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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wayside and Woodland Trees, by Edward Step
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Wayside and Woodland Trees
+       A pocket guide to the British sylva
+
+Author: Edward Step
+
+Release Date: December 23, 2010 [EBook #34740]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND TREES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Simon Gardner, Chris Curnow and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+This plain text version of the book uses Latin-1 symbols in addition to
+ASCII character set.
+
+[oe] is used to represent the oe ligature.
+
+Minor changes to punctuation and formatting are made without comment.
+Changes to the text, to correct typographical errors, are listed as
+follows:
+
+Page 69 (paragraph on the Eared Sallow): changed "that" to "than" (...
+which are usually less than two inches long,...)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+                       A LIST OF THE VOLUMES IN
+                                 THE
+                      WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND SERIES
+
+
+                     WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND BLOSSOMS
+
+   A Pocket Guide to British Wild Flowers, for the Country Rambler.
+                      (First and Second Series.)
+    With clear Descriptions of 760 Species. By EDWARD STEP, F.L.S.
+        And Coloured Figures of 257 Species by MABEL E. STEP.
+
+                      WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND TREES
+
+      A Pocket Guide to the British Sylva. By EDWARD STEP, F.L.S.
+      With 175 Plates from Water-colour Drawings by MABEL E. STEP
+           and Photographs by HENRY IRVING and the Author.
+
+                      WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND FERNS
+
+   A Pocket Guide to the British Ferns, Horsetails and Club-Mosses.
+                        By EDWARD STEP, F.L.S.
+       With Coloured Figures of every Species by MABEL E. STEP.
+                  And 67 Photographs by the Author.
+
+                 THE BUTTERFLIES OF THE BRITISH ISLES
+
+               A Pocket Guide for the Country Rambler.
+    With clear Descriptions and Life Histories of all the Species.
+                       By RICHARD SOUTH, F.E.S.
+   With 450 Coloured Figures photographed from Nature, and numerous
+                      Black and White Drawings.
+
+                    THE MOTHS OF THE BRITISH ISLES
+
+                      (First and Second Series).
+  A Complete Pocket Guide to all the Species included in the Groups
+    formerly known as Macro-lepidoptera. By RICHARD SOUTH, F.E.S.
+   With upwards of 1500 Coloured Figures photographed from Nature,
+                and numerous Black and White Drawings.
+
+                         AT ALL BOOKSELLERS.
+
+        _Full Prospectuses on application to the Publishers--_
+                       FREDERICK WARNE AND CO.
+                  LONDON: 15, Bedford Street, Strand.
+                   NEW YORK: 12, East 33rd Street.
+
+
+
+
+                     WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND TREES.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 1._ Flowers of Horse Chestnut. _Frontispiece._]
+
+
+
+
+                      Wayside and Woodland Trees
+
+                 A POCKET GUIDE TO THE BRITISH SYLVA
+
+                                  BY
+
+                         EDWARD STEP, F.L.S.
+
+                              AUTHOR OF
+                    "WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND BLOSSOMS"
+              "THE ROMANCE OF WILD FLOWERS" "SHELL LIFE"
+                                 ETC.
+
+            _WITH ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE PLATES FROM
+              WATER-COLOUR DRAWINGS BY MABEL E. STEP AND
+                    PHOTOGRAPHS BY HENRY IRVING AND
+                              THE AUTHOR._
+
+                                LONDON
+                         FREDERICK WARNE & CO.
+                             AND NEW YORK
+
+                       (_All rights reserved_)
+
+      "_Of all man's works of art, a cathedral is greatest. A vast and
+    majestic tree is greater than that._"
+
+                                                 _Henry Ward Beecher._
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The purpose of this volume is not the addition of one more to the
+numerous treatises upon sylviculture or forestry, but to afford a
+straightforward means for the identification of our native trees and
+larger shrubs for the convenience of the rural rambler and Nature-lover.
+The list of British arborescent plants is a somewhat meagre one, but all
+that could be done in a pocket volume by way of supplementing it has
+been done--by adding some account of those exotics that have long been
+naturalized in our woods, and a few of more recent introduction that
+have already become conspicuous ornaments in many public and private
+parks.
+
+In this edition forty-eight extra plates have been added, of which
+twenty-four are in colours. The latter are in part reproductions of
+water-colour studies of flowers and fruits, and partly from photographs
+by a new method. For the black and white plates, the photographs, it
+should be explained, have been taken upon a novel plan in most cases.
+This consists in photographing a deciduous tree in its summer glory, and
+returning to the same spot in winter and photographing the same
+individual, so that a striking comparison may be made between the
+summer and winter aspects of the principal species. Supplementary
+photographs are given, in many cases, of the bole, which exhibit the
+character of the bark, and should prove a valuable aid in the
+identification of species. Others show in larger detail the flowers or
+fruit, and the characteristic leaf-buds in spring.
+
+The figures in the text have all been expressly drawn for the work with
+a view to showing at a glance the general character of the foliage, and
+in most cases the flower and fruit.
+
+The work is divided into two sections. Part I. including those species
+that are generally considered to be indigenous to the British Islands,
+with briefer notices of the introduced species that are closely related
+to them. Part II. being devoted to those of foreign origin, some of them
+introduced so long ago that they are commonly regarded as native by
+those who are not botanists.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+There are two points of view from which to regard trees--the mercantile
+and the æsthetic. The former is well exemplified in Dumbiedyke's advice
+to Jock: "Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking
+in a tree; it will be growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping." The canny
+Scot was thinking of the "unearned increment" another generation might
+gather in, due to the almost unceasing activity of the vegetable cells
+in the manufacture of timber. The other view was expressed by "the
+Autocrat of the Breakfast-table" in a letter to a friend: "Whenever we
+plant a tree we are doing what we can to make our planet a more
+wholesome and happier dwelling-place for those who come after us, if not
+for ourselves." But, after all, it is the trees that have been planted
+by Nature that give the greatest pleasure apart from commercial
+considerations--the lonely Pine, that grows in rugged grandeur on the
+edge of the escarpment where its seed was planted in the crevice by the
+wind; the Oak that grows outside the forest, where a squirrel or a jay
+dropped the acorn, and where the young tree had room all its life to
+throw out its arms as it would; the little cluster of Birches that
+springs from the ferns and moss of the hillside. All trees so grown
+develop an individuality that is not apparent in their fellows of the
+timber forest; and however we may delight in the peace and quiet of the
+forest, with its softened light and cool fragrant air, we can there only
+regard the trees in a mass. We might, indeed, reverse the old saying,
+and declare that we cannot see the trees on account of the wood.
+
+Nature and the timber-producer have different aims and pursue different
+methods in the making of forests, though the latter is not above taking
+a hint from the former occasionally. Nature mixes her seeds and sows
+them broadcast over the land she intends to turn into forest, that the
+more vigorous kinds may act as nurses, sheltering and protecting the
+less robust. Then comes the struggle for existence, with its final
+ending in the survival of the fittest. In the mean time the mixed forest
+has given shelter to an enormous population of smaller fry--plants,
+mammals, birds, and insects--and has been a delightful recreation ground
+for man. The timber-producer aims at so controlling the struggle for
+existence that the survival of the fit is maintained from start to
+finish. He plants his young trees in regular order, putting in nurses at
+intervals and along the borders, intending to cut them down when his
+purpose has been served. The timber trees are allowed no elbow-room, the
+putting forth of lateral branches is discouraged, but steady upward
+growth and the production of "canopy" is abetted. His aim is to get
+these timber-sticks as near alike as possible, free from individuality,
+and with the minimum of difference in girth at top and bottom of each
+pole. This means a thicker and longer balk of clean timber when the tree
+is felled and squared. The continuous canopy induces growth in the
+upward direction only, and discourages the weeds and undergrowth that
+add to the charm of the forest, but which unprofitably use up the
+wood-producing elements in the soil. This plan contrasts strongly with
+the views on planting formerly prevalent in this country, John Evelyn,
+for example, making a special point of giving the Oak room to stretch
+out its arms, "free from all incumbrances." But, then, unlike the
+timber-producers, Evelyn had an eye for landscape beauty, and giving an
+opportunity for the display of such beauty. He says: "And if thus his
+Majesty's forests and chases were stored, viz. with this spreading tree
+at handsome intervals, by which grazing might be improved for the
+feeding of deer and cattle under them (for such was the old Saltus),
+being only visited with the gleams of the sun, and adorned with the
+distant landscapes appearing through the glades and frequent valleys,
+nothing could be more ravishing."
+
+The greater the success of the forester, the more profound is the solemn
+stillness of the forest--and the more monotonous. In place of the
+natural forest, with its varied and teeming life, we have what
+Wordsworth called a timber factory. In the natural forest, with its
+mixture of many kinds of trees, the undergrowth of shrubs, and carpet of
+grass and weeds, the stronger trees spread out their arms in all
+directions, and fritter away (as the scientific forester would say)
+their wood-producing powers in making much firewood and little valuable
+timber. But the result is very beautiful, and the nature-lover can
+wander among it without tiring, and can study without exhausting its
+treasures. Emerson says: "In the woods is perpetual youth. Within these
+plantations of God a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is
+dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand
+years." To the scientific forester this is all waste land, and he pleads
+for the "higher culture" being applied to it. With every desire that the
+natural resources of our country should be properly developed, we do
+hope that he will not be entirely successful in his efforts, and that a
+few of the woods and wastes of Nature's own planting may be left for the
+recreation of the simple folk who have not yet taken to appraising the
+value of everything by the price it will fetch in the market.
+
+The trees described in this volume are the really wild growths that have
+lived a natural life; and though many of the photographs are from
+planted trees, they are such as have been allowed to grow as they would,
+and show the characteristic branching of the species.
+
+A few words on the life of a tree may be welcomed here by those readers
+who have not made a study of botany. Although the nurseryman makes use
+of suckers and cuttings for the quicker multiplication of certain
+species, every tree in its natural habitat produces seeds and is
+reproduced by them. The flowering of our forest trees is a phenomenon
+that does not as a rule attract attention, but their fruiting or
+seed-bearing becomes patent to all who visit the woods in autumn. A tree
+has lived many years before it is capable of producing seed. The
+seed-bearing age is different in each species; thus the Oak begins to
+bear when it is between sixty and seventy years old, the Ash between
+forty and fifty, the Birch and Sweet Chestnut at twenty-five years. Some
+produce seed every year after that period is reached, others every
+second, third, or fifth year; others, again, bear fitfully except at
+intervals of from six to nine years, when they produce an enormous crop.
+Most tree-seeds germinate in the spring following their maturity, but
+they are not all distributed when ripe. The Birch, the Elm, and the
+Aspen, for examples, retain their seeds until spring, and these
+germinate soon after they have been dispersed.
+
+The seeds contain sufficient nutriment to feed the seedling whilst it is
+developing it roots and first real leaves. We can, of course, go further
+back in starting our observations of the life progress of the monarch of
+the forest. We can dissect the insignificant greenish flower of the Oak
+when the future seed (acorn) is but a single cell, a tiny bag filled
+with protoplasm. From that early stage to the period when the tree is
+first ripe for conversion into timber we span a century and a half,
+equal to two good human lives, and the Oak is but at the point where a
+man attains his majority. The Oak is built up after the fashion by which
+man attains to his full stature. It is a process of multiplication of
+weak, minute cells, which become specialized for distinct offices in the
+economy of the vegetable community we call a tree. Some go to renew and
+enlarge the roots, others to the perfecting of that system of vessels
+through which the crude fluids from the roots are carried up to the
+topmost leaf, whence, after undergoing chemical transformation in the
+leaf laboratory, it is circulated to all parts of the organism to make
+possible the production of more cells. Each of these has a special task,
+and it becomes invested with cork or wood to enable it to become part of
+the bark or the timber; or it remains soft and develops the green
+colouring matter, which enables it, when exposed to sunlight, to
+manufacture starch from carbon and water.
+
+This is very similar to what takes place in the human organism, where
+the nutriment taken in is used up in the production of new cells, which
+are differentiated into muscle-cells, bone-cells, epidermal-cells, and
+so forth, building up or renewing muscles or nerves, bones or arteries;
+but the mechanism of distribution is different, the heart-pump doing the
+work of capillary attraction and gravitation. The ancients believed in
+the Dryads, spirits that were imprisoned in trees, and whose life was
+coterminous with that of the tree; and it will be seen that they had
+stronger physical justification for their belief than they knew.
+Shakespeare relates how Sycorax, the witch-mother of Caliban, imprisoned
+Ariel in a tree; and Huxley finely tells us that "The plant is an animal
+confined in a wooden case; and Nature, like Sycorax, holds thousands of
+'delicate Ariels' imprisoned in every oak. She is jealous of letting us
+know this; and among the higher and more conspicuous forms of plants
+reveals it only by such obscure manifestations as the shrinking of the
+Sensitive Plant, the sudden clasp of the Dionæa, or, still more
+slightly, by the phenomena of the cyclosis."
+
+The tree, as we have indicated, gets its food from the air and the soil.
+The rootlets have the power of dissolving the mineral salts in the soil
+in which they ramify; some authorities believing that they are
+materially helped in this respect--so far as organic matter is
+concerned--by a fungus that invests them with a mantle of delicate
+threads. However that may be, the fluid that is taken up by the roots is
+not merely water, but water plus dissolved mineral matter and nitrogen.
+At the same time as the roots are thus absorbing liquid nutriment, the
+leaves, pierced with thousands of little _stomata_, or mouths, take in
+atmospheric air, which is compounded chiefly of the gases oxygen and
+carbon. The leaf-cells containing the green colouring matter
+(_chlorophyll_) seize hold of the carbon and release the oxygen. The
+carbon is then combined with the fluid from the roots by the vital
+chemistry of the leaves, and is circulated all over the system for the
+sustenance of all the organs and tissues.
+
+The flowering of the trees varies so greatly that it can only be dealt
+with satisfactorily as each species is described. It may be stated,
+however, that all the true forest trees are wind-fertilized, and
+therefore have inconspicuous greenish blossoms. By true forest trees we
+mean those that alone or slightly mixed are capable of forming high
+forest. The smaller trees, such as Crab, Rowan, Cherry, Blackthorn,
+Hawthorn, Buckthorn, etc., belong more to the open woodland, to the
+common and the hedgerow. These, from their habitat, can be seen singly,
+and therefore can make use of the conspicuous flowers that are
+fertilized by insects.
+
+
+
+
+WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND TREES.
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+NATIVE TREES AND SHRUBS.
+
+
+The Oak (_Quercus robur_).
+
+When good John Evelyn wrote his "Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees,"
+he was greatly concerned lest our "wooden walls" should diminish in
+strength for want of a succession of stout Oaks in our woodlands, and
+therefore he put the Oak in the forefront of his discourse. To-day steel
+and teak have largely supplanted oak in the building of our navy, and
+our walls of defence are no longer of wood. Yet in spite of these
+changes, and the consequent reduction of the Oak's importance, we must
+still look upon it as the typical British tree, and, regardless of its
+place in botanical classifications, we shall follow the lead of our
+master and place it first on our list.
+
+There is no necessity for entering upon a minute description of the
+botanical characters of so well known a tree. The sturdy, massive trunk,
+firm as a rock; the broad, rounded outline of its head, caused by the
+downward sweeping extremities of the wide-spreading lower limbs; the
+wavy outline of the lobed leaves, and the equally distinct
+egg-and-cup-shaped fruit--these are characters that cannot be confused
+with those of any other tree, and are the most familiar objects in the
+landscape in most parts of our islands. To my mind, no wood is so
+awe-inspiring as one filled with old oaks, all so much alike, yet each
+with a distinct individuality. We regard with reverence a human
+centenarian, who may have nothing beyond his great age to commend him to
+us; but we think of the long period of history of which he has been a
+spectator, possibly an active maker of history. The huge Oak has
+probably lived through ten or twenty such periods. Compared with the
+Oak, man is but of mushroom growth. It does not produce an acorn until
+sixty or seventy years old, and even then it is not mature. Not till a
+century and a half have passed over its head is its timber fit for use,
+and as a rule it is not felled under the age of two hundred years. Many
+trees are left to a much greater age, or we should not have still with
+us so many venerable specimens, and where they have not been left until
+partially decayed, the timber is found to be still very valuable when
+finally cut down. Of one of these patriarchs of the forest, cut down in
+the year 1810, we have figures of quantity and value from a contemporary
+record. It was known as the Gelenos Oak, and stood about four miles from
+Newport, Monmouthshire. When felled, it yielded 2426 cubic feet of sound
+timber, and six tons of bark. It was bought just as it stood for £405,
+and the purchaser had to pay £82 for labour for stripping, felling, and
+converting into timber. Five men were employed for twenty days in
+stripping the bark and felling the tree, and after that a pair of
+sawyers, working six days a week, were five months cutting it up. But
+the bark realized £200, and the timber about £400. The timber and bark
+from this one tree were about equal to the average produce of three
+acres of oak coppice after fifteen years growth.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 2._ Oak--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 3._ Oak--winter.]
+
+Full-grown oaks vary in height from sixty to one hundred and thirty
+feet, the difference depending upon situation; the tallest, of
+course, being those that have been drawn up in forests, at the expense
+of their branches. Trees growing freely in the open are of less height,
+and are made to appear comparative dwarfs by the huge proportions of the
+bole. In the forest this may be no more than ten feet in girth, but in
+isolated specimens may be as much as fifty-four feet (Cowthorpe Oak),
+with a much broader base. The thick rough bark is deeply furrowed in a
+large network pattern, which affords temporary hiding-places for
+insects. The branches are much given to turn and zig-zag from side to
+side--a character that makes them very useful in boat-building, as
+"knees" of various angles may be cut from them without having recourse
+to bending. The best knees are to be obtained from Oaks grown in the
+hedgerow.
+
+[Illustration: Oak. A, female flower; B, male flowers.]
+
+The Oak flowers in April or May, and the blossoms are of two distinct
+forms--male and female. The males are in little clusters, which are
+borne at intervals along a hanging stalk, two or three inches in length.
+They are green, and therefore inconspicuous; but examined separately,
+they will be found to have a definite calyx, whose margin is cut into an
+uncertain number (4-7) of lobes. There are no petals, but attached to
+the sides of the calyx there are ten stamens. The female flowers are
+fewer, and will be found on short erect stalks above the male catkins.
+Each female flower consists of a calyx, invested by a number of
+overlapping scales, and enclosing an ovary with three styles. The ovary
+is divided into three cells, each containing two seed-eggs. An acorn
+should therefore contain six kernels, but, as a rule, only one of the
+seed-eggs develops, though occasionally an acorn contains two kernels.
+The overlapping scales at the base of the female flower become the rough
+cup that holds the acorn.
+
+The Oak is subject to a considerable amount of variation, probably due
+to differences of situation, soil, etc., and some authors have sought to
+elevate certain of the varieties into species by giving them distinctive
+names. It does not appear to be certain, however, that these forms are
+at all constant, and they are connected by intermediate forms that make
+the identification of many individuals a matter of difficulty. In one of
+these forms (_sessiliflora_) the stalk of the acorns connecting them
+with the branch is very short, but the leaves have a distinct footstalk,
+from half an inch to an inch long. This form is more plentiful in the
+north and west, and is conspicuous in the Forest of Dean. A second form,
+known as _pedunculata_, has the leaf-stalk short or absent, the base
+of the leaf broad and somewhat heart-shaped, and the stalk upon which
+the acorns are borne very long. A third form (_intermedia_), commonly
+known as Durmast, has short leaf-stalks, short stalks to the acorns, and
+the under side of the leaf downy. _Pedunculata_ is found more on the
+lower hills and the sides of valleys, whilst _sessiliflora_ prefers
+higher ground, with a southern or western aspect.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 4._ Bole of Oak.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 5._ Flowers of Oak.]
+
+The Oak is most abundant on clay soils, but is at its best when growing
+in deep sandy loam, where there is also plenty of humus. Its roots in
+such soil strike down to a depth of five feet, and therefore it thrives
+in association with Beech, whose roots are much nearer the surface, and
+whose fallen leaves supply it with humus.
+
+The Oak is more persistently attacked by insects than any other tree.
+One authority (Leunis) has tabulated the species that get their living
+mainly or entirely from their attacks on the foliage, timber, or bark,
+and they number about five hundred. With some species this warfare is
+waged on so extensive a scale, that in some years by early summer the
+Oaks are almost divested of their foliage, and a new crop of leaves
+becomes a necessity. But the reserve forces of the Oak are quite equal
+to this drain, and the tree does not appear to suffer, though a much
+less thorough attack would be serious to a Conifer. One of the worst of
+these Oak-spoilers--though it by no means restricts its energies to
+attacks on this tree--is the Mottled Umber Moth (_Hibernia defoliaria_),
+whose pretty caterpillars may be seen hanging by silken threads from the
+leafless twigs.
+
+A striking Oak insect is the Stag Beetle (_Lucanus cervus_), which, in
+warm evenings in the south of England, may be seen flying round the
+Oaks, the size and antler-like jaws of the male arousing feelings of
+respect in the minds of those who are not acquainted with its habits.
+The formidable looking "horns" are usually harmless. The beetle spends
+its larval stage in the wood of unhealthy Oaks, and, when mature, seeks
+his hornless mate among its foliage.
+
+Perhaps the most interesting of the Oak's pensioners to the woodland
+rambler will be the varied forms of gall on different parts of the tree.
+There is the so-called Oak-apple, of uneven surface and spongy to the
+touch, which certain people still wear on May 29th, in honour of Charles
+II.; the well-rounded hard Bullet-gall of _Cynips kollari_, the
+Artichoke-gall of _Cynips gemmæ_, the Spangle-galls of _Neuroterus
+lenticularis_, so plentiful on the back of the leaf, and the Root-gall
+of _Biorhiza aptera_. All these galls are abnormal growths, due to the
+irritation set up by the Gall-wasps named, when they pierced the young
+tissues in order to lay their eggs in them. Where any of these galls are
+perforated it may be known that the Gall-wasp whose grub fed within has
+flown, but where there is no such perforation the grub is still within,
+feeding upon the flesh of the gall, or in the chrysalis stage, awaiting
+translation to the winged condition.
+
+Several Oaks of foreign origin are also grown in our parks and open
+spaces; among them the Holm Oak (_Quercus ilex_) whose evergreen
+leathery leaves have toothed or plain edges, and occasionally the lower
+ones develop marginal spines, whence its name of Holm or Holly Oak. It
+is notable for retaining its lower branches, so that its appearance, as
+Loudon remarks, "even when fully grown, is that of an immense bush,
+rather than that of a timber tree." It is a native of Southern Europe
+and North Africa, and appears to have been introduced about the middle
+of the sixteenth century. It usually attains a height of from twenty to
+thirty feet, but occasionally specimens are seen up to sixty feet. It
+has a much thinner, more even bark than that of our native Oak, and of a
+black colour. The long brown acorns do not ripen until the second year.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 6._ Holm Oak.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 7._ Acorns of Turkey Oak.]
+
+The Turkey Oak (_Quercus cerris_) is a much larger tree, attaining to
+similar heights to our British Oak, but easily distinguishable by its
+more pyramidal outline, and its attenuated leaves. The lance-shaped
+lobes of these are unequal, sharp, and angular; and the footless
+acorn-cups are covered with bristly or mossy-looking scales. The acorns,
+which are small and exceedingly bitter, rarely ripen till their second
+autumn. The whole tree--trunk, branches, and twigs--is of straighter
+growth than _Quercus robur_. It is a native of Southern Europe and the
+Levant, and was introduced about one hundred and seventy years ago.
+
+The spring rambler in the woods may come upon a party of woodmen
+stripping young Oaks of their bark, or felling them, whilst cylinders of
+separated bark rest across poles in the process of drying. This is the
+industry of barking for the purpose of the tanner. When the Oaks in a
+coppice are about sixteen years old they are most suitable for this
+purpose, the bark then containing a larger percentage of _tannin_ than
+at any other period. The operation is best performed in May, when the
+sap is in flow, and should be completed between the first swelling of
+the leaf-buds and the unrolling of the leaves. If the weather is cold
+and damp the bark will peel the better, provided there is an absence of
+north or east winds. Before the tree is cut down the bole is stripped,
+the first ring being taken from just above the roots to a height of two
+and a half feet above. When the tree is felled, it is cut into lengths
+and the bark stripped from them; then all branches that are an inch or
+more in diameter are peeled. The bark is piled to dry for a couple of
+weeks, and is then broken into small pieces and sent away in sacks.
+
+It is not alone in the use of the bark that the tannic acid of the Oak
+is made evident; it is to the presence of this that the austerity of the
+acorn is due, and also the ink-producing properties of certain
+Oak-galls. Everything connected with the tree gets a roughness of
+flavour from this same principle. Even that remarkable fungus, the
+Vegetable Beef-steak, that may be found on old Oaks in autumn, is
+impregnated with it.
+
+Prior regards the name Oak (Anglo-Saxon _ac_) as originally belonging to
+the fruit, and only later transferred to the tree that produces it. The
+more obvious explanation (though we know that in etymological and other
+matters the obvious is not always the true interpretation) is, that
+acorn (ac-corn) signified the corn or fruit of the ac. Selby tells us
+that "During the Anglo-Saxon rule, and even for some time after the
+Conquest, Oak-forests were chiefly valued for the fattening of swine.
+Laws relating to pannage, or the fattening of hogs in the forest, were
+enacted during the Heptarchy; and by Ina's statutes, any person wantonly
+injuring or destroying an Oak-tree was mulcted in a fine varying
+according to size, or the quantity of mast it produced."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 8._ Fruit of Beech.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 9._ Beech--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 10._ Acorns of Pedunculate Oak.]
+
+
+The Beech (_Fagus sylvatica_).
+
+We speak of the Oak as the "Monarch of the Woods," and to the Beech the
+title "Mother of Forests" has been given. To the timber-merchant the
+Beech has little importance, but the grower of timber freely
+acknowledges his heavy indebtedness to this nursing mother, for, in the
+words of Professor Gayer, the Bavarian forestry expert, "without Beech
+there can no more be properly tended forests of broad-leaved genera, as
+along with it would have to be given up many other valuable
+timber-trees, whose production is only possible with the aid of Beech."
+Quite apart from utilitarian considerations, we should be very sorry to
+lose the Beech, with its towering, massive shaft clad in smooth grey
+bark, its spreading roots above the soil, and the dense shade of its
+fine foliage. Fortunately for the lover of natural beauty, it is this
+luxuriant growth of leaves and the shade it gives that are the redeeming
+virtues of the Beech in the eye of the forester. Its drip destroys
+most of the soil-exhausting weeds, its shade protects the soil from
+over-evaporation, and the heavy crop of leaves enriches it by their
+decomposition. On these points the forestry experts of to-day join hands
+with John Evelyn, who, nearly 250 years ago, thus referred to it--"The
+shade unpropitious to corn and grass, but sweet, and of all the rest,
+most refreshing to the weary shepherd--_lentus in umbra_, echoing
+Amaryllis with his oaten pipe." And, again, after giving us a long
+catalogue of the varied uses to which Beechwood may be put, he
+adds--"Yet for all this, you would not wonder to hear me deplore the so
+frequent use of this wood, if you did consider that the industry of
+France furnishes that country for all domestic utensils with excellent
+Walnut, a material infinitely preferable to the best Beech, which is
+indeed good only for shade and for the fire." In the days of open
+hearths and chimney corners the Beech was extensively used for fuel, and
+it is still reputed to make good charcoal; but to-day the chairmaker and
+the turner are the chief users of its wood.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 11._ Bole of Beech.]
+
+The Beech well grown attains a height of about 100 feet, and a girth of
+20 feet. There was, until recently, a Beech in Norbury Park, Surrey, 160
+feet in height. Its branches horizontally spreading gave it a head of
+enormous proportions. Hooker gives the _diameter_ of the Knowle Beech as
+352 feet, which means a circumference of about as many yards. It will
+grow in most upland places where the Oak thrives, though it does not
+need so deep a soil, and has a preference for land containing lime.
+Fresh mineral soils, rich in humus, are the best for it. In poor soils
+its growth is slow and its life is longer. It begins to bear mostly at
+about eighteen years of age, and thereafter gives good crops at
+intervals of three or five years.
+
+In spring, just before the buds expand, the twigs of the Beech have a
+very distinct appearance. They are long and slender, placed alternately
+along the twig, and the brown envelopes retain their shape long after
+they have been cast off. It is interesting to note how well these are
+mimicked by a glossy spindle-shaped snail (_Clausilia laminata_) that
+has a decided fondness for the Beech. As the snails crawl up the bole or
+over the moss at its base, it is not easy at a glance to say which are
+snails and which bud-envelopes. This is one of the protective
+resemblances adopted by many animals to give them a chance of eluding
+their natural enemies--in this case the thrush and other birds.
+
+In the bud the leaf is folded fan-wise, and the folds run parallel with
+the nerves. They expand into an oval, smooth-faced leaf, with slightly
+scooped edges, and a most delicate fringe of short gossamer, which falls
+off later. These leaves Evelyn recommended as a stuffing for beds,
+declaring that if "gathered about the fall, and somewhat before they are
+much frost-bitten, [they] afford the best and easiest mattresses in the
+world to lay under our quilts instead of straw.... In Switzerland I have
+sometimes lain on them to my great refreshment." That last clause seems
+to imply that the authorities at home would not allow the introduction
+of new-fangled bed-stuffings, but remained true to straw. These leaves
+are rich in potash, and as they readily decay, they produce an admirable
+humus. In sheltered places the leaves, turned to a light ruddy-brown
+colour, are retained on the lower branches until cast off by the
+expansion of the new buds.
+
+In early summer, whilst the leaves are still pellucid, the shade of a
+big Beech is particularly inviting. Later the leaves become opaque, and
+their glossy surfaces throw back the heat rays. Then the play of light
+upon the great mass of foliage is very fine; but when autumn has turned
+their deep green to orange and warm ruddy brown, and they catch the red
+rays of the westering sun, the tree appears to be turned into a blazing
+fire.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 12._ Beech--winter.]
+
+[Illustration: Leaves, flowers, and fruit of Beech. A, female; B, male flowers.]
+
+The Beech flowers in April or May. The blossoms are rather more
+conspicuous than is the case with the Oak, for the male flowers are
+gathered together in a hanging purplish-brown rounded tassel with yellow
+anthers. The female flowers, to the number of two, three, or four, are
+clustered in a "cupule" of overlapping scales, like those of the Oak.
+But in the Beech the "cupule" becomes a bristly closed box, which
+afterwards opens by one end splitting into four triangular
+silk-hair-lined valves, which turn back and reveal the three-sided,
+sharp-edged "mast." This mast was formerly a very valuable product of
+the Beech-woods, when herds of swine were turned in them to feed upon
+the fallen Beech-nuts. Agricultural methods have changed; but though
+our hogs are now confined in styes, and fed on a diet that more rapidly
+fattens, Beech-mast is still a good food eagerly taken by such woodland
+denizens as badgers, deer, squirrels, and dormice.
+
+The vitality of the Beech is so high that quite frequently the bole
+divides at its upper part into several trunks, which rise straight up,
+and each attains the dimensions of a complete tree. Often such a tree
+stands on a sandy bank, and seems in imminent danger of toppling over,
+but its uprightness secures it against strain, and the roots that it
+sent down the steep side of the bank have thickened into strong props.
+Many such trees may be found along the hollow lanes in the Greensand
+district of Surrey, and we have more than once sheltered from a storm
+under their roots.
