to allow the formation of a very remarkable grove. The parent tree was
described by Loudon as covering a quarter of an acre in 1820; the boughs
have drooped so as to root themselves, and have risen again, forming
trees 80 and 90 feet high, which in their turn have repeated the
process, forming a second circle of trees 20 to 40 feet high, and these
again are engaged in forming a third concentric circle, the total
diameter of the grove, all connected with the central stem, being 36
yards. The great lime at Gordon Castle, known as the Duchess's Tree, has
behaved in a similar way; but, as the supplementary growths have not
been trained into trees as at Knole, the whole forms a dense thicket,
impenetrable save where a passage has been kept clear to the interior. A
tree of this description covers almost enough ground, if not for a small
holding, at least for an allotment, for the total circumference of this
mass of branches is 480 feet or 160 yards.
It is as an avenue tree that the lime is seen at its best, disputing
pre-eminence for that purpose with the beech. Moreover, although the
beech must be accounted the more beautiful tree, its rival has advantage
over it in the delicious fragrance of its blossom, which is produced in
great profusion, powerfully attractive to bees. Strange to say, although
the fragrant flowers are of a pale yellowish, greenish white, the honey
extracted from them is deep brown, darker than heather honey, and of
inferior flavour.
Fine avenues of limes are innumerable in Britain, many of them being
over 200 years old. At Newhouse Park, Devon, Mr. Elwes describes a
remarkable one, which was planted about 200 years ago as an approach to
a house which never was built. The rows are only 20 feet apart, and the
trees, which are only 10 feet apart in the rows, have risen to an
immense height, averaging over 120 feet.
Among other notable lime avenues may be noted those at Stratton Park,
Hants (Lord Northbrook's); Cassiobury, Herts (Lord Essex's), said to
have been planted by Le Notre, the designer of the gardens at
Versailles; at Braxted Park, Essex (Mr. Du Cane's), composed of three
rows on each side; at Wollaton Hall, Notts, and Birdsall, Yorks (both
places belonging to Lord Middleton). In all these avenues the trees
range from 120 to 130 feet high; but none can compete in length with an
avenue planted at Clumber by the Duke of Newcastle in 1840, which is
only 200 yards short of two miles long. Unfortunately, these trees were
planted far too wide apart in the rows, 31 feet from tree to tree, and,
having been afterwards neglected in the matter of training, have
squandered their luxuriance in bushy growth. To form a fine avenue
timely pruning is indispensable.
The lime, being more tolerant than the beech of drought, parching heat
and a smoky atmosphere, thrives vigorously in towns of moderate size,
and also in large cities where the chief fuel is not coal. The
well-known thoroughfare, Unter-den-Linden, in Berlin, corresponds to the
Mall in London. I have not identified the species with which it is
planted; certainly of late years they have been planting in Berlin a
natural hybrid known as the smooth-leaved lime (_T. euchlora_), which
has the merit of keeping its glossy foliage later in autumn than the
common lime. The trees in Unter-den-Linden are remarkable neither for
size nor vigour, but they provide grateful shade and verdure in summer.
[Illustration: WEEPING WHITE LIME (_Tilia petiolaris_)
AT WAKEHURST PLACE]
The atmosphere of Berlin is certainly not so hurtful to tree growth as
that of London, where poplars, planes, ailanthus, and acacia (_Robinia_)
are practically the only forest trees that can do battle successfully
with the parching heat and stifling fogs of that city; conditions which
the limes that used to stand in the Mall resented by casting their
foliage in disgust before August was sped. The limes in the Cathedral
close of Winchester afford an example of felicitous association of
foliage with noble architecture. Perhaps there is a remembrance of them
in Tennyson's _Gardeners' Daughter_:--
Over many a range
Of waning lime the gray cathedral towers,
Across a hazy glimmer of the west,
Reveal'd their shining windows.
