favourable situations on the Alps, and also in Britain, from eighty to
one hundred feet in height, with a trunk from three to four feet in
diameter, and having a conical head. _Branches_ subverticillate, and
spreading horizontally from the straight trunk; occasionally, however,
rather pendulous, particularly when old. _Branchlets_ more or less
pendulous. _Leaves_ linear, soft, blunt, or rounded at the points, of an
agreeable light green colour; single or fasciculated; in the latter case
many together round a central bud; spreading, and slightly recurved.
_Male catkins_ without foot-stalks, globular, or slightly oblong, of a
light yellow colour; and, together with the _female catkins_, or young
cones, appearing in April and the beginning of May; the latter varying
from a whitish to a bright red colour. _Cones_ of an oblong, ovate
shape, erect, full one inch in length, and of a brownish colour when
ripe. _Scales_ persistent, roundish, striated, and generally slightly
waved, but not distinctly notched on the margin. _Bracts_ generally
longer than the scales, particularly towards the base of the cones.
_Seeds_ of an irregular or ovate form, fully one-eighth of an inch long,
and more than half-surrounded by the smooth, shining, persistent
pericarp. Cotyledons five to seven."--_Lawson's Manual._
In the _Memoirs of the Royal Society of Agriculture at Paris_, for the
year 1787, there is an Essay by M. le President de la Tour d'Aigues, on
the culture of the Larch, in which it is celebrated as one of the most
useful of all timber trees. He tells us that in his own garden he has
rails which were put up in the year 1743, partly of oak and partly of
Larch. The former, he says, have yielded to time, but the latter are
still sound. And in his Castle of Tour d'Aigues he has Larchen beams of
twenty inches square, which are sound, though above two hundred years
old. The finest trees he knows of this kind, grew in some parts of
Dauphiny, and in the forest of Baye, in Provence, where there are
Larches, he tells us, which two men cannot encompass.
The timber is valuable for many purposes. It is said, that old dry Larch
will take such a polish as to become almost transparent, and that, in
this state, it may be wrought into very beautiful wainscot. In our
encomium of the Larch we must not omit that the old painters used it,
more than any other wood, to paint on, before the use of canvas became
general. Many of Raphael's pictures are painted on boards of Larch. It
is also used by the Italians for picture-frames, because no other wood
gives gilding such force and brilliancy. We are told that this is the
reason why their gilding on wood is so much superior to ours.
In Switzerland they cover the roofs of their houses with shingles made
of Larch. These are usually cut about one foot square and half an inch
in thickness, which they nail to the rafters. At first the roof appears
white, but in the course of two or three years it becomes as black as
coal, and all the joints are stopped by the resin which the sun extracts
from the pores of the wood. This shining varnish renders the roof
impenetrable to wind or rain: this is the chief covering, and, some say,
an incombustible one. From the Larch, too, is extracted what is commonly
called Venice turpentine. This substance, or natural balsam, flows at
first without incision; when it has done dropping the poor people make
incisions, at about two or three feet from the ground, into the trunk of
the trees, and into these they fix narrow troughs, about twenty inches
long; the end of these troughs is hollow, like a ladle, and in the
middle is a small hole bored for the turpentine to run into a receiver
which is placed below it. The people who gather it, visit the tree,
morning and evening, from the end of May to September, to collect the
turpentine out of the receivers. When it flows out of the tree the
turpentine is clear like water, and of a yellowish white; but as it
becomes older it thickens, and changes to a citron colour. It is
procured in great abundance in the neighbourhood of Lyons, and in the
valley of St. Martin, near Lucerne, Switzerland. It is only after the
tree has attained the thickness of ten or twelve inches in diameter,
that it is thought worth while to collect the turpentine; and if the
tree remain in vigorous growth, it will continue, for forty or fifty
years, to yield annually seven or eight pounds of turpentine.