+
+We have already mentioned the value of the Beech as a nurse for other
+trees, and its frequent use for that purpose, but it should also be
+stated that it is a powerful competitor with other trees, and if these
+are left to fight their own battles unaided, the Beech will be the
+conqueror. Evelyn saw this more than two centuries ago, and pointed out
+that where mixed woods of Oak and Beech were left to themselves, they
+ultimately became pure Beech woods. The Beech appears to gain this
+advantage through rooting in the surface soil, and, exhausting it of
+food elements, suffers none to penetrate to the lower strata, where the
+Oak has its roots.
+
+A number of insects feed upon the Beech, but they are mostly more
+beautiful or more singular than destructive. The Copper Beech, which is
+so effectively used for ornament in parks, is merely a sub-variety of
+the Common Beech, and all the examples in cultivation are believed to be
+"sports" from the purple variety, which itself was a natural sport
+discovered in a German wood little more than a hundred years ago.
+
+The modern word Beech is derived from the Anglo-Saxon _boc_, _bece_,
+_beoce_, which had very similar equivalents in all branches of the
+German and Scandinavian family, and from the fact that the literature of
+these people was inscribed on tablets of Beech, our word _book_ has the
+same origin.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 13._ Birch--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 14._ Bole of Birch.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 15._ Catkins of Birch.]
+
+
+The Birch (_Betula alba_).
+
+"The Lady of the Woods," as Coleridge christened the Birch, is at once
+the most graceful, the hardiest, and the most ubiquitous of our forest
+trees. It grows throughout the length and breadth of our islands, and
+seems happy alike on a London common, in a suburban garden, or far up in
+the Scottish highlands (2500 feet). It penetrates farther north than any
+other tree, and its presence is a great boon to the natives of Lapland.
+It will grow where it is subjected to great heat, as well as where it
+must endure extreme cold, with its slender roots exploring the beds of
+peat, the rich humus of the old wood, or the raw soil of the
+mountain-side, where it has to cling to rocks and a few mosses. Given
+plenty of light, and it seems to care for little else. Though a mere
+shrub in the far north, with us the Birch has a trunk sometimes as tall
+as eighty, but more frequently fifty feet, and a girth of from two to
+three feet. In its first decade it increases in height at the rate of a
+foot and a half or two feet in a year; but, of course, there is little
+breadth to be built up at the same time. It reaches maturity in half a
+century, and before the other half is reached the Birch will have passed
+away.
+
+The bark of the Birch is more enduring than its timber, which may be
+partly due to its habit of casting off the outer layer in shreds, like
+fine tissue-paper, from time to time. The greater part of the bark is
+silvery white, which adds to the apparent slenderness of the tree, and
+makes it conspicuous from a long distance; for the attenuated and
+drooping branches, dressed in small and loosely hung leaves, sway so
+constantly that the trunk is scarcely hidden. The glossy, leathery
+leaves vary in shape from a triangular form to a pointed oval, their
+edges doubly toothed, and their footstalks long and slender.
+
+[Illustration: Birch leaves and catkins.]
+
+About April the hanging catkins of the Birch, which were in evidence in
+the previous autumn, have matured and become dark crimson; the scales
+separate and expose the two stamens of each flower, which has a single
+sepal. The female flowers are in a short, more erect spike, which
+consists of overlapping scales (_bracts_), each containing two or three
+flowers. The flowers have neither petals nor sepals, each consisting
+merely of an ovary with two slender styles. After fertilization the
+female spike has developed into a little oblong cone. The minute nuts
+have a pair of delicate wings to each, and as they are set free from the
+cones they flutter on the breeze like a swarm of small flies. The moss
+that usually covers the ground beneath the Birch will be found in
+October to be thickly speckled with these fruits, which are something
+more than seeds, as they are commonly termed; they are really analogous
+to the acorn--a nut within a thin shell. The tree sometimes begins to
+produce seed when only fifteen years old; but, as a rule, it is ten
+years older before it bears, and thereafter it has a crop every year.
+
+It is strange how so striking and graceful a tree could have been so
+persistently ignored by the old school of landscape painters, when one
+remembers with what good effect modern artists have utilized it. In this
+connection we need not apologize for quoting at length a description of
+the tree from the artist's point of view, because it also gives
+attention to those points one would like the rambler to notice. Mr. P.
+G. Hamerton in his _Sylvan Year_, says--
+
+"The stem ... of the Silver Birch is one of the masterpieces of Nature.
+Everything has been done to heighten its unrivalled brilliance. The
+horizontal peeling of the bark, making dark rings at irregular
+distances, the brown spots, the dark colour of the small twigs, the
+rough texture near the ground, and the exquisite silky smoothness of the
+tight white bands above, offer exactly that variety of contrast which
+makes us feel a rare quality like that smooth whiteness as strongly as
+we are capable of feeling it. And amongst the common effects in all
+northern countries, one of the most brilliant is the opposition of birch
+trunks in sunshine against the deep blue or purple of a mountain
+distance in shadow. At all seasons of the year the beauty of the birch
+is attractive and peculiarly its own. The young beech may remind you of
+it occasionally under strong effects of light, and is also very
+graceful, but we have no tree that rivals the birch in its own
+qualities of colour and form, still less in that air and bearing which
+are so much more difficult to describe. In winter you see the full
+delicacy of the sprays that the lightest foliage hides, and in early
+spring this tree clothes itself, next after the willow, with tiny
+triangular leaves, inexpressibly light in the mass, so that from a
+distance they have the effect of a green mist rather than anything more
+material. When the tree is isolated sufficiently to come against the
+sky, you may see one of the prettiest sights in Nature--the pure deep
+azure of heaven, with the silvery white and fresh green of the birch in
+opposition. And yet it is not a crude green, for there is a good deal of
+warm red in it, which gives one of those precious tertiaries that all
+true colourists value."
+
+Linnæus named our common Birch _Betula alba_; but more than a century
+ago Ehrhart pointed out that there were two well-defined forms of the
+tree, which he proposed to separate as distinct species under the names
+of _B. verrucosa_ and _B. pubescens_. Hooker regards the first of these
+as the typical form, for which he properly retains the Linnæan name. It
+is distinguished by having the base of the bole covered with coarse,
+rough, and blackish bark, the _smooth_ leaves looking as though their
+base had been cut off, and the twigs warty. The _B. pubescens_ of
+Ehrhart appears to be a variety of Fries' _B. glutinosa_, which Hooker
+treats as a sub-species of _B. alba_. The bark at its base is smooth and
+white, its _downy_ leaves have a triangular base, and its twigs are free
+from warts. It sometimes assumes a bush-like form.
+
+The Dwarf Birch (_Betula nana_) is a distinct species, which occurs
+locally in the mountainous parts of Northumberland and Scotland. It is
+not a tree, but a bush, only two or three feet in height. Its
+firm-textured, round leaves have scalloped margins and short footstalks.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 16._ Birch--winter.]
+
+The foliage of the Birch in autumn turns to a yellow hue. At this
+period--and, indeed, for a month earlier--there may be seen beneath
+the Birch-trees one of the most striking of our toadstools, the Fly
+Agaric (_Amanita muscarius_), so-called from its use as the lethal
+ingredient in the making of fly-papers. From a bulbous base a creamy
+yellow stem arises, decked about half its height with an ample hanging
+frill. The upper side of the spreading "cap" is painted with crimson,
+over which are scattered flecks of white or cream kid--the remains of an
+outer envelope that was ruptured by the expansion of the cap, and of
+which the frill represents the lower portion. This species is really
+poisonous, and the Kamschatkans are said to make their _vodka_
+superlatively intoxicating by the addition of this fungus to it. On the
+trunk of the Birch may sometimes be found a large fungus named
+_Polyporus betulinus_, whose root-like portion penetrates the bark and
+sucks up the sap.
+
+Birch-bark is used for tanning certain kinds of leather, and the
+peculiar odour of Russian leather is said to be due to the use of Birch
+in its preparation. The Birch agrees with the Beech in two respects--it
+is of little value for timber, but as a nurse to young timber-trees it
+is of considerable importance. Its name is from the Anglo-Saxon _beorc_,
+_birce_, and signifies the Bark-tree.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 17._ Alder--summer.]
+
+
+The Alder (_Alnus glutinosa_).
+
+Although the Alder is abundant by riversides and in all low-lying moist
+lands as far north as Caithness, it is not so generally well known at
+sight as the Oak, the Beech, and the Birch. It is a small tree
+ordinarily only thirty to forty feet in height, with a girth from three
+to six feet, though occasionally it aspires to seventy feet in height.
+This is when it is growing in moist loam, upon which rain or floods have
+washed down good layers of humus from woods at a higher elevation. If,
+with its roots thus well cared for, its head is in a humid atmosphere,
+the Alder is in happy case. If it has had the misfortune to get into a
+porous soil, though this may be moist enough to please an Ash, the
+Alder becomes merely a big bush.
+
+[Illustration: Alder.]
+
+The bark of the Alder is rough and black, and the wood soft. Whilst the
+tree is alive its wood is white, but when cut and exposed to the air it
+becomes red; finally, on drying, it changes to a pinkish tint. As timber
+it has no great reputation, except for piles or other submerged
+purposes, when it is said to be exceedingly durable. It has also enjoyed
+a great reputation for making the best charcoal for the gunpowder mills,
+and it is largely used by the turner, the wood-carver, and the
+cabinet-maker. The leaves, which have short stalks, and are from two
+to four inches long, are roundish with a wedge-shaped base. They have a
+waved and toothed margin, and remain green long after the leaves of
+other trees have fallen. In their young condition these leaves are
+covered with hairs, and are sticky to the touch, and it is to this fact
+that the name _glutinosa_ has reference.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 18._ Catkins of Alder.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 19._ Bole of Alder.]
+
+The flowering of the Alder is very similar to that of the Birch, but the
+male catkins have red scales, and each flower four stamens. The female
+spikes have the fleshy scales covered by red-brown bracts of a woody
+consistence, which persist after the fruit has dropped out of them. Seed
+is not produced until the Alder is twenty years old, and the crop is
+repeated almost every year after. The cones are ripe about October or
+November, when they scatter their fruit, but the empty ones persist in
+hanging to the branches throughout the winter in numbers sufficient to
+give the leafless tree a brown appearance from a little distance. The
+immature male catkins are in evidence at the same time.
+
+There is a variety (_incisa_) of the Alder in which the leaves are so
+deeply toothed that they bear a close resemblance to those of the
+Hawthorn.
+
+In some localities the tree is called the Howler and Aller, the latter
+word apparently the original name, for its Anglo-Saxon forms were _ælr_,
+_alr_, and _aler_.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 20._ Alder--winter.]
+
+
+The Hornbeam (_Carpinus betulus_).
+
+The Hornbeam is frequently passed by as a Beech, to which it has a very
+close superficial likeness, but a comparison of leaves, flowers, or bole
+would at once make the differences obvious. It is usually found in
+similar situations to the Beech, though it does not ascend so far up the
+hills as that species. On dry, poor soils it does not attain its full
+proportions and may only be classed as a small tree; but when growing on
+low ground, in rich loam or good clay, it reaches a height of seventy
+feet, with a girth of ten feet. If two measurements of the bole's
+diameter be taken at right angles to each other, they will be found to
+differ greatly. A section of the trunk will not show a circular outline,
+but rather an ellipse, the bole appearing to have been flattened on two
+sides. It is coated with a smooth grey bark, usually spotted with white.
+
+The leaves are less symmetrical than those of Beech, and are broader
+towards the base. They are of rougher texture, hairy on the underside,
+and their edges are doubly toothed. In autumn they turn yellow, then to
+ruddy gold, but a few days later they have settled into the rusty hue
+they retain throughout the winter, in those cases where they remain on
+the tree until spring.
+
+The wood is exceedingly tough, and not to be worked up with ease, but it
+is considered to make admirable fuel. Evelyn says, "It burns like a
+candle." There are those who say that the name Hornbeam has reference to
+the tough or hornlike character of its beams; others declare that in the
+days when bullocks were yoked to the plough the yoke was made of this
+wood, as being fitted by its toughness to stand the strain, and as it
+was attached to the horns, it became the horn-beam. A third theory is
+that the name was derived from _Ornus_, the Manna-ash, with which early
+botanists confused it, but with all respect to the authority of Dr.
+Prior, who favours it, we prefer to stand on the first suggestion, with
+old John Gerarde, who says ("Herball," 1633): "In time it waxeth so hard
+that the toughnesse and hardnesse of it may be rather compared to horn
+than unto wood, and therefore it was called Hornbeam or hardbeam." The
+carpenter is not pleased who has hornbeam to work up, for his tools lose
+their edge far too quickly for his labour to be profitable. Evelyn tells
+us that it was called by some the Horse-beech, from the resemblance of
+the leaves.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 21._ Hornbeam--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: Hornbeam.]
+
+The two kinds of catkins are similar and cylindrical, but whilst the
+male is pendulous from the beginning, the female is erect until after
+the formation of the fruit, when it gradually assumes the hanging
+position. The bracts of the male are oval, with sharp tips, each
+containing an uncertain (3-12) number of stamens. In the female the
+bracts fall early, but their place is taken by three-lobed bracteoles,
+which enlarge after flowering, and become an inch or an inch and a half
+long. A single flower occupies each bracteole, consisting of a
+two-celled ovary and two styles. Only one cell develops, so that the
+hard green fruit contains but one seed. The appearance of these fruits
+in autumn as they hang in a spray from the underside of the branches is
+quite distinct from those of any other of our native trees.
+
+The Hornbeam's title to be considered indigenous has had some doubts
+thrown upon it because there are some records of specimens having been
+introduced during the fifteenth century, but that is not sufficient
+ground upon which to deny nationality. We have known persons to bring
+home from distant parts as treasures wild plants and ferns that were
+growing within a mile of their own homes. It appears to be a real native
+of the southern and midland counties of England, and of Wales. A line
+drawn across the map from North Wales to Norfolk roughly marks the
+limit; north of that line the Hornbeam appears to have been planted, as
+also in Ireland.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 22._ Hornbeam--winter.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 23._ Bole of Hornbeam.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 24._ Fruits of Hornbeam.]
+
+
+The Hazel (_Corylus avellana_).
+
+It is rarely that the Hazel is allowed in this country to develop into a
+tree; as a rule it is a shrub, forming undergrowth in wood or copse, or
+part of a hedge. As it is cut down with the copse or hedge, it cannot
+form a standard of any size. But that the Hazel left alone will develop
+into a small tree is shown by an example in Eastwell Park, Kent, whose
+height a few years ago was thirty feet, with a circumference of three
+feet round the bole. As soon as the nuts are formed the bush is easily
+identified by all, so that a description of its character is hardly
+necessary. The large, roundish, heart-shaped leaves are arranged
+alternately in two rows along the straight downy shoots. Their margins
+are doubly toothed, and when in the bud they are plaited, the folds
+being parallel to the midrib. Soon after the buds open, many of the
+leaves assume a purplish tint for a while; in autumn they turn brown,
+and finally pale to yellow.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 25._ Hazel Catkins.]
+
+[Illustration: Hazel. A, female flowers; B, male flowers.]
+
+Before the leaves appear the Hazel is rendered conspicuous by the male
+catkins, which are familiar to country children under the name of
+Lamb's-tails. These may be seen in an undeveloped condition in the
+autumn, when the nuts are being sought. A cluster of two or three hard,
+little, grey-green cylinders is all that may then be seen of them;
+but throughout the winter they lengthen, their scales loosen, and in
+February they are a couple of inches long, pliant, and yellow with the
+abundant pollen which blows out of them as they swing. The female
+flowers are by no means conspicuous, and have to be looked for. They
+will be found in the form of swollen buds on the upper parts of the
+shoots and branches, from which issue some fine crimson threads. These
+are the styles and stigmas, and on dissection of the budlike head, each
+pair of styles will be seen to spring from a two-celled ovary nestling
+between the bracts or scales of which the head is composed. It is only
+rarely that the seed-egg in each cell develops; as a rule one shrivels,
+and the other develops into the sweet "kernel" of the Hazel-nut. The
+shell is the ovary that has become woody and hard; the ragged-edged
+leathery "shuck" is the enlarged bracts that surrounded the minute
+flower.
+
+The Hazel likes a good soil, and will not really flourish without it,
+though it will _grow_ almost anywhere, except where the moisture is
+stagnant. Its wood is said to be best when grown on a chalky subsoil. Of
+course, as timber, the Hazel does not count, but its tough and pliant
+rods and staves are valuable for many small uses, such as the making of
+hoops for casks, walking-sticks, and--divining-rods! The bark is smooth
+and brown.
+
+The Barcelona nut, imported so largely in winter, is only a variety of
+the Hazel; as also the Cob and the Filbert, so largely cultivated in
+Kent. The name is the Anglo-Saxon _hæsl_, or _hæsel_, and signifies a
+baton of authority, from the use of its rods in driving cattle and
+slaves.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 26._ Hazel Nuts.]
+
+
+The Lime (_Tilia platyphyllos_).
+
+Those persons who obtain their ideas of trees mainly from the specimens
+they can see in suburban roads and gardens are in danger of getting
+quite a false impression of the Lime. It is a long suffering,
+good-tempered tree, and like human individuals of similar temperament,
+is subjected to shameful treatment. The suburban gardener who has a row
+of Limes to trim uses the saw, and amputates every arm close up to the
+shoulder, so that when the season of budding and burgeoning arrives the
+row of Limes will look like an upward extension in green of the brick
+wall. Such are the atrocities upon which Suburbia has to base its ideas
+of one of the most imposing of trees.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 27._ Lime-tree--summer.]
+
+The Large-leaved Lime, growing in park-land or meadow, with its roots
+deep in good light loam, and its head eighty or ninety feet above, is
+quite another matter. Such a tree is a thing of beauty, and one can
+stand long at its base looking up among the wide-spreading limbs so well
+clothed with leaves of fine texture and tint. The girth of such a
+specimen at four feet from the ground would be about fifteen feet.
+Larger individuals have been recorded, up to twenty-seven feet.
+
+There are three kinds of Lime in general cultivation in this country,
+but the differences between them are not great. They are the
+Large-leaved (_Tilia platyphyllos_), the Small-leaved (_T. parvifolia_),
+and the Intermediate or Common Lime (_T. vulgaris_). The last-named is
+generally admitted to be an introduced kind, and it is the one most
+commonly planted. Respecting the claims of the other two to rank as
+natives, there has been some difference of opinion among authorities.
+The Small-leaved Lime, which does not occur in woods north of
+Cumberland, was regarded by Borrer as a true indigene, but H. C. Watson
+considered its claims as open to doubt, though he had no such doubt of
+the Large-leaved Lime, which is only growing really wild in the woods of
+Herefordshire, Radnorshire, and the West Riding of Yorkshire.
+
+All our Limes have similar straight tall stems, clad in smooth bark, and
+with a similar habit of growth. They are trees that demand genial
+climatic conditions for their proper development, and in consequence
+they do not put forth their leaves until May. The period of their leafy
+glory is comparatively short, for they are among the trees that lose
+their leaves earliest in autumn, after having been for a few days
+transmuted into gold. The leaf of the Lime is heart-shaped, with one of
+the basal lobes larger than the other, and the edges cut into saw-like
+teeth. There are slight differences in those of the three species, which
+will be indicated below.
+
+[Illustration: Lime.]
+
+In its floral arrangements the Lime differs from the trees previously
+mentioned in that it has distinct sepals and petals, an abundance of
+honey, and strong, sweet fragrance as of Honeysuckle. Unlike them, it
+does not trust to so rough and ready an agent of fertilization as the
+wind, so that it waits until its boughs are well clothed with leaves
+before putting forth its yellowish-white blossoms. These are in clusters
+(_cymes_) of six or seven, the stalks of all arising from one very long
+and stouter stalk, which is attached for half its length to a thin and
+narrow bract. Individually regarded, the flowers will be found to
+consist of five sepals, five petals, an oval ovary with a style ending
+in a five-toothed stigma, and surrounded by a large number of stamens.
+The stamens discharge their pollen before the stigma of that flower is
+fitted to receive it, so that cross-fertilization is ensured by the
+visits of the innumerable bees that visit the flowers for the abundant
+nectar they contain, and which the bees convert into a first-rate
+honey.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 28._ Flowers of Lime.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 29._ Fruits of Lime.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 30._ Bole of Lime.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 31._ Lime--winter.]
+
+The flowers are succeeded by globose little fruits, each about a quarter
+of an inch across, yellow, and covered with pale down. In a good season
+these will be found to contain one or two seeds, but too often in this
+country the summers are too cool to ripen them. The Lime does not begin
+to bear until about its thirty-fifth year. It flowers every year
+thereafter, but the question of its seed-crop depends entirely upon the
+weather.
+
+For the purposes to which large timber is usually put, the light white
+wood of the Lime is not highly esteemed, not being considered of
+sufficient durability; yet it serves for many smaller uses, where its
+lightness and fine grain are strong recommendations. It must not be
+forgotten that the wonderful carvings of Grinling Gibbons were executed
+in this wood. It is largely used by the makers of musical instruments;
+and, as every one knows, it is from the inner bark of the Lime that
+those useful bast mats, which are imported from Russia in such large
+numbers, are made. Probably owing to its lightness, again, the wood was
+used in old times for making bucklers. The question of its value as
+timber is probably never taken into account when it is planted in this
+country, where its ornamental appearance as an avenue or shade-tree is
+its great recommendation. It is one of the long-lived trees, its full
+life-period being certainly five centuries. Those in St. James's Park
+are popularly supposed to have been planted, at the suggestion of John
+Evelyn, somewhere about the year 1660. There is a fine Lime avenue in
+Bushey Park, probably planted by Dutch William.
+
+Deer and cattle are fond of the foliage and young shoots if they can get
+at them. Numerous insects exhibit a like partiality; of these the
+caterpillar of the large and handsome Lime Hawk-moth (_Smerinthus
+tiliæ_) is the most characteristic.
+
+The differences between the three species may be briefly noted:--
+
+SMALL-LEAVED LIME (_Tilia parvifolia_). Does not attain the large
+proportions of the others. Leaves about two inches across, smooth; on
+the lower surface the axils of the nerves are glaucous and downy, with
+hairy patches between nerves. Fruit thin-shelled and brittle, downy, and
+very faintly ribbed. The upper leaves show a tendency to lobing.
+
+LARGE-LEAVED LIME (_Tilia platyphyllos_). Bark rougher. Twigs hairy.
+Leaves larger (four inches) and rougher, downy beneath, axils of the
+nerves woolly. Fruit of more oval shape, woody and strongly ribbed when
+ripe.
+
+COMMON LIME (_Tilia vulgaris_). Intermediate between the others. Leaves
+larger than those of _T. parvifolia_, smaller than those of _T.
+platyphyllos_; downy in axils beneath. Twigs smooth. Fruit woody, but
+without ribs.
+
+The name Lime was originally Linde, a form which, with the addition of
+_n_, is in use to-day. Chaucer and other English writers spell it Line
+and Lyne, and the transition from this form to that commonly used to-day
+has been effected by changing the _n_ to _m_. Originally it meant
+_pliant_, and had reference to the useful bast from which cordage and
+other flexible things were made.
+
+
+The Wych Elm (_Ulmus montana_).
+
+Of the two species of Elms commonly grown in these islands this alone is
+a native, though the Common or Small-leaved Elm (_Ulmus campestris_) was
+introduced from the Continent by the Romans, so that it has had time to
+get itself widely distributed over our country. Other names for the Wych
+Elm are Mountain Elm, Scots Elm, and Witch Hazel--the last-named being
+now more generally applied to an American plant, the _Hamamelis_. The
+philologists appear to be uncertain as to the origin and meaning of
+Wych, but it seems most probably a form of Witch. Just as a Hazel-rod
+is used by water-finders, who declare that its movements indicate the
+presence of hidden springs, so a wand of _Ulmus montana_ may have
+furnished the Witch-finder with a Witch Hazel for the detection of
+witches!
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 32._ Wych Elm--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 33._ Fruits of Wych Elm.]
+
+The names _montana_, _campestris_, and Mountain Elm must not be allowed
+to mislead us as to the habits of the two species, for though the Wych
+Elm is known to reach an altitude of 3300 feet in the Alps, here it
+ascends only to 1300 feet (Yorks.), whilst _Ulmus campestris_, which
+might be understood to be less a hill-climber, grows at an elevation of
+1500 feet in Derbyshire. As a matter of fact, both species are much
+fonder of valleys than of mountains.
+
+The Wych Elm forms a trunk of large size, from 80 to 120 feet or more in
+height, with a girth of 50 feet, and covered with rough bark that is
+often corky. Its long slender branches spread widely with a downward
+tendency, the downy forking twigs bearing their leaves in a straight row
+along each side. The leaves are somewhat oval in general form, but the
+two sides of the midrib are unequal in size and shape. Their edges are
+doubly or trebly toothed, and the surfaces are rough and harsh to the
+touch. The hairs that cover the strong ribs on the under surface serve
+for the protection of the breathing pores from dust. On leaves of the
+pendulous form of this tree, grown in the London parks and gardens,
+these hairs will be found to be quite black with the soot particles
+gathered from the air. Trees need carbon, but in this gross form they
+are too often suffocated by it.
+
+In March or April the brownish flowers are produced in bunches from the
+sides of the branches. They are a quarter of an inch long, bell-shaped,
+their edges cut into lobes, and finely fringed. The ovary, with its two
+awl-shaped styles, is surrounded by four or five stamens with purple
+anthers. They appear in March or April, before the leaf-buds have
+opened, and are dependent on the wind for the transfer of pollen. The
+fruit is an oblong _samara_, about an inch long. This consists of a
+single seed in the centre, invested by a thin envelope, which is
+extended all round as a light membranous wing, which gives it buoyancy
+and enables it to float through the air to a little distance. These
+seeds are not produced until about the thirtieth year of the tree's
+life, and though they are ripened almost annually thereafter, good crops
+are biennial or triennial only. It has often been stated that the Wych
+Elm does not send up suckers, but it does, though not invariably; it
+does so chiefly as the result of root-pruning or some other check to the
+extension of the root-system.
+
+[Illustration: Wych Elm.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 34._ Bole of Wych Elm.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 35._ Wych Elm--winter.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 36._ Common Elm--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 37._ Bole of Common Elm.]
+
+The Elm most frequently seen is the Small-leaved Elm (_Ulmus
+campestris_), which is therefore entitled to its alternative name of
+Common Elm. Constantly grown as a hedgerow tree, it meets us at every
+turn, though it is much less plentiful in Scotland than in other parts
+of the United Kingdom. It is in all respects very similar to the Wych
+Elm, but its leaves are smaller--usually from two to three inches long,
+the twigs often covered with a corky bark, and the seed, instead of
+being in the centre of the samara, is much nearer to the notched end.
+The leaves are proportionately narrower than those of _montana_, and it
+will be found that the hairs which cover the midrib below possess in
+minor degree the irritating qualities of the Nettle's stings. This is a
+fact not generally known, but I became painfully aware of it a few years
+ago when clearing away the suckers of an Elm that were encroaching too
+much upon my garden border. Examination of these hairs shows that they
+are constructed much on the same plan as those of the Nettle--a member
+of the same Natural Order, by the way. The fact that these leaves are
+browsed by cattle and deer may explain this development of the hairs,
+which, whilst they may serve to keep off sheep, have not yet reached a
+degree of acridity sufficient to protect them from the larger beasts.
+Both flowers and samaras are about a third smaller than those of
+_montana_; but seed is very seldom produced in this country, and the
+tree seeks to reproduce itself by throwing up abundant suckers round the
+base of the bole, and even from root-branches at a considerable distance
+from the trunk. These, of course, if allowed to grow, would soon
+surround the tree with copse.
+
+_Campestris_ often attains a greater height with its straighter trunk
+than _montana_, but its girth is not so great, seldom being more than
+twenty feet. Its dark wood is harder and finer grained than that
+produced by the native tree. Its favour as a hedgerow tree is probably
+due to the fact that it gives shade which is not obnoxious to the growth
+of grass. Both species are subject to a great amount of variation, and
+in nurserymen's catalogues these forms have appropriate names, but they
+are not regarded as of sufficient permanence to merit scientific
+distinction. In point of age--Elms are known to exceed five hundred
+years.
+
+[Illustration: Common Elm.]
+
+Among the insects that feed upon the Elm's foliage, the most noteworthy
+is the caterpillar of the fine Large Tortoiseshell Butterfly (_Vanessa
+polychloros_). I have already mentioned the relationship subsisting
+between Elms and Nettles, and it is a point worth noting that nearly all
+our native species of _Vanessa_ feed in the larval state upon the leaves
+of the Nettle. In London parks and squares the Elms are much infested
+by the caterpillars of the Vapourer-moth, whose wingless females may be
+seen like short-legged spiders on the bark, whilst the male flutters in
+an apparently aimless way on wings of rich brown with central white
+spots.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 38._ Common Elm--winter.]
+
+In October the leaves, which have for some time assumed a very dull
+dark-green tint, suddenly turn to orange, then fade to pale yellow, and
+fall in showers.
+
+The name Elm was derived from the Latin _Ulmus_, and appears to indicate
+an instrument of punishment--probably from its rods having been used to
+belabour slaves. Prior remarks that the word is "nearly identical in all
+the Germanic and Scandinavian dialects, but does not find its root in
+any of them. It plays through all the vowels ... but stands isolated as
+a foreign word which they have adopted." This "playing through the
+vowels" may be thus illustrated--Alm, Ælm, and Elm (Anglo-Saxon and
+English); Ilme, Olm, and Ulme, in various German dialects.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 39._ Ash--summer.]
+
+
+The Ash (_Fraxinus excelsior_).
+
+So commanding, yet at the same time so light and graceful, does a
+well-grown Ash appear, that Gilpin called it the "Venus of the Woods."
+This may appear to some to be rather too close an approach to the "Lady
+of the Woods" (Birch), but in our opinion it well expresses the
+characteristics of the two. They are both exceedingly graceful, but the
+beauty of the Birch is that of the nymph, whilst that of the Ash is the
+combined grace and strength of the goddess. I have said "a well-grown"
+Ash, a phrase by which the timberman would understand a tree that had
+been hemmed in so closely by other trees that it has had no chance of
+developing as a tree, but only as a straight stout stick of wood, from
+eighty to one hundred feet long. _My_ well-grown Ash is in a meadow,
+where both soil and atmosphere are moist and cool; where it has had
+elbow-room to reach its long graceful arms upwards and outwards, and to
+cover them with the plumy circlets of long leaves. It is there, or on
+the outskirts of the wood, or in the hedgerow, that the Ash is able to
+do credit to Gilpin's name for it.
+
+[Illustration: Ash.]
+
+Before the reign of iron and steel was quite so universal, Ash timber
+was in demand for many uses where the metals have now supplanted it. It
+was then far more widely grown as a hedgerow tree than is now the case.
+Selby laments the neglect of this former custom, which kept up a supply
+of tough and elastic timber, useful in all agricultural operations,
+and added much to the beauty of the country. No doubt the noxious drip
+and shade of the Ash have had much to do with this abandonment of it,
+for few things can live beneath it--a condition helped by its numerous
+fibrous roots, which quickly exhaust and drain the soil, and so starve
+out other plants. Although it thus drains the surface soil, it is not
+dependent upon these upper layers for food, for its much-branched roots
+extend very deeply in the porous soils it prefers.
+
+It must not be supposed from the foregoing remarks that the Ash is
+confined to the lowlands. In Yorkshire it is found growing at an
+elevation of 1350 feet; in Mid-Germany it grows as far up as 3500 feet,
+and in the Alpine districts 500 feet higher still. It has a preference
+for the northern and eastern sides of hills, where the atmosphere is
+moist and cool, and the soil deep and porous, for it loves free and not
+stagnant moisture for its roots.