The smooth white timber of lime was once in much more request than it is
now. Pliny praises it as worm-proof and useful, describing how the inner
bark was woven into ropes, as it now is into bast for the mats with
which gardeners protect their frames from frost. These mats are chiefly
made in and exported from Russia. Lime timber, being less liable to
split than other woods, was the favourite material for wood-carving;
indeed, Evelyn writes of it as being used exclusively in their work:--
"Because of its colour and easy working, and that it is not subject
to split, architects make with it models for their designed
buildings; and the carvers in wood use it, not only for small
figures, but for large statues and entire histories in bass and
high relieve; witness, beside several more, the festoons,
fruitages, and other sculptures of admirable invention and
performance to be seen about the choir of St. Paul's and other
churches, Royal Palaces, and noble houses in city and country; all
of them the works and invention of our Lysippus, Mr. [Grinling]
Gibbons, comparable, and for aught appears equal, to anything of
the antients. Having had the honour (for so I account it) to be the
first who recommended this great artist to His Majesty Charles II.,
I mention it on this occasion with much satisfaction."
It is owing to the neglect of British planters and the consequent
irregularity of the home timber trade that this fine timber has been
ousted from its former pre-eminence by imports of other kinds.
In writing of the common lime, I have used the scientific name, _Tilia
europæa_ as conferred on it by Linnæus, rather than the more recent
title of _T. vulgaris_. There seems a special reason for retaining the
old name, inasmuch as Linnæus considered his own family name was derived
from the linden tree.
[Illustration: ENGLISH ELM (_Ulmus campestris_)]
The Elms
It is a matter of doubtful argument how many species go to compose the
genus Elm--_Ulmus_--owing to the uncertainty of distinguishing true
permanent species from varieties and natural hybrids. Foremost botanists
have differed widely on the question; for whereas Bentham and Hooker
recognised in 1887 only two true species growing naturally in the United
Kingdom, Elwes and Henry describe five native species, besides nine
varieties of the wych elm, as many of the English elm, and no fewer than
thirteen varieties of _Ulmus nitens_, a species hitherto classed as a
form of the English elm.
The distribution of the elm family is somewhat peculiar, extending all
the way from Japan, through Northern China and Europe to North America,
but not crossing to the Western States; nor is any species to be found
south of the temperate zone, except in the mountain ranges of Southern
Mexico. Of all the cities of the New World, Boston reminds the British
traveller more vividly of home scenes than any other, by reason of the
massive English elms which enrich the landscape. Pity it is that we
cannot return the compliment by planting the beautiful white elm
(_Ulmus Americana_), the glory of Washington city, for it does not take
kindly to our island climate.
The elm with which we are most familiar in the North is the wych elm
(_U. montana_), easily to be distinguished from the English elm by the
fact that it throws up no suckers from the root, whereas the English elm
hardly ever ripens seed, and propagates itself entirely by suckers which
it sends out as colonists to an astonishing distance--50 yards and more.
There are exceedingly few authentic records of the English elm ripening
seed in Great Britain; on the other hand, the wych elm sometimes
produces a prodigious crop. In the spring of 1909 this tree presented a
curious appearance. The foregoing summer had been a very warm one,
stimulating the wych elm to such extraordinary efforts at reproduction
that, before the leaves appeared, the trees seemed to be covered with
fresh young foliage, which was really the crowded leaf-like seed
vessels. In June these leaf-like membranes had become dry scales, each
acting as parachute to a single seed, so that, under a hot sun and a
high wind, the air was full of them--so full that they actually choked
the eave-gutters of my house. Each of these little monoplanes carried
the potentiality of a majestic forest tree; given a suitable
resting-place, any one of these minute seeds might develop into an elm
like those at Darnaway, in Morayshire, which in 1882 were 95 feet high,
with clean boles up to 24 feet. So great was the exhaustion following
upon the abnormal seed crop of 1909 that some of my elms were
crippled by it, and two or three died outright.[9]
[Illustration: WYCH ELM (_Ulmus montana_)]
To produce well-shaped wych elms, timely pruning is essential, followed
by close forest treatment, for no other tree spreads more wildly and
wantonly, and unless means are taken to keep a single leader on each,
the result will be very different from those lordly examples which
stood, not many years ago, on the banks of the White Cart at Pollok,
four of which were figured by Strutt in his _Sylva Britannica_ in 1824.