The cones of the Larch, intended for seed, ought to be gathered towards
the latter end of November, and then kept in a dry place till the
following spring, when, being spread on a cloth and exposed to the sun,
or laid before the fire, the scales will open and shed their seed. These
should be sown on a border exposed to the east, where they will be
affected by the morning sun only, as the plants do not prosper so well
where the sun lies much on them. In autumn the young plants may be
pricked out into other beds, as soon as they have shed their leaves, at
the distance of six inches each way. In two years the young trees will
be ready to plant where they are intended to stand; then they need not
be more than eight or ten feet apart from each other, but at less
distance on exposed situations. It is now well-known, that the Larch
will grow in wild and barren situations better than in a luxuriant soil;
and this tree is even apt to grow top-heavy in too much shelter and
nourishment. No tree has been introduced into Britain with such
remarkable success as the Larch. Phillips says, "The face of our country
has, within the last thirty years, been completely changed by the
numerous plantations of Larch that have sprung up on every barren spot
of these kingdoms, from the southern shores to the extremity of the
north, and from the Land's End to the mouth of the Thames. So great has
been the demand for young trees of this species of pine, that one
nurseryman in Edinburgh raised above five million of these trees in the
year 1796. We have introduced no exotic tree that has so greatly
embellished the country in general. Its pale and delicate green, so
cheerfully enlivening the dark hue of the fir and the pine, and its
elegant spiral shape, contrasting with the broad-spreading oak, is a no
less happy contrast; whilst its stars of fasciculate foliage are
displayed to additional advantage, when neighbouring with the
broad-leaved æsculus, the glossy holly, the drooping birch, or the
tremulous aspen."
Sir T. D. Lauder considers that "The Larch is unquestionably by much the
most enduring timber we have. It is remarkable, that whilst red wood or
heart wood is not formed at all in the other resinous trees till they
have lived for many years, the larch, on the other hand, begins to make
it soon after it is planted; and whilst you may fell a Scotch fir of
thirty years old, and find no red wood in it, you can hardly cut down a
young Larch large enough to be a walking-stick, without finding just
such a proportion of red wood, compared to its diameter as a tree, as
you will find in the largest Larch in the forest, when compared to its
diameter. To prove the value of the Larch as a timber-tree, we believe,
at the suggestion of the then Duke of Athol, posts of equal thickness
and strength, some of Larch and others of oak, were driven down facing
the river-wall, where they were alternately covered with water by the
effect of the tide, and left dry by its fall. This species of
alternation is the most trying of all circumstances for the endurance of
timber, and accordingly the oaken posts decayed, and were twice renewed
in the course of a very few years, whilst those which were made of Larch
remained altogether unchanged." Of the Larch, Mr. Sang remarks that it
"bears the ascendency over the Scotch pine in the following important
circumstances: that it brings double the price, at least per measurable
foot; that it will arrive at a useful timber size in one half, or a
third part, of the time in general which the fir requires; and, above
all, that the timber of the Larch, at thirty or forty years old, when
planted in a soil and climate adapted to the production of perfect
timber, is, in every respect, superior in quality to that of the fir at
a hundred years old." On experimental observation, the Larch has been
found, in Scotland, to increase annually, at six feet from the ground,
about one inch and a half in circumference, on the trunks of trees from
ten to fifty years of age. In the course of fifty years the tree will
attain the height of eighty feet or upwards; and, in its native
habitats, according to Willdenow, "it lives from one hundred and fifty
to two hundred years."
"Though we should least expect to find such a quality in a resinous tree
like the Larch, it has been proved to make a beautiful hedge, and to
submit with wonderful patience to the shears. We once saw a very pretty
fence of this description in a gentleman's pleasure-grounds near Loch
Lomond. The trees were planted at equal distances from each other, and
being clipped, were half cut through towards the top, and bent down over
each other, and, in, many instances, the top shoot of one had insinuated
itself into that adjacent to it, so as to have become corporeally united
to it; and, strange as it may seem, we actually found one top that had
so inserted itself, which, having been rather deeply cut originally by
the hedge-bill, had actually detached itself from its parent stock, and
was now growing, grafted on the other, with the lower part of it
pointing upwards into the air!"--_Sir T. D. Lauder._
There are ten or more varieties of the Larch in cultivation, but as
these are probably only different forms of the same species, it is
unnecessary to enumerate them.
[Illustration: THE LIME, OR LINDEN TREE.]
THE LIME, OR LINDEN TREE.
[_Tilia._[K] _Europæa._ Nat. Ord.--_Tiliaceæ_; Linn.--_Polyand. Monog._]
[K] _Generic characters_. Sepals 5, deciduous. Petals 5, with or without
a scale at the base. Stamens indefinite, free, or polyadelphous. Ovary
5-celled, cells 2-seeded. Style 1. Fruit 1-celled, with 1 or 2 seeds.
