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Title: Wayside and woodland trees
a pocket guide to the British sylva

Author: Edward Step

Release date: December 23, 2010 [eBook #34740]

Language: English

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WOODLAND TREES ***

Transcriber's Note

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,...)

TITLE PAGE.
PREFACE.
INTRODUCTORY.
PART I. Native Trees and Shrubs.
PART II. Exotic Trees and Shrubs.
CLASSIFIED INDEX.
INDEX.

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.

Pl. 1. Frontispiece.
Flowers of Horse Chestnut.

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.

Pl. 2.
Oak—summer.

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.
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
Oak.
holds the acorn.
A, female flower; B, male flowers.
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.

Pl. 4.
Bole of Oak.

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.

Pl. 6.
Holm Oak.

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."

Pl. 8.
Fruit of Beech.

Pl. 9.
Beech—summer.

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.

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.

Pl. 12.
Beech—winter.
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 Leaves, flowers, and fruit of Beech.
attains the dimensions A, female; B, male flowers.
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.

Pl. 13.
Birch—summer.

Pl. 14.
Bole of Birch.

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.
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
Birch leaves and catkins.
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.

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.

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.
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 Alder.
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.
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.

Pl. 18.
Catkins of Alder.

Pl. 19.
Bole of Alder.

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.

Pl. 21.
Hornbeam—summer.
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 Hornbeam.
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.

Pl. 22.
Hornbeam—winter.

Pl. 23.
Bole of Hornbeam.

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.

Pl. 25.
Hazel Catkins.

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 Hazel.
the winter they A, female flowers; B, male flowers.
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.

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.

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 Lime.
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.

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.
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.

Pl. 28.
Flowers of Lime.

Pl. 29.
Fruits of Lime.

Pl. 30.
Bole of Lime.

Pl. 31.
Lime—winter.
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!

Pl. 32.
Wych Elm—summer.

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, Wych Elm.
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.

Pl. 34.
Bole of Wych Elm.

Pl. 35.
Wych Elm—winter.

Pl. 36.
Common Elm—summer.

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.
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 Common Elm.
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.
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.

Pl. 38.
Common Elm—winter.

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.
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 Ash.
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
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 Field Maple.
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.

Pl. 44.
Fruits of Sycamore.

Pl. 45.
Sycamore—summer.
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 Sycamore.
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.

Pl. 46.
Leaf-buds of Sycamore.

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.

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).

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
diœcious. 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.
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 White Poplar, or Abele.
case of the Poplars they A, female catkin.
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.

Pl. 50.
White Poplar—summer.

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.
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 Aspen.
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.

Pl. 52.
Catkins of Aspen.

Pl. 53.
Black Poplar—summer.

Pl. 54.
Bole of Black Poplar.

Pl. 55.
Black Poplar—winter.
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 Black Poplar.
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.

Pl. 56.
Lombardy Poplar—summer.

Pl. 57.
Bole of Lombardy Poplar.

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.

Pl. 59.
Crack Willow—summer.

Pl. 60.
Bole of Crack Willow.

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 Crack Willow.
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.
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.

Pl. 62.
White Willow—summer.

Pl. 63.
Flowers of 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 White Willow.
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.

Pl. 64.
Bole of White Willow.

Pl. 65.
White Willow—winter.

Pl. 66.
Almond-leaved Willow—summer.

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.

Pl. 68.
Bay-leaved Willow—summer.

Pl. 69.
Bay-leaved Willow—winter.

Pl. 70.
Bole of Bay-leaved Willow.

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 Sallow.
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.
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
Osier.
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.
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.

Pl. 71.
Purple Osier—summer.

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.

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.
We have already
mentioned that the Yew
is a diœcious 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
Yew.
greater part of the tree.
The male catkin is A, male flowers.
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.

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.

Pl. 75.
Juniper.

Pl. 76.
Fruits of Yew.

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.
Juniper in fruit.
To appreciate the A, flowers.
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.
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.

Pl. 78.
Scots Pine.

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
Scots Pine.
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.
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.

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."

Pl. 81.
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 Holly.
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.

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.

Pl. 83.
Fruits of Holly.

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.

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 fœtid odour, the
juice is acrid, and said Spindle-tree.
to be poisonous—a A, flowers.
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.
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.

Pl. 86.
Flowers of Spindle.

Pl. 87.
Fruits of Spindle-tree.

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 Purging Buckthorn.
Westmoreland, A, flowers.
showing a decided
preference for chalky
soils. In Ireland it only occurs rarely.
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.

Pl. 88.
Breaking Buckthorn.

Pl. 89.
Fruits of Purging Buckthorn.

Pl. 90.
Fruits of Breaking Buckthorn.

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.

Pl. 91.
Flowers of Wild Plum.

Pl. 92.
Sloes.

Pl. 93.
Blackthorn—spring.

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 Blackthorn.
yet, when the tight A, flowers.
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.