+
+The bark of both trunk and branches is pale grey, and some look to this
+as the origin of the tree's English name. On examining the leafless
+branches in early spring, two things strike the observer--the blackness
+of the big opposite leaf-buds, and the stoutness of the twigs. This
+latter fact is due to the great size of the leaves they have to support,
+which implies a considerable strain in wind or rain. What are generally
+regarded as the leaves of the Ash are only leaflets, though they are
+equal in size to the leaves of most of our trees. The largest of the
+leaflets are about three inches in length, and there are from four to
+seven--mostly six--pairs, and an odd terminal one, to each leaf. They
+are lance-shaped, with toothed edges. The leaves are late in appearing,
+but, like Charles Lamb and his office-hours, they make up for it by an
+early departure.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 40._ Flowers of Ash.]
+
+The flowers of the Ash are very poor affairs, for they have neither
+calyx nor corolla, though their association in large clusters makes them
+fairly conspicuous as they droop from the sides of the branches in April
+or May. Stamens and pistils are borne by the same or separate flowers,
+and both kinds or one only may be found on the same tree. The pistil is
+a greenish yellow pear-shaped body, and the stamens are very dark
+purple. The flowers are succeeded by bunches of "keys"--each one, when
+ripe, a narrow-oblong scale, with a notch at one end and a seed lying
+within at the other. The correct name for these is samaras. In looking
+at a bunch of these "keys"--they are something like the keys to the
+primitive locks of the ancients--one is struck by the fact that they all
+have a little twist in the wing or sail, which causes the "key" to spin
+steadily on the wind and reach the earth seed-end first. They are,
+therefore, sometimes known as "spinners." These are ripe in October; but
+though the trees produce seed nearly every year after the fortieth, one
+may chance to look at a dozen Ashes before he comes upon one that bears
+a seed. The reason for this lies in the fact that some trees have no
+female blossoms. The seeds do not germinate until the second spring
+after they are sown.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 41._ Bole of Ash.]
+
+Much of the Ash-wood in use for carriage-poles, oars, axe and hammer
+shafts, and similar purposes where only small diameters are needed, are
+obtained from Ash-coppice, which rapidly produces well-developed poles.
+So strong and elastic is the Ash timber when taken from young trees,
+that it is claimed it will bear a greater strain than any other European
+timber of equal thickness. The Ash is not one of the long-lived trees,
+its natural span being about two hundred years, but its wood is regarded
+as best between the ages of thirty and sixty years.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 42._ Ash--winter.]
+
+Cattle and horses are fond of Ash leaves, which were formerly much used
+for fodder, and still are in some districts; but it is said that to
+indulge cows in this food is fatal to the production of good butter
+from their milk. In some country places there is still extant a
+"Shrew-Ash"--a tree into which a hole has been bored sufficiently large
+to admit a living shrew-mouse, which has then been plugged in, to die of
+suffocation. A touch of a leaf from this tree was reputed to cure cramp,
+but especially that form of it supposed to be caused by a shrew passing
+over man or beast. Then there was the Ash whose bole had been cleft that
+it might be a "sovran" remedy for infantile hernia. It is difficult to
+account for the origin of these ideas, but they are deep-rooted and die
+hard. John Evelyn remarks of this latter superstition: "I have heard it
+affirmed, with great confidence and upon experience, that the rupture,
+to which many children are obnoxious, is healed by passing the infant
+through a wide cleft in the bole or stem of a growing Ash-tree; it is
+then carried a second time round the Ash, and caused to repass the same
+aperture as before. The rupture of the child being bound up, it is
+supposed to heal as the cleft of the tree closes and coalesces."
+
+The origin of the name Ash is uncertain, though many fanciful
+suggestions have been made in explanation of its meaning. Its
+Anglo-Saxon form was æsc, a word used by the same people for spear, but
+that was because their spear-shafts were made of Ash-wood.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 43._ Field Maple.]
+
+
+The Maple (_Acer campestre_).
+
+There are a number of Maples in cultivation, but only three of them are
+commonly met with in the open, and of these one alone is a native. This
+is the Small-leaved, Common, or Field Maple (_Acer campestre_), a small
+tree that attains a height of twenty or thirty feet in the tall hedgerow
+or in the wood, but is most familiar as a mere bush or as a constituent
+of the low field-hedge. It does not grow to any considerable thickness
+of bole, so has no importance as timber, but the turner, the
+cabinet-maker, and the artist in fancy pipes and snuff-boxes, are glad
+to make use of its fine-grained, pale-brown wood. This is often
+beautifully veined, especially the wood from the roots, and as it will
+take a high polish, which brings out these markings plainly, it is a
+very desirable wood for such purposes. The brown bark gives little clue
+to the character of the wood it covers, for in young trees it is rough
+and deeply fissured, though with age it becomes smooth.
+
+[Illustration: Field Maple.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 44._ Fruits of Sycamore.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 45._ Sycamore--summer.]
+
+The leaves vary greatly in size, those growing on a tree being much
+larger than those produced by a bush. They range from two to four inches
+in diameter, and are always in pairs--springing from the sides of the
+branch exactly opposite to each other. The general form of the leaf is
+kidney-shaped, but it is cut up into five lobes, which are more or less
+toothed. They are downy when young, of a deep green colour, but too
+frequently this is disguised by a thick layer of road-dust. In October
+they turn to a rich yellow, and the Maple is then prominent even in a
+distant view, for the bright colour of the foliage makes the tree stand
+out prominently, in strong contrast with the still deep green of the
+Oaks or Firs beyond.
+
+The Maples are among the trees that have complete flowers, although in
+this case they happen to be greenish yellow. They are about a quarter of
+an inch across, have narrow sepals and narrower petals, eight stamens,
+and a two-lobed flattened ovary, that develops into the pair of
+broad-winged "keys," or samaras. These are individually much like those
+of the Ash, but unsymmetrical and curved, half an inch long, with their
+bases joined together. Sometimes in late summer these "keys" take on a
+colouring of deep crimson, previous to turning brown as they ripen. As a
+rule the contained seeds take eighteen months to germinate, though a few
+may start growth the first spring.
+
+The Common Maple is thought to be indigenous only from the county of
+Durham to the southern coast, and in Ireland. In Scotland it is only an
+introduced plant that has become naturalized.
+
+The Great Maple, Sycamore, or False Plane (_Acer pseudo-platanus_) is
+not a native tree, but it appears to have been introduced from the
+Continent as far back as the fifteenth century, so that it has had time
+during the intervening centuries to get well established among us, and
+by means of its winged seeds to distribute itself to remote corners of
+our islands. It appears to be fond of exposed situations, growing to a
+large size even near the sea, where the salt-laden gales destroy all
+other deciduous trees. Recently in Ireland we ascended a hill where the
+planting of pines and other trees had resulted in comparative failure,
+and found that the wind-borne seeds of the Sycamore had produced a large
+number of young trees, which will probably serve later as nurses for
+more desirable timber-producers. The close-grained, firm wood, which can
+be worked with ease, is not highly esteemed.
+
+[Illustration: Sycamore.] [Illustration: _Pl. 46._
+
+Leaf-buds of Sycamore.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 47._ Bole of Sycamore.]
+
+Its name of False Plane is due to the Scots calling it the Plane,
+misled of old by the similarity of the leaves, and the fact that patches
+of the fine ash-grey bark flake off, as in the true Plane, showing other
+tints. It grows to a height of sixty or even eighty feet so quickly that
+it is full-grown when only fifty or sixty years old, though it is
+supposed to live from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty
+years. Like that of the Common Maple, the wood of the Sycamore is firm
+and fine-grained, which does credit to the efforts of the
+French-polisher. The leaves are more heart-shaped, but cut into five
+lobes, whose edges are unequally toothed; they are six or eight inches
+across. The flowers are similar to those of the Common Maple, but
+larger, and in a long hanging raceme, which has a rather fine
+appearance. The samaras are scimitar-shaped and red-brown, about an inch
+and a half long. These are produced freely after the tree is about
+twenty years old. Like many other Maples, the Sycamore has sap which
+contains much sugar. Some of this appears also to exude through the
+leaves, for they are often found to be quite sticky to the touch. The
+black patches so frequent on Sycamore leaves are the work of a small
+fungus--_Rhytisma acerinum_.
+
+The Norway Maple (_Acer platanoides_) is a tree of much more recent
+(1683) introduction from the Continent. Its height is from thirty to
+sixty feet, and its early growth is very rapid. The leaves are even
+larger than those of Sycamore, of similar shape, but the lobes are only
+slightly toothed. The clusters of bright yellow flowers are almost
+erect; the tree does not produce seed until it is between forty and
+fifty years old.
+
+The Maple was the Mapel-treow or Mapulder of the Anglo-Saxons; it was
+originally the Celtic _mapwl_, and the name indicated those knotty
+excrescences on the trunk from which the cabinet-maker got the mottled
+wood that was so highly prized in early times for the making of bowls
+and table-tops, for which fabulous prices have been paid.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 48._ Sycamore--winter.]
+
+
+The Poplars (_Populus_).
+
+Almost everybody who has an elementary acquaintance with trees knows a
+Poplar at sight, the foliage being so very distinct from that of other
+trees. But the distinctions between the several species are not so
+immediately obvious. Five kinds of Poplar are commonly grown in this
+country, of which only two are regarded as distinct indigenous species.
+These are the White Poplar (_Populus alba_), and the Aspen (_P.
+tremula_). A third indigenous form, the Grey Poplar (_P. canescens_), is
+thought to be either a sub-species of _P. alba_, or a hybrid between
+that species and _P. tremula_. Then of common introduced species we have
+the Black Poplar (_Populus nigra_), and the Lombardy Poplar (_P.
+fastigiata_).
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 49._ White Poplar, with Catkins--spring.]
+
+The Poplars (_Populus_) and the Willows (_Salix_) together constitute
+the Natural Order _Salicineæ_. The two genera agree broadly in the
+construction and arrangement of their flowers in catkins, but whereas
+the Poplars have broad leaves and drooping catkins, the Willows, with
+few exceptions, have long slender leaves and erect catkins. The sexes
+are not only in distinct flowers, but on separate trees--what botanists
+describe by the term _di[oe]cious_. The males appear to be far more
+numerous than the females. In the popular sense there are no flowers,
+for there are neither sepals nor petals, each set of sexual organs being
+protected merely by a scale. The catkins containing these flowers
+usually appear before the leaves. As there is nothing to attract insects
+to the work, the trees have to rely upon the wind for conveying the
+pollen to the female trees. The first three species described below have
+from four to twelve stamens; _P. nigra_ and _P. fastigiata_ have from
+twelve to twenty stamens. The Poplars share the love of the Willows for
+moist places. They are found more frequently in gardens and hedgerows
+than in woods. Their growth is rapid, and their timber, consequently,
+is of little value, though its softness and lightness render it suitable
+for making boxes, and its whiteness and non-liability to splinter fit it
+for use as flooring. An additional point in favour of White Poplar for
+the latter purpose is its unreadiness to burn.
+
+[Illustration: White Poplar, or Abele. A, female catkin.]
+
+The White Poplar, or Abele (_Populus alba_), grows into a large tree,
+something between sixty and a hundred feet high, covered with smooth
+grey bark. Its branches spread horizontally, and its broad heart-shaped
+leaves, which vary from an inch to three inches long, are hung on long
+slender foot-stalks. In most trees the leaf-stalks are flattened from
+above, but in the case of the Poplars they are flattened from the sides,
+so that when moved by the wind they flutter laterally. These leaves have
+a waved margin, a smooth upper surface, and are snowy white and cottony
+beneath. The leaf-buds are also invested by cottony filaments. The roots
+produce numerous suckers, even at a distance from the trunk, and the
+leaves on these sucker-shoots are very large--two to four inches
+broad--of a more triangular shape, the outline lobed and toothed. The
+catkins, which appear in March and April, are cylindrical; those of the
+male trees may be as much as four inches long, each flower containing
+from six to ten stamens with purple anthers. The female catkins are not
+nearly so long, the two yellow stigmas are slender with slit tips, and
+the ovaries develop into slender egg-shaped capsules, each with its
+fringed scale. This species is said not to produce flowers in Scotland.
+In July, when the seed capsules open, the surrounding vegetation and
+ground are thickly strewn with the long white cotton filaments attached
+to the seeds. The wood of this tree is softer and more spongy than that
+of other Poplars.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 50._ White Poplar--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 51._ Bole of White Poplar.]
+
+The Grey Poplar (_Populus canescens_), which is thought to be indigenous
+only in the south-eastern parts of England, is not so tall a tree as _P.
+alba_, though it sometimes attains to eighty or ninety feet, with a
+circumference between ten and twenty-four feet. Its life extends to
+about a century, but its wood--which does not split when nails are
+driven through thin boards of it--is considered best between fifty and
+sixty years of age. The leaves on the branches are shaped like those of
+_P. alba_, but their under sides are either coated with grey down or are
+quite smooth; those of the suckers have their margins cut into angles
+and teeth. The female flowers mostly have four wedge-shaped purple
+stigmas (sometimes two), which are cleft into four at their extremities.
+
+[Illustration: Aspen.]
+
+The Aspen or Asp (_Populus tremula_) does not attain either to so
+large a size or so moderate an age as the Abele. Its height, when full
+grown, is from forty to eighty feet, and after fifty or sixty years its
+heart-wood begins to decay, and its destruction is then hastened by the
+attacks of such internal-feeding insects as the caterpillars of the
+Goat-moth and the Wood Leopard-moth. The leaves on the branches are
+broadly egg-shaped, approaching to round, the waved margin cut into
+teeth with turned-in points. In one form (var. _villosa_) the leaves are
+covered beneath with silky or cottony hairs; in the other form (var.
+_glabra_) they are almost smooth. The leaves on the suckers are
+heart-shaped, without teeth. The leaf-stalks of the Aspen are longer
+than those of its congeners, so that they are constantly on the
+flutter--a circumstance that has led to an explanatory legend, to the
+effect that the cross of Calvary was made of Aspen-wood, and that the
+tree shivers perpetually in remembrance. Possibly the present
+inferiority of Aspen timber is to be explained in a similar manner. The
+catkins, which are two or three inches long, are similar to those of the
+foregoing species, but the scales have jagged edges. It is indigenous in
+all the British Islands as far north as Orkney, but, though commonly
+found in copses on a moist light soil, is more frequent as a planted
+tree in gardens and pleasure grounds. It is a characteristic tree of the
+plains throughout the Continent, but ascends to 1600 feet in Yorkshire,
+and in the Bavarian Alps is found as high as 4400 feet. It is not a
+deep-rooting tree, the root-branches running almost horizontally. Where
+accessible to cattle or deer, the foliage of the suckers is eagerly
+browsed by them.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 52._ Catkins of Aspen.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 53._ Black Poplar--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 54._ Bole of Black Poplar.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 55._ Black Poplar--winter.]
+
+[Illustration: Black Poplar.]
+
+The Black Poplar (_Populus nigra_) appears to be so called not by reason
+of any blackness of leaf or bark, but because of the absence of any
+white or grey down on the underside of its leaves. Its bark is grey,
+like that of the species already mentioned, but readily distinguished
+from them by the great swellings and nodosities that mar the symmetry of
+its trunk. It is a tree of erect growth, fifty to sixty feet in height,
+with horizontal branches, and leaves that vary in shape from triangular
+and rhombic to almost circular, and in width from an inch to four
+inches. They have rounded teeth on the margins, which are at first also
+fringed, and in their young state the underside is silky. The flowers in
+the catkins of this and the next species are not so densely packed.
+Those of the male are two or three inches in length, and dark red in
+colour; their abundance before the tree has put out its leaves makes the
+male tree a conspicuous object. The female catkins are shorter and
+do not droop. When the roundish capsules burst in May or June to
+distribute their seeds, the white cotton with which the latter are
+invested gives prominence to the female tree. The wood is chiefly used
+by the turner; in Holland, where it is extensively cultivated, it
+provides the material for sabots. The Black Poplar is not a native of
+this country, but it is generally distributed throughout Europe and
+Northern Asia. The date of its introduction is not known, but it has
+been here for many centuries, and is quite naturalized, springing up on
+river banks and in other moist situations. Some botanists regard it as
+only a variety of the Lombardy Poplar, but apart from the very different
+habit of the tree--not by itself sufficient grounds for
+separation--there is the more important fact that the Black Poplar
+rarely produces suckers from its roots, whilst the Lombardy Poplar does
+so constantly. However, this is a point we can leave for the botanists
+to discuss; for the purposes of this book the two trees are sufficiently
+distinct to be treated separately.
+
+The Lombardy Poplar (_Populus fastigiata_) is no more a native of Italy
+than of England. Its home is in the Taurus and the Himalayas, whence it
+has spread into Persia. Introduced into Southern Europe, it has become
+specially abundant along the rivers of Lombardy, and so in France and
+England it bears the name of that country. Lord Rochford introduced it
+to England from Turin in 1758. Its leaves are like those of the Black
+Poplar, but its branches, instead of spreading, all grow straight
+upwards, so that the fastigiate or spire shape of the tree is
+produced--a shape only found otherwise among coniferous trees,
+particularly in the Cypress, the Juniper and the Irish Yew. It is its
+form, great height (100 to 150 feet), and rapidity of growth that have
+led to its wide use here as an ornamental tree--in many cases as a mere
+vegetable hoarding to shut out some offensive view. Its growth is
+extremely rapid, especially during its first score of years, when it
+will attain a height of sixty feet or more, provided it be grown in
+good, moist (but not marshy) soil. Its wood is, of course, of little
+value, and is chiefly used for making boxes and packing-cases, where its
+lightness, combined with toughness and cheapness, is an advantage. The
+bark is rough and deeply furrowed, unlike the other species, and the
+trunk is twisted. Like the Black Poplar, it has smooth shoots, and the
+unopened buds are sticky. It is propagated in this country by suckers
+and cuttings. It is said that the first trees introduced were so
+obtained, and that they were all from male trees; consequently, that we
+have no female trees here, and seed production is impossible. If the
+female grows here, it is certainly very scarce. The bark has been used
+for tanning.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 56._ Lombardy Poplar--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 57._ Bole of Lombardy Poplar.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 58._ Lombardy Poplar--winter.]
+
+The Black Italian Poplar (_Populus monilifera_) is another misnamed
+tree, for it is a native of North America, though introduced to England
+from the Continent in 1772 by Dr. John Hope. It has the distinction of
+being considered the most rapid-growing even of the Poplars. Loudon
+gives its rate of growth in the neighbourhood of London as between
+thirty and forty feet in seven years! Even in Scotland (where it has
+been largely planted as a substitute for Larch, since the partial
+failure of that tree) it attains a height of 120 feet in sixty years,
+when planted along the river banks. It is probably only a variety of _P.
+nigra_, which it resembles in most points, but is larger, and of very
+erect growth.
+
+The Tacamahac or Balsam Poplar (_Populus balsamifera_) is another
+importation from North America, introduced in 1692. In its native
+country it grows to a height of eighty feet, but here forty or fifty
+feet is more usual. Its leaves are of more slender form than those of
+the other Poplars, egg-shaped, with a near approach to being
+lance-shaped. Their edges are toothed, their upper surface dark green
+and smooth, the underside whitish with cotton. The distinctive character
+of the tree is the fragrance of its foliage, which scents the air on
+moist evenings, and makes the Tacamahac a desirable tree to plant near
+the water, where alone it attains any moderate size.
+
+
+The Willows (_Salix_).
+
+There is not in the whole of the British flora another genus of plants
+that presents such difficulties of identification as the genus _Salix_.
+Even so hardened a botanist as Sir J. D. Hooker, in reviewing the tangle
+of species, varieties (natural and cultivated), and hybrids, is so far
+stirred from his ordinary composure that he stigmatizes it as a
+"troublesome genus." When Sir Joseph chose that mild adjective he was at
+Kew surrounded by the national herbaria and with nicely labelled living
+plants at hand for comparison. What, then, can the rambling
+nature-lover hope to do with the Willows he comes across one at a time,
+without much chance of comparing? He must be content to follow the
+"lumpers," who group a number of these uncertain forms under the name of
+a species to which they have evident relationship. When he has mastered
+the distinctions between these aggregate species, it will be early
+enough to attempt the segregation of the forms and varieties under each.
+
+In their natural condition Willows are graceful and picturesque, but a
+large number of the examples met with in our rambles have been so
+altered for commercial reasons as to be more grotesque than beautiful.
+It is not the timber-man who is responsible this time, for a pollard
+Willow, though it produces a shock-head of long slender shoots, suitable
+for basket-rods, lets in moisture at the top of the bole, and the wood
+is more or less decayed and worthless. Only four of our native Willows
+can be regarded as timber trees. These are the White Willow, the Crack
+Willow, the Bedford Willow, and the Sallow. Like the Poplars, their
+growth is very rapid, and their wood is consequently light, but it has
+the advantage of Poplar-wood in being tougher, and therefore serving for
+purposes where Poplar is of no value. In the present day the growers of
+straight-boled Willows find their best market among the makers of
+cricket-bats. A good deal of it is also cut into thin strips for
+plaiting into chip-hats and hand-baskets. The Osier is grown in
+extensive riverside beds for the production of long pliant shoots for
+the basket-weavers; though many of the so-called Osier-rods are really
+stool-shoots from Willows that have been pollarded, or whose leading
+shoot has never been allowed to grow. On those parts of our coast where
+the crab and lobster fishery is pursued, a regular supply of such shoots
+for weaving into "pots" and "hullies" is a necessity, and a "withy bed"
+will usually be found on some valley stream near, or on a damp terrace
+halfway up the cliffs.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 59._ Crack Willow--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 60._ Bole of Crack Willow.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 61._ Crack Willow--winter.]
+
+The bark of the tree Willows has long been known to be rich in an
+alkaloid called _salicine_, which has tonic and astringent properties,
+and has often been used instead of _quinine_, though it is not nearly so
+powerful as the Peruvian drug. The bark is also used for tanning.
+
+The association of the Willow with sadness is very old, but there does
+not appear to be any satisfactory reason for it--certainly to
+contemplate a naturally-grown Willow that grows on the edge of a limpid
+stream, in which its graceful shoots and slender leaves are reflected,
+does not suggest sad thoughts to the average healthy mind. The
+association is chiefly with maidens forsaken by their false lovers, as
+indicated by Shakespeare when he makes Desdemona say--
+
+    "My mother had a maid called Barbara:
+    She was in love; and he she loved proved mad,
+    And did forsake her; she had a song of 'Willow';
+    An old thing 'twas, but it expressed her fortune,
+    And she died singing it."
+
+The Crack Willow or Withy (_Salix fragilis_) is one of the two most
+considerable of our tree Willows. In good soil it will in twenty years
+attain nearly its full height, which is eighty or ninety feet. Its bole
+sometimes has a girth of twenty feet. Its smooth, polished shoots afford
+the best ready means of distinguishing it, for instead of their base
+pointing to the centre of the trunk as in other trees, they grow
+obliquely, so that the shoots frequently cross each other. They are both
+tough and pliant, but if struck at the base they readily break off. This
+character explains the names Crack Willow and _fragilis_. The leaves are
+lance-shaped, three to six inches long, smooth, with glandular teeth,
+pale or glaucous on the underside, and with half-heart-shaped stipules,
+which, however, are soon cast off. As we have already indicated under
+the head of Poplars, the male and female catkins of the Willows are
+borne by different trees. In the case of the Crack Willow, the male
+catkins are an inch or two long, proportionately stout, each flower
+bearing two stamens (occasionally three, four, or five). The female
+catkin is more slender, the flowers each containing a smooth ovary,
+ending in a short style that divides into two curved stigmas. The
+catkins appear in April or May. Although, like most of the Willows, this
+species is fond of cold, wet soil in low situations, it is not
+restricted to the plains. In Northumberland it is found at 1300 feet
+above the sea. Its northward range extends as far as Ross-shire, but it
+is a doubtful native in both Scotland and Ireland.
+
+[Illustration: Crack Willow.]
+
+The Bedford Willow (_S. russelliana_) is believed to be a hybrid between
+_S. fragilis_ and _S. alba_. It grows to a height of fifty feet, with a
+girth of twelve feet. The leaves are more slender than those of _S.
+fragilis_, taper to a point at each end, and are very smooth on both
+sides. It occurs in swampy woods.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 62._ White Willow--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 63._ Flowers of White Willow.]
+
+[Illustration: White Willow.]
+
+The White Willow (_Salix alba_) is so called from the appearance of the
+leaves as the light is reflected from their silky surfaces, which are
+alike above and below. It is a tree from sixty to eighty feet high, with
+a girth of twenty feet, covered with thick and deeply fissured bark. The
+leaves are from two to four inches long, of a narrow elliptical shape.
+In the typical form the twigs are olive-coloured, but in the variety
+_vitellina_ (known as the Golden Willow) these are yellow or reddish. In
+the variety _cærulea_ the old leaves become quite smooth above, but
+retain the glaucous appearance of the underside. The White Willow is
+found as far north as Sutherlandshire, but although it is believed to be
+an indigenous species, most of the modern specimens appear to have been
+planted. It affords good timber, and the bark is almost equal to that of
+Oak for tanning. A great number of the old Willows met with in our
+rambles are partially decayed, a condition frequently the result of
+lopping large branches, for the wound never heals, and decay setting in
+at that point, extends down the bole. Upon such decaying specimens one
+may often find one of the most handsome of our native beetles--the
+Musk-beetle, with long, slender body and long antennæ, all coloured in
+dark golden green, and diffusing the aroma of a rose.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 64._ Bole of White Willow.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 65._ White Willow--winter.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 66._ Almond-leaved Willow--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 67._ Almond-leaved Willow--winter.]
+
+The Almond-leaved or French Willow (_Salix triandra_) is a small tree
+about twenty feet high, distinguished by its bark being thrown off in
+flakes. Its slender lance-shaped leaves are smooth green above and
+glaucous beneath, two to four inches long, and with half-heart-shaped
+stipules. The male flowers offer another distinguishing mark in their
+stamens being three in number. Its habitats are the banks of rivers and
+streams, and in Osier-beds. It is extensively grown on account of the
+long, straight shoots produced from the stump when the tree is cut down,
+which are of great use in wicker-work.
+
+The Bay-leaved Willow (_Salix pentandra_) is met with either as a small
+upright tree about twenty feet high, or as a shrub eight feet high. Its
+oval or elliptical leaves are rich green, smooth and sticky on the upper
+surface, and give out a pleasant fragrance like those of the Bay-tree;
+they vary from an inch to four inches long, and they may or may not bear
+stipules, but if these are present they will be egg-shaped or oblong.
+The stamens are normally five in each flower, but they vary up to
+twelve. This is reputed to be of all our Willows the latest to flower. A
+line drawn through York, Worcester, and North Wales will give roughly
+its southward range as a native species. South of that line it has been
+planted; north of it to the Scottish border it is a native. It has
+been found growing at a height of 1300 feet in Northumberland.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 68._ Bay-leaved Willow--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 69._ Bay-leaved Willow--winter.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 70._ Bole of Bay-leaved Willow.]
+
+[Illustration: Sallow.]
+
+The Sallow (_Salix caprea_) is the only other species that can properly
+be considered as a tree, as it attains to a height of thirty feet,
+though fifteen to twenty feet is a more common measurement. Its usually
+egg-shaped leaves vary from almost round to elliptical or lance-shaped,
+and from two to four inches in length. In the typical form, which occurs
+chiefly in woods, dry pastures, and hedgerows, they are broad, smooth,
+and dull-green above, covered with soft white down beneath; the stipules
+half-kidney-shaped. This is the earliest of all our Willows to flower,
+and the gold (male) and silver (female) catkins are put out before the
+leaves. In the country, within a few miles of the larger cities, this
+can hardly be a desirable species to plant, for on the Sunday before
+Easter thousands who at no other period exhibit any strong religious
+tendency journey out to pick some "Palm," as they designate the Sallow
+bloom, and the rough pruning the Sallows then get must in many cases be
+disastrous. He who imagines that insect life is suspended until spring
+is on the verge of summer should visit the woods when the Sallow is in
+bloom; he will be astonished at the swarms of bees and moths that are
+collecting the abundant pollen or sipping the nectar provided for them.
+Before the bright catkins can be seen the locality of the tree may be
+known by the loud hum produced by hundreds of pairs of wings. The all
+but invariable rule among the Willows--as among Oaks, Beech, Birch,
+Hazel, and Pines--is to depend upon the wind for the transfer of pollen
+from one tree to the stigmas of another of the same species, but in the
+Sallow we find a breaking away from what was doubtless the primitive
+arrangement in all flowering plants, by the bribing with honey of more
+reliable and less wasteful winged carriers.
+
+The Gray Sallow (_Salix cinerea_) is really a sub-species of _S.
+caprea_. It has a liking for moister places than the type, or perhaps it
+would be more accurate to say that its growth in moister situations has
+brought about the differences by which it is separated from the parent
+form. These points are, briefly--the buds and twigs are downy, the
+leaves smaller and proportionately narrower, the upper surface downy,
+grey-green beneath; the anthers of the male pale yellow, the capsule of
+the female smaller.
+
+The Eared Sallow (_S. aurita_) is probably also only another form of _S.
+caprea_, distinguished by its small, bushlike proportions (two to four
+feet high), long branches and red twigs; its small wrinkled leaves,
+which are usually less than two inches long, are of an almost oblong
+shape, downy beneath, and with large ear-shaped stipules. Its likeness
+is much closer to _S. cinerea_ than to the type; it is fond of damp
+copses and moist places on heaths, where it may be found at considerable
+elevations. In the Highlands it ascends to 2000 feet.
+
+There are Willows of dwarf habit, some with long straggling branches and
+more or less prostrate stems, that grow upon heaths. Each has a name
+under which it has at some time or other been ranked as a distinct
+species, just as the forms of Bramble and Rose have been. The
+differences between them are minute, and of little interest save to the
+advanced scientific botanist, who with his dried specimens spread before
+him often detects subtle distinctions not apparent to the outdoor
+student of the living plant. For the purposes of those for whom this
+volume is intended they may be regarded as one.
+
+Dwarf Silky Willow (_Salix repens_). It is a low bush from six to twelve
+inches high, the stem lying along the ground. Some of the branches
+straggle in the same fashion, but those which bear the flowers are more
+or less erect. The leaf-buds and the young leaves are silky, a condition
+that usually endures on the lower surface, and in some forms on the
+upper also. They are broadly or narrowly lance-shaped, varying in the
+different forms alluded to above; in size they range from a half to one
+and a half inches in length, and may have lance-shaped stipules, or none
+at all. The scales of the catkins are yellowish-green or purple, with
+dark tips. After they have shed their pollen the anthers turn black. One
+form or other of this species will be found in all parts of the British
+Islands where there are heaths or commons; in the Highlands it occurs as
+high as 2500 feet.
+
+Another group of small Willows that form bushes (rarely a small tree)
+have been united under two species--the Dark-leaved Willow (_Salix
+nigricans_), and the Tea-leaved Willow (_Salix phylicifolia_). None of
+them occur south of Yorkshire, and the chief distinction between the two
+species (?) consists in the leaves of _S. nigricans_ turning black when
+being dried for the herbarium, whilst those of _S. phylicifolia_ do not.
+
+[Illustration: Osier.]
+
+The Osier (_Salix viminalis_). Many of the foregoing Willows, when cut
+down low and induced to send out long, slender shoots, are known as
+Osiers, but only two species are botanically regarded as Osiers--this
+and the Purple Osier (_S. purpurea_). The present species may remain as
+a shrub or grow into a small tree, thirty feet high, with long, straight
+branches, which are silky when young, but afterwards become polished.
+The leaves vary in length from four to ten inches, and are slenderly
+lance-shaped, tapering to a point in front, and narrowing into the
+foot-stalk behind. They have waved margins without teeth, and the upper
+surface netted with veins, the under surface silvery and silky; stipules
+narrow lance-shaped. The Osier may be seen in Osier-beds and wet places
+generally throughout the country as far north as Elgin and Argyll. There
+are several varieties and hybrids.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 71._ Purple Osier--summer.]