The Common Lime-tree grows naturally straight and taper, with a smooth
erect trunk, and a fine spreading head, inclining to a conical form. In
a good soil it arrives at a great height and size, and becomes a
majestic object. Thus we read that
The stately Lime, smooth, gentle, straight, and fair,
With which no other dryad may compare,
With verdant locks and fragrant blossoms decked,
Does a large, even, odorate shade project.
This beautiful tree is a native of the middle and north of Europe, and
is said to have been highly esteemed among the Romans for its shade.
Evelyn praises the Lime as being the most proper and beautiful for
walks; as producing an upright body, smooth and even bark, ample leaves,
sweet blossom, and a goodly shade, at the distance of eighteen or twenty
feet. Those growing in St. James's Park, London, are said to have been
planted at his suggestion. There are now many avenues of Limes in
various parts of the country. At the termination of one at Colerton,
Leicestershire, there is placed an urn with the following tribute to the
memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds, written by Wordsworth at the request of
the proprietor, Sir George Beaumont, Bart.:--
Ye Lime-trees, ranged before this hallowed urn,
Shoot forth with lively power at spring's return;
And be not slow a stately growth to rear
Of pillars, branching off from year to year,
Till they have learned to frame a darksome aisle,--
That may recal to mind that awful pile
Where Reynolds, 'mid our country's noblest dead,
In the last sanctity of fame is laid.
There, though by right the excelling painter sleep,
Where death and glory a joint Sabbath keep;
Yet not the less his spirit would hold dear
Self-hidden praise, and friendship's private tear;
Hence, on my patrimonial grounds, have I
Raised this frail tribute to his memory;
From youth a zealous follower of the art
That he professed, attached to him in heart;
Admiring, loving, and with grief and pride,
Feeling what England lost when Reynolds died.
Loudon speaks of two ancient Lime-trees at Zoffingen, on the branches of
which is placed a plank, in such a manner as to enable any one to walk
from the one to the other; and thus people may not only walk, but even
dance, upon the foliage of the tree. In the village of Villars en Morig,
near Fribourg, there is a large Lime which existed there long before the
battle of Morat (1476), and which is now of extraordinary dimensions; it
was, in 1831, seventy feet high, and thirty-six feet in circumference at
four feet from the ground, where it divided into large and perfectly
sound branches. It must be nearly a thousand years old. And at Fribourg,
in the public square, there is a large Lime, the branches of which are
supported by pieces of wood. This tree was planted on the day when the
victory was proclaimed of the Swiss over the Duke of Burgundy, Charles
the Bold, in the year 1476; and it is a monument admirably accordant
with the then feebleness of the Swiss republics, and the extreme
simplicity of their manners. In 1831 the trunk of this tree measured
thirteen feet nine inches in circumference.
[Illustration: Leaves and Flowers of T. Europæa.]
Botanically considered, the Common Lime is a large and handsome tree
with spreading branches, thickly clothed with leaves twice the length of
their petioles, cordate at the base, serrate, pointed, smooth--except a
woolly tuft at the origin of each nerve beneath--unequal and entire at
the base; stipules oval, smooth, in pairs at the base of each
foot-stalk; flower-stalks axillar, cymose, each bearing an oblong, pale,
smooth bract, united, for half its length, with the stalk; flowers of a
greenish colour, growing in clusters of four or five together, and
highly fragrant, especially at night. This renders them very attractive
to the bees, which is referred to by Virgil, in his beautiful
description of the industrious Corycian, thus translated by Martyn:--"He
therefore was the first to abound with pregnant bees, and plentiful
swarms, and to squeeze the frothing honey from the combs. He had Limes,
and plenty of pines; and as many fruits as showed themselves in early
blossom, so many did he gather ripe in early autumn."--_Geo._ iv. 127.
The seeds of the Linden-tree rarely ripen in Britain; this tree is,
therefore, properly propagated by layers, which must be made in the
nursery in autumn; in one year they become rooted so as to allow of
being removed. It will grow well in any soil or situation, but if
planted in a rich loamy earth, the rapidity of its growth will be almost
incredible. The timber of the Lime-tree is very serviceable, and much
preferable to that of the willow, being stronger yet lighter. Because of
its colour, which is of a pale yellow or white, and its easy working,
and not being liable to split, architects form with it their models for
buildings. The most elegant use to which it is applied is for carving,
not only for small figures, but large statues in basso and alto relievo,
as that of the Stoning of St. Stephen, with the structures and
elevations about it; the trophies, festoons, fruitages, friezes,
capitals, pedestals, and other ornaments and decorations about the choir
of St. Paul's, executed by Gibbons, and other carvings by the same
artist at Chatsworth, the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, and in Trinity
College Library at Cambridge. It is even supposed by some that the
blocks employed by Holbein, for wood engravings, were of this tree.
