
spirits. We are ever craving variety, and there was positive beauty in
every stunted oak’s ugliness, and from them we needed but to turn our
heads to see thrifty magnolias near the river-bank. These have no
special enemy, now that the beavers are gone, and thrive in the black
mud by the water’s edge; better, by far, than the gum-trees near them,
for these were heavy laden with pallid mistletoe,—to me a most repugnant
growth.
We reached open country at last, and here were birds without number. How
quickly all else fades at such a time! The whole valley trembled with
the ringing whistle of a thousand red-wings. A few swallows—the first of
their kind to return—darted over the wide waters and rested on
projecting branches of trees that floods had stranded on the islands.
The sprightly kill-deers ran with such dainty steps over the sand that I
could not find their footprints. They, too, were pioneer birds, but none
the less light-hearted because alone. They sang with all their last
year’s earnestness, scattering music among the marshes where frogs were
now holding high carnival. They were very tame, at least so far as we
were concerned, but a little in doubt as to what a stray hawk might be
about. But they left us only to make room for others, and whether we
looked riverward or landward mattered not: it was birds, birds, birds!
Here a hundred sparrows in an oak, there a troop of snow-birds in the
bushes, a whistling titmouse sounding his piercing notes, the plaintive
bluebird floating overhead, the laugh of the loon at the bend of the
river, and buzzards searching for stranded herring where the seine had
been drawn.
A flock of herons, too, passed overhead, and, had they not seen us,
might have stopped here on the river-shore. What an addition to a
landscape! and yet now so seldom seen. No birds can be more harmless
than they, yet not even the hawks are subject to greater persecution.
Not long since these birds were abundant, and a “heronry” was one of the
“sights” of many a neighborhood; but people now scarcely know what a
“heronry” is. The very word suggests how rapidly our large birds are
disappearing, and their roosting-places, where hundreds gathered and
nested, too, in season, are matters of “ancient history.” In fear and
trembling, the herons that linger about our watercourses singly seek
secluded trees wherein to rest, and, I fear, even then sleep with one
eye open. A fancy, on the part of women, for heron plumes has wrought a
deal of mischief.
But where is the pyxie? We knew it must be near at hand, but why make
haste to find it? All else was so beautiful here, why not wait even
until another day? The river-bank was itself a study. At the top, sand
of snowy whiteness; then a ribbon of clay over which water trickled
carrying iron in solution, that was slowly cementing a sand stratum
beneath, where every degree of density could be found, from solid rock
to a paste-like mass that we took pleasure in moulding into fantastic
shapes, thereby renewing our dirt-pie days.
A little later in the year, this bluff, now streaked and spotted, will
be green with the broad-leaved sundews, curious carnivorous plants that
here take the place of grasses. There is a filiform sundew that grows
near by, where the ground is high, if not dry; but it, too, waits for
warmer days. Not so the pyxie. Almost at first glance, as we left the
bluff, we saw it, sparkling white, nestled among the gray mats of
reindeer-moss, or fringed by shining winter-green still laden with its
crimson fruit.
Here the earth was strangely carpeted. Sphagnum, beautiful by reason of
rich color, gray-green moss, and the object of our long tramp,—pyxie. No
botany does it justice, passing it by with the mere mention of its
barbarous name, _Pyxidanthera barbulata_. It might be thought the
meanest of all weeds, but is, in truth, the chiefest glory of this
wonderful region.
Is it strange we regretted that Time would not slacken his pace? I know
not where else, in these northern regions, so much is to be seen, and so
soon. Spring, elsewhere, is the round year’s strangest child, often too
forward, and too often backward; but her accomplishments here and now
are beyond criticism. Such perfect work, and yet she is not out of her
teens. The day was April 1.
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