+
+The Purple Osier (_Salix purpurea_). In all the other Willows mentioned
+the stamens, whatever their number, all have the filaments distinct from
+each other. In this species alone the filaments of the two stamens are
+more or less united. The Purple Osier gets its name from the red or
+purple bark which clothes the thin but tough twigs. It is a shrub, and
+grows from five to ten feet high. The leaves, which are rather thin in
+texture, are from three to six inches long, of slender-lance-shape, with
+toothed edges, smooth and glaucous on both sides, but especially
+beneath, somewhat hairy when young. They are almost opposite on the
+twigs, and when dried for the herbarium turn black. There are several
+varieties of this shrub, which were formerly honoured with specific
+rank.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 72._ Purple Osier--winter.]
+
+There remains a group of several small species of very local occurrence,
+with which we can do little more here beyond naming them.
+
+The Woolly Willow (_Salix lanata_) is a small shrub, two or three feet
+high, with twisted branches, woolly twigs, and hairy black buds. The
+broad egg-shaped or oblong leathery leaves are also woolly, and two or
+three inches long. There are half-heart-shaped stipules at the base of
+the very short leaf-stalk. It is an Alpine plant, and is found about the
+mountain rills of Perth, Forfar, Inverness, and Sutherland at elevations
+between 2000 and 2500 feet. Conspicuous in spring for its rich golden
+catkins. Sadler's Willow (_S. sadleri_), of which only two or three
+specimens have been found (in Glen Callater, 2500 feet), is probably a
+form of this species.
+
+The Lapland Willow (_Salix lapponum_) is of a similar proportion to the
+last-named, sometimes erect, sometimes trailing. Its leaves are more
+elliptic in shape, covered above with silky hairs and below with cottony
+filaments. In _lanata_ the raised veins form a network pattern; in
+_lapponum_ they are straight. The stipules at the base of the long
+foot-stalk are small or altogether wanting. Like the preceding species,
+it is restricted to Scotch Alpine rocks, at elevations between 2000 and
+2700 feet.
+
+The Whortle-leaved Willow (_Salix myrsinites_) is a small, wiry,
+creeping, or half-erect shrub, six inches to a foot high, with toothed,
+dark glossy leaves, an inch or less in length, whose net-veining shows
+on both sides. It is restricted to the Alpine parts of mid-Scotland,
+from 1000 to 2700 feet.
+
+The Small Tree-Willow (_Salix arbuscula_) is a small shrub, whose stem
+creeps along the ground and roots as it goes, sending up more or less
+erect branches a foot or two high. The downy twigs are first yellow,
+then reddish-brown. The small leaves vary from egg-shaped to
+lance-shaped, and are shining above and glaucous beneath; toothed. In
+the Highlands of Aberdeen, Argyll, Dumfries, Forfar, and Perth, between
+1000 and 2400 feet.
+
+The Least Willow (_Salix herbacea_) is not so restricted in its range,
+for it is found in all parts of the United Kingdom where there are
+heights sufficiently Alpine (2000 to 4300 feet) for its tastes. It is
+only an inch or two high, and has consequently the distinction of being
+the smallest British shrub. It is not so herbaceous as it seems, or as
+its name implies, for its shrubby stem and branches creep along
+underground, sending up only short, scantly leaved twigs. The curled,
+roundish leaves do not exceed half an inch in length; they are
+net-veined, toothed, and shining. The catkins appear after the leaves.
+
+The Net-leaved Willow (_Salix reticulata_) is another of the Scotch
+Alpines. It is similar in habit to the last-named, but larger, its
+buried branches sending up twigs a foot long. The roundish-oblong,
+leathery leaves are not toothed; they are smooth above and glaucous
+beneath, strongly net-veined on either side. The purplish or yellow
+catkins do not develop till after the leaves. It is restricted to the
+mountains of Aberdeen, Forfar, Inverness, Perth, and Sutherland.
+
+The Weeping Willow (_Salix babylonica_), so conspicuous an ornament of
+riverside lawns, is an introduced species, whose slender branches hang
+downwards. It has large, lance-shaped, finely toothed leaves, smooth
+above and glaucous beneath. Further description of so well-known a tree
+is unnecessary. It attains a height of forty to fifty feet. The name
+_babylonica_ was bestowed in the belief that its headquarters were on
+the banks of the Euphrates. It is now known to be a native of Japan, and
+other parts of Asia.
+
+The name Willow is the Anglo-Saxon _welig_, indicating pliancy,
+willingness.
+
+
+Our Native Conifers.
+
+The British flora is singularly poor in coniferous plants, the Scots
+Pine, the Yew, and the Juniper being our only native species, and even
+of these some authorities will have it that the Yew is not truly a
+Conifer at all; they place it in a separate order--_Taxaceæ_. For our
+present purpose, however, although the Yew does not produce cones, it
+will be convenient to keep it in its old position. The principal feature
+distinguishing all Conifers and their allies (_Gymnosperms_) from other
+flowering plants (_Angiosperms_) is briefly this: Angiosperms have their
+incipient seeds (_ovules_) enclosed in a carpel, through which a shoot
+from the pollen grain has to penetrate in order to reach and fertilize
+the ovule. In Gymnosperms the carpel takes the form of a leaf or bract,
+upon which the naked ovule lies open to actual contact with the pollen
+grain. After fertilization the carpel enlarges to protect the seed, and
+becomes fleshy or woody, in the latter case a group of carpels forming
+the well-known cones of Pine or Fir.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 73._ Yew.]
+
+In some of the groups (as the Yew, for example) the male or
+pollen-producing flowers are borne by a separate tree from that which
+bears the female or cone-producing flowers. In the Pines both sexes are
+found on the same tree; but throughout the order the pollen is carried
+by the wind. All the species are trees, or shrubs. They are among the
+most valuable of timber trees, and, in addition, yield a number of
+useful substances, such as pitch, tar, turpentine, etc. The leaves are
+always rigid, extremely narrow, and long in proportion: usually of the
+form that botanists term linear, with the two sides parallel. In the
+Yews these leaves spread out in two rows from opposite sides of the
+twigs; in the Pines they are in clusters of two, three, or five, seeming
+to be bound together at the base by a wisp of thin skin. The number of
+leaves in each bundle is often a help in distinguishing species.
+
+The Yew (_Taxus baccata_) lacks the graceful proportions of most of our
+trees, but it has for compensation a most obvious air of strength and
+endurance. Who doubts, as he gazes at some sombre Yew in the old
+churchyard, the story of the local antiquarian, who tells him the tree
+has so stood for 2000 years. He may, perhaps, mildly suggest that
+neither the church nor the churchyard was in existence so far back, but
+even then the antiquarian will probably have the last word by suggesting
+that the grove of Yews of which this formed part was the church of the
+past. Thousands see in cathedral aisles the reproduction in stone of the
+pine-forest or the beech-wood. Standing before an ancient Yew they may
+see whence came the idea for those _clustered_ columns. They actually
+exist in the bole of the Yew, which presents the appearance not of a
+single trunk, but of several trunks that have coalesced. This condition
+is due to the Yew continually pushing out new shoots from the lower
+part of its bole, which take an upright direction, and coalesce with the
+old wood.
+
+Although the Yew is a large tree, it is by no means a tall tree: the
+height of full-grown Yews in this country ranging between fifteen and
+fifty feet, though they are said to attain a greater length in India.
+The bole of the Yew is short but massive, covered with a thin red bark,
+that flakes off in patches much after the manner of Plane-bark. Large
+specimens have a girth of from twenty-five to fifty feet--or even more.
+Such a circumference represents the growth of many centuries, for the
+annual growth-rings are very thin. It is this very slow growth that
+produces the hard, compact, and elastic wood that was so highly esteemed
+in the days of the long-bow. Not only is the timber elastic and strong,
+but it is exceedingly durable, so that it is said, "A post of Yew will
+outlast a post of iron." Its branches start from the trunk at only a few
+feet from the ground, and, taking an almost horizontal direction, throw
+out a great number of leafy twigs, which provide a dense and extensive
+shade. These leaves are leathery in texture, curved somewhat after the
+manner of a reaping-hook, shiny and dark above, pale and unpolished
+below.
+
+[Illustration: Yew. A, male flowers.]
+
+We have already mentioned that the Yew is a di[oe]cious tree--that is,
+one whose male and female blossoms are borne on separate trees--but the
+statement requires qualification to this extent, that occasionally a
+tree will be found bearing a branch or branches whose flowers are of the
+sex opposite to those covering the greater part of the tree. The male
+catkin is almost round, a quarter of an inch across, and contains about
+half a dozen yellow anthers, the base surrounded by dry overlapping
+scales. They may be found during February and March, in profusion on the
+underside of the boughs. The female flower is much smaller, and consists
+of a fleshy disk with a few scales at its base, and on this stands a
+single seed-egg. After fertilization of the seed-egg the disk develops
+into a red wax-like cup around the enlarging seed with its olive-green
+coat. The flesh of the cup is full of sweet mucilage, which makes the
+fruit acceptable to children, but the flavour is rather too mawkish to
+suit older tastes. Yew-berries are not poisonous, as sometimes supposed;
+neither is the contained kernel, which has a pleasant nutty flavour.
+Much has been said and written as to the toxic property of Yew-leaves,
+and it appears that though cattle and goats may browse upon them with
+impunity, horses and human beings pay the penalty of death for such
+indulgence. That word toxic, by the way, owes its significance to the
+Yew. The tree was named _taxus_ in Latin, from the Greek _toxon_ (a
+bow), because of the ancient repute of its wood for making that
+instrument. The tree was held to be poisonous, and so its name in the
+form of _toxicum_ came to designate all poisons.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 74._ Bole of Yew.]
+
+There are some lines in _In Memoriam_ which many readers of Tennyson
+have found as obscure as the shade of the Yew where they were conceived.
+The poet is addressing a venerable churchyard Yew in these words:--
+
+    "Old warder of these buried bones,
+        And answering now my random stroke
+        With fruitful cloud and living smoke;
+    Dark Yew, that graspest at the stones
+    And dippest towards the dreamless dead,
+        To thee, too, comes the golden hour,
+        When flower is feeling after flower."
+
+To any readers who have found a difficulty in understanding these lines,
+we would say: visit the Yew groves in February or March, when the male
+branches are thickly covered with their yellow flowers, and strike a
+branch with your stick. In response to the "random stroke" the pollen
+will fly off in a "fruitful cloud" or "living smoke," some of it to be
+caught by the minute female blossoms. This is the Yew-tree's "golden
+hour, when flower is feeling after flower."
+
+In the pre-gunpowder era, so important was it to have a sufficient
+supply of suitable wood for the making of the dreaded English long-bow,
+that the culture of the Yew was made the subject of a number of royal
+ordinances, which, of course, were allowed to drop out of observance
+when the bow was displaced by the firearm. And now when men plant Yews
+they are mostly the ornamental varieties, such as the Irish or Florence
+Court Yew, which originated as a wild sport on the mountains of
+Fermanagh about a hundred and forty years ago. Evelyn, it is true,
+revived the interest in the Yew as an ornamental tree, and it is with
+regret we add that at his suggestion it was first put to the base use
+called topiary work, which had hitherto been restricted to Box and
+Juniper. Evelyn showed how much more closely and continuously the Yew
+could be clipped without affecting its vitality, and the fashion he thus
+set--and regarded as a "merit"--was very generally followed during the
+next century. Many of the atrocities of those days are still with us,
+but only as survivals; and we can so often agree with Evelyn that we may
+forgive him for having led our ancestors astray in this matter. Evelyn
+was by no means blind to the good points of the tree in its natural
+condition, as witness this quotation, which is as true to-day as when it
+was written:--
+
+"He that in winter should behold some of our highest hills in Surry clad
+with whole woods of these two last sorts of trees [Box and Yew], for
+divers miles in circuit (as in those delicious groves of them, belonging
+to the Honourable, my Noble Friend, the late Sir Adam Brown, of
+Bechworth Castle), from Box Hill, might, without the least violence to
+his imagination, easily fancy himself transported into some new or
+enchanted country; for if in any spot in England,
+
+                              'tis here
+    Eternal spring and summer all the year."
+
+Along the chalk range of which the celebrated Box Hill forms part will
+be found many fine examples of the Yew, as at Cherkley Court, near
+Leatherhead, where there is an actual Yew forest. There was a monstrous
+Yew at Brabourne in Kent, in Evelyn's time, for he tells us he measured
+it, and found its girth to be only one inch short of fifty-nine feet.
+There are numerous giants of the species still living in quiet country
+churchyards, where they have probably served--as tradition states of
+those at Fountains Abbey--as a shelter for the builders of the ancient
+church during its erection. It is reputed to be the longest-lived of all
+trees, and it is to be hoped that no hindrance will be put in the way of
+these connections of the present with the far past living to their full
+natural limit, whatever it may be. It is naturally a tree of the uplands
+and lower hills, and shows a distinct preference for soils that contain
+plenty of lime.
+
+The Irish Yew (var. _fastigiata_), to which passing reference was made,
+differs from the type in having all its branches growing erectly, after
+the manner of a Lombardy Poplar, and in the leaves being scattered
+promiscuously over the branchlets instead of being in two regular rows.
+It attains a height of twenty to twenty-five feet.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 75._ Juniper.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 76._ Fruits of Yew.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 77._ Fruits of Juniper.]
+
+The Juniper (_Juniperus communis_) is seldom more than a shrub a few
+feet in height, though it occasionally develops into a small tree from
+ten to twenty feet high, and with a girth of five feet. It has a fibrous
+red bark, which flakes off like that of the Yew. The leaves are shaped
+like a cobbler's awl, rigid, and end in sharp points. They have
+thickened margins, the concave upper sides are glaucous, and they are
+arranged round the branches in whorls of three. The male and female
+flowers are on separate trees. The male catkin may be known in May by
+its numerous anthers and pale yellow pollen. The female catkins will be
+found in the axils of the leaves, and resemble buds. The scales are
+fleshy, and after fertilization the upper ones slowly develop into the
+form of a berry, which has a few undeveloped scales at its base. They do
+not ripen until the following year, when they are blue-black, covered
+with a fine glaucous bloom. They have a pungent flavour, which is
+utilized in concocting gin, which indeed owes its name to this fact--the
+word being merely a contraction of _genévrier_, the French form of
+Juniper. The "berries" have long been known as a kidney stimulant--a
+fact which has been fully utilized as the justification of every
+gin-drinker. A beautiful little moth--_Hypsilophus marginellus_--may
+often be taken about the Juniper, upon which its caterpillar feeds.
+
+To appreciate the variety of forms assumed by the Juniper according to
+the elevation at which it grows, it should be seen on slopes like those
+of the North Downs in Surrey--one portion of the range at Mickleham is
+named Juniper Hill. In the valleys it may be found as a small shapely
+tree, higher up the slopes as a pyramidal shrub, and as we reach higher
+and more exposed positions, the Juniper gradually dwindles to a low,
+shapeless bush. This, however, must not be confounded with a distinct
+variety to which the name _nana_ has been applied; it differs from the
+type in having shorter and broader overlapping leaves, with curved tips.
+Var. _nana_ is confined to the mountains of the north of our islands,
+and ascends to 2700 feet, which is 300 feet higher than is recorded of
+the type.
+
+[Illustration: Juniper in fruit. A, flowers.]
+
+The Virginian Juniper (_Juniperus virginiana_), or "Red Cedar," as it is
+called on the American continent, is a much larger plant, which is
+frequently planted in our parks and gardens. It varies in habit, and may
+be low and spreading, bush-like, or tall and tapering, thirty to forty
+feet high. Its leaves are in threes, like those of our native species,
+but the three are united by their bases. It is with the red heart-wood
+of this tree that our "cedar" pencils are covered, large quantities of
+the timber of _J. virginiana_, and formerly of _J. bermudiana_, being
+imported for the purpose. The Virginian Juniper has been with us for
+many years. It is mentioned by Evelyn in his "Sylva" (1664), and is
+believed to have been introduced by him from North America.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 78._ Scots Pine.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 79._ Bole of Scots Pine.]
+
+The Scots Pine (_Pinus sylvestris_), commonly but incorrectly styled
+Scotch Fir, is the typical Pine-tree of Northern Europe, where
+(especially in Russia and Northern Germany) it constitutes huge forests.
+It is even said to cover far wider tracts of country than any other
+forest tree. Although there is evidence that in ancient days it was
+pretty widely distributed over Britain, to-day all those Pine-woods of
+Southern England are the results of planting, and it is only in a few
+places between Yorkshire and Sutherland, and in Ireland, that it can be
+regarded as truly wild and indigenous. Mr. John Nisbet points out that
+the term "pine-forest" is a bit of tautology, for the old German word
+_forst_ was derived from _foraha_--now represented by _föhre_, a fire or
+pine--so that "pine-forest" is equivalent to "pine-pine." However, the
+etymologists will probably allow us to speak of Pine-woods, and we will
+try to remember that when we use the word forest it must always indicate
+an assemblage of Pine-trees.
+
+In favourable soil, at a moderate elevation, the Scots Pine is a fine
+tree a hundred feet high, with a rough-barked trunk, whose girth is
+twelve feet. Under such conditions it develops a strong tap-root, which
+goes deep; but where the soil is shallow or otherwise unfavourable the
+tap-root is not developed. At great elevations the upward growth is
+checked early, and it becomes a mere evergreen bush. The branches are
+short and spreading, those on the lower portions of the trunk dying
+early, so that the tree soon gets that gaunt weather-beaten look that is
+so characteristic of it. Then, after the growth of the leading shoot has
+become feeble, the upper branches continue to lengthen, and so bring
+about that flat-topped condition. Its growth is rapid, and in twenty
+years it will attain a height of forty or fifty feet.
+
+The leaves, which are in bundles of two, are from two to three inches
+long, very slender, grooved above and convex beneath. They remain on the
+tree for over two years, and in their first season are of a glaucous
+hue, but in the second year this changes to dark deep-green. Both male
+and female flowers are borne by the same tree. The male catkins are
+individually small (¼ inch), but are combined in spikes; this and the
+abundant pale yellow pollen makes them conspicuous. The female cones are
+somewhat egg-shaped, tapering to a point, which is often curved. They
+are usually in clusters of three, and grow to a length of two or three
+inches. The scales are comparatively few, and their ends are thickened
+into an irregular four-sided boss, at first ending in a little point.
+The seeds are winged, and contained beneath the scales. They take about
+eighteen months to ripen, when the scales separate in dry windy weather,
+and allow the breeze to pick out the seeds and send them flying through
+the air to a great distance. The pollen, too, it should be noted, is of
+a form specially fitted for aerial transport, each particle of pollen
+forming two connected spheres. It is quite a common experience in May to
+find little heaps of this pollen collected in hollows and at the margins
+of ponds in the neighbourhood of Pine-woods; but, so difficult is it to
+get people to understand the common facts of nature, that it is
+generally regarded as evidence of a shower of brimstone having fallen.
+It is not only the ignorant rustic who falls into this error; judging
+from letters sent to the press by country parsons, even the universities
+fail to prepare their alumni to deal with such phenomena. After the
+eruptions of La Soufriere, several wrote to say that quantities of
+powdered sulphur from St. Vincent had descended in their Surrey and
+Hampshire parishes! their notion being that the commercial "flowers of
+sulphur" are the direct produce of volcanoes.
+
+[Illustration: Scots Pine.]
+
+Although the wood produced by the Scots Pine in this country is not
+considered of the highest quality, the species is certainly of equal
+value as a timber-producer with any other tree. Owing to our mild
+winters and long periods of seasonal growth, the Pine-wood produced in
+Britain is coarse-grained and not very durable. In the colder parts of
+Northern Europe, where summers are short and the long winters are
+severe, the texture of the timber is more solid and the grain closer.
+And so enormous quantities of Pine-wood come to us from the Baltic ports
+every year. In addition to the timber, other valuable substances known
+to commerce are products of the Scots Pine--pitch and tar, resin and
+turpentine, for example. The Pine is an accommodating tree, for though
+it likes a deep soil in which to strike its tap-root, it will grow upon
+rocky ground, where the roots have to become horizontal and near the
+surface; or it will form forests on poor sandy soils, even on the loose
+hot sands near the seashore. This is a valuable power, because the fall
+of its needles gradually forms a humus, and so provides food for other
+plants which could not exist on raw sand.
+
+Other coniferous trees that have become more or less familiar in our
+plantations and parks will be found in the second division of this book.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 80._ Male Flowers of Scots Pine.]
+
+
+The Holly (_Ilex aquifolium_).
+
+The Holly must be regarded as one of our small trees, although many
+specimens attain a height of forty or fifty feet, with a girth of ten or
+twelve feet. It is well distributed throughout our islands, ascending to
+a thousand feet, and it is probable that no other tree is so well known,
+by its foliage at least, as the Holly, or Holm, to give it its ancient
+name. The word Holm was incorporated by some of our ancestors far back
+in the name Holmsdale, which still attaches to the stretch of country at
+the southern foot of the chalk hills in Surrey, and whose proud motto
+is, "Never wonne, ne never shall." At the western end of the
+Holmsdale is Holmwood, and still a little further west Holmbury. In
+these places the Holly still grows bravely, not far from the old home of
+John Evelyn, who must be thought of whenever we talk of Hollies, though
+the recollection has to do with Sayes Court, his Thames-side house,
+where the barbarian Peter wrought such havoc with his cherished
+Holly-hedge. How Evelyn must have lamented that outrage is indicated in
+this extract from the "Sylva":--
+
+"Is there under heaven a more glorious and refreshing object of the
+kind, than an impregnable hedge of about four hundred feet in length,
+nine feet high, and five in diameter, which I can show in my now ruined
+gardens at Say's Court (thanks to the Czar of Moscovy) at any time of
+the year, glittering with its armed and varnished leaves? The taller
+standards at orderly distance, blushing with their natural coral. It
+mocks the rudest assaults of the weather, beasts, or hedge-breakers, _et
+illum nemo impunè lacessit_."
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 81._ Holly.]
+
+[Illustration: Holly.]
+
+The bark of the Holly is smooth and pale-grey in colour. Time out of
+mind it has been used in the preparation of a viscid substance known as
+birdlime, which, spread on twigs, holds the feet of small birds.
+Respecting the foliage of the Holly, there is little need to say
+anything, but for uniformity's sake we may note that the leaves are oval
+in shape, of a leathery consistence, with a firmer margin, running out
+into long sharp spines. It is a fact worthy of note that when the Holly
+has attained to a height of ten feet or so, it frequently clothes its
+upper branches in leaves that have no spines--a circumstance that Robert
+Southey sought to explain in his poem "The Holly-tree," on teleological
+grounds. His second verse, however, contains sufficient explanation of
+the fact it describes:--
+
+    "Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen
+      Wrinkled and keen;
+    No grazing cattle through their prickly round
+      Can reach to wound;
+    But, as they grow where nothing is to fear,
+    Smooth and unarm'd the pointless leaves appear."
+
+In some places the young shoots are gathered by the peasants, dried,
+bruised, and used as a winter cattle-food. No doubt, in the early
+history of the Holly, cattle found out its good qualities for
+themselves, and browsed upon the then-unarmed foliage. In self-defence
+the tree developed spines upon its leaves, and so kept its enemies at a
+respectful distance. Above the reach of these marauders the production
+of spines would be a useless waste of material.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 82._ Flowers of Holly.]
+
+The flowers of the Holly, though small, are conspicuous by their great
+number and white colour. They are about a quarter of an inch
+across, with four petals and four stamens or stigmas. Sometimes flowers
+with stamens are produced by the same tree that bears flowers with
+stigmas; but often the male and the female flowers are borne by separate
+trees, so that the possessor of a Holly that is solely male is sometimes
+puzzled by the fact that his tree, though covered with blossom, never
+produces a berry. The fruit is analogous in structure to that of the
+Plum and Cherry, and is technically termed a _drupe_; but instead of the
+single stone of these fruits, in the Holly-berry there are four bony
+little stones, each with its contained seed. The berries ripen about
+September, and are then scarlet and glossy, though here and there one
+finds a tree whose fruit never gets beyond the yellow stage of
+coloration.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 83._ Fruits of Holly.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 84._ Bole of Holly.]
+
+Most parts of the tree have had their uses in medicine; the leaves, for
+example, being said to have value as a febrifuge, and the berries as a
+purgative, or in large doses (6 to 8) as an emetic. The smooth bark of
+large Hollies is often attacked by one of the most striking of our
+native lichens--_Graphis elegans_--whose black fruiting portions look
+like a raised cuneiform inscription. The Holly is not greatly subject to
+the attacks of insects, but many of its leaves will be found to have
+been tunnelled between the upper and lower skins by the larva of a
+minute moth, one of the Leaf-miners. It also provides the pabulum for
+the caterpillar of the Holly-blue butterfly (_Lycæna argiolus_). The
+dead leaves may be examined for the minute Prickly Snail (_Helix
+aculeata_).
+
+The wood of the Holly has an exceedingly fine grain, due to its slow
+growth, and it is very hard and white. These qualities make it valuable
+for many purposes, often as a substitute for Box-wood, and, when dyed
+black, in lieu of Ebony.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 85._ Spindle--winter.]
+
+
+The Spindle-tree (_Euonymus europæus_).
+
+The Spindle is right on the borderland between trees and shrubs, for
+though it will grow into a tree twenty feet high, yet our hedgerow
+specimens are usually bushlike, and only ten or twelve feet high. Until
+the autumn the Spindle, we fear, is rarely recognized as such, but gets
+confused with Buckthorn and Dogwood. In October, however, its quaint
+fruits have changed to a pale crimson hue, which renders them the most
+conspicuous feature of a hedgerow--even of one plentifully decorated
+with scarlet hips and haws and bryony-berries. The unusual tint of the
+Spindle, and the fact that it swings on a slender stalk, at once mark it
+out from the rigid-stalked hips and haws.
+
+The trunk of the Spindle is clothed in smooth grey bark. The twigs,
+which are in pairs, starting from opposite sides of a branch, are
+four-angled. The shining leaves vary from egg-shaped to lance-shaped,
+with finely-toothed edges. They are arranged in pairs, and in autumn
+they change to yellow and red. When bruised they give off a f[oe]tid
+odour, the juice is acrid, and said to be poisonous--a charge which is
+laid against the bark, flowers, and seed as well. The small
+greenish-white flowers are borne in loose clusters, of the type known as
+cymes, from the axils of the leaves, and appear in May and June. Some
+contain both stamens and pistil, but others are either stamenate _or_
+pistillate. The calyx is cut into four or six parts, the petals and
+stamens agree with these parts in number, but the lobes of the stigma
+only range from three to five, corresponding with the cells of the
+ovary. The fruit is deeply lobed, and marked with grooves, indicating
+the lines of future division, when the lobes open and disclose the
+seeds, at first covered with their orange jackets, or _arils_, after the
+manner of the mace that encloses the nutmeg.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 86._ Flowers of Spindle.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 87._ Fruits of Spindle-tree.]
+
+[Illustration: Spindle-tree. A, flowers.]
+
+The hardness and toughness of Spindle-wood has long been esteemed in the
+fashioning of small wares where these qualities are essential, and the
+common name is a survival of the days when spinning was the occupation
+of every woman. Then spindles were in demand for winding the spun thread
+upon, and no wood was more suitable than that of Euonymus for making
+them. It shares with the Cornel (_Cornus sanguinea_) the name Dogwood;
+it is also Skewerwood, Prickwood, and Pegwood, all suggestive of uses to
+which it is or was applied. The young shoots make a very fine charcoal
+for artists' use.
+
+The Spindle is indigenous throughout our islands, but cannot be said to
+be generally common; it is rarer in Scotland and Ireland than in
+England.
+
+Among the exotic species cultivated in our parks and gardens are the
+handsome variegated forms of the Evergreen Spindle (_Euonymus
+japonicus_) of China and Japan, and the Broad-leaved Spindle (_E.
+latifolius_) from Europe.
+
+
+The Buckthorns (_Rhamnus_).
+
+Our two native species of Buckthorn are shrubs of from five to ten feet
+in height. In this one respect they agree; in almost all others they
+differ. Both are Buckthorns in name, but the Breaking Buckthorn
+(_Rhamnus frangula_) is quite unarmed, whilst many of the branchlets of
+the Purging Buckthorn (_Rhamnus catharticus_) are hardened into spines.
+
+The Purging Buckthorn is distinguished by its stiff habit, and by some
+of the leaves being gathered into bundles at the ends of the shoots. The
+leaves are egg-shaped, with toothed edges, and of a yellowish-green
+tint, with short leaf-stalks. The yellowish-green flowers are very
+small, and will be found both singly and in clusters from the
+leaf-axils. There are a four-cleft calyx, four petals, four stamens, or
+four stigmas, for the sexes are usually on separate plants. The fruit is
+black, round, and about a quarter of an inch across, containing four
+stones. These so-called "berries" are ripe in September. Formerly they
+were much used as a purging medicine, but of so violent a character that
+their use has come to be discouraged, and the safer syrup of Buckthorn
+is prescribed instead. The juice of these berries is the raw material
+from which the artist's sap-green is prepared. It may be found in woods,
+thick hedgerows, and bushy places on commons southward of Westmoreland,
+showing a decided preference for chalky soils. In Ireland it only occurs
+rarely.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 88._ Breaking Buckthorn.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 89._ Fruits of Purging Buckthorn.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 90._ Fruits of Breaking Buckthorn.]
+
+[Illustration: Purging Buckthorn. A, flowers.]
+
+The Breaking Buckthorn (_Rhamnus frangula_) is also known as the
+Berry-bearing Alder, its leaves, with their lateral veins, presenting
+something of the appearance of the Alder. Its more slender stems are
+purplish-brown in hue, and _all_ the leaves are arranged alternately up
+the stems. The leaves further differ from those of _R. catharticus_ in
+having plain, un-toothed edges, and their veins parallel one to another.
+The flowers are similar in size to those of the other species, but are
+whiter, less yellow, fewer in number, and on longer stalks. The parts of
+the flower, too, are in fives instead of fours; and the "berry," though
+similar to the previous species, is much larger (half-inch diameter). In
+an unripe condition these fruits yield a good green dye, much used by
+calico printers and others. The wood made into charcoal is said to be
+the best for the purposes of the gunpowder makers, who know it by the
+name of Black Dogwood. The straight shoots of both species are used for
+forming walking and umbrella sticks, and those of longer growth for pea
+and bean sticks.
+
+The Brimstone butterfly (_Gonepteryx rhamni_) lays its eggs on the
+leaves of _R. frangula_, upon which the larva feeds. The name Buckthorn
+appears to be due to an ancient misunderstanding of the German name
+Buxdorn, which should have been translated Box-thorn.
+
+
+Wild Plums (_Prunus communis_).
+
+With the single exception of the Hazel, all our native fruit-trees are
+members of the extensive and beautiful Rose family. Before Roman
+invasions brought improved and cultivated varieties, our "rude
+forefathers" must have been glad to eat the Sloes, Crabs, and Wild
+Cherries that are now regarded as too terribly crude and austere, in an
+uncooked condition, for any stomach but that of the natural boy, which
+appears capable of surviving any ill-treatment. Some authors have
+regarded the Wild Plum and the Bullace as being specifically distinct
+from the Sloe and from each other; but the modern view is that their
+differences only entitle them to rank as sub-species of the Sloe, and as
+such they will be regarded here.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 91._ Flowers of Wild Plum.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 92._ Sloes.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 93._ Blackthorn--spring.]
+
+[Illustration: Blackthorn. A, flowers.]
