5. Styles 2 to 5. Fruit a _pome_, 5-celled, each cell 2-seeded,
cartilaginous.
The Mountain-Ash (_P. aucuparia_) is a native of most parts of Europe,
and western Asia. It is also found in Japan, and in the most northern
parts of North America. In Britain it is common in woods and hedges in
mountainous, but rather moist situations, in every part of the island,
and also in Ireland. It forms an erect-stemmed tree, with an orbicular
head. When fully grown, like every other description of _Pyrus_, it
assumes a somewhat formal character, but in a young state its branches
are disposed in a more loose and graceful manner. In the Scottish
Highlands, according to Lauder, "it becomes a considerable tree. There,
on some rocky mountain covered with dark pines and waving birch, which
cast a solemn gloom over the lake below, a few Mountain-Ashes, joining
in a clump, and mixing with them, have a fine effect. In summer the
light green tint of their foliage, and in autumn the glowing berries
which hang clustering upon them, contrast beautifully with the deeper
green of the pines; and if they are happily blended, and not in too
large a proportion, they add some of the most picturesque furniture with
which the sides of those rugged mountains are invested."
The stems of the Mountain-Ash are covered with a smooth gray bark, and
the branches, while young, have a smooth purplish bark. The leaves are
pinnate, downy beneath, serrated; panicle corymbose, with downy stalks;
flowers numerous, white; fruit globose, scarlet, acid, and austere.
Flowers in May and June.
[Illustration: Leaves, Flowers, and Fruit of _P. aucuparia_.]
The Mountain-Ash is almost always raised from seed, which may be sown
any time from November to February. The tree grows rapidly for the first
three or four years, attaining, in five years, the height of from eight
to nine feet; after which it begins to form a head, and, in ten years,
will attain the height of twenty feet. As it grows rapidly, even in the
most exposed situations, it forms an admirable nurse-tree to the oak,
and other slow-growing species; the more so as it is incapable of being
drawn up by culture above a certain height, thereafter quietly
submitting to be over-topped and destroyed, by the shade and drip of
those which it was planted to shelter and protect. It is frequently
planted for coppice-wood, the shoots being well adapted for poles, and
for hoops, and the bark being in demand by tanners. The wood is
fine-grained, hard, capable of being stained any colour, and of taking a
high polish. It is much used for the husbandman's tools, goads, &c., and
the wheelwright values it on account of its being homogeneous, or all
heart. If the tree be large and fully grown, it will yield planks,
boards, and timber. Next to the yew it was useful for bows--a
circumstance we ought not to omit recording, if it were only to
perpetuate the celebrity of our once English ancestors. It is named in a
statute of Henry VIII. as being serviceable for this purpose. It makes
excellent fuel; though Evelyn says he never observed any use, except
that the blossoms are of an agreeable scent, and the berries offer such
temptation to the thrushes, that, as long as they last, you may be sure
of their company. Ale and beer brewed with these berries, being ripe, is
esteemed an incomparable drink. In Wales, this tree is reputed so
sacred, that there is scarcely a church-yard without one of them growing
therein. And formerly--and, we believe, in some parts even now--on a
certain day in the year many persons religiously wore a cross made of
the wood.
Keats, in his early poems, notices the loftiness of this tree, and its
waving head:
--He was withal
A man of elegance and stature tall;
So that the waving of his plumes would be
High as the berries of a wild Ash-tree,
Or the winged cap of Mercury.
In former days, when superstition prevailed, the Mountain-Ash was
considered an object of great veneration. Often at this day a stump of
it is found in some old burying-place, or near the circle of a Druid
temple, whose rites it formerly invested with its sacred shade. It was
supposed to be, and in some places still is esteemed to be, possessed of
the property of driving away witches and evil spirits, and this property
is recorded in one of the stanzas of a very ancient song, called the
_Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heughs:_
Their spells were vain, the hags return'd
To the queen, in sorrowful mood,
Crying that witches have no pow'r
Where there is roan-tree wood.
That the superstition respecting the virtues of this tree does exist in
Yorkshire at the present day, we know, and of the truth of the following
anecdote, related by Waterton, the author of the celebrated
_Wanderings_, we have not the slightest doubt; it is printed in one of
his communications to the _Magazine of Natural History_:--"In the
village of Walton," says Mr. Waterton, "I have two small tenants; the
name of one is James Simpson, and that of the other Sally Holloway; and
Sally's stands a little before the house of Simpson. Some three months
ago I overtook Simpson on the turnpike road, and I asked him if his cow
was getting better, for his son had told me that she had fallen sick.
'She's coming on surprisingly, Sir,' quoth he; 'the last time the
cow-doctor came to see her, "Jem," said he to me, looking earnestly at
Old Sally's house; "Jem," said he, "mind and keep your cowhouse door
shut before the sun goes down, otherwise I won't answer for what may
happen to the cow." "Ay, ay, my lad," said I, "I understand your
meaning; but I am up to the old slut, and I defy her to do me any harm
now!"' 'And what has Old Sally been doing to you, James?' said I. 'Why,
Sir,' replied he, 'we all know too well what she can do. She has long
owed me a grudge; and my cow, which was in very good health, fell sick
immediately after Sally had been seen to look in at the door of the
cowhouse, just as night was coming on. The cow grew worse, and so I went
and cut a bit of wiggin (Mountain-Ash), and I nailed the branches all up
and down the cowhouse; and, Sir, you may see them there if you will take
the trouble to step in. I am a match for Old Sally now, and she can't do
me any more harm, so long as the wiggin branches hang in the place where
I have nailed them. My poor cow will get better in spite of her.' Alas!
thought I to myself, as the deluded man was finishing his story, how
much there is yet to be done in our own country by the schoolmaster of
the nineteenth century!"
The Mountain-Ash, so esteemed among our northern neighbours as a
protection against the evil designs of wizards and witches, is
propagated by the Parisians for a very different purpose. It is used as
one of the principal charms for enticing the French belles into the
public gardens, where they are permitted to use all the spells and
witcheries of which they are mistresses; and certainly this tree,
ornamented by its brilliant scarlet fruit, has a most enchanting
appearance when lighted up with lamps, in the months of August and
September.
The varieties of the Mountain-Ash are:--
2. _P. fructu luteo_, with yellow berries. 3. _P. foliis variegatis_,
with variegated leaves. 4. _P. fastigiata_, with the branches upright
and rigