Hemlocks

This time of year it's important to stop and observe the unfurling of the leaves, but it's equally important to give much-deserved attention to the conifers of the landscape.
Here is a passage from Peattie's Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America:

"But not in newsprint and cheap wrapping paper does Hemlock serve us best, but rather rooted in its tranquil, age-old stations. Approaching such a noble tree, you think it dark, almost black, because the needles on the upper side are indeed a lustrous deep blue-green. Yet when you lunch on the rock that is almost sure to be found at its feet, or settle your back into the buttresses of the bole and look up under the boughs, their shade seems silvery, since the under side of each needle is whitened by two lines. Soon even talk of the tree itself is silenced by it, and you fall to listening. When the wind lifts up the Hemlock's voice, it is no roaring like the Pine, no keening like the spruce's. The Hemlock whistles softly to itself. It raises its long, limber boughs and lets them drop again with a sigh, not sorrowful, but letting fall tranquility upon us."

I've never read such beautiful writing!