when primitive man watched the shortening days and wondered

when primitive man watched the shortening days and wondered if the sun was doomed and eternal darkness was to be his fate.

Christmas, with its rituals both pagan and Christian, is a celebration of gratitude for assurance that life would go on. How else to explain our focus on greenness at this time of the year? Evergreens occupy our attention in trees, wreaths and hanging mistletoe. any plant that has stood up against the bareness of winter is honored along with that other symbol of life, lights. At Christmas we celebrate the defeat of night. Winter Solstice, with fewer hours of daylight than any day in the 365 has come and gone. Life, will go on; darkness has lost the battle.

I go out into a barren world to look for signs that nature is alive and prepared for spring. I need to be reassured and look for buds that will produce flowers and leaves in May. I know these buds were formed last June so why do I need to know and see more? Yet, I do. ,

I stop to look at Flowering Dogwood, Cornus florida. Pronouncing this scientific name aloud with no one to hear gives me pleasure. Buds that will produce next spring's flowers on the Dogwood look like plump spring onions. My mother used to send me to the garden in April; "Pull only the fat ones," she would say. These flower buds also resemble. those bulbous towers one sees in pictures of Russian churches. Each consists of four segments glued together at the edges. The book described them as silvery but the one I am looking at now is pale green at the base, shading toward a lilac-purple toward the tip.

Much vital life is contained in this small, sharp-pointed winter bud. When spring sap is running the glue is softened and the segments fold back and expand into white bracts. We are incorrect in calling them petals for they are more like white leaves.

What we call a dogwood bloom is a cluster of bright yellow flowers surrounded by these bracts. Each of these flowers will, if pollinated by some