Dodsley says--
Smooth Linden best obeys
The carver's chisel; best his curious work
Displays, in all its nicest touches.
It is used by piano-forte makers for sounding-boards, and by
cabinet-makers for a variety of purposes. The wood is also said to make
excellent charcoal for gunpowder, even better than alder, and nearly as
good as hazel, while baskets and cradles are made with the twigs of the
Lime; and of the smoother side of the bark, tablets for writing; for the
ancient Philyra is but our Tilia, of which Munting affirms he saw a
book, made of the inner bark, written about 1000 years ago; such another
was brought to the Count of St. Amant, governor of Arras, 1662, for
which there were given 8000 ducats by the Emperor. It contains a work of
Cicero, _De ordinanda Republica et de Inveniendis Orationum Exordiis_,
which is still unprinted, and is now in the imperial library of Vienna,
after having been the greatest rarity in that of the celebrated Cardinal
Mazarin, who died in 1661.
The smoothness of the Lime-tree is thus alluded to by Cowper in the
_Task_:
Here the gray smooth trunks
Of ash, or Lime, or beech, distinctly shine
Within the twilight of their distant shades,
There lost behind a rising ground, the wood
Seems sunk and shortened to its topmost boughs.
This peculiarity of the bark has also been noticed by Leigh Hunt, in the
story of _Rimini_:
Places of nestling green for poets made,
Where, when the sunshine struck a yellow shade,
The slender trunks to inward peeping sight,
Thronged, in dark pillars, up the gold-green light.
The leaves of the Lime-tree are also useful, and were esteemed so in
common with those of the elm and poplar, both in a dried and green state
for feeding cattle, by the Romans.
The other two indigenous or naturalized species of Lime are--
2. _The broad-leaved, T. grandifolia._ Ehrh. Flowers without nectaries;
leaves roundish, cordate, pointed, serrate, downy, especially beneath,
with hairy tufts at the origin of the veins; capsule turbinate, with
prominent angles, downy.----_Flowers_ in August: found in woods and
hedges.
3. _The small-leaved, T. parvifolia._ Ehrh. Flowers without nectaries;
leaves scarcely longer than their petioles, roundish, cordate, serrate,
pointed, glaucous beneath, with hairy tufts at the origin of the veins,
and scattered hairy blotches; capsule roundish, with slender ribs, thin,
brittle, nearly smooth.----_A handsome_ tree, distinguished from the
former by its much smaller leaves and flowers: germen densely woolly:
flowers in August: grows in woods in Essex, Sussex, &c.: frequent.
[Illustration: THE MAPLE-TREE.]
THE MAPLE-TREE.
[_Acer._[L] Nat. Ord.--_Aceraceæ_; Linn. _Octan. Monog._]
[L] _Generic characters._ Calyx inferior, 5-cleft. Petals 5, obovate.
Fruit consisting of 2 capsules, united at the base, indehiscent and
winged (a _samara_). Trees, with simple leaves and flowers, often
polygamous, in axillary corymbs or racemes.
The Common Maple (_A. campestre_) is found throughout the middle states
of Europe, and in the north of Asia. It is common in hedges and thickets
in the middle and south of England, but is rare in the northern counties
and in Scotland, and is not indigenous in Ireland. It is a rather small
tree, of no great figure, so that it is seldom seen employed in any
nobler service than in filling up a part in a hedge, in company with
thorns and briers. In a few instances, where it is met with in a state
of maturity, its form appears picturesque. It is not much unlike the
oak, only it is more bushy, and its branches are closer and more
compact. Although it seldom attains a height of more than twenty feet,
yet in favourable situations it rises to forty feet, as may be seen in
Eastwell Park, Kent, and in Caversham Park, near Reading. The Rev.
William Gilpin, from whose _Remarks on Forest Scenery_ we have derived
much interesting matter, is buried under the shade of a very large Maple
in the church-yard of Boldre, in the New Forest, Hampshire.
The botanical characters of _A. campestre_ are:--_Leaves_ about one and
a half inch in width, downy while young, as are their foot-stalks,
obtusely five-lobed, here and there notched, sometimes quite entire.
Flowers green, in clusters that terminate the young shoots, hairy,
erect, short, and somewhat corymbose. Anthers hairy between the lobes.