The largest of these measured in that year 85 feet in height and 11 feet
10 inches in girth, and contained 669 cubic feet of timber. Two of this
group were blown down in the great gale of 22nd December, 1894, and the
remaining pair were felled in 1905, being respectively 90 and 96 feet
high. The age of these giants was shown by the annual rings to be about
300 years.
The weeping elms which one sometimes sees in gardens is a variety which
originated in a Perthshire nursery about one hundred years ago. It is
very ornamental, though it never attains much height, being perfectly
flat-topped. As it can only be propagated by grafts, a sharp lookout
must be kept to prevent the stock outgrowing the scion.
The wych elm is indigenous over the whole of the northern part of Great
Britain, the largest recorded being at Studley Royal, in Yorkshire--105
feet high and 23 feet in girth at 5 feet up in 1905. As an element of
the primæval Scottish forest, the wych elm must have been held in high
esteem, judging from the number of Gaelic place-names commemorating it.
The old Gaelic name for it was _leam_, plural _leaman_ (pronounced "lam"
and "lamman"). Ptolemy's _Leamanonius lacus_ is now Loch Lomond, the
lake of elms, out of which flows the Leven, which is the more modern
aspirated form _leamhan_ (pronounced "lavan"); and we find the same
association of names in eastern Scotland, where the Lomond Hills
overlook the town of Leven. The Lennox district was formerly written
Levenax, which is the adjectival form _leamhnach_ (lavnah), an elm wood.
The rivers Lune and Leven in Lancashire (Ptolemy's Alauna), the Leven in
Cumberland, and the Laune at Killarney all seem to indicate the former
existence of elm woods on their banks. In the name Carlaverock is
probably preserved another derivative--_caer leamhraich_, the fort among
the elms.
It was long supposed that the English elm (_U. campestris_) was not
indigenous to England, seeing that it never propagates itself in these
islands by seed. Its presence was explained by the convenient device of
attributing its introduction to the Romans; but there is not a shred of
evidence in support of this conjecture. The elm of Italy is quite a
distinct species, according to Elwes and Henry, a fact with which
Shakespeare, though familiar with "Warwickshire weeds" (as elms are
called near Stratford-on-Avon), may not have been acquainted when he
made Adriana plead with him she believed to be her husband:
Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine;
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine;
Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,
Makes me with thy strength to communicate.
The English elm, however, grows luxuriantly in Spain, and ripens seed
abundantly there, the tradition being current that it was introduced
from England to the Royal Park at Aranjuez when Philip II. was laying
out that demesne. Dr. Henry, however, considers it not improbable that
this tree is truly indigenous in Spain, and that it is certainly so in
the southern counties of England, where, as aforesaid, it reproduces
itself only by suckers. Other examples are not wanting of certain plants
yielding to climatic conditions, by resorting to reproduction by suckers
and ceasing to produce seed.
Perhaps the most striking display of the true English elm to be found
anywhere is the magnificent quadruple avenue known as the Long Walk, at
Windsor. Many of these are 120 feet high and 15 feet in girth. The
avenue leads from the Castle gates to the statue in the park, a distance
of two miles and three-quarters. Taller individual elms may be seen
elsewhere, as in the grounds of King's College, Cambridge (130 feet),
Boreham House, in Essex (132 feet), and Northampton Court,
Gloucestershire (150 feet by 20 feet in girth). The last-named tree, by
the way, may no longer be seen, for it was blown down in 1895, but there
can be no doubt about its dimensions, which were accurately ascertained
as it lay on the ground. It was probably the champion of that
particular species in England; but it was inferior in bulk to the great
elm which stood in the grounds of Magdalen College, Oxford, until it was
blown down in April, 1911, pronounced by Mr. Elwes to be "the largest
elm I have ever seen and the largest tree of any kind in Great
Britain."[10] Mr. Elwes carefully measured the fallen giant, finding it
to be 142 feet high, 27 feet in girth, and containing 2787 cubic feet of
timber. He and Dr. Henry pronounce it to have belonged to the variety or
sub-species classed as the smooth-leaved Huntingdon or Chichester elm
(_U. vegeta_, Lindley), although in this case no suckers had been
produced, which the Huntingdon elm usually sends up in profusion.
