WITCH-HAZEL.
This little tree blossoms in the fall of the year. After the leaves are gone, and sometimes after the snow has come, it stands in the edge of the woods dressed in a fairy costume of yellow lace-like flowers. After the flowers come the pods. They are very hard and horny and do not ripen until the next fall.
It is fun to gather ripe witch-hazel pods, for when they have been in the house a little while and have become thoroughly dry they “go off.”
You may be sitting by the table reading, when pop!—a hard, shining little black seed strikes you in the face. It is the witch-hazel beginning its cannonade. Pop!—spat!—crack!—the battery has opened, and the seeds are flying with great force in all directions. They are sometimes shot several yards.
Of course in the woods this shooting is intended to start the seed children on their journey in the world.
The witch-hazel pod bursts open, and the edges turn in and press against the smooth seeds with great force, so that when they leave the pod they fly as though shot out of a sling. Get some witch-hazel pods and see how they do it.
Another name for witch-hazel is hamamelis, and from the bark is made a medicine which is put upon bruises. A forked twig of witch-hazel is sometimes used as a divining rod to find where to dig for water, or for gold or silver or other metals. The rod is held in the fingers of the diviner, who walks about, and wherever the rod turns and points down it is supposed to be the place to dig.
Divining rods are not much used in these days. People are not as superstitious, in some ways, as they used to be, and they know the rod cannot help them.