+
+The Sloe or Blackthorn (_Prunus communis_) is the rigid many-branched
+shrub, with stiletto-like tips, that luxuriates on some of our commons
+and in our hedgerows. The blackish bark that gives its name to the shrub
+forms a fine foil in March or April for the pure white starry blossoms
+that brave the cold blasts before the leaf-buds dare unfurl their
+coverings. In some places--as in Cornwall, where it is the principal
+hedge plant, and where cliffs, creeks, and river banks are bordered by
+it--these bare black or purple stems are almost hidden by the
+abundant growth of the Grey Lichen (_Evernia prunastri_). In this, the
+typical form, the branches and twigs turn in every direction, so that it
+is impossible to thrust one's hand into a Blackthorn bush without
+getting considerably scratched. The well-known flower consists of a
+five-lobed calyx, five white petals, and from fifteen to twenty stamens
+round the single carpel. The stigma matures in advance of the stamens,
+so that it has usually been fertilized by bee-borne pollen from another
+Sloe before its own anthers have disclosed their pollen. The fruit is
+about half an inch across, globose in form, and held erect upon its
+short stalk; black, but its blackness hidden by a delicate "bloom" that
+gives it a purplish glaucous hue. Terribly harsh are these fruits to the
+palate, and a mere bite at an unripe one is sufficient to set teeth on
+edge and contract the muscles of mouth and face. And yet, when the tight
+jacket of the Sloe begins to relax and pucker, the juice condenses into
+more mealy flesh, and the acridity passes, one may _eat_ not one but a
+dozen, slowly, enjoying the piquancy of each before swallowing. Country
+people make them into wine, and it used to be said that much that is
+sold as port had its origin in the skins of British sloes instead of
+Portuguese grapes. And for special use "for the stomach's sake" old-wife
+followers of St. Paul pin their faith to gin in which Sloes have soaked
+for months.
+
+In the days of our youth it was a stock jibe against the grocer that
+most of his China tea had been grown on Blackthorn bushes not far from
+home, and with tea at five or six shillings a pound there may have been
+some basis of truth for the belief; but with the prices of to-day it may
+be presumed that Blackthorn leaves would cost the dealer at least as
+much as real tea-leaves from Assam and Darjeeling.
+
+The Bullace (_Prunus communis_, sub-sp. _insititia_) differs from the
+Sloe in having _brown_ bark, the branches _straight_ and only a few of
+them ending in spines, the leaves larger, broader, more coarsely
+toothed, and downy on the underside. The flowers, too, have broader
+petals, and the fruit--which may be black or yellow--droops, and is
+between three-quarters and one inch in diameter. In many places where
+this grows it can only be regarded as an escape from cultivation.
+
+The Wild Plum (_Prunus communis_, sub-sp. _domestica_) has also brown
+bark, its branches straight, and not ending in spines. The downiness
+noticed on the underside of the Bullace leaves is here restricted to the
+ribs of the leaf. The fruit attains a diameter of an inch or an inch and
+a half. Although found occasionally in hedgerows, this sub-species is
+not indigenous in any part of our islands. Hooker says the only country
+in which it is really indigenous is Western Asia; but its numerous
+cultivated forms are widely distributed.
+
+It should be noted that the fruits of the Blackthorn and its sub-species
+are formed within the flower; so are those of the Cherries, to be next
+described, the ovary being botanically termed "superior," that is, above
+the base of the calyx and corolla, when the flower is in an erect
+position. This is a point of some importance when one seeks to
+understand the different formation of the fruit in so closely related a
+species as the Apple, in which the ovary is "inferior," or below the
+flower.
+
+
+Wild Cherries (_Prunus avium_).
+
+Nature has been comparatively lavish in the matter of Cherries, for she
+has bestowed three species upon the British Islands. For the cultivated
+Cherry it is said that we ought to thank the Romans, as for many other
+good things in the way of food. Pliny states that we had the Cherry in
+Britain by the middle of the first century A.D. Evelyn tells us that the
+Cherry orchards of Kent owe their origin to "the plain industry of one
+Richard Haines, a printer to Henry VIII.," by whom "the fields and
+environs of about thirty towns, in Kent only, were planted with fruit
+trees from Flanders, to the unusual benefit and general improvement of
+the county to this day." It is probable, however, that our own
+countrymen had already effected some improvement on the wild sorts by
+cultivation, for even in the woods some trees are found bearing fruit
+much larger and of better flavour than usual, and such would be selected
+for cultivation.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 94._ Gean in flower.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 95._ Flowers of Gean.]
+
+Our three natives are the Wild or Dwarf Cherry (_Prunus cerasus_), the
+Gean (_P. avium_), and the Bird Cherry (_P. padus_). Of these the Gean
+is the species most widely distributed throughout our country, and we
+therefore give it precedence.
+
+[Illustration: Gean. A, fruit; B, flower.]
+
+The Gean (_Prunus avium_) is a tree that in suitable soils attains a
+height of thirty or forty feet, with short, stout branches, that take an
+upward direction. The leaves are large, broadly oval, with sharp-toothed
+edges, and downy on the underside. They always droop from the branches,
+and in spring they are of a bronzy-brown tint, which afterwards changes
+to pale green. Soon after the leaves have unfolded they are almost
+hidden by the umbels of wide-open white flowers, which have soft,
+heart-shaped petals, and whose anthers and stigmas mature
+simultaneously. The firm-fleshed drupe is heart-shaped, black or red,
+sweet or bitter, with scanty juice which stains the fingers. This is
+believed to be the original wild stock from which our modern Black
+Hearts and Bigarreau Cherries have been evolved by the cultivator.
+
+[Illustration: Wild Cherry. A, fruit; B, flower.]
+
+The Dwarf or Wild Cherry (_Prunus cerasus_) is more bush-like than
+tree-like, for it sends up a great number of suckers around the main
+stem. The branches are slender and drooping. The leaves, which are of
+similar shape to those of _P. avium_, are smooth and deep blue-green in
+tint, with round-toothed edges. The flowers are not so widely open as in
+the previous species, but retain more of the cup-shape, whilst the
+notched petals are firmer in consistence and oval in shape. The drupe
+is in this species round, with red skin and juicy flesh of a distinctly
+acid character. The juice does not stain as does that of _P. avium_. The
+Morello or Brandy Cherry, the May Duke, and the Kentish Cherries are
+considered to be derived from this species. This does not extend further
+north than Yorkshire; in Ireland it is rare.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 96._ Bird Cherry--spring.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 97._ Bole of Bird Cherry.]
+
+The Bird Cherry (_Prunus padus_) forms a tree from ten to twenty feet in
+height, with more elliptic leaves, which have their edges doubly cut
+into fine teeth. The flowers are not clustered in umbels, as in both the
+foregoing, but in a loose raceme from lateral spurs of new growth. The
+flowers are erect when they open, and the stigmas mature before the
+anthers, so that cross-fertilization is favoured in this species. After
+fertilization the flower droops, to be out of the way of the bees in
+their visits to the unfertilized blossoms. The petals in this species
+look as if their edges had been gnawed. The drupes are small, black, and
+very bitter, with a wrinkled stone. This is a northern species, coming
+not further south than Leicestershire and South Wales. All three species
+flower in late April or early May.
+
+Cherry wood is strong, fine-grained, and of a red colour. It is easily
+worked, and susceptible of a high polish, so that it is in request by
+cabinet-makers, turners, and musical instrument makers.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 98._ Flowers of Wild Apple.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 99._ Bird Cherry--winter.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 100._ Wild Pear--spring.]
+
+
+The Wild Pear (_Pyrus communis_).
+
+The Wild Pear is only to be found growing in the southern half of
+Britain, its northward range not extending beyond Yorkshire, and even in
+the south its claim to be regarded as a true native has been contested.
+Mr. Hewett C. Watson regards it as more probably a denizen, that is, a
+species originally introduced by man, which has maintained its hold upon
+the new land. Upon this assumption it is probable that the
+introduced specimens were already somewhat cultivated, but when they (or
+their descendants) became wild they reverted to the original condition
+of the species.
+
+[Illustration: Wild Pear. A, flower.]
+
+The Wild Pear, or Choke-pear, is a small tree, from twenty to sixty feet
+in height, of somewhat pyramidal form. The twigs, which are usually of a
+drooping tendency, are also much given to ending in spines--a character
+scarcely apparent in the cultivated tree. The leaves, too, of the wild
+tree are more distinctly toothed than those of the Garden Pear. They are
+oval in shape, with blunt-toothed edges, and downy on the lower surface.
+Along the new shoots the leaves are arranged alternately on opposite
+sides, but on shoots a year old they are produced in clusters. The
+flowers, which measure more than an inch across, are pure white in
+colour, and are clustered in cymes of five to nine. They appear in April
+and May, and are of the Wild Rose type, there being numerous stamens,
+from three to five styles, which ripen before the stamens, five petals,
+and the calyx, taking the form of a pitcher with a five-lobed mouth,
+represents the five sepals.
+
+In speaking of the Wild Plums we directed attention to the fact that the
+ovary was within the flower; in the Pear (and the other members of the
+genus _Pyrus_) it is below the flower, hidden away in fact within the
+calyx-tube. When the flower opens it is ready for fertilization, but as
+the stamens of that flower are not yet mature this can only be
+accomplished by pollen brought by the bees from other flowers as they
+rifle the honey-glands. The effect of pollination is to cause special
+vegetative activity in the neighbourhood of the ovary, resulting in the
+thickening of the flesh of the calyx-tube around it, until it has become
+of the characteristic pear-shape, and an inch or two in length. A
+section of a pear or apple, taken lengthwise, will show a faint green
+outline of the ovary, and will demonstrate how much of the flesh is
+really belonging to the calyx-tube. The fruit of the Wild Pear is green
+until about November, when it turns yellow. It is of too harsh a
+character to be fit for eating.
+
+A Pear formerly known as a variety (_briggsii_) of _Pyrus communis_ is
+now regarded as a distinct species under the name of _Pyrus cordata_. It
+is found in Cornwall, and is distinguished by its more oval leaves being
+rounded at the base, and by its much smaller fruits being often
+globular.
+
+The Pear is a long-lived tree, that grows singly or in small groups on
+dry plains. It attains a height of about fifty feet in thirty years, and
+its girth may then be three or four feet. The timber is fine-grained,
+strong and heavy, with a reddish tinge. Stained with black, it is used
+to counterfeit ebony.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 101._ Wild Apples.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 102._ Bole of Wild Pear.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 103._ Wild Pear--winter.]
+
+
+The Wild Apple (_Pyrus malus_).
+
+It is by no means an easy matter to decide whether the Crab-trees that
+grow along the hedgerows are truly wild or the offspring of orchard
+apples. In woods, away from gardens and orchards, there is less
+difficulty. Like the Pear, the Apple appears to have been the subject of
+cultural attention from very early times. This is proved by the
+philologists from the similarity of the equivalents for our word Apple
+in all the Celtic and Sclavonian languages, showing by their common
+origin that the fruit was of sufficient importance to have a distinctive
+name long before the separation of the peoples of Northern Europe. The
+name of Crab is of comparatively recent origin. Prior regards it as a
+form of the Lowland Scotch _scrab_, derived from Anglo-Saxon _scrobb_, a
+shrub, indicating that it is an Apple-bush rather than an Apple-tree.
+
+The Wild Apple has not the pyramidal form of the Wild Pear, the branches
+spreading more widely when young and drooping when older, so that the
+head is rounded. In height it varies as a tree from twenty to thirty
+feet, though many examples of good age still retain the dimensions of a
+bush. Owing to the spreading character of the branches, the diameter of
+the head often exceeds the height of the tree. The bole has seldom any
+pretensions to symmetry, and is usually more or less crooked like the
+older branches. The brown bark is not very rough, though its numerous
+fissures and cracks give it a rugged appearance. Its wood, like that of
+the Pear, is hard and fine-grained, but, instead of having a reddish
+tinge, there is a tendency to brownness. The leaves vary in shape, but
+are more or less oblong, smooth above, sometimes downy on the lower
+surface when young, and with toothed edges.
+
+[Illustration: Crab or Wild Apple. A, flower; B, fruit.]
+
+The flowers are about the same size as those of the Wild Pear, but their
+white petals are beautifully tinted and streaked with pink. The small
+clusters are umbels--that is to say, the footstalks of similar length
+start from a common base. The fruit is almost spherical, and instead of
+the foot-stalk gradually merging into the apple, the attachment is
+always in a depression of the latter. In the typical form of the Wild
+Apple the yellow and red fruit hang by their slender stalks, but there
+is a variety (_mitis_) in which the fruit is borne _above_ the stouter
+stalks. The variety may also be known by the downiness of the young
+leaves, the calyx-tube, and the stalks. The fruit is about an inch
+across, and so rich in malic acid as to be unfit for food in its
+natural state, though children punish their digestive organs with it.
+Pigs are partial to Crab-apples, a taste they have evidently inherited
+from the wild boar. A delicious preserve, called Crab-jelly, is made by
+stewing the whole fruit, then pressing the soft flesh through a hair
+sieve, and boiling the pulp with sugar. Cyder is made from the rotting
+Crabs; also a kind of vinegar called verjuice, or vargis.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 104._ Wild Apple--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 105._ Wild Apple--winter.]
+
+The Wild Apple is found all over the United Kingdom as far north as the
+Clyde, and wherever it is known to occur it is worth a special visit in
+May, when all its crooked branches and straggling shoots are rendered
+beautiful by the abundance of delicately tinted and fragrant flowers. It
+is also far from being unattractive in the autumn, when the miniature
+apples hang from the boughs.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 106._ Bole of Crab, or Wild Apple.]
+
+
+White Beam (_Pyrus aria_).
+
+Owing to its very local occurrence, the White Beam, though widely
+distributed, is one of the less known of our trees and shrubs. It comes
+into both these categories according to the situation of its growth, for
+whilst in exposed mountainous localities a specimen of mature age may be
+no more than four or five feet high, and of bush-like growth, under the
+lee of a wood, and on a calcareous soil, it will be an erect and
+graceful tree of pyramidal form, whose apex is forty feet from the
+ground. In its early years growth is tolerably rapid, but at the age of
+ten it slackens pace, and after it has attained its majority its
+progress is very slow. Its wood is fine-grained, very hard, white, but
+inclining to yellow. The bark is smooth, and little subject to the
+cracks and fissures that mark the Apple-bark. The branches, except a few
+of the lowest, all have an upward tendency.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 107._ White Beam--spring.]
+
+[Illustration: White Beam. A, fruits.]
+
+The leaves vary considerably in the several forms or sub-species, but in
+the typical form they are a broad oval, with the edges coarsely toothed
+or cut into lobes, the upper side smooth, and the lower side clothed
+with white cottony down, the almost straight nerves strongly marked. The
+white flowers, which appear in May or June, are only half an inch
+across, and gathered into loose clusters. They are succeeded by nearly
+round scarlet fruits, half an inch in diameter, known in Lancashire and
+Westmoreland as Chess-apples. The tree is also known in the same
+districts as Sea Owler, the latter word, according to Prior, being a
+corruption of Aller or Alder, probably from the resemblance of the
+plaited leaves to those of _Alnus glutinosa_. These Chess-apples are
+very sharp and rough to the taste, but when kept like Medlars, till
+they "blet" or begin to decay, are far from unpleasant. Birds and
+squirrels eagerly seek for them on the tree, and those that fall are as
+welcome to hedgehogs and other mammals. This form is only found from the
+Midlands to the South of England as far west as Devon, and in Ireland.
+
+The sub-species _latifolia_ (_Pyrus rotundifolia_ of some botanists) has
+broader leaves, varying from oval-oblong to almost round, divided into
+wedge-shaped lobes, the cottony down beneath being grey rather than
+white, and the nerves less prominent on the underside. This form is
+found in Cornwall.
+
+The sub-species _scandica_ (also known as _Pyrus intermedia_) has the
+leaves less tough, more deeply divided into rounded or oblong lobes, and
+the grey cotton beneath of a looser character. This form is found in
+Scotland.
+
+It should be noted that this species must not be called the White
+Beam-_tree_, for the word _beam_ is the Saxon equivalent for tree. Other
+names for it include Hen-apple, Cumberland Hawthorn, Hoar Withy, Quick
+Beam, and Whipcrop.
+
+THE WILD SERVICE (_Pyrus torminalis_) is a small tree of local
+occurrence, which does not extend further north than Lancashire. In
+general appearance it may be taken for the White Beam, but closer
+inspection will reveal the following differences. The leaves, which are
+cut into tapering lobes and coarsely toothed, are heart-shaped at the
+base; when young they are slightly downy beneath, but when mature they
+are smooth on both sides. Though the flowers are similar in size and
+colour to those of the White Beam, the fruit is smaller (one-third inch
+in diameter), less globular, and more like a large haw, though the
+colour is greenish-brown. The flowers appear in April and May, and the
+fruit, which is of a very dry, juiceless character, is ripe in November.
+In some localities these fruits are marketed, but they require to be
+kept like Medlars, until decay sets in, before they are fit to be eaten.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 108._ Flowers of White Beam.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 109._ Bole of White Beam.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 110._ White Beam--winter.]
+
+
+Mountain Ash, or Rowan (_Pyrus aucuparia_).
+
+Little description of the Mountain Ash is needed, for in recent years it
+has come so much into favour that it is now one of the commonest of the
+trees planted in little suburban gardens and fore-courts. Its hardiness,
+its indifference to the character of the soil, the fact that other
+plants will grow beneath it, and the absence of need for pruning--all
+these points unite to make it suitable and popular for growth in
+restricted spaces. But the wood on the hillside is the natural home of
+the Mountain Ash, and in the Highlands its vertical range extends to
+2600 feet above sea-level.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 111._ Rowan, or Mountain Ash--summer.]
+
+The Mountain Ash attains a height of from thirty to fifty feet, and has
+a straight clean bole, clothed in smooth grey bark, scarred horizontally
+as though it had been scored with a knife. All the branches have an
+upward tendency, and the shoots bear the long feathery leaves, whose
+division into six or eight pairs of slender leaflets suggests _the_ Ash,
+from which part of its name has been borrowed. Gazing on this tree
+either in flower or fruit, it would be quite unnecessary to explain that
+it is not even remotely allied to _Fraxinus excelsior_, and that the
+similarity of leaf-division is the only point of resemblance between
+them. These leaflets have toothed edges, are paler on the underside, and
+in a young condition the midrib and nerves are hairy. The creamy-white
+fragrant flowers are like little Hawthorn blossoms, though only half the
+size, and they appear in dense clusters (_cymes_) in May or June. The
+fruit are miniature apples, of the size of holly-berries, bright scarlet
+without and yellow within. They ripen in September, and are then a great
+attraction to thrushes, blackbirds, and their kind, who rapidly strip
+the tree of them. Though this at first sight may appear like frustrating
+the tree's object in producing fruit, it is not really so, the
+attractive flesh being a mere bait to induce the birds to pass the seeds
+through their intestines, and thus get them sown far and wide. By
+this method the process of germination is considerably hastened, whereas
+by hand-sowing the seeds lie in the earth for eighteen months before
+shooting. All the species of _Pyrus_ produce their fruits with this
+object, the larger more or less brownish ones being intended to attract
+mammals, the smaller and red-coloured to tempt birds. The seeds have
+leathery jackets to protect them from the action of the digestive
+fluids, and are further wrapped in a parchmenty, bony, or wooden "core"
+(_endocarp_) with a similar object. In the case of the Rowan this is
+very like wood.
+
+[Illustration: Rowan, or Mountain Ash. A, portion of flower-cluster.]
+
+In the south of Britain the Mountain Ash is chiefly grown as underwood
+and used as a nurse for oaks and other timber trees, which soon outgrow
+it and kill it; so that in the woods it is seldom allowed to grow into
+a fully developed tree, but, thanks to the birds, it comes up on the
+common and the hillside, and has a chance of producing its masses of
+ruby fruit. Its wood is tough and elastic, but, owing to the smallness
+of its girth, it does not produce timber of any size. Still, it makes
+admirable poles and hoops.
+
+The word Rowan is one of the most interesting of tree-names, and
+connects the still-existing superstitious practices of our northern
+counties, not only with the old Norsemen, but with the ancient Hindus
+who spoke the Sanskrit tongue. The word is spelled in many ways which
+connect it with the Old Norse _runa_, a charm, it being supposed to have
+power to ward off the effects of the evil eye. In earlier times _runa_
+was the Sanskrit appellation for a magician; _rûn-stafas_ were staves
+cut from the Rowan-tree upon which runes were inscribed. Until quite
+recently the respect for its magical properties was shown in the north
+by fixing a branch of Rowan to the cattle-byre as a charm against the
+evil designs of witches, warlocks, and others of that kidney. In this
+connection we may quote also from Evelyn's "Sylva." He says: "Ale and
+beer brewed with these berries, being ripe, is an incomparable drink,
+familiar in Wales, where this tree is reputed so sacred that there is
+not a churchyard without one of them planted in it (as among us the
+Yew); so, on a certain day in the year, everybody religiously wears a
+cross made of the wood; and the tree is by some authors called Fraxinus
+Cambro-Britannica, reputed to be a preservative against fascinations and
+evil spirits; whence, perhaps, we call it witchen, the boughs being
+stuck about the house or the wood used for walking-staves."
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 112._ Bole of Rowan.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 113._ Flowers of Rowan.]
+
+Among the numerous names of the Mountain Ash are Fowler's Service (or
+Servise, from _Cerevisia_, a fermented drink), Cock-drunks, Hen-drunks
+(from the belief that fowls were intoxicated by eating the "berries"),
+Quickbeam, White Ash (from the colour of the flowers), Witch-wood, and
+Witchen. Quickbeam is in allusion to the constant movement of
+foliage, quick being the Anglo-Saxon _cwic_, alive. Witch-wood and
+Witchen are also forms of _cwic_.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 114._ Rowan--winter.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The True Service (_Pyrus sorbus_) closely resembles the Mountain Ash in
+habit and foliage, but it is not a native of Britain, though it used to
+be claimed as such, on account of its growing in the more mountainous
+parts of Cornwall and in Wyre Forest, Worcestershire. The latter,
+however, is the only Service tree that could put in such a claim, for it
+grows--or grew?--far from habitations or cultivated land, and the
+presumption is that it has not owed its introduction to man. Still, "one
+swallow does not make a summer," and a solitary wild tree does not give
+the species a title to be reckoned as British. It is occasionally
+cultivated here, and its portrait, with a brief account of its points of
+difference from the Mountain Ash, may be useful. A comparison of the
+photographs from the boles of the two species will show a great
+difference: that of the Mountain Ash being smooth, whilst that of the
+Service is rugged. The leaf is similarly broken up into paired leaflets,
+but these are broader, and are downy on both upper and lower sides. The
+white flowers are as large as May-blossoms, and the fruits, which may be
+either apple-shaped or pear-shaped, are greenish-brown, with rusty
+specks, and four times the size of Rowan-berries. In winter, when there
+are neither leaves, flowers, nor fruits to help in the distinction, the
+bark may be taken in conjunction with the leaf-buds, which are green and
+smooth in this species, whilst those of the Mountain Ash are black and
+downy. The fruit may be eaten after it has begun to decay, as in the
+case of the Medlar.
+
+Loudon describes the wood of the Service as the hardest and heaviest of
+all the trees indigenous to Europe: fine-grained, red-tinted,
+susceptible of a high polish, and much in request in France for all
+purposes where strength and durability are needed. He further says that
+it takes two centuries to attain its full stature (fifty to sixty feet),
+"and lives to so great an age that some specimens of it are believed to
+be upwards of 1000 years old."
+
+We have already made reference to the meaning of the name Service.
+Another name--Sorb (from Latin _sorbeo_)--shows closer affinity for the
+fermented liquor indicated by Servise, for it means "drink down." A
+third name is Chequer-tree, which Dr. Prior tells us is an antique
+pronunciation of the word _choker_, in allusion to the unpalatable
+fruit, fit to choke one. Choke-pear, it will be remembered, is a synonym
+of the Wild Pear. Britten and Holland regard the name Chequer-tree as
+having no connection with choking, but an indication of the chequered or
+spotted appearance of the fruit.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 115._ True Service Tree--spring.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 116._ Fruit of Medlar.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 117._ Bole of True Service.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Medlar (_Pyrus germanica_) is a small tree, native of Persia, Asia
+Minor, and Greece, and which is generally held to occur wild in England
+and the Channel Islands only as an escape from cultivation. The theory
+is that the tree was introduced at some date prior to 1596--when we have
+record of its being in cultivation here--and that the Medlar-trees
+growing in the hedges of south and middle England are from seeds of
+these cultivated trees, which have been sown by birds, or more probably
+mammals who have eaten the fruit. The fact that it is not found in woods
+is taken as evidence that it is non-indigenous. Such evidence is not the
+most convincing, but it is the best available. It should be noted,
+however, that the agents credited with its distribution along our
+hedgerows have free access to woods, and that if these places were
+favourable to the growth of the Medlar, we should probably find it
+there, whether indigenous or exotic. Much more conclusive, we think, is
+its restricted distribution abroad, as already indicated. One would not
+expect to find a tree whose nearest home is Greece, leaping over
+the whole of Europe and appearing as an indigene in Britain.
+
+[Illustration: Medlar. A, flower.]
+
+In its wild condition the Medlar is a much-branched and spiny tree, from
+ten to twenty feet high, in these respects resembling the Hawthorn; but,
+like the Pear, it puts off its defences when cultivated. Its leaves are
+large and undivided, of an oblong-lance shape, downy beneath, and
+sometimes with the edges very finely toothed. The solitary white flowers
+are large--one and a half inches across--with a woolly calyx, whose five
+tips expand into leafy growths. They appear in May or June, and are
+succeeded by brown fruits, an inch or less across, which may be
+described as round, with a depressed top, which is ornamented with the
+remains of the calyx-lobes. They ripen in October or November.
+
+
+Hawthorn (_Cratægus oxyacantha_).
+
+Though distributed as a wild tree throughout the length and breadth of
+the British Islands, we are all more familiar with the Hawthorn as
+planted material in the construction of hedges, and this is a use to
+which it has been put ever since land was plotted out and enclosed. For
+the word is Anglo-Saxon (_hægthorn_), and signifies hedge-thorn. The man
+in the street would say without hesitation that Hawthorn means the thorn
+that produces Haws, but the philologist would tell him that it is only a
+modern and erroneous practice to apply the name of the hedge to the
+fruit of the hedge-thorn. It is also Whitethorn, to make the distinction
+between its light-grey bark and that of the Blackthorn; and May because
+of the period when it chiefly attracts attention.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 118._ Fruits of Hawthorn.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 119._ True Service--winter.]
+
+Where the Hawthorn is allowed its natural growth, it attains a height of
+forty feet, with a circumference between three and ten feet. Such a tree
+is represented in our photograph. On our commons, where in their youth
+the Hawthorns have to submit to much mutilation from browsing animals,
+their growth is spoiled; but though some of these never become more than
+bushes tangled up with Blackthorn into small thickets, there are others
+that form a distinct bole and a round head of branches from ten to
+twenty feet high, which in late May or (more frequently) early June look
+like solid masses of snow. The characteristic of the tree which makes it
+so valuable as fencing material is found in its numerous branches,
+supporting a network of twigs so dense that even a hand may not be
+pushed among them without incurring serious scratches. That this
+character is not confined to it as a hedge shrub is clearly shown by the
+winter photograph of the leafless tree.
+
+[Illustration: Hawthorn, or May. A, fruit ("haws").]
+
+The well-known lobed leaves are very variable both in size and shape,
+and the degree to which they are cut. They are a favourite food with
+horses and oxen, who would demolish the hedges that confine them to the
+fields but for the spines which protect the older branches at least. The
+white flowers are about three-quarters of an inch across, borne in
+numerous corymbs. The pink anthers give relief to the uniform whiteness
+of the petals. The flowers, though usually sweet-scented, occasionally
+give forth a very unpleasant odour. The familiar fruits, too, instead of
+their usual crimson, are yellow occasionally, as in the Holly. In
+favourable years these are so plentiful that they quite kill the effect
+of the dark-green leaves, and when such a tree is seen in the October
+sunshine, it appears to be glowing with fire to its centre. Beneath the
+ripe mealy flesh there is a hard bony core, in whose cells the seeds are
+protected from digestion when the fruit has been swallowed by a bird.
+
+The Hawthorn is said to live from a century to two centuries, growing
+very slowly after it has reached a height of about fifteen feet. Its
+wood is both hard and tough, and the name of the genus has reference to
+that fact, being derived from the Greek kratos, strength.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 120._ Hawthorn--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 121._ Flowers of Hawthorn--"May."]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 122._ Bole of Hawthorn.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 123._ Hawthorn--winter.]
+
+
+The Strawberry-tree (_Arbutus unedo_).
+
+Not in the woods or by waysides in Great Britain will the
+Strawberry-tree be found, though it may be seen in parks and gardens;
+but in parts of the Emerald Isle it is native. Killarney, Muckross, and
+Bantry are given by Hooker as its Irish stations, but we have also found
+it in the woods at Woodstock, Co. Kilkenny, in a situation where it
+seemed unlikely such a tree would be planted. It does not attain a large
+size--ordinarily about ten or twelve feet--though in cultivation it may
+attain to twenty or even thirty feet. The bark is rough and scaly,
+tinged with red, and twisted. The leathery leaves are more or less oval,
+two or three inches long, with toothed edges and hairy stalks. Although
+arranged alternately on the shoots, they present the appearance at a
+little distance of being clustered, rosette fashion, at the tips of the
+twigs. The creamy-white flowers are clustered in drooping racemes at the
+ends of the twigs, and are about one-third of an inch across,
+bell-shaped. When the seed-eggs have been fertilized the corollas
+drop off, so that in the flowering season (September and October) the
+ground beneath will usually be found strewn with them. The fruit is a
+round berry, of an orange-red hue, whose surface is completely studded
+with little points. As these berries do not come to maturity until about
+fourteen months after the flowers have dropped their corollas, we may
+see both flowers and almost full-formed fruit on the tree at the same
+time. They are not eatable until quite ripe, and even then they are not
+to everybody's taste, on account of their austerity. In truth, we have
+it on the testimony of Pliny that the old Latin name _unedo_, now
+enshrined in the specific scientific name, was given to it because to
+eat one of these tree strawberries was a sufficiently extensive
+acquaintance for most persons.
+
+[Illustration: Strawberry-tree.]
+
+It is perhaps unnecessary to add that, in spite of the name, there is no
+relationship existing between this tree and _the_ Strawberry; nor is
+there more than a faint superficial resemblance between the fruits of
+the two plants. The Strawberry belongs to the great Rose family, whilst
+the nearest British connections of the Arbutus are the Bilberries and
+Heaths.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 124._ Strawberry Tree.]
+
+
+Dogwood (_Cornus sanguinea_).
+
+Among the constituents of the broad hedgerow, and the copse that borders
+many a country road, the Dogwood or Cornel is apt to be overlooked as
+Privet, to which its similar, opposite leaves and clusters of small
+white flowers bear a superficial resemblance. It has a great variety of
+local names, though it must be admitted that many of these show close
+connections one with another. This, however, makes them not less
+interesting, but indicates how ancient and general is the underlying
+idea which has given rise to them. Dogwood had originally no connection
+with dogs, but was the wood of which dags, goads, and skewers were made,
+because, as the Latin _Cornus_ signifies, it was of horny hardness and
+toughness. When the etymology got changed by the substitution of "o" for
+"a" in dag, it was also called Dog-tree, Dog-berry, Dog-timber, and
+Houndberry-tree, and to explain the name it was said that the bark made
+an excellent wash for mangy dogs. Gatter, Gatten, Gaiter, Gaitre-berry,
+are all from the Anglo-Saxon _Gad-treow_, or goad-tree; Gadrise means
+Goad-shrub (_Gad-riis_), and Gatteridge is _gaitre rouge_, from the red
+colour of the bare twigs.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 125._ Fruits of Dogwood.]
