Spring under the elms

American elm.

"Spring has many American faces. There are cities where it will come and go in a day and counties where it hangs around and never quite gets there. Summer is drawn blinds in Louisiana, long winds in Wyoming, shade of elms and maples in New England.''

-- Archibald MacLeish (poet, Librarian of Congress,  essayist, speechwriter, professor and chronicler of "The Lost Generation.'' He spent most of his later years in western Massachusetts.
 

Editor's note: There aren't many elms left in southern New England because of Dutch elm disease.