It is usually stated in forestry manuals that the English elm is not
suited for Scottish conditions. My own experience is directly opposed to
that view, for, having some score or so of these trees now about 110
years old to compare with wych elms planted at the same time, the
English species exceeds the other in height and equals it in bulk. Two
English elms at Loudon Castle, in Ayrshire, were measured in 1908, and
were found respectively to be 107 feet by 15 feet 4 inches and 105 feet
by 16 feet 4 inches.
[Illustration: THE GREAT ELM AT MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD]
I have found, however, that by far the shapeliest and best elm for
Scottish planting is the smooth-leaved elm, formerly, and probably
correctly, considered to be merely a permanent variety of the English
elm (_U. campestris_), but now distinguished as a species under the
title of _Ulmus nitens_. It certainly resists violent winds better
than the English elm, being therefore preferable for sea exposure.
Moreover, its timber is esteemed more highly than that of other elms,
being remarkably tough. Dr. Henry has distinguished a variety of this
elm as _Italica_--the Mediterranean elm--which is the kind used by
Tuscan vine-dressers to train their vines on.
The smooth-leaved elm is of less sprawling habit than the wych elm, but
occasionally it takes advantage of space to spread out of all measure.
Of this there is an example at Sharpham, near Totnes, where a tree of
this species has covered the space of a quarter of an acre, some of its
side branches being 104 feet long. The total height was between 80 and
90 feet in 1906, in which year it was figured in the _Gardeners'
Chronicle_ as a wych elm. Mr. Elwes, however, pronounces it to be of the
smooth-leaved kind. On the other hand, the Cornish elm, which is a
variety of _U. nitens_, is usually of columnar habit.
The Sycamore and other Maples
"Put forth thy leaf, thou lofty plane,
East wind and frost are safely gone;
While zephyr mild and balmy rain
The summer comes serenely on."
A north countryman, reading Clough's beautiful lines, is pretty sure to
apply them to the wrong tree, because, when a Scots forester speaks of a
plane tree, he is understood to mean what in the south is called a
sycamore. But even that is a misnomer, the true sycamore, mentioned in
Holy Writ, being a fig-tree (_Ficus sycamorus_).
[Illustration: SYCAMORE (_Acer pseudo-platanus_)
IN SUMMER]
The sycamore and the plane are quite distinct, belonging to separate
natural orders, the sycamore being a maple (_Aceraceæ_), the largest of
all the maples, and the plane constituting a single group in the order
_Platanaceæ_. The confusion of names has arisen from the success with
which the sycamore masquerades as a plane, imitating its foliage and
aping it in its habit of shedding the bark in thin flakes. Botanists
have given recognition to this peculiarity by the scientific title they
have conferred on the sycamore, viz. _Acer pseudo-platanus_, or the
false plane. But in its flower and fruit the sycamore cannot disguise
its true affinity. Its flowers are arranged in triplets on long hanging
scapes, of a yellowish green, only requiring a dash of brighter hue to
render the sycamore one of the loveliest objects in the spring woodland.
The flowers are followed by fruits which stamp the tree unmistakably as
a maple. The seed-vessels are composed of what in botany are termed
_samaræ_ or keys, each containing a large seed or two. These samaræ
are attached to each other in pairs, and, as each carries a
beautifully-formed membranous wing, the result is a pair of wings to
each pair of seed-vessels, securing wide distribution of the seeds by
autumnal winds. On the other hand, the flowers of the true plane
(_Platanus_) are very minute, and the fruit consists of a mass of thin
seeds set among closely-pressed hairs and bristles, forming a hard,
perfectly round ball nearly an inch in diameter. These balls, from two
to six on each fruiting stalk, hang conspicuously on the branches all
winter, until the dry March winds burst them and allow the seeds to
float away.
Neither sycamore nor plane are natives of the United Kingdom. The plane,
though it excels all other trees for planting in smoky towns like
London, does not take kindly to the cooler atmosphere of Scotland and
northern England. Not so the sycamore, which, although naturally a
product of the mountain ranges of Central and Southern Europe, nowhere
flourishes more freely and sows itself more abundantly than in North
Britain. Indeed, it is a conspicuous instance of the careless
prodigality of Nature how thickly every bare spot in a wood becomes
covered with seedling sycamores, not one in a million of which have the
faintest chance of surviving two or three seasons.