+
+[Illustration: Dogwood, or Cornel. A, flowers; B, berries.]
+
+But we must not overlook the shrub itself whilst considering its wealth
+of names. It grows to a height of six or eight feet, and is clothed with
+opposite oval leaves, which are smooth on both surfaces. The honeyed
+flowers are produced in June or July at the extremities of the branches
+in dense round cymes. Individually they are small (one-third of an inch
+across), opaque white, with four petals and four stamens, which mature
+concurrently with the stigma. They give out an unpleasant odour, which
+appears to render them more attractive to flies and small beetles. The
+flowers are succeeded by small green berries, which turn purple-black
+about September, and are exceedingly bitter. They are said to yield an
+oil which is used in France for soap-making, and has been here burned in
+lamps.
+
+The Dogwood is widely distributed over Britain as far north as
+Westmoreland. It does not occur in Scotland, and is rare in Ireland. It
+would seem as though its place in North Britain was taken by a
+herbaceous species, the Dwarf Cornel (_Cornus suecica_), which grows
+upon Alpine moorlands from Yorkshire as far north as Sutherlandshire.
+The stems of this, which have as many inches to their stature as the
+shrub has feet, die down annually. Its minute flowers are purplish
+instead of white, and its smaller berries red.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 126._ Flowers of Dogwood.]
+
+
+Wayfaring-tree (_Viburnum lantana_).
+
+The Wayfaring-tree has a number of names by which it is known locally,
+but the one we have used is generally known, though it may have the
+disadvantage of being a comparatively modern one whose parentage is
+known to us. The origin of most of these popular names is lost in the
+mists of antiquity. John Gerarde, whose "Herbal" was published in 1597,
+noting its fondness for roadside hedges and thickets, called it
+Wayfaring-tree, or Wayfaringman's-tree. Thereupon Parkinson, nearly half
+a century later, remarks: "Gerard calleth it in English the Wayfaring
+tree, but I know no travailer doth take either pleasure or profit by it
+more than by any other hedge trees." Our own experience serves to prove
+that Wayfarers, as a class, have improved since Parkinson's day, for we
+have frequently been questioned in the Surrey chalk-districts, at
+various seasons, respecting the bold plant; in winter showing its large
+naked buds, all rough with starry hairs, which keep off frost, as well
+as do the many scales and thick varnish of Horse-chestnut buds; in
+summer the broad, hairy leaves, looking as dusty as a miller's coat,
+whilst above them spread the slightly rounded heads of white flowers;
+later, when the flowers are succeeded by bunches of glowing coral beads,
+that in autumn become beads of jet. It is not confined to the
+chalk-hills, but as far north as Yorkshire may be looked for wherever
+the soil is dry, though it finds this condition best on the chalk, and
+is there especially abundant. It is not indigenous in either Scotland or
+Ireland.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 127._ Fruits of Wayfaring-tree.]
+
+[Illustration: Wayfaring-tree. A, portion of flower-cluster.]
+
+Though it grows to a height of twenty feet in places, it can never
+properly be called a tree. Its downy stems are never very stout. They
+branch a good deal, and it should be noted that the branches are always
+given off in pairs, a branch from each side of the stem at exactly the
+same height; the leaves are produced in the same order. These leaves,
+which are three or four inches in length, are much wrinkled,
+heart-shaped, with a blunt, small end, white beneath, and the edges very
+finely toothed. The flower-cluster is a cyme, and it should be noted
+that all the white flowers comprised in it are of the same size and
+form, the corollas being funnel-shaped, with five lobes, and the five
+stamens are extruded from the mouth. The flowers, which are jointed to
+the stalks, are out in May and June, and the flattened oval fruits that
+follow are, as already stated, at first red, then black.
+
+The local names for this shrub include Mealy-tree, Whipcrop,
+Cotton-tree, Cottoner, Coventree, Lithe-wort, Lithy-tree, Twist-wood,
+White-wood. Mealy-tree, Cotton-tree, Cottoner, and White-wood all have
+obvious reference to the appearance of the young shoots and leaves, due
+to the presence of the white hairs with which they are covered.
+Lithe-wort and Lithy-tree, also Twist-wood and Whipcrop, indicate the
+supple and elastic character of the branches, which are often used
+instead of Withy to bind up a bundle of sticks or vegetables, or to make
+a hoop for a gate-fastener. In Germany the shoots, when only a year old,
+are used in basket-weaving, and, when a year or two older, serve for
+pipe-stems.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 128._ Wayfaring Tree.]
+
+
+The Guelder Rose (_Viburnum opulus_).
+
+Although the Guelder Rose and the Wayfaring-tree are very closely
+related, the differences between them are so great that there is little
+danger of any person with ordinary powers of observation confusing them.
+The Guelder Rose does not grow so tall as its congener, twelve feet
+being about the extreme height to which it attains in a wild state, and
+ordinarily it is several feet less. It is not so fond of dry soils, and
+is more frequently found in the copse, where it is not subject to the
+extremes of heat and cold that have produced the hairy covering of _V.
+lantana_. The stems and branches are quite smooth, and the leaf-buds are
+wrapped in scales. The young leaves, it is true, when they break from
+the bud, are covered with down, but they throw this off as they expand
+to their full size, and become smooth on either side. Instead of the
+leaf being heart-shaped, it is divided into three deeply toothed lobes,
+and it will be noted that at the base of the leaf-stalk there is a pair
+of slender stipules, which _lantana_ never has. The cyme or flower-head
+is more rounded, and whilst the mass of flowers are of the same size (a
+quarter of an inch) as those of the Wayfaring-tree, those in the outer
+row are three times the size--but they are entirely without stamens or
+pistil! It would appear that in order to make the flower-cluster more
+conspicuous, and thus attract insects, the material that should have
+gone to furnish these organs has been used up in the broader and whiter
+corolla. The inner and perfect flowers are creamy-white, bell-shaped,
+and they secrete honey. Both stamens and stigma mature simultaneously.
+The fruits are almost round, and of a clear, translucent red. Respecting
+these fruits, we cannot forbear from quoting a remark of Hamerton's. He
+says, writing as the French recorder of the _Sylvan Year_: "For any one
+who enjoys the sight of red berries in the most jewel-like splendour,
+there is nothing in winter like the Viburnum, the species we call
+_Viorne obier_, and if you meet with a fine specimen just when it is
+caught by the level rays of a crimson sunset, you will behold a shrub
+that seems to have come from that garden of Aladdin where the fruit of
+the trees were jewels." These fruits, though enticing to the sight, and
+juicy, are nauseous to the taste.
+
+[Illustration: Guelder Rose. A, fruit; B, flowers.]
+
+The name Guelder Rose is a strange case of transference from a
+cultivated to a wild plant: the var. _sterilis_, in which _all_ the
+flowers are like the outer row in the normal cluster, was first
+cultivated in Gelderland; so Gerarde tells us that "it is called in
+Dutch, _Gheldersche Roose_; in English, _Gelder's Rose_." In the
+Cotswolds it is known as King's Crown, from the "King of the May" having
+been crowned with a chaplet of it. Another name for it is Water Elder,
+presumably given on account of the similar appearance of the
+flower-clusters in _Viburnum_ and _Sambucus_.
+
+The distribution of the Guelder Rose as a wild plant extends northwards
+to Caithness, although it is rare in Scotland. It occurs throughout
+Ireland.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 129._ Elder.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 130._ Fruits of Guelder Rose.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 131._ Flowers of Elder.]
+
+
+The Elder (_Sambucus nigra_).
+
+[Illustration: Elder. A, berries; B, portion of flower-cluster.]
+
+The Elder is more a tree of the wayside than of the woodland, often of
+low bushy growth; but where it finds good loamy soil with abundant
+moisture it attains a height of twenty feet. None of our trees grows
+more rapidly in its earliest years, and any bit of its living wood will
+readily take root, so that its presence in the hedge is often due to
+planting for the purpose of rapidly erecting a live screen. Its quickly
+grown juicy shoots soon harden into a tube of tough wood with a core of
+pith which is readily extracted, and renders the tube available for a
+peashooter, a pop-gun, or a music-pipe. Such uses have been known from
+remote antiquity--probably one might say from the beginnings of the
+human race. The ancient Greeks called it _Sambúke_, from its wood having
+been used in the making of musical instruments. In the north of Britain
+it is known as Bourtree, Bore-tree, or Bottery, from the ease with which
+this clearing out of the pith is effected, and it is pretty clear that
+the more general name of Elder also has relation to the tubular shoots.
+Piers Plowman calls the tree Eller, a name that survives in Kent,
+Sussex, Lincoln, East Yorks, and Cheshire. This word, according to
+Prior, is derived from the Anglo-Saxon _eller_ and _ellarn_, and seems
+to mean "kindler"--"a name which we may suppose that it acquired from
+its hollow branches being used, like the bamboo in the tropics, to blow
+up a fire." It is thus probable that the housewife got her bellows, the
+musician his pipe, and the schoolboy his pop-gun, all from the same
+source.
+
+The stems are coated with a grey corky bark, and the younger divisions
+of the branches show an angular section when cut. When old, the wood
+becomes hard and heavy, and has been used as a substitute for Box. The
+leaf is divided into five, seven, or nine oval leaflets with toothed
+edges. The flower is of the form that botanists describe as _rotate_,
+that is, the corolla forms a very short tube, from the mouth of which
+five petal-like lobes spread flat. This is a quarter of an inch broad,
+and creamy-white in colour, giving out an odour which some persons like,
+but which the writer considers offensive. Large numbers of these small
+flowers are gathered into flat-topped cymes, five or six inches in
+diameter. The primary stalks of these cymes are five in number. The
+flowers are succeeded by small globular berries, ultimately of a
+purple-black hue, and of mawkish flavour, which are yet much sought
+after by country people for the making of Elderberry wine, which they
+credit with marvellous medicinal powers. In truth, the Elder still
+retains among rustic folk much of the reputation it had when John
+Evelyn praised it so highly in his "Sylva," where he says, "If the
+medicinal properties of the leaves, bark, berries, etc., were thoroughly
+known, I cannot tell what our countryman could ail for which he might
+not fetch a remedy from every hedge, either for sickness or wound."
+
+Occasionally one may find in the hedgerow an Elder with its leaflets
+deeply cut into very slender lobes, so that the leaf has resemblance to
+that of Fool's Parsley. This is an escape from cultivation--a garden
+variety (_laciniata_) known as the Cut-leaved or Parsley-leaved Elder.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 132._ Box Trees.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 133._ Bole of Box.]
+
+
+The Box (_Buxus sempervirens_).
+
+Though frequently to be met with in parks and ornamental grounds, there
+are only a few places in this country where the Box is really
+indigenous. These are in the counties of Surrey, Kent, Buckingham, and
+Gloucester. On the famous Box Hill, near Dorking, in Surrey, it may be
+seen attaining its proper proportions as a small tree, and in sufficient
+abundance to form groves covering a considerable area. It grows to a
+height of fifteen or twenty feet, with a girth of about twenty inches.
+Its slender branches are clothed with small, oblong, leathery leaves,
+which give out a peculiar and distinctive odour. They are about an inch
+in length, polished on the upper side, evergreen, and opposite.
+
+The flowers may be looked for from January to May, and will be found
+clustered between the leaf and the stem. These are quite small and
+inconspicuous, of a whitish-green colour, and the sexes are in separate
+flowers. The uppermost one in the centre of each cluster is a female
+flower; the others are males. The males consist of four petals,
+enclosing a rudimentary ovary, from beneath which spring four stamens.
+The sepals of the female flower vary in number, from four to twelve, and
+enclose a rounded ovary with three styles, which are ripe and protruded
+before the males open. This develops into the three-celled capsule with
+three diverging beaks, which correspond with the styles, and in each
+cell there are one or two black seeds.
+
+[Illustration: Box. A, male flowers; B, female flower.]
+
+The growth of the tree is very slow, and, in consequence, the grain of
+its wood is very fine. It is also very hard, and so heavy that alone
+among native woods it will not float in water. On account of its fine
+grain and hardness, it is in request by the turner and mathematical
+instrument maker, and was formerly largely used by the wood-engraver for
+"woodcuts." Since the introduction of the photographic "process"
+blocks, the industry of preparing Box-wood for the engraver must have
+become all but extinct, and for that reason Box plantations must be less
+valuable assets than formerly. It is on record that when the Box Hill
+trees were cut in 1815, the "fall" realized nearly £10,000. Box Hill is
+in no sense a plantation; its slopes and summit are clothed with a
+natural mixed wood of Box, Oak, Beech, and Yew. Beneath every Box-tree
+will be found hundreds of seedlings of various ages. Some of these may
+be seen in our photograph, which depicts naturally grown Box-trees on
+the famous hill. It will be noted that their "habit" is widely different
+from that of the more bush-like forms so familiar in gardens.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+EXOTIC TREES AND SHRUBS.
+
+
+We have already given descriptions and illustrations of several exotic
+species in Part I., where it seemed more advantageous to the reader to
+include them with British species of the same genus; those now to be
+dealt with are in all cases members of genera not represented in our
+native Flora.
+
+
+The Plane (_Platanus orientalis_).
+
+In spite of the fact that the Plane is an exotic of comparatively recent
+introduction, it seems in a fair way of being associated in the future
+with London. It has taken with great kindness to London life, in spite
+of the drawbacks of smoke, fog, flagstones, and asphalt. Its leaves get
+thickly coated with soot, which also turns its light-grey bark to black;
+but as the upper surface of the leaves is smooth and firm, a shower of
+rain washes them clean, and the rigid outer layer of bark is thrown off
+by the expansion of the softer bark beneath. This is not thrown off all
+at once, but in large and small flakes, which leave a smooth yellow
+patch behind, temporarily free from soot contamination. A variety of
+trees has been tried for street-planting, but none has stood the trying
+conditions of London so well as the Plane, and therefore before many
+years the capital will be the city of Planes.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 134._ Plane Tree--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 135._ Bole of Plane Tree.]
+
+[Illustration: Oriental Plane.]
+
+Two species are recognized--the Oriental Plane (_Platanus orientalis_)
+and the Western Plane (_P. occidentalis_); but it would probably be more
+accurate to regard them as geographical varieties of one species, the
+points in which they differ being small and not very important. Thus the
+leaves of the Oriental Plane are described as being so much more deeply
+lobed than those of the Western Plane that the former are botanically
+described as palmate; but the two forms of leaf may often be found on
+the same individual. The Western Plane, too, does not shed its bark in
+small flakes like the Oriental Plane, but in large sheets.
+
+Planes normally rise to a height of something between seventy and ninety
+feet, and the trunk attains a circumference of from nine to twelve feet;
+but there is a record of a portly Plane whose waist measurement was
+forty feet! Many persons imagine because the leaves of the Plane
+resemble those of the Sycamore that the two are closely related; but
+this is not so, and a comparison of the flowers and fruit will show that
+they are not. The catkins of the Plane take the form of balls, in which
+male _or_ female flowers are pressed together; and the fruits, instead
+of being winged samaras, are the rough balls that so closely resemble an
+old-fashioned form of button, that the tree is known in some parts of
+the United States as the Button-wood. (It is also known there as
+Sycamore and Cotton-tree.)
+
+The Plane is supposed to have got its name _Platanus_ from the Greek
+word _platus_ (broad), in double allusion to the broad leaves and the
+ample shadow which the tree throws. These leaves are five-lobed, and, as
+already indicated, those of the Oriental species are much more deeply
+cut. Further distinction is found in the colour of the petiole or
+leaf-stalk, which is green in _P. orientalis_, and purplish-red in _P.
+occidentalis_, and in the larger and smoother seed-buttons of the
+latter. Instead of the leaves being attached to the stem in pairs, as we
+saw in the Sycamore, those of the Plane are alternate--that is to say,
+leaf number two of a series will be halfway between one and three, but
+on the opposite side of the shoot.
+
+The outline of the tree is not so regular as in most others, the leaves
+being gathered in heavy masses, with broad spaces between, rather than
+equally distributed over the head. This is, of course, due to the
+freedom with which the crooked arms are flung about. The pale-brown wood
+is fine-grained, tough, and hard, and is extensively used by
+pianoforte-makers, coach-builders, and cabinet-makers, but is not
+highly esteemed for other purposes to which timber is put in this
+country.
+
+The Oriental Plane is popularly supposed to have been introduced to
+England from the Levant by Francis Bacon, but if Loudon's statement that
+it was "in British gardens before 1548" rests on good evidence, Bacon's
+claim is dismissed, for _he_ was not "introduced" until 1561. It was
+nearly a hundred years later (1640) that the Occidental Plane was first
+brought from Virginia by the younger Tradescant, and planted in that
+remarkable garden of his father's in South Lambeth Road. The form that
+has done so well in London, and of which many fine examples are to be
+seen in the parks and squares, is a variety of the Oriental Plane, with
+leaves less deeply divided than those of the type, and therefore more
+nearly approaching the Occidental Plane in this respect. It is
+distinguished by the name of the Maple-leaved Plane (_Platanus
+orientalis_, var. _acerifolia_). It is this variety we have chosen as
+the subject for our photograph.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 136._ Plane Tree--winter.]
+
+
+The Walnut (_Juglans regia_).
+
+In the Golden Age, when man lived happily on a handful of acorns, the
+gods fed upon walnuts, and so their name was _Jovis glans_--the nuts of
+Jupiter--since contracted into _Juglans_. Those who delight in obvious
+interpretations by appealing to the modern meanings of words similar in
+construction may be pardoned for supposing that Walnut-trees were
+formerly trained against walls; but, like many other obvious
+interpretations, this is wide of the mark. Some have gone back to the
+Anglo-Saxons for help, and though the result arrived at is in all
+probability the correct one, it is almost certain that the Anglo-Saxons
+knew nothing of the matter, and would scarcely trouble to give a name to
+something they had never seen. The Walnut is a native of the Himalayas,
+the Hindu Kuh, Persia, Lebanon, and Asia Minor to Greece. The learned
+Roman, Varro, who was born B.C. 116, and died B.C. 28, mentions it as
+existing in Italy in his day; and Pliny tells us it was brought thence
+from Persia. The date of its introduction to Britain is usually set down
+as about the middle of the sixteenth century, but it was probably at
+least a century earlier, for Gerarde, writing at the close of the
+sixteenth century, describes it as a tree commonly to be seen in
+orchards, and in fields near the highways, where a very new importation
+was not likely to be found. But to return to the name: there can be
+little doubt that it is a contraction of Wälsh-nut (in modern spelling,
+Welsh-nut), meaning foreign. This is German, and while the modern sons
+of the Vaterland write it Wallnuss (occasionally Wälshenuss), the Dutch
+form is Wallnoot. That this is the true derivation is made pretty
+certain by Gerarde, who calls it "Walnut, and of some Walsh-nut."
+
+That the new importation was fully appreciated in Europe for its fruit
+may be judged by the extent to which its cultivation had spread in
+Evelyn's day, for he tells us the trees abounded in Burgundy, where they
+stood in the midst of goodly wheat-lands. He says: "In several places
+betwixt Hanau and Frankfort in Germany no young farmer is permitted to
+marry a wife till he bring proof that he hath planted and is a father of
+such a stated number of [Walnut] trees, and the law is inviolably
+observed to this day, for the extraordinary benefit the tree affords the
+inhabitants."
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 137._ Walnut--summer.]
+
+The Walnut is a handsome tree, growing to a height of forty to sixty
+feet, with a bole twenty feet or more in circumference, and a huge
+spreading head. The bark is of a cool grey colour, smooth when young,
+but as the tree matures deep longitudinal furrows form, and it becomes
+very rugged. The twisted branches take a direction more upward than
+horizontal, but in early summer they are almost completely hidden by the
+masses of large and handsome leaves of warm green colour and spicy
+aroma. I once rejoiced in the occupation of a garden that held two
+Walnut-trees, and though they had not attained to the fruiting age,
+their possession was a delight to me; but then I am one of those who
+enjoy their fragrance, which is unbearable to some persons. The large
+leaves are formed after the fashion of the Ash-leaf--broken up into a
+variable number of lance-shaped leaflets with scarcely perceptible
+teeth.
+
+[Illustration: Walnut. A, female flowers; B, male flowers.]
+
+The flowering of the Walnut is much on the plan of the Oak and the
+Hazel, the sexes being in different flowers, but borne by one tree; the
+males forming a long drooping catkin of slender cylindrical form, the
+females being solitary, or a few grouped at the end of a shoot.
+Separated from the catkin, the males will each be seen to consist of a
+calyx of five greenish scales, enclosing a large number of stamens. The
+calyx of the female closely invests the ovary, which has two or three
+fleshy stigmas. The flowering takes place in early spring, before the
+leaf-buds have burst. The fruit is a plum-like drupe, only the
+enveloping green flesh becomes brown, and, splitting irregularly,
+discloses the "stone," which in this species takes the form of a hard
+but thin-shelled nut--the well-known Walnut, with its wrinkled kernel of
+crisp white flesh, from which a fine oil is obtained. The ripening of
+these nuts--which is accomplished by the beginning of October--can only
+be relied upon in the southern half of Britain, and even there the crop
+is often spoiled by late frosts in spring. Its chief value in Europe is
+as a fruit-tree, though the light but tough wood is much esteemed for
+the manufacture of furniture. Owing to its rapid growth, the grain is
+coarse, but the dark-brown colour is esteemed, especially as it is
+relieved by streaks and veins of lighter tints and black. It is easily
+worked, and bears a high polish. The wood of young trees is white,
+gradually deepening to brown as maturity is approached. All the juices
+of the tree, whether from wood, bark, leaves, or green fruit, are rich
+in the brown pigment to which the hue of the timber is due. The combined
+lightness and toughness of the wood led to its adoption as the favourite
+material for making the stocks of guns and rifles. It is said that so
+great was the demand for this purpose during the Peninsular War, that a
+single Walnut-tree realized £600 for its timber, and this created a boom
+that led to the cutting down of all our finest Walnut-trees. Some of
+these were doubtless the very trees referred to by Evelyn, who tells us
+the Walnut was extensively planted at Leatherhead in Surrey, also at
+Cassaulton (Carshalton) and Godstone in the same county, where the
+rambler may come across fine Walnut-trees to this day, and
+occasionally to young ones growing wild in hedgerows and wastes.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 138._ Fruit of Walnut.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 139._ Walnut--winter.]
+
+The old doggerel adage, "A dog and a wife and a walnut-tree, the more
+they are beaten the better they be," has reference to the manner of
+harvesting the ripe fruit. Evelyn says: "In Italy they arm the tops of
+long poles with nails and iron for the purpose [of loosening the fruit],
+and believe the beating improves the tree; which I no more believe than
+I do that discipline would reform a shrew." He expresses no opinion on
+the question of beating dogs.
+
+
+Sweet Chestnut (_Castanea sativa_).
+
+Until about the middle of the last century the Chestnut was generally
+regarded as a genuine native of these islands. It is true that botanists
+felt that so large and longevous a tree, if native, should be found in
+the natural forests of this country, or even forming pure forest. These
+things they did not find, but, on the other hand, they were shown beams
+in ancient buildings, including Westminster Abbey, which were believed
+to be Chestnut-wood, and this evidence seemed to point to the fact that
+Chestnut timber was grown much more plentifully in this country at the
+period when these old buildings were erected. Dr. Lindley, however, set
+the matter at rest by examination of the reputed Chestnut beams in the
+roof of Westminster Abbey, and proved that they were of Durmast Oak. A
+similar examination of the timbers of the old Louvre in Paris, which
+were also reputed to be Chestnut, gave a similar result. A comparison of
+sections across the grain of Oak and Chestnut allows of no possibility
+of mistake, and it is now known that whilst the wood of young Chestnuts
+is tough and durable, that from old trees is brittle and comparatively
+worthless, except for firewood, which is exactly the opposite of
+Oak-wood. It is now generally agreed that its real home is in Asia Minor
+and Greece, whence it was introduced to Italy in very remote times, and
+has since spread over most of temperate Europe, its seeds ripening and
+sowing themselves wherever the vine flourishes. We appear to be indebted
+to our friends the Romans for its introduction to Britain, who no doubt
+hoped to utilize the fruit for food, as at home--a hope that must have
+been disappointed, for its crops, even in the South of England, are very
+fitful, and the nuts quite small.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 140._ Sweet Chestnut--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 141._ Bole of Sweet Chestnut.]
+
+In suitable situations the Chestnut is of larger proportions and greater
+length of life even than the Oak. In the South of England it will attain
+a height of from sixty to eighty feet in fifty or sixty years, and if
+growing in deep porous loam, free from carbonate of lime, and sheltered
+from strong winds and frosts, it builds up an erect massive column.
+Hamerton has said of such a tree: "His expression is that of sturdy
+strength; his trunk and limbs are built, not like those of Apollo, but
+like the trunk and limbs of Hercules." Under less suitable conditions
+the undivided trunk is little more than ten feet long; then it divides
+off into several huge limbs, and so the general character of the tree is
+altered, and it presents much the appearance of having been pollarded.
+The branches have a horizontal and downward habit of growth, the
+extremities of the lowest ones often being but little above the earth.
+The fine elliptical leaves are nine or ten inches in length, of a rich
+green, that is enhanced by the polished surface, which "brings up" the
+colour. Their edges are cut into long pointed teeth. Towards autumn they
+pale to light yellow, and then deepen into gold on their way to the
+final brown of the fallen leaf, which, by the way, is a great enricher
+of the soil where the Chestnut is grown.
+
+[Illustration: Sweet Chestnut. A, fruit.]
+
+The flowers, though individually small and inconspicuous, are rather
+striking, from their association in cylindrical yellow catkins, about
+six inches long, which hang from the axils of the leaves. The upper part
+of this catkin consists of male flowers, each with a number of
+stamens enclosed in a perianth or calyx of five or six green leaves. The
+female flowers, on the lower part of the catkin, are two or three
+together, in a prickly four-lobed "cupule," or involucre, and consist
+each of a calyx closely investing a tapering ovary, whose summit bears
+from five to eight radiating stigmas, the number corresponding with the
+cells into which the ovary is divided. Each cell contains two seed-eggs,
+but as a rule only one in each flower develops. As development of the
+ovary and seeds progresses, the cupule also grows, and ultimately
+entirely surrounds the cluster with the hedgehog-like coat in which the
+nuts are contained when ripe. Then it splits open and discloses the two
+or three glossy brown nuts. The Chestnut is in flower from May to July,
+and the nuts drop in October. They form an important article of food in
+South Europe, where they are produced in abundance, and there can be
+little doubt that the importers of the tree to this country believed it
+would prove equally valuable here. Evelyn had this in mind when he
+recommended the nut as "a lusty and masculine food for rustics at all
+times, and of better nourishment for husbandmen than cole and rusty
+bacon." Well, there is plenty of Chestnut grown around Evelyn's estate
+at Wootton to-day, but it is chiefly as coppice, to provide hop-poles,
+and hoops for barrels, for which purpose the long straight shoots are
+split in two. Grown as coppice, the Chestnut also provides fine cover
+for pheasants and other game. The trees begin to bear when about
+twenty-five years old, and from thence on to the fiftieth or sixtieth
+year the timber is at its best, but later it develops the defect known
+as "ring shake," and becomes of little use. That is probably why one
+meets with so many hollow wrecks of what were once noble Chestnuts.
+
+The young wood is covered with smooth brown bark, but later this becomes
+grey, and its surface splits into longitudinal fissures, which give a
+very distinctive character to the trunk. In older trees the fissures and
+the alternating ridges have a slight spiral twist, which gives the tree
+the appearance (shown in our third photo) of having been wrenched round
+by some mighty force. The average age of the Chestnut is about five
+hundred years, but there have been in this country many old trees that
+were much older, if any reliance could be placed in local tradition.
+There was--we fear there is little of it still remaining--the great
+Tortworth Chestnut in Lord Ducies' park at Tortworth Court. In 1820 it
+was found to have a girth of fifty-two feet. Evelyn refers to it in his
+"Sylva," and tells us that in the reign of King Stephen it already bore
+the title of the Great Chestnut of Tortworth.
+
+The name Chestnut appears to be a modification of the old Latin name
+_Castanea_, through the French form _Chataigner_. The Latin is said to
+be derived from Kastanum, a town in Thessaly, but it is more likely that
+the presence of Chestnut-trees gave a name to the town, as has happened
+so many times in our own country with various trees, the Chestnut
+included.
+
+
+Horse Chestnut (_Æsculus hippocastanum_).
+
+Our placing the Chestnut and the Horse Chestnut into juxtaposition must
+not be understood as a recognition of any relationship that may be
+implied in their names, but rather the reverse--to accentuate the
+differences that exist between them, and which have led botanists to
+separate them widely in all systems of classification. Although the
+fruits are sufficiently similar to have suggested the name Chestnut
+being applied to this, with a qualifying prefix, they have been produced
+by flowers of entirely different character. Evelyn tells us that the
+word Horse was added because of its virtues in "curing horses
+broken-winded and other cattle of coughs," a statement for which he was
+no doubt indebted to Parkinson (1640), who says, "Horse Chestnuts are
+given in the East Country, and so through all Turkie, unto Horses to
+cure them of the cough, shortnesse of winde, and such other diseases;"
+but seeing that, in this country at least, horses refuse to touch them,
+there can be little doubt that the name was given to indicate their
+inferiority to the Sweet Chestnut, and by a process only too well known
+to the student of early botanical literature, the name was afterwards
+held to be proof of their medicinal value to horses.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 142._ Flowers of Sweet Chestnut.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 143._ Sweet Chestnut--winter.]
+
+The Horse Chestnut is a native of the mountain regions of Greece,
+Persia, and Northern India, and is believed to have been introduced to
+Britain about 1550. It is not a tree that will be found in the
+woodlands, or even by the wayside, except when it is behind a fence; yet
+it constantly greets the rambler who has left the suburban gardens
+behind him, and in the public parks--notably the magnificent avenue of
+Bushey Park--where by contrast it exhibits itself as the grandest of all
+flowering trees. Though the stout cylindrical bole is short, its erect
+trunk towers to a height of eighty or a hundred feet, supporting the
+massive pyramid, beautiful on account of its fine foliage and handsome
+flowers alike. The stout branches take an upward direction at first,
+then stretch outward and curve downwards, though in winter, when
+relieved of the weight of foliage, their extremities curl sharply
+upward, and the great buds in spring are almost erect.
+
+These brown buds, with their numerous wraps and liberal coating of
+varnish, afford considerable interest to the suburban dweller in early
+spring. He watches their gradual swelling, and the polish that comes
+upon them through the daily melting of their varnish under the influence
+of sunshine. Then the outer scales fall flat, the upper parts show green
+and loose; there is a perceptible lengthening of the shoot, which leaves
+a space between those outer wraps and the folded leaves. Next the
+leaflets separate and assume a horizontal position as they expand. Then
+probably there comes a frost, and next morning the leaflets are all
+hanging down, almost blackened, flaccid and dejected-looking. A warm
+southerly rain, followed by sunshine, reinvigorates them, and we see
+that the lengthening of the shoot has actually brought the incipient
+flower-spike clear into view. By about the second week in May the
+pyramid is clothed with bold handsome foliage, against which the conical
+spikes of white blossoms, tinged with crimson and dotted with yellow,
+stand out conspicuously.
+
+The leaves are almost circular, but broken up, finger-fashion, into
+seven toothed leaflets of different sizes, which appear to have started
+as ovals, but the necessity for not overcrowding their neighbours has
+necessitated the portion nearest the leaf-stalk taking a wedge shape.