Capsules downy, spreading horizontally, with smooth, oblong, reddish
wings. Bark corky, and full of fissures; that of the branches smooth.
Flowers in May and June.
The ancients held this tree in great repute. Ovid compares it to the
Lime:
The Maple not unlike the lime-tree grows,
Like her, her spreading arms abroad she throws,
Well clothed with leaves, but that the Maple's bole
Is clad by nature with a ruder stole.
[Illustration: Leaves, Flowers, and Fruit of _A. campestre_.]
Pliny speaks as highly of its knobs and its excrescences, called the
_brusca_ and _mollusca_, as Dr. Plot does of those of the ash. The veins
of these excrescences in the Maple, Pliny tells us, were so variegated
that they exceeded the beauty of any other wood, even of the citron;
though the citron was in such repute at Rome, that Cicero, who was
neither rich nor expensive, was tempted to give 10,000 sesterces for a
citron table. The brusca and mollusca, Pliny adds, were rarely of a size
sufficient for the larger species of furniture, but in all smaller
cabinet-work they were inestimable. Indeed, the whole tree was esteemed
by the ancients on account of its variegated wood, especially the white,
which is singularly beautiful. This is called the French Maple, and
grows in northern Italy, between the Po and the Alps; the other has a
curled grain, so curiously spotted, that it was called, from a near
resemblance, the peacock's tail. So mad were people formerly in
searching for the representations of birds, beasts, and other objects in
the bruscum of this tree, that they spared no expense in procuring it.
The timber is used for musical instruments, inlaying, &c., and is
reckoned superior to most woods for turnery ware. Our poets generally
place a Maple dish in every hermitage they speak of.
Methinks that to some vacant hermitage
My feet would rather turn,--to some dry nook
Scooped out of living rock, and near a brook
Hurled down a mountain-cave, from stage to stage,
Yet tempering, for my sight, its bustling rage
In the soft haven of a translucent pool;
Thence creeping under forest arches cool,
Fit haunt of shapes whose glorious equipage
Would elevate my dreams. A beechen bowl,
A Maple dish, my furniture should be;
Crisp, yellow leaves my bed; the hooting owl
My night-watch; nor should e'er the crested fowl
From thorp or vil his matins sound for me,
Tired of the world and all its industry.
Wordsworth, _Eccl. Sk._, 22.
Wilson and Cowper also furnish the hermit's cell with a Maple dish,
while Mason notes one that lacked this article, deemed so requisite for
such a habitation:
--Many a visitant
Had sat within his hospitable cave;
From his Maple bowl, the unpolluted spring
Drunk fearless, and with him partook the bread
That his pale lips most reverently had blessed,
With words becoming such a holy man.
His dwelling a recess in some rude rock,
Books, beads, and Maple dish his meagre stock.
--It seemed a hermit's cell,
Yet void of hour-glass, skull, and Maple dish.
There is an American species of the Maple, _A. saccharinum_, which
yields a considerable quantity of sap, from which the Canadians make
sugar of an average quality. The season for tapping the trees is in
February, March, and April. From a pint to five gallons of syrup may be
obtained from one tree in a day; though, when a frosty night is
succeeded by a dry and brilliant day, the rush of sap is much greater.
The yearly product of sugar from each tree is about three pounds. Trees
which grow in lone and moist places, afford a greater quantity of sap
than those which occupy rising ground; but it is less rich in the
saccharine principle. That of insulated trees, left standing in the
middle of fields, or by the side of fences, is the best. It is also
remarked, that in districts which have been cleared of other trees, and
even of the less vigorous sugar maples, the product of the remainder is
proportionally greater. The sap is converted into sugar by boiling, till
reduced to the proper consistency for being poured into moulds.
There are now cultivated in England more than twenty species of Maple,
brought from every quarter of the globe, several of which are likely to
prove hardy. They are among the most ornamental trees of artificial
plantations, on account of the great beauty and variety of their
foliage, which changes to a fine scarlet, or rich yellow, in autumn. The
larger growing species are often many years before they come to flower,
and, after they do so, they sometimes flower several years before they
mature seeds.
[Illustration: THE MOUNTAIN-ASH, OR ROWAN-TREE.]
THE MOUNTAIN-ASH, OR ROWAN-TREE.
[_Pyrus._[M] Nat. Ord.--_Rosaceæ_; Linn.--_Icosand. Pentag._]