Pl. 94.
Gean in flower.

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.
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 Gean.
pale green. Soon after A, fruit; B, flower.
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.

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 Wild Cherry.
Cherry, the May Duke, A, fruit; B, flower.
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.

Pl. 96.
Bird Cherry—spring.

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.

Pl. 98.
Flowers of Wild Apple.

Pl. 99.
Bird Cherry—winter.

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.
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 Wild Pear.
five styles, which ripen A, flower.
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.

Pl. 101.
Wild Apples.

Pl. 102.
Bole of Wild Pear.

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 Crab or Wild Apple.
bark is not very rough, A, flower; B, fruit.
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.
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.
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.

Pl. 104.
Wild Apple—summer.

Pl. 105.
Wild Apple—winter.

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.

Pl. 107.
White Beam—spring.

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 White Beam.
across, and gathered A, fruits.
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.

Pl. 108.
Flowers of White Beam.

Pl. 109.
Bole of White Beam.

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.

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 Rowan, or Mountain Ash.
shooting. All the A, portion of flower-cluster.
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.
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."
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.

Pl. 112.
Bole of Rowan.

Pl. 113.
Flowers of Rowan.

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.

Pl. 115.
True Service Tree—spring.

Pl. 116.
Fruit of Medlar.

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.
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 Medlar.
are large and A, flower.
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.

Pl. 118.
Fruits of Hawthorn.

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.
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 Hawthorn, or May.
yellow occasionally, as A, fruit ("haws").
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.

Pl. 120.
Hawthorn—summer.

Pl. 121.
Flowers of Hawthorn—"May."

Pl. 122.
Bole of Hawthorn.

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
Strawberry-tree.
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.
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.

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.

Pl. 125.
Fruits of Dogwood.
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.
Dogwood, or Cornel.
A, flowers; B, berries.

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.

Pl. 127.
Fruits of Wayfaring-tree.
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, Wayfaring-tree.
which are three or four A, portion of flower-cluster.
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.

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 Guelder Rose.
the flower-cluster more A, fruit; B, flowers.
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.
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.

Pl. 129.
Elder.

Pl. 130.
Fruits of Guelder Rose.

Pl. 131.
Flowers of Elder.

The Elder (Sambucus nigra).

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
Elder.
purpose of rapidly
A, berries; B, portion of flower-cluster.
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.

Pl. 132.
Box Trees.

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 Box.
styles, and in each cell A, male flowers; B, female flower.
there are one or two
black seeds.
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.

Pl. 134.
Plane Tree—summer.

Pl. 135.
Bole of Plane Tree.
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 Oriental Plane.
(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.

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."

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.
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 Walnut.
upon in the southern A, female flowers; B, male flowers.
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.

Pl. 138.
Fruit of Walnut.

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.

Pl. 140.
Sweet Chestnut—summer.

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.
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 Sweet Chestnut.
lower part of the A, fruit.
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.

Pl. 142.
Flowers of Sweet Chestnut.

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.
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 Horse Chestnut.

three cells. In each cell A, flower; B, fruit.
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."

Pl. 144.
Horse Chestnut—summer.

Pl. 145.
Fruits of Horse Chestnut.

Pl. 146.
Bole of Horse Chestnut.

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 Bay.
arbours and arches. We A, flower; B, fruit.
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.
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.

Pl. 148.
Bay.

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 Laburnum.
may attain to thirty feet A, seed-pod.
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.
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.

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. False Acacia, or Locust Tree.
A, seed-pod.

Pl. 150.
Locust Tree—summer.

Pl. 151.
Bole of Locust Tree.

Pl. 152.
Locust—winter.

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.

Pl. 153.
Larch—summer.

Pl. 154.
Larch—winter.

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.
Larch.
The brown cones are egg- A, flower.
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.

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.

Pl. 157.
Silver Fir.
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 Silver Fir.
consist of two or three A, cone.
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.

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.

Pl. 158.
Bole of Silver Fir.

Pl. 159.
Spruce Firs.

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.
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 Spruce Fir.
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.

Pl. 161.
Douglas Fir.

Pl. 162.
Bole of Douglas Fir.

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.
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 Douglas Fir.
well-marked varieties A, female flower; B, male flower.
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.

Pl. 164.
Stone Pine.

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- Stone Pine, cone and leaves.
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.

Pl. 166.
Austrian Pine.

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.
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.
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 Austrian Pine.
grain, is very durable, and useful
for outside work.

Pl. 168.
Cones of Austrian Pine.

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.

Pl. 170.
Bole of 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 Cedar of Lebanon.
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.

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, Deodar.
being compact and A, cone.
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.
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.
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.

Pl. 172.
Bole of Deodar.

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.
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 Lawson Cypress.
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.

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.

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.

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 Chili Pine, and cone.
clothed, still remain A, seed, with attached wing.
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.

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