+The large size of these leaves--as much as eighteen inches across--leads
+the non-botanical to regard the leaflets as being full leaves. On
+emerging from the bud the leaves are seen to be covered with down, but
+as they expand this is thrown off.
+
+[Illustration: Horse Chestnut. A, flower; B, fruit.]
+
+The flowers consist of a bell-shaped calyx with five lobes, supporting
+five separate petals, pure white in colour, but splashed and dotted with
+crimson and yellow towards the base of the upper ones, to indicate the
+way to the honey-glands. There are seven curved stamens, and in their
+midst a longer curved style proceeding from a roundish ovary with three
+cells. In each cell there are two seed-eggs, but as a rule only one egg
+in two of the cells develops into a "nut." The ovary develops into a
+large fleshy bur, with short stout spines, which splits into three
+valves when the dark-red glossy seeds are ripe. In the Sweet Chestnut
+the brown skin of the nut is the ovary, which had been overgrown by the
+prickly involucre; here the spiny green shell is the ovary, and the
+"nut" a seed. Though horses will not eat this bitter fruit, cattle,
+deer, and sheep are fond of it. Pounded in water, it becomes one of the
+numerous vegetable substitutes for soap. Under the name of Konker, or
+Conqueror, it affords a seasonal joy to the average boy, who first
+bombards the tree with sticks and stones to dislodge the fruit, and then
+threads the ruddy konkers on string and does battle with a chum
+similarly equipped, the one whose string is broken or pulled from his
+hand by the conflict of weapons being the vanquished. In some parts the
+game is led off by the recitation of the rhyme, "Oblionker! my fust
+konker."
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 144._ Horse Chestnut--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 145._ Fruits of Horse Chestnut.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 146._ Bole of Horse Chestnut.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 147._ Horse Chestnut--winter.]
+
+The growth of the tree is very rapid, and consequently the timber is
+soft and of no value where durability is required. Still, its even grain
+and susceptibility to a high polish make it useful for indoor wood, such
+as cabinet-making and flooring. It is also used for making charcoal for
+the gunpowder mills. Although Salvator Rosa and other landscape painters
+have made such good use of the Sweet Chestnut pictorially, they have
+utterly neglected the Horse Chestnut; and Hamerton hints that the cause
+of this neglect is the artist's inability to represent its large flowers
+and leaves by the landscape painter's ordinary method of laying on
+masses of colour: this requires drawing. The tree begins to produce
+fruit about its twentieth year, and continues to do so nearly every
+year. Its age is estimated as about two hundred years. The bark, at
+first smooth, breaks into irregular scales and in old trees a twist
+may be developed, as illustrated by our photo of the bole.
+
+The generic name _Æsculus_ (from Latin _esca_, food) has no real
+connection with the tree, the ancients having given it to some species
+of Oak with edible acorns (_vide_ Pliny), but by some unknown means it
+has become transferred to a tree whose fruit is far too bitter to be
+eaten by man.
+
+The Red-flowered Horse Chestnut (_Æsculus carnea_) is a smaller and less
+vigorous tree. Its origin is unknown, but it is believed to be a garden
+hybrid that made its appearance about 1820.
+
+
+The Bay Tree (_Laurus nobilis_).
+
+The Bay is the true Laurel, of whose leaves and berries the wreaths were
+made in ancient days for poets and conquerors. Naturally it is more of a
+shrub than a tree, for though it often attains a height of sixty feet,
+it persists in sending up so many suckers that the tree-like character
+is lost. In cultivation, however, it is often grown on a single stem, as
+well as formed by cutting into arbours and arches. We call to mind a
+Cornish village, where a garden enclosure in its square (or "plestor,"
+as Gilbert White would say) was surrounded by about a dozen Bays so
+grown. Bays grow abundantly in the gardens of South Cornwall, and we
+always connected their general cultivation with the pilchard fishery.
+Certainly, these trees in the plestor were very convenient in the autumn
+and winter, for the leaves are an essential ingredient in the proper
+composition of that seductive dish, marinated pilchards, to which they
+impart their peculiar aromatic flavour.
+
+The Bay is a native of Southern Europe, whence it was introduced at some
+date prior to 1562. Prior says the name is the old Roman _bacca_ (a
+berry), altered "by the usual omission of 'c' between the two vowels,"
+this plant having become the _bacca par excellence_, because its
+berries were articles of commerce.
+
+[Illustration: Bay. A, flower; B, fruit.]
+
+The evergreen leaves are lance-shaped, without teeth, and arranged
+alternately on the branchlets. Not all the trees produce the berries,
+for the sexes are in distinct individuals, and all the white or
+yellowish four-parted flowers on one tree are stamen-bearing, whilst on
+another individual they all bear ovaries and no stamens. The berries, at
+first green, ultimately become of a dark purple hue. The flowers will be
+found in April or May; the ripe berries in October. The Bay is grown
+chiefly as a shrubbery ornament, and can only survive our winters
+out-of-doors in the South of England.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 148._ Bay.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 149._ Laburnum.]
+
+
+Laburnum (_Laburnum vulgare_).
+
+Although the Laburnums of our parks and gardens have all come from seed,
+and themselves produce an abundance of it, we do not meet with wayside
+"escapes" as we might expect to do, having regard to the habit of the
+tree and the fact that it is comparatively indifferent respecting
+character of soil. Possibly a remark of Loudon's may explain this. He
+says that rabbits are exceedingly fond of the bark, and it may be that
+they destroy any young trees that are unprotected by palings or netting.
+The tree produces such a glorification of many an ordinary suburban
+road, when its flowering time comes round, that one would like to note
+its effect as a common object of the hillside and the woodland, against
+a background furnished by our more sober native trees.
+
+The Laburnum is at home in the mountain forests of Central and Southern
+Europe, but there is no record of its introduction to Britain. We do
+know, however, that it has been with us for more than three centuries,
+for Gerarde, in his "Herbal," published 1597, refers to it as growing in
+his garden. It belongs to the great Pea and Bean family (_Leguminosæ_),
+and is very closely related to the Common Broom, whose solitary flowers
+those of the Laburnum's drooping racemes nearly resemble. Ordinarily it
+is only a low tree of about twenty feet in height, but in favourable
+situations it may attain to thirty feet or more. Some of the larger
+Laburnums, however, are of a distinct species (_L. alpinus_).
+
+The pale round branches are clothed with leaves that are divided into
+three oval-lance-shaped leaflets, covered on the underside with silvery
+down. Both leaves and golden flowers appear simultaneously in May, but
+from the fact that the latter are gathered into numerous long pendulous
+racemes, their blaze of colour makes the leaves almost invisible.
+Tennyson's description of its flowering--"Laburnum, dropping wells of
+fire"--is fine, but we rather prefer Cowper's "rich in streaming gold,"
+as embodying a more exact colour idea. The flowers are succeeded by long
+downy legumes or pods, like those of the bean and pea, containing many
+seeds, which are of a dangerously violent emetic character when
+introduced to the human stomach. The dark wood is of coarse grain; but,
+in spite of this, hard and enduring, and taking a good polish. It is
+chiefly used by musical instrument makers, turners, and cabinet-makers.
+
+[Illustration: Laburnum. A, seed-pod.]
+
+Laburnum is the old Latin name, which is thus rather fancifully
+explained by Prior, "an adjective from _L. labor_, denoting what
+belongs to the _hour of labour_, and which may allude to its closing its
+leaflets together at night, and expanding them by day." Common local
+names are Golden Chain, suggested by the strings of flowers, and
+Bean-trefoile and Pea-tree, having reference to the leaves and legumes
+respectively.
+
+
+The Locust Tree (_Robinia pseudacacia_).
+
+Although the Locust, or False Acacia, is little planted now, it is only
+paying the penalty for having had its merits enormously exaggerated;
+just as human reputations sometimes sink into oblivion after a season of
+popularity achieved by the persistent "booming" of influential friends.
+The friend in this case was William Cobbett, who, on his return from the
+United States, about 1820, preached salvation to the timber grower
+through the planting of Robinia; "nothing in the timber way could be so
+great a benefit as the general cultivation of this tree." So great was
+the demand thus created that Cobbett himself started a nursery for the
+propagation and supply of Robinias, and so great is the virtue of a name
+that people refused the Locust-trees that every nurseryman had in stock
+and wished to sell, and would be content with nothing but Cobbett's
+Robinias, which could not be produced fast enough for the demand! They
+thought it was an entirely new introduction, though it had been grown in
+this country as an ornamental tree for nearly two centuries! Its wood is
+hard, strong, and durable, but liable to crack, and of limited utility.
+
+The Locust was introduced to Europe from North America early in the
+seventeenth century, and was then thought to be identical with the
+African Acacia. Linnæus named the genus in honour of Jean Robin, a
+French botanist, whose son, an official at the Jardin des Plantes, was
+the first to cultivate the tree in Europe.
+
+It is a tree of light and graceful proportions, its branches being long
+and slender, and the long narrow leaves being broken up into a large
+number of small oval leaflets, arranged _pinnately_, that is,
+featherwise. The stipules, which are found at the base of the leaf-stalk
+in many plants, are in this genus converted into sharp spines. The
+flowers, of similar pea-shape to those of the Laburnum, are white and
+fragrant. They are in long loose racemes, which droop from the axils of
+the leaves in May. The legumes are very thin, and of a dark-brown hue.
+
+[Illustration: False Acacia, or Locust Tree. A, seed-pod.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 150._ Locust Tree--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 151._ Bole of Locust Tree.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 152._ Locust--winter.]
+
+This was one of the first American trees introduced to Europe, and its
+name of Locust came with it, the missionaries believing it must be the
+tree upon whose fruit, with the addition of wild honey, John the
+Baptist supported himself in the wilderness. It is also known as Silver
+Chain, in contradistinction to the Gold Chain or Laburnum; also as White
+Laburnum.
+
+
+The Larch (_Larix europæa_).
+
+An enormous number of exotic Coniferous trees are at the present time
+commonly grown in our parks and pleasure grounds, and even our woods
+show a considerable variety beyond the Scots Pine and Yew that Nature
+has alone given us as timber trees in this order. To attempt to give
+even a very brief account of all these in a pocket volume, in addition
+to almost the entire woody Flora indigenous to these islands, would be
+manifestly absurd. We can, however, deal with a few representative
+species of these exotics, and we give the Larch the first place by
+reason of its present plentifulness in extensive unmixed woods and
+plantations.
+
+The Larch is naturally a tree of the mountains, and ascends to a greater
+elevation even than the Spruce Fir. Unmixed forests of Larch in the
+Bavarian Alps occur between 3000 and 6000 feet above sea-level, and on
+the central Swiss Alps it ascends to nearly 7000 feet. A long winter of
+real cold is necessary for its full development and the ripening of its
+wood, and for that reason the timber of Larch grown in England is
+inferior to that grown in its native countries, because our winters are
+either short or mild, and neither gives the tree the full rest it needs.
+It is a European tree, and was introduced--though not in any numbers--to
+England at some date prior to 1629. For 150 years it appears to have
+been cultivated here merely as an ornamental garden tree. Then attention
+was called to its value as a timber tree, and the Society of Arts
+offered gold medals for Larch planting and essays upon its economic
+importance. Already (1728) the second Duke of Atholl had begun those
+experiments in Larch growing for timber which have been continued by
+his successors on a vast scale, the fourth Duke planting 27,000,000
+Larch-trees on 15,000 acres of barren land. Their example has been
+copied on a smaller scale all over the country.
+
+[Illustration: Larch. A, flower.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 153._ Larch--summer.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 154._ Larch--winter.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 155._ Bole of Larch.]
+
+The Larch is a lofty tree, with a very straight tapering trunk
+ordinarily attaining a length between 80 and 100 feet, but under very
+favourable conditions 120 feet, with a girth of bole from 6 to 12 feet.
+The brown bark is easily separable into thin layers, and the growth of
+the tree causes it to split into deep longitudinal fissures. The long
+lower branches are spreading, with a downward tendency, and the tips
+turned upward again. The twigs are mostly pendulous, and bear long and
+slender light-green leaves, in bundles of thirty or forty. All the other
+families of Coniferous trees are evergreen, their leaves lasting for
+several years; but at the beginning of winter the Larch leaves wither
+and fall, and the Larch-wood takes on a more lifeless aspect than is
+assumed by any of our native trees in their leafless condition. But in
+spring, when the fresh green leaves are just showing in spreading tufts,
+and the reddish-purple female flowers--Tennyson's "rosy plumelets"--hang
+brightly from the gaunt branches, the Larch wears an entirely different
+appearance, and in summer the light grace of branches and foliage makes
+the Larch a beautiful object. That is, one should say, the trees that
+grow on the very outer edge of the wood, or, better still, one that has
+been planted as a specimen tree, where it has room to fling out its arms
+on all sides without touching anything, and can get the abundant light
+it needs. The straight rows in the plantation, with every tree at an
+equal distance from its neighbours, and its lower branches dead, may be
+very pretty from the timber-merchant's point of view, but one likes to
+think of the tree as a living thing of beauty rather than as a detail in
+a factory where scaffold-poles and telegraph-posts are being grown to
+regulation size and shape.
+
+The brown cones are egg-shaped, little more than an inch in length, the
+scales with loose edges. The wood is very durable, and it has the great
+recommendation of being fit for ordinary use when the tree is only forty
+years old. It is most valuable for those purposes where exposure to all
+weathers is a necessity, for it endures constant change from wet to dry.
+Larch-bark is used for tanning, and Venice turpentine is a product of
+the tree. Unlike most Conifers, it has the power of sending out new
+shoots when the branches have been removed close up to the stem.
+
+Larch plantations sometimes present the appearance of death whilst they
+are still covered with foliage, but the leaves are yellow and twisted.
+This most frequently occurs in the case of trees between the ages of ten
+and fourteen years, and is due to the depredations of a leaf-mining
+caterpillar, which ultimately changes into a minute moth, the
+Larch-miner (_Coleophora laricella_). It feeds in the interior of the
+Larch-needles, and therefore is beyond the reach of destruction, except
+by felling and burning affected trees, to prevent the spread of the
+pest. Its ravages keep the tree in ill-health, and apparently prepare
+the way for the deadly attack of another small enemy, known as the Larch
+Canker--the fungus _Peziza willkommii_. Sickly trees are also liable to
+the attentions of a Wood-wasp (_Sirex juvencus_), whose appearance is
+usually the cause of a little terror in nervous persons. It has two
+pairs of smoky transparent wings, and its stout, straight, blue body
+terminates in a long slender point. Its large white grub spends two or
+three years tunnelling towards the heart of the tree and out to the bark
+again, but rarely attacks sound trees. It sometimes makes its appearance
+in a house from wood that has been used for building purposes.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 156._ Flowers and Cone of Larch.]
+
+
+The Silver Fir (_Abies pectinata_).
+
+Evelyn has left on record the fact that a two-year-old specimen of the
+Silver Fir was planted in Harefield Park, near Uxbridge, in the year
+1603, and this is usually regarded as the date of its introduction to
+England, though the evidence is by no means conclusive. Its home is in
+the mountain regions of Central and Southern Europe. Its highest
+range appears to be on the Pyrenees, where it is found at an
+elevation of 6500 feet, forming pure forests of considerable area.
+Specimens have been recorded in Southern Germany that have attained a
+height of nearly 200 feet, but in this country a more usual stature is
+from 100 to 120 feet, with a bole girth between 10 and 15 feet. Its
+trunk is straight and erect, tapering gently, and covered with smooth
+bark, of a greyish-brown colour, which in aged specimens becomes rugged
+and fissured longitudinally, as shown in our photo, and of a silvery
+grey colour. It retains its lower branches for a period of forty to
+fifty years, but after that age they begin to fall off. Whilst the tree
+is growing up--which is, roughly speaking, during its first two hundred
+years--the crown forms a slender bush; but its vertical growth
+completed, the crown grows laterally, and becomes flat-topped. Its
+life-period covers about four hundred years.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 157._ Silver Fir.]
+
+[Illustration: Silver Fir. A, cone.]
+
+The leaves are flat and slender, not in bundles, as in the Scots Pine,
+but arranged along the branchlets in two or three dense ranks. They are
+dark, rich green above, about an inch long, and on the flattened
+underside there is a bluish-white stripe on each side of the midrib,
+which gives a silvery appearance to the foliage when upturned, as is
+usual on the fertile branches. These leaves endure from six to nine
+years. The flowers appear in May at the tips of the branches. The male
+flowers are about three-quarters of an inch long, and consist of two or
+three series of overlapping scales, enclosing the yellow stamens. The
+cones are cylindrical, with a blunt top, always erect, 6 to 8 inches
+long, and from 1¼ to 2 inches in diameter. On the back of each of the
+broad scales there is a long, slender, pointed bract, which extends
+beyond the scale and turns downward. At first these cones are green,
+then become reddish, and when mature are brown; but maturity is not
+reached until eighteen months after their appearance. The angular seeds
+are furnished with a broad wing twice their length. They are shed by the
+cones in the spring following their maturity, the scales falling at the
+same time and leaving the core of the cone on the tree.
+
+As a rule, the tree does not produce fertile seeds until it is about
+forty years of age, but seedless cones are formed from its twentieth
+year. Although the flowers of both sexes are found on the same tree, it
+may be that for a series of years only cones are produced. Until the
+Silver Fir is about twelve years old its growth is slow, and its annual
+increase is only a few inches, but later it will be as many feet. During
+this early stage spring frosts often destroy the leader-shoot, but its
+place is taken by another shoot; and soon the symmetry of the tree is
+restored. If this occurs at a later stage, however, the tree bears
+evidence of it in a forked trunk. It is a deep-rooting species, with a
+branching tap-root, and succeeds best in an open soil that is moist
+without being wet.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 158._ Bole of Silver Fir.]
+
+The timber, which has an irregular grain, is strong, and does not warp;
+but it is soft, and not enduring where it is exposed to the weather. It
+is yellowish-white in colour, and is largely used for all interior work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 159._ Spruce Firs.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 160._ Bole of Spruce Fir.]
+
+
+The Spruce Fir (_Picea excelsa_).
+
+Although we are compelled to class the Spruce among introduced species,
+it can lay claim to have been one of the older forest trees of Britain,
+for the upper beds of the Tertiary formations contain abundant evidence
+that the Spruce was a native here when those strata were laid down. Of
+its modern introduction there is no record, but from mention of it by
+Turner in his "Names of Herbes in Greke, Latin, Englishe, etc.," we know
+that it was at some date anterior to the publication of that work
+(1548). It is widely distributed as a native tree throughout the
+continent of Europe, with the exception of Denmark and Holland. It is
+the principal forest tree on the elevated tracts of Germany and
+Switzerland, and on the central Alpine ranges it reaches an altitude of
+6500 feet. It is an extremely variable tree, but we cannot here deal
+with the varieties beyond saying that two principal forms, different in
+habit and in timber, are outwardly distinguished by one having red, the
+other green, cones.
+
+The Spruce Fir is a tall and graceful tree with tapering trunk, 120 to
+150 feet in height, though in this country its more usual stature, when
+full-grown, would be about 80 feet high, with a bole circumference of
+about 9 feet. At first covered with thin, smooth, warm-brown bark, in
+later life this breaks up into irregular scales, thin layers of which
+are cast off. Instead of a bushy crown, such as we see in the Silver
+Fir, the Spruce ends in a delicate spire, so familiar in the
+Christmas-tree, which is a Spruce Fir in the nursery stage. The branches
+are in very regular tiers from base to summit, and the branchlets go
+off almost opposite each other, densely clothed with the short
+grass-green needles. These are from a half to three-quarters of an inch
+in length, four-sided, and ending in a fine sharp point. They endure for
+six or seven years.
+
+[Illustration: Spruce Fir.]
+
+The flowers are produced near the ends of last year's shoots, those with
+stamens being borne singly or in clusters of two or three. They are
+about three-quarters of an inch in length, and of a yellow colour,
+tinged with pink. The cones, which hang downwards, are almost
+cylindrical, about 5 inches long and 1½ inches in diameter. The pale
+brown scales are thin, and loosely overlap. The seeds, of which there
+are two under each scale, are very small, with a transparent brown wing,
+five times the length of the seed. The flowers appear in May, and the
+seeds are not ripe until nearly a year later.
+
+The tree is a shallow rooter, the roots going off horizontally in all
+directions a little below the surface, and becoming intimately matted
+with those of neighbouring trees. This surface-rooting often leads to
+disaster in plantations and forests of Spruce, for it is least able of
+all the firs to withstand a gale, which will sometimes make a broad
+avenue through the plantation by toppling the trees one against another.
+
+The wood of the Spruce Fir, though light, is even grained, elastic, and
+durable, and the straightness of its stem makes it very valuable for all
+purposes where great length and straightness are required, as for the
+masts of small vessels, ladders, scaffolding, telegraph-poles; as well
+as for the varied uses the builder finds for its planks. It supplies
+resin and pitch, and most of the cheaper periodicals now issued largely
+owe their existence to the Spruce, for its fibres reduced to pulp are
+made into the paper upon which they are printed. Although its growth
+during the first few years is rather slow, progress during the next
+twenty-five years is tolerably rapid, being at the rate of two or three
+feet per year, if in a favourable situation, and on moist light soil.
+When grown in a wood the Spruce loses its lower branches early, but when
+given sufficient "elbow-room," these remain to a good old age, so that
+from spire to earth the graceful cone of bright green is continuous.
+
+The name Spruce is from the German _sprossen_ (a sprout), in allusion to
+the numerous short branchlets that are a characteristic of the tree.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 161._ Douglas Fir.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 162._ Bole of Douglas Fir.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 163._ Cone of Spruce Fir.]
+
+
+The Douglas Fir (_Pseudotsuga douglasii_).
+
+Although the name of this tree in English and Latin might reasonably
+lead one to suppose that David Douglas, the intrepid botanical explorer,
+was the discoverer of it, that is not really so. It was Archibald
+Menzies who first made it known to science, by means of herbarium
+specimens collected in 1792, when, as the companion of Vancouver, he
+visited the western coasts of North America. But Douglas, in his
+capacity of collector to the Royal Horticultural Society, landed at Fort
+Vancouver on the Columbia River in 1825, and not only sent home
+herbarium specimens, but seeds also, of this and several previously
+unknown Conifers. It was by means of these seeds that the Douglas Fir
+was introduced to Britain. It was already known by Lambert's name of
+_Abies taxifolia_, but Dr. Lindley, a short time previous to Douglas'
+untimely death, selected the tree as a suitable and enduring memorial of
+the enormous services Douglas had rendered, and named it _Abies
+douglasii_. Since then Carrière has split up the old genus _Abies_ and
+placed _douglasii_ in the new genus _Pseudotsuga_.
+
+Under the most favourable natural conditions, as around Puget Sound and
+on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, the Douglas Fir grows to a
+height of 300 feet, with a girth of 30 to 40 feet, but on the drier
+slopes of the Rocky Mountains it is not more than 100 feet high. In
+Colorado, forests of Douglas Fir are found at an elevation of 11,000
+feet. The tree has not been sufficiently long established in this
+country to say what dimensions it will reach, though it appears to have
+taken kindly to Ireland and to Devon and Cornwall, where the rate of
+growth of young trees is about 30 inches per annum. There are plenty of
+trees in these islands, planted about the year 1834, which have reached
+or passed 100 feet, and there is no doubt that towards our western
+coasts this height will be greatly exceeded. Some of these trees have
+long since produced cones, and from their seeds many young trees have
+been raised.
+
+[Illustration: Douglas Fir. A, female flower; B, male flower.]
+
+The Douglas Fir is of pyramidal outline, with the lowest branches
+bending to the ground under their weight of branchlets and leaves;
+above, they spread horizontally, but the uppermost are more or less
+ascending. The branchlets are given off mostly in opposite pairs,
+densely clothed with slender, rich green leaves, ¾ to 1¼ inches in
+length, paler beneath. They endure for six or seven years, and are
+arranged in three or four ranks. The male flowers will be found
+clustered at intervals on the underside of the previous year's shoots,
+whilst the cones are formed at the tips of the lateral branchlets, and
+hang downwards. These cones are somewhat elliptical in outline, from
+2½ to 4 inches long, with large scales, and from the back of each
+there extends a three-clawed bract, whereof the middle claw or awn is
+very long. Several well-marked varieties of the Douglas Fir are also to
+be met with occasionally in parks and gardens.
+
+The Douglas Fir produces excellent timber, and is a most valuable forest
+tree, not only on that account, but because of its adaptability to
+varying conditions of soil and climate. It is the most widely
+distributed of all American forest trees, and the area of its
+distribution is spread over thirty-two degrees of latitude, and from end
+to end of this range it has, in the words of Sargent, "to endure the
+fierce gales and long winters of the north, and the nearly perpetual
+sunshine of the Mexican Cordilleras; to thrive in the rain and fog which
+sweep almost continuously along the Pacific coast range, and on the arid
+mountain slopes of the interior, where for months every year rain never
+falls." It appears to thrive best where the air is humid and the soil
+well drained. It begins to bear cones about its twenty-fifth year. The
+straight tapering trunk is largely used for the masts and spars of
+ships, its suitability for this purpose being evident to all visitors to
+Kew who have gazed at the flag-staff set up in the arboretum. This pole
+is 159 feet long, with a circumference of 6 feet at the base, tapering
+to 2 feet 2 inches at the top, and weighing about 3 tons. It was brought
+from Vancouver Island, and an examination of its rings before it was set
+up showed that it represented the growth of about 250 years. The full
+life of the Douglas Fir is estimated to be about 750 years.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 164._ Stone Pine.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 165._ Bole of Stone Pine.]
+
+
+The Stone Pine (_Pinus pinea_).
+
+Between the tall, graceful spire of the Douglas Fir and the squat,
+heavy, umbrella-like head of the Stone Pine, there is an enormous
+contrast. It must be confessed that the Stone Pine is less beautiful
+than picturesque, a point that strongly commends it to the landscape
+painter working in the countries bordering the Mediterranean, in
+which region it is native. The date of its introduction to Britain is
+not known, but it has been in cultivation here certainly for more than
+three centuries and a half, for Turner mentions it in his "Names of
+Herbes in Greke, Latin, Englishe, Duch, and Frenche," published in 1548.
+In its native countries it attains a height of sixty to eighty feet, but
+in this country the finest examples are only about thirty-five feet,
+whilst ordinary British-grown examples are only half that height. Its
+trunk, covered with rugged, and deeply fissured, thick, red-grey bark,
+forks at no great distance from the roots, and sends off massive
+spreading branches of great length. For several years the young tree
+produces short single leaves, but later leaves are five or six inches
+long, slender, and of a bright green tint, in pairs, united at their
+base by a pale sheath. These leaves endure for two or three years. The
+pollen-bearing flowers are crowded into a spike. The female flowers are
+about three-quarters of an inch long, composed of pale greenish scales.
+After fertilization, these grow to a length of four to six inches, of a
+rugged oval form and red-brown colour, ripening in the third year. The
+scales of these cones are somewhat wedge-shaped, with a stout rhomboid
+boss, which has a depression round the central protuberance. The seeds,
+which are eaten for dessert and preserved as sweetmeats in the countries
+where the Stone Pine is native, are enclosed in a bony shell, and it is
+from this circumstance that the tree gets its name.
+
+[Illustration: Stone Pine, cone and leaves.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 166._ Austrian Pine.]
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 167._ Bole of Austrian Pine.]
+
+
+The Austrian Pine (_Pinus laricio_).
+
+What is known as the Austrian Pine is a variety of the Corsican or Larch
+Pine, and its botanical name correctly set out is _Pinus laricio_, var.
+_austriaca_. The name has reference to the fact that its chief home as
+an indigenous tree is in the southern provinces of the Austrian Empire.
+The range of the type and its varieties together includes Central and
+Southern Europe, and part of Western Asia. It is a comparatively recent
+addition to our sylva in both forms, for the type was introduced in
+1759, in the belief that it was a maritime form of the Scots Pine, but
+the variety _austriaca_ was first sent out by Lawson and Son, the
+Edinburgh nurserymen, in 1835.
+
+[Illustration: Austrian Pine.]
+
+The typical species (Corsican Pine) is a slender tree of somewhat
+pyramidal form, growing to the height of 80 to 120 feet. The Austrian
+Pine, though a large tree, is of smaller proportions--from 60 to 80 feet
+high--but with stouter and longer branches, and denser foliage. The
+leaves, which vary from three to five inches in length, are sheathed in
+pairs, convex on the outer side, rigid, glossy, dark green, and with
+toothed margins. The cone is conical (!), with a rounded base, two to
+three inches in length, and its position on the branch is almost
+horizontal, the scales somewhat similar to those of the Scots Pine, but
+with stronger bosses, and of a yellowish-brown colour, polished. It
+takes about seventeen months to become full grown and ripen the seeds.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 168._ Cones of Austrian Pine.]
+
+The Austrian Pine is one of those that do well on poor soils, and takes
+kindly to chalk. From the density of its foliage, it makes a good shade
+and shelter tree. Its timber, though coarse in grain, is very durable,
+and useful for outside work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 169._ Cedar of Lebanon.]
+
+
+Cedar of Lebanon (_Cedrus libani_).
+
+Made familiar, by name at least, from very early times by frequent
+references to it in the books of the Old Testament, it is rather strange
+that so hardy a tree was not one of the first of those introduced for
+ornament into Britain. It is true that local legends attaching to some
+old Cedars in this country credit them with having been planted in "the
+spacious times of great Elizabeth"--as the great Cedar at Whitton,
+Middlesex, blown down in 1779; but, on the other hand, we have the fact
+that no mention is made of the Cedar by John Evelyn in his "Sylva"
+(1664). This, it is true, is only negative evidence; but it is strong
+none the less, for it is not at all likely that so keen and pious an
+arboriculturist would have omitted mention of so noteworthy a tree had
+such been growing here when he wrote. There is reason to believe,
+however, that the still-existing Enfield Cedar was planted about the
+date of Evelyn's publication by Dr. Uvedale, master of the Enfield
+Grammar School.
+
+The researches of Sir J. D. Hooker, subsequent to his memorable
+expedition to Lebanon and Taurus in 1860, established the specific
+identity of the three Cedars known as the Mount Atlas Cedar, the Cedar
+of Lebanon, and the Deodar. Though the arboriculturist still treats them
+as distinct species, they are scientifically regarded as geographical
+forms of one species. For convenience we here adopt the
+arboriculturist's view.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 170._ Bole of Cedar of Lebanon.]
+
+[Illustration: Cedar of Lebanon.]
+
+The Cedar varies greatly--no tree more so--in height and general
+outline, according to situation and environment, and though the stature
+of well-grown trees in this country may be correctly stated as from 50
+to 80 feet, we are not without examples of 100 and 120 feet where the
+conditions have been specially favourable. There is one of 120 feet at
+Strathfieldsaye, and among the numerous fine Cedars at Goodwood there is
+the celebrated Great Cedar, 90 feet high, with a bole 25 feet in
+circumference, and a broad conical head whose base has a diameter of 130
+feet. But the Cedar, as usually seen on lawns and in parks, has a low,
+rounded, or flattened top, the great spreading arms having grown more
+rapidly than the trunk. Thus grown, the huge bole has seldom any great
+length, throwing out these timber branches at from six to ten feet from
+the ground, and immediately afterwards the trunk is divided into several
+stems. From these the main branches take a curving direction, at first
+ascending, but the part furthest from the trunk becoming almost
+horizontal. It is chiefly at the extremity of the branches that the
+branchlets and leaves are produced.