The life period of the sycamore is a long one, probably three times that
of the beech and equal to that of the oak. At Truns, in the Swiss
Oberland, a great sycamore, already in ruin, was destroyed by a storm in
1870. As it was under this tree that the Grey League, originators of the
canton of Grisons, took the oath in 1424, it can scarcely have been less
than 600 years old when it ceased to exist. Mr. Elwes gives the
dimensions of another mighty sycamore in Switzerland, growing at an
elevation of more than 4000 feet in the canton of Unterwalden, which
must be coeval with the tree of the Grey League. It measures 29 feet in
circumference at 5 feet from the ground. We cannot quite equal that in
Scotland, although in that country and northern England there are some
enormous sycamores. Behind the Birnam Hotel stand two very large trees,
an oak and a sycamore. The oak, lesser of the two, is shown to visitors
as the last survivor of that forest whereof it was said
Macbeth shall never vanquished be
Until great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.
[Illustration: SYCAMORE
IN WINTER]
The other is a giant sycamore, reported in Hunter's _Woods and Forests
of Perthshire_ (1883) to be one thousand years old, which, of course, is
impossible. I measured the girth of this great tree in 1903, and made
it 19 feet 8 inches at 5 feet from the ground. It was not until long
after that I found that Hunter had given exactly the same measurement
twenty years earlier. This girth is exceeded by one at Castle Menzies,
which, in 1904, gave 20 feet 4 inches. The loftiest sycamore reported in
Scotland is also in Perthshire, at Blair Drummond. This tree Dr. Henry
ascertained to be 108 feet high, with a girth of 10 feet.
At Kippenross, also in Perthshire, there remain fragments of a sycamore
destroyed by lightning in 1860. It was known in the seventeenth century
as "the Muckle Tree o' Kippenross," and was estimated in 1821 to contain
875 cubic feet of timber.
It would be vain to attempt within reasonable limits of space to give a
catalogue of the notable sycamores in Great Britain. Most of the finest
specimens are in Scotland; for no tree can be planted in our northern
land with greater security of success; it fears neither severe frost nor
reasonable wind exposure; but it insists upon well-drained soil. In
damp, low-lying ground it may appear to flourish; but in such a
situation it is sure to prove "boss" (to use a term in Scottish
forestry) or hollow at the heart when ready for the axe. In England
there are many sycamores of 100 feet and upwards; but this tree has
become much more closely identified with the landscape of the northern
counties than with that of the south.
As a forest tree, the sycamore has been treated with unmerited neglect
by British planters; though it is not singular in that respect, so
improvidently have we accustomed ourselves to rely upon foreign
supplies. We ought to bestow more care upon our sycamores, because not
only is it a tree that rapidly re-establishes itself by seed and is
practically immune from disease, but it produces timber which, when of
sufficient size, commands a higher price than any other British-grown
wood. That size is not less than 18 inches quarter girth, representing
sixty to eighty years' growth, and from that size up to any dimensions,
provided that the bole is straight, clean-grown and free of knots. The
main purpose for which such stems are in demand is for making large
rollers used in calico and wallpaper printing, in washing machines and
cotton dyeing. A few years ago I was shown a single sycamore growing at
Makerstoun on Tweedside for which the owner had been offered, and
refused, £50. The wood is also in good request for railway carriage
panelling, furniture, dairy utensils, etc.
[Illustration: FRUIT OF SYCAMORE (_Acer pseudo-platanus_)]
As an ornamental tree it must be owned that the sycamore does not take
high rank, owing to the monotonous tone assumed by its massive foliage
after the flush of spring has passed. Nor does it usually compound for
this by splendour of autumnal colour, as so many of the maple family do.
Indeed, this is one of the qualities of its near kindred which the
sycamore has discarded in order, it would almost seem, to simulate the
plane more perfectly and to justify its appellation of "the false
plane"; for the foliage of the plane falls like that of the sycamore
without any dying brilliancy. It is true, however, that old sycamores,
when sheltered from sea winds, do sometimes assume bright tones of
yellow and orange in autumn. At Keir, in Perthshire, a row of aged trees
of this species surprised me by their brilliancy in November, 1913.