+
+The evergreen leaves last for three, four, or five years, and are of
+needle-shape, varying in length from a little less to a little more than
+an inch. They are produced in a similar manner to those of the Larch--in
+tufts that are arranged spirally round dwarf shoots, mostly on the upper
+side of the branchlets. The male flowers are to be found at the
+extremity of branchlets which, though six or seven years old, are very
+short, their development having been arrested. The solid, purple-brown
+cones are only three or four inches long, broad-topped, and with a
+diameter of about half the length; the scales thin and closely pressed
+together; they are at first greyish-green, tinged with pink. The
+development and maturity of these cones takes two or three seasons, and
+they remain on the tree for several years longer. The seeds are angular,
+with a wedge-shaped wing.
+
+The trees do not produce cones until they are from twenty-five to thirty
+years old; but they may be a century old before producing either male or
+female flowers.
+
+The trunk is covered with thick, rough, deeply fissured bark. On the
+branches the bark is smooth, and peels off in thin flakes. The Cedar, in
+its native habitat, produces admirable timber, but that of trees grown
+in our own country is described by Loudon as "reddish-white, light and
+spongy, easily worked, but very apt to shrink and warp, and by no means
+durable." For these reasons the tree is grown almost solely for
+ornament.
+
+The name Cedar is supposed to be derived from the Arabic _kedroum_, or
+_kèdre_ (power), and has reference to its majestic proportions and
+strong timber.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 171._ Deodar.]
+
+
+The Deodar, or Indian Cedar (_Cedrus deodara_).
+
+Although, as we have indicated, the differences between the Cedar of
+Lebanon and the Cedar of Himalaya are not such as can be scientifically
+accepted as constituting specific distinctness, they are sufficient to
+at once strike the ordinary observer. In proportion to the height of the
+trunk, for example, the main branches are much shorter, the result being
+a more regular pyramidal outline, terminating in a light spire. The
+terminal shoots of the branches are longer, more slender, and quite
+pendulous. These differences, though really slight, transform the rather
+heavy majesty of the Cedar, as represented by _C. libani_, into one of
+graceful beauty. Although the experience of sixty years has sadly
+falsified the high hopes entertained as to the suitability of the Deodar
+for cultivation in this country as a timber tree, its value for
+ornamental purposes and in landscape gardening has not been impaired.
+
+The headquarters of the Deodar are in the mountains of north-west India,
+where it forms forests at various altitudes above 3500 feet. Its
+vertical distribution, indeed, extends to a height of 12,000 feet, but
+its principal habitat lies between 6000 and 10,000 feet. Deodar timber
+produced in its native forests is exceedingly durable, being compact and
+even grained, not liable to warp or split, and standing the test of
+being alternately wet and dry. Loudon states that when a building, which
+had been erected by the Emperor Akbar in the latter part of the
+sixteenth century, was pulled down between 1820 and 1825, the Deodar
+timber used in its construction was found to be so sound that it was
+again used in building a house for Rajah Shah. And Brandis tells of very
+much more ancient bridges in Srunagar, whose piers are of Deodar wood,
+and appear to be as yet unaffected by decay.
+
+[Illustration: Deodar. A, cone.]
+
+It is to the Hon. W. L. Melville that we are indebted for the
+introduction of the Deodar to Britain in 1831, and during the next ten
+years many young trees were raised here from seeds. Favourably impressed
+by the rapidity of growth of these seedlings, the government, fearing a
+coming shortage of Oak for naval purposes, imported and distributed
+large numbers of Deodar seeds, and high estimates were formed of the
+future value of these trees. But in framing these estimates one
+important factor was omitted--the uncertainty of the British climate,
+with its rapid changes, "everything by turns, and nothing long." A score
+or two of years served to demonstrate that such conditions were opposed
+to the longevity and uniform development that produced sound timber on
+the Indian mountains; and to-day the Deodar is not mentioned among the
+trees that are to bring riches to the British timber grower. In spite
+of this failure, there are to be seen in many parts of these islands
+fine young Deodars of forty or fifty years, and from fifty to seventy
+feet in height.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 172._ Bole of Deodar.]
+
+There is no necessity for repeating the particulars already given
+respecting the Cedar of Lebanon, and which apply to the Deodar with such
+modifications as are indicated in the first paragraph above. Specimens
+grown where they have sufficient space for spreading out their long
+arms, retain their branches to the base of the trunk, and if these are
+cut off they can reproduce them. Several nursery varieties--with golden
+(_aurea_), silvery (_argentea_), or more intense green (_viridis_)
+foliage than the type--have appeared as a result of European
+cultivation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 173._ Lawson's Cypress.]
+
+
+Lawson's Cypress (_Cupressus lawsoniana_).
+
+Lawson's Cypress belongs to that section of Conifers which includes the
+Junipers and Thuias, and is a representative of the North American
+Sylva. It is a native of South Oregon and North California, where it is
+believed to have been first discovered by Jeffrey, about 1852. Two years
+later seeds were received by Messrs. Lawson, the Edinburgh nurserymen,
+from Mr. William Murray, and from these seeds were raised the first
+young trees of this species sent out by the firm. The name was bestowed
+in honour of Mr. Charles Lawson, the then head of the firm, and by this
+name it is generally known in Europe, but in the United States it is the
+Port Orford Cypress. At Port Orford, on the Oregon coast, according to
+Sargent, "it forms one of the most prolific and beautiful coniferous
+forests of the continent, unsurpassed in the variety and luxuriance of
+its undergrowth of Rhododendrons, Vacciniums, Raspberries, Buckthorns,
+and Ferns," and any one who has seen well-grown specimens in the
+pleasure-grounds of this country can easily realize something of the
+beauty of such a forest, though allowance has to be made for the fact
+that in forest growth the lower branches are lost at an early age.
+
+[Illustration: Lawson Cypress.]
+
+In its native home the Lawson Cypress attains a height of between 120
+and 150 feet, occasionally reaching 200 feet, with a base circumference
+of 40 feet. The thick brown bark splits into rounded scaly ridges. The
+short horizontal branches divide a good deal towards their leafy
+extremities, which are curved, and commonly drooping. The leaves are
+little evergreen scales, which overlap, and being closely pressed to the
+branchlet, completely clothe and hide it. They are bright dark-green in
+colour, and endure for three or four years. The male flowers are
+produced at the tips of short branchlets, formed a year earlier. They
+are of cylindric form, crimson in colour, and each stamen bears from two
+to six anther-cells. The small "cones" are more or less globular, but
+instead of a large number of spirally arranged overlapping scales, as in
+the Pines and Firs, here there are only eight, whose edges at first join
+to form a box. When the "cone" is ripe these scales separate, to allow
+the escape of the seeds.
+
+The Lawson Cypress produces a valuable wood, close-grained and strong,
+yet light. It is considered one of the most important timber trees of
+North America; but in this country it has been planted solely with a
+view to its ornamental qualities. Its perfect hardiness and its freedom
+of growth may, with longer experience than half a century affords, lead
+to its being regarded as a timber producer here also.
+
+The Common Cypress (_Cupressus sempervirens_) of the Mediterranean
+region and the East, of which poets have sung in all ages, has been
+cultivated in this country for at least three hundred and fifty years.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 174._ Bole of Lawson's Cypress.]
+
+
+The Chili Pine (_Araucaria imbricata_).
+
+The Chili Pine, or "Monkey Puzzle," is a familiar sight on suburban
+lawns, where, however, it seldom attains a large size or long retains
+health. The lower branches drop off, and the upper ones become brown, as
+though scorched. But away from the smoke-laden atmosphere and
+uncongenial soils, some handsome and massive Araucarias may be seen
+rising from fair lawns, with dense branches curving at their tips, and
+regularly disposed in whorls from the dome-like head of the tree to the
+grass at its base. Such was the magnificent specimen at Dropmore that
+died in 1902, such is the fine tree at Woodstock, Co. Kilkenny, which
+now presumably takes the position of eminence in these islands hitherto
+held by the Dropmore example.
+
+[Illustration: Chili Pine, and cone. A, seed, with attached wing.]
+
+The Chili Pine is a native of Southern Chili, where it was discovered by
+a Spaniard, Don F. Dendariarena, in 1780, as he was prospecting for
+timber. About the same time two other Spaniards, Drs. Ruiz and Pavon,
+were botanizing in Chili, and came across the Araucaria, of which they
+sent herbarium specimens to Europe. But in spite of this three-fold
+opportunity for Spain, the actual introduction of the Araucaria to
+Europe must be credited to Britain. Archibald Menzies, who accompanied
+Captain Vancouver as botanist on his celebrated voyage, came across the
+tree in Chili, and brought home both seeds and young plants. One of
+these became a fine tree at Kew, where it was for many years the object
+of admiration and interest, but it perished in 1892.
+
+[Illustration: _Pl. 175._ Chili Pine.]
+
+The Araucaria forms extensive pure forests in the province of Arauco,
+from which it gets its name, and to whose inhabitants the seeds are a
+most important item of their food-supply. Not only do the trees in these
+forests lose their lower branches, but even those growing in the open
+plains of their native country have similarly bare trunks for nearly
+half their height. It is therefore a satisfaction to know that the
+finest specimens grown in this country have really surpassed those grown
+in their natural home. The height reached by old trees is from eighty to
+a hundred feet, with a trunk-girth of from sixteen to twenty-three feet.
+The tapering of this trunk is very slight, and a few of the stiff,
+spine-tipped leaves, with which its younger extremity is densely
+clothed, still remain attached in a dried-up condition far down the
+column. These leaves will have been observed to entirely cover the
+branches, not being restricted, as in most trees, to the newly formed
+branchlets and twigs. They are very hard, and endure for about fifteen
+years; are about an inch and a quarter long, and overlap, though their
+sharp-pointed ends turn away from the branch.
+
+The cylindrical male flowers are four or five inches long, borne singly
+or in small clusters. It was formerly supposed that the sexes were on
+separate trees, but though many individuals only produce flowers of one
+kind, this is by no means the general rule. The female flowers are about
+four inches long, almost round in shape, but broader at the base than
+above. They are covered with long, narrow, overlapping scales, beneath
+which are found the seeds when the flower has developed into the brown
+cone, which is six inches in diameter. The scales are then easily
+detached; in fact, when the seeds are ripe, the cone falls to pieces.
+The seed is about an inch and a half long, enclosed in a hard, thin
+shell.
+
+The Chili Pine does not succeed in this country unless it is given pure
+air, sunshine, abundant moisture, and an open subsoil to carry it off.
+Yet it will grow to a very handsome tree if these conditions are
+observed. Very fine effects have been obtained in some places by
+planting an Araucaria grove. Such an avenue is in fine condition at
+Woodstock, Co. Kilkenny (running parallel with an avenue of _Abies
+nobilis_), every tree with its branches intact from turf to summit, and
+bearing fertile cones. There is a similar, but less perfectly preserved,
+Araucaria grove at Bicton in Devonshire.
+
+
+
+
+CLASSIFIED INDEX
+
+TO
+
+NATURAL ORDERS, GENERA AND SPECIES
+
+_Described in this work._
+
+
+  Order TILIACEÆ.
+
+  TILIA platyphyllos, Scop., 36, 40. _Plates_ 27, 28, 29, 30, 31
+    "   parvifolia, Ehrh., 37, 40
+    "   vulgaris, Hayne, 37, 40
+
+
+  Order ILICINEÆ.
+
+  ILEX aquifolium, L., 85. _Plates_ 81, 82, 83, 84
+
+
+  Order CELASTRINEÆ.
+
+  EUONYMUS europæus, L., 88. _Plates_ 85, 86, 87
+    "      japonicus, Thunb., 90
+    "      latifolius, C. Bauh., 90
+
+
+  Order RHAMNEÆ.
+
+  RHAMNUS catharticus, L., 90. _Plate_ 89
+    "     frangula, L., 91. _Plates_ 88, 90
+
+
+  Order SAPINDACEÆ.
+
+  ÆSCULUS hippocastanum, L., 139. _Plates_ 1, 144, 145, 146, 147
+    "     carnea, Willd., 143
+
+  ACER campestre, L., 49. _Plate_ 43
+    "  platanoides, L., 53
+    "  pseudo-platanus, L., 51. _Plates_ 44, 45, 46, 47, 48
+
+
+  Order LEGUMINOSÆ.
+
+  LABURNUM vulgare, Presl., 145. _Plate_ 149
+
+  ROBINIA pseudacacia, L., 147. _Plates_ 150, 151, 152
+
+
+  Order ROSACEÆ.
+
+  PRUNUS communis, Hudson, 92. _Plates_ 92, 93
+    "    insititia, L., 94
+    "    domestica, L., 94. _Plate_ 91
+    "    avium, L., 95. _Plates_ 94, 95
+    "    cerasus, L., 97
+    "    padus, L., 98. _Plates_ 96, 97, 99
+
+  PYRUS communis, L., 98. _Plates_ 100, 102, 103
+    "   cordata, Desv., 100
+    "   malus, L., 101. _Plates_ 98, 101, 104, 105, 106
+    "   aria, Ehrh., 103. _Plates_ 107, 108, 109, 110
+    "   latifolia, Syme, 105
+    "   scandica, Syme, 105
+    "   torminalis, DC., 105
+    "   aucuparia, Gaert., 106. _Plates_ 111, 112, 113, 114
+    "   sorbus, Gaert., 109. _Plates_ 115, 117, 119
+    "   germanica, Hook., 110. _Plate_ 116
+
+  CRATÆGUS oxyacantha, Pall., 112. _Plates_ 118, 120, 121, 122, 123
+
+
+  Order CORNACEÆ.
+
+  CORNUS sanguinea, L., 116. _Plates_ 125, 126
+    "    suecica, L., 118
+
+
+  Order CAPRIFOLIACEÆ.
+
+  SAMBUCUS nigra, L., 123. _Plates_ 129, 131
+
+  VIBURNUM opulus, L., 120. _Plate_ 130
+    "      lantana, L., 118. _Plates_ 127, 128
+
+
+  Order ERICACEÆ.
+
+  ARBUTUS unedo, L., 114. _Plate_ 124
+
+
+  Order OLEACEÆ.
+
+  FRAXINUS excelsior, L., 45. _Plates_ 39, 40, 41, 42
+
+
+  Order LAURACEÆ.
+
+  LAURUS nobilis, L., 143. _Plate_ 148
+
+
+  Order EUPHORBIACEÆ.
+
+  BUXUS sempervirens, L., 125. _Plates_ 132, 133
+
+
+  Order URTICACEÆ.
+
+  ULMUS montana, Stokes, 40. _Plates_ 32, 33, 34, 35
+    "   campestris, L., 43. _Plates_ 36, 37, 38
+
+
+  Order PLATANACEÆ.
+
+  PLATANUS orientalis, L., 128. _Plates_ 134, 135, 136
+    "      occidentalis, L., 129
+
+
+  Order JUGLANDACEÆ.
+
+  JUGLANS regia, L., 131. _Plates_ 137, 138, 139
+
+
+  Order CUPULIFERÆ.
+
+  BETULA alba, L., 25. _Plates_ 13, 14, 15, 16
+    "    verrucosa, Ehrh., 28
+    "    pubescens, Ehrh., 28
+    "    nana, L., 28
+
+  ALNUS glutinosa, Medic., 29. _Plates_ 17, 18, 19, 20
+
+  CARPINUS betulus, L., 31. _Plates_ 21, 22, 23, 24
+
+  CORYLUS avellana, L., 34. _Plates_ 25, 26
+
+  QUERCUS robur, L., 13. _Plates_ 2, 3, 4, 5, 10
+    "     ilex, L., 18. _Plate_ 6
+    "     cerris, L., 19. _Plate_ 7
+
+  CASTANEA sativa, Mill., 135. _Plates_ 140, 141, 142, 143
+
+  FAGUS sylvatica, L., 20. _Plates_ 8, 9, 11, 12
+
+
+  Order SALICINEÆ.
+
+  SALIX triandra, L., 66. _Plates_ 66, 67
+    "   pentandra, L., 66. _Plates_ 68, 69, 70
+    "   fragilis, L., 63. _Plates_ 59, 60, 61
+    "   russelliana, Sm., 64
+    "   alba, L., 65. _Plates_ 62, 63, 64, 65
+    "   cinerea, L., 68
+    "   aurita, L., 68
+    "   caprea, L., 67
+    "   repens, L., 69
+    "   nigricans, Sm., 69
+    "   phylicifolia, L., 70
+    "   arbuscula, L., 72
+    "   viminalis, L., 70
+    "   reticulata, L., 72
+    "   purpurea, L., 71. _Plates_ 71, 72
+    "   lanata, L., 71
+    "   sadleri, Syme, 71
+    "   lapponum, L., 72
+    "   myrsinites, L., 72
+    "   herbacea, L., 72
+    "   babylonica, Hort., 73
+
+  POPULUS alba, L., 55. _Plates_ 49, 50, 51
+    "     canescens, Sm., 56
+    "     tremula, L., 56. _Plate_ 52
+    "     nigra, L., 58. _Plates_ 53, 54, 55
+    "     fastigiata, Desf., 60. _Plates_ 56, 57, 58
+    "     balsamifera, L., 61
+    "     monilifera, Hort., 61
+
+
+  Order TAXACEÆ.
+
+  TAXUS baccata, L., 74. _Plates_ 73, 74, 76
+
+
+  Order CONIFERÆ.
+
+  JUNIPERUS communis, L., 79. _Plates_ 75, 77
+    "       bermudiana, L., 81
+    "       virginiana, L., 81
+
+  CUPRESSUS lawsoniana, Murr., 169. _Plates_ 173, 174
+
+  ARAUCARIA imbricata, Pav., 171. _Plate_ 175
+
+  PICEA excelsa, Link., 155. _Plates_ 159, 160, 163
+
+  CEDRUS deodara, Loud., 167. _Plates_ 171, 172
+    "    libani, Loud., 164. _Plates_ 169, 170
+
+  LARIX europæa, DC., 149. _Plates_ 153, 154, 155, 156
+
+  ABIES pectinata, DC., 152. _Plates_ 157, 158
+
+  PSEUDOTSUGA douglasii, Carr, 157. _Plates_ 161, 162
+
+  PINUS sylvestris, L., 81. _Plates_ 78, 79, 80
+    "   laricio, Poir., 162. _Plates_ 166, 167, 168
+    "   pinea, L., 160. _Plates_ 164, 165
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+  Abele, 55. _Plates_ 49, 50, 51
+
+  _Abies pectinata_, 152. _Plates_ 157, 158
+
+  _Acer campestre_, 49. _Plate_ 43
+    "  _platanoides_, 53
+    "  _pseudoplatanus_, 51. _Plates_ 44, 45, 46
+
+  _Æsculus carnea_, 143
+    "     _hippocastanum_, 139. _Plates_ 1, 144, 145, 146, 147
+
+  Alder, 29, _Plates_ 17, 18, 19, 20;
+    Berry-bearing Alder, 91, _Plates_ 88, 90
+
+  _Alnus glutinosa_, 29. _Plates_ 17, 18, 19, 20
+
+  Apple, Wild, 101. _Plates_ 98, 101, 104, 105, 106
+
+  _Araucaria imbricata_, 171. _Plate_ 175
+
+  _Arbutus unedo_, 114. _Plate_ 124
+
+  Ash, 45, _Plates_ 39, 40, 41, 42;
+    Mountain Ash, 106, _Plates_ 111, 112, 113, 114
+
+  Aspen, 56. _Plate_ 52
+
+  Austrian Pine, 162. _Plates_ 166, 167, 168
+
+
+  Bay Tree, 143. _Plate_ 148
+
+  Beech, 20. _Plates_ 8, 9, 11, 12
+
+  _Betula alba_, 25. _Plates_ 13, 14, 15, 16
+    "    _nana_, 28
+
+  Birch, 25, _Plates_ 13, 14, 15, 16;
+    Dwarf Birch, 28
+
+  Blackthorn, 92. _Plates_ 92, 93
+
+  Box, 125. _Plates_ 132, 133
+
+  Buckthorns, 90;
+    Breaking Buckthorn, 91, _Plates_ 88, 90;
+    Purging Buckthorn, 90, _Plate_ 89
+
+  Bullace, 94
+
+  _Buxus sempervirens_, 125. _Plates_ 132, 133
+
+
+  _Carpinus betulus_, 31. _Plates_ 21, 22, 23, 24
+
+  _Castanea sativa_, 135. _Plates_ 140, 141, 142, 143
+
+  Cedar of Lebanon, 164, _Plates_ 169, 170;
+    Indian Cedar, 167, _Plates_ 171, 172;
+    Red Cedar, 81
+
+  _Cedrus deodara_, 167. _Plates_ 171, 172
+    "    _libani_, 164. _Plates_ 169, 170
+
+  Cherry, Wild, 95, _Plates_ 94, 95;
+    Dwarf Cherry, 97;
+    Bird Cherry, 98, _Plates_ 96, 97, 99
+
+  Chestnut, Horse, 139, _Plates_ 1, 144, 145, 146, 147;
+    Sweet Chestnut, 135. _Plates_ 140, 141, 142, 143
+
+  Chili Pine, 171. _Plate_ 175
+
+  Conifers, Native, 73;
+    Exotic, 149
+
+  Cornel, 116;
+    Dwarf Cornel, 118
+
+  _Cornus sanguinea_, 116. _Plates_ 125, 126
+    "    _suecica_, 118
+
+  _Corylus avellana_, 34. _Plates_ 25, 26
+
+  Crab, 101. _Plates_ 98, 101, 104, 105, 106
+
+  _Cratægus oxyacantha_, 112. _Plates_ 118, 120, 121, 122, 123
+
+  _Cupressus lawsoniana_, 169. _Plates_ 173, 174
+
+
+  Deodar, 167. _Plates_ 171, 172
+
+  Dogwood, 116. _Plates_ 125, 126
+
+  Douglas Fir, 157. _Plates_ 161, 162
+
+
+  Elder, 123. _Plates_ 129, 131
+
+  Elms, 40;
+    Wych Elm, 40, _Plates_ 32, 33, 34, 35;
+    Common Elm, 43, _Plates_ 36, 37, 38
+
+  _Euonymus europæus_, 88. _Plates_ 85, 86, 87
+    "      _japonicus_, 90
+    "      _latifolius_, 90
+
+
+  _Fagus sylvatica_, 20. _Plates_ 8, 9, 11, 12
+
+  False Acacia, 147. _Plates_ 150, 151, 152
+
+  False Plane, 51. _Plates_ 44, 45, 46, 47, 48
+
+  Fir, Douglas, 157. _Plates_, 161, 162;
+    Silver Fir, 152. _Plates_ 157, 158;
+    Spruce Fir, 155. _Plates_ 159, 160, 163
+
+  Fraxinus excelsior, 45. _Plates_ 39, 40, 41, 42
+
+
+  Gean, 96. _Plates_ 94, 95
+
+  Guelder Rose, 120. _Plate_ 130
+
+
+  Hawthorn, 112. _Plates_ 118, 120, 121, 122, 123
+
+  Hazel, 34. _Plates_ 25, 26
+
+  Holly, 85. _Plates_ 81, 82, 83, 84
+
+  Holm Oak, 18. _Plate_ 6
+
+  Hornbeam, 31. _Plates_ 21, 22, 23, 24
+
+  Horse Chestnut, 139. _Plates_ 1, 144, 145, 146, 147;
+    Red-flowered Horse Chestnut, 143
+
+
+  _Ilex aquifolium_, 85. _Plates_ 81, 82, 83, 84
+
+
+  _Juglans regia_, 131. _Plates_ 137, 138, 139
+
+  Juniper, 79. _Plates_ 75, 77;
+    Virginian Juniper, 81
+
+  _Juniperus bermudiana_, 81
+    "       _communis_, 79. _Plates_ 75, 77
+    "       _virginiana_, 81
+
+
+  Laburnum, 145. _Plate_ 149;
+    White Laburnum, 147
+
+  _Laburnum vulgare_, 145. _Plate_ 149
+
+  Larch, 149. _Plates_ 153, 154, 155, 156
+
+  _Larix europæa_, 149. _Plates_ 153, 154, 155, 156
+
+  _Laurus nobilis_, 143. _Plate_ 148
+
+  Lawson's Cypress, 169. _Plates_ 173, 174
+
+  Lime, 36. _Plates_ 27, 28, 29, 30, 31
+
+  Locust Tree, 147. _Plates_ 150, 151, 152
+
+
+  Maples, 49;
+    Field or Common, 49. _Plate_ 43;
+    Great Maple, 51. _Plates_ 44, 45, 46, 47, 48;
+    Norway Maple, 53
+
+  May, 112. _Plates_ 118, 120, 121, 122, 123
+
+  Medlar, 110. _Plate_ 116
+
+  Monkey Puzzle, 171. _Plate_ 175
+
+
+  Norway Maple, 53
+
+
+  Oak, 13. _Plates_ 2, 3, 4, 5, 10;
+    Holm Oak, 18. _Plate_ 6;
+    Turkey Oak, 19. _Plate_ 7
+
+  Osier, 70;
+    Purple Osier, 71. _Plates_ 71, 72
+
+
+  Pear, Wild, 98. _Plates_ 100, 102, 103
+
+  _Picea excelsa_, 155. _Plates_ 159, 160, 163
+
+  Pine, Austrian, 162. _Plates_, 166, 167, 168;
+    Chili Pine, 171. _Plate_ 175;
+    Scots Pine, 81. _Plates_ 78, 79, 80;
+    Stone Pine, 160. _Plates_ 164, 165
+
+  _Pinus laricio_, 162. _Plates_ 166, 167, 168
+    "   _pinea_, 160. _Plates_ 164, 165
+    "   _sylvestris_, 81. _Plates_ 78, 79, 80
+
+  Planes, 128;
+    Oriental Plane, 128;
+    Occidental Plane, 129;
+    Maple-leaved Plane, 131. _Plates_ 134, 135, 136
+
+  _Platanus occidentalis_, 129
+    "      _orientalis_, 128. _Plates_ 134, 135, 136
+
+  Plums, Wild, 92, 94. _Plates_ 91, 92, 93
+
+  Poplars, 54;
+    White Poplar, 55. _Plates_ 49, 50, 51;
+    Grey Poplar, 55;
+    Black Poplar, 58. _Plates_ 53, 54, 55;
+    Lombardy Poplar, 60. _Plates_ 56, 57, 58;
+    Black Italian Poplar, 61;
+    Balsam Poplar, 61
+
+  _Populus alba_, 55. _Plates_ 49, 50, 51
+    "     _balsamifera_, 61
+    "     _canescens_, 55
+    "     _fastigiata_, 60. _Plates_ 56, 57, 58
+    "     _monilifera_, 61
+    "     _nigra_, 58. _Plates_ 53, 54, 55
+    "     _tremula_, 56. _Plate_ 52
+
+  _Prunus avium_, 95. _Plates_ 94, 95
+    "    _cerasus_, 97
+    "    _communis_, 92. _Plates_ 92, 93
+    "    _domestica_, 94. _Plate_ 91
+    "    _insititia_, 94
+    "    _padus_, 98. _Plates_ 96, 97, 99
+
+  _Pseudotsuga douglasii_, 157. _Plates_ 161, 162
+
+  _Pyrus aria_, 103. _Plates_ 107, 108, 109, 110
+    "   _aucuparia_, 106. _Plates_ 111, 112, 113, 114
+    "   _communis_, 98. _Plates_ 100, 102, 103
+    "   _cordata_, 100
+    "   _germanica_, 110. Plate 116
+    "   _latifolia_, 105
+    "   _malus_, 101. _Plates_ 98, 101, 104, 105, 106
+    "   _scandica_, 105
+    "   _sorbus_, 109. _Plates_ 115, 117, 119
+    "   _torminalis_, 105
+
+
+  _Quercus cerris_, 19. _Plate_ 7
+    "     _ilex_, 18. _Plate_ 6
+    "     _robur_, 13. _Plates_ 2, 3, 4, 5, 10
+
+
+  _Rhamnus catharticus_, 90. _Plate_ 89
+    "     _frangula_, 91. _Plates_ 88, 90
+
+  _Robinia pseudacacia_, 147. _Plates_ 150, 151, 152
+
+  Rowan, 106. _Plates_ 111, 112, 113, 114
+
+
+  _Salix alba_, 65. _Plates_ 62, 63, 64, 65
+    "   _arbuscula_, 72
+    "   _aurita_, 68
+    "   _babylonica_, 73
+    "   _capræa_, 67
+    "   _cinerea_, 67
+    "   _fragilis_, 63. _Plates_ 59, 60, 61
+    "   _herbacea_, 72
+    "   _lanata_, 71
+    "   _lapponum_, 72
+    "   _myrsinites_, 72
+    "   _nigricans_, 69
+
+  _Salix pentandra_, 66. _Plates_ 68, 69, 70
+    "   _phylicifolia_, 70
+    "   _purpurea_, 71. _Plates_ 71, 72
+    "   _repens_, 69
+    "   _reticulata_, 72
+    "   _russelliana_, 64
+    "   _sadleri_, 71
+    "   _triandra_, 65. _Plates_ 66, 67
+    "   _viminalis_, 70
+
+  Sallow, 67;
+    Grey Sallow, 68;
+    Eared Sallow, 68
+
+  _Sambucus nigra_, 123. _Plates_ 129, 131
+
+  Scots Pine, 81. _Plates_ 78, 79, 80
+
+  Service, Wild, 105;
+    True Service, 109. _Plates_ 115, 117, 119
+
+  Silver Fir, 152. _Plates_ 157, 158
+
+  Sloe, 92. Plates 92, 93
+
+  Spindle-tree, 88. _Plates_ 85, 86, 87
+
+  Spruce Fir, 155. _Plates_ 159, 160, 163
+
+  Stone Pine, 160. _Plates_ 164, 165
+
+  Strawberry-tree, 114. _Plate_ 124
+
+  Sweet Chestnut, 135. _Plates_ 140, 141, 142, 143
+
+  Sycamore, 51. _Plates_ 44, 45, 46, 47, 48
+
+
+  Tacamahac, 61
+
+  _Tilia parvifolia_, 37, 40
+    "   _platyphyllos_, 36, 40. _Plates_ 27, 28, 29, 30, 31
+    "   _vulgaris_, 37, 40
+
+  Turkey Oak, 19. _Plate_ 7
+
+
+  _Ulmus campestris_, 43. _Plates_ 36, 37, 38
+    "   _montana_, 40. _Plates_ 32, 33, 34, 35
+
+
+  _Viburnum lantana_, 118. _Plates_ 127, 128
+    "      _opulus_, 120. _Plate_ 130
+
+
+  Walnut, 131. _Plates_ 137, 138, 139
+
+  Wayfaring-tree, 118. _Plates_ 127, 128
+
+  White Beam, 103. _Plates_ 107, 108, 109, 110
+
+  Whitethorn, 112. _Plates_ 118, 120, 121, 122, 123
+
+  Willows, 61;
+    Crack Willow, 63. _Plates_ 59, 60, 61;
+    Bedford Willow, 64;
+    White Willow, 65. _Plates_ 62, 63, 64, 65;
+    Golden Willow, 65;
+    Almond-leaved Willow, 66. _Plates_ 66, 67;
+    French Willow, 66;
+    Bay-leaved Willow, 67. _Plates_ 68, 69, 70;
+    Dwarf Silky Willow, 69;
+    Dark-leaved Willow, 69;
+    Tea-leaved Willow, 70;
+    Woolly Willow, 71;
+    Sadler's Willow, 71;
+    Lapland Willow, 72;
+    Whortle-leaved Willow, 72;
+    Small Tree Willow, 72;
+    Least Willow, 72;
+    Net-leaved Willow, 72;
+    Weeping Willow, 73
+
+  Withy, 63. _Plates_ 59, 60, 61
+
+  Wych Elm, 40. _Plates_ 33, 34, 35
+
+
+  Yew, 74. _Plates_ 73, 74, 76;
+    Irish Yew, 79
+
+
+THE END.
+
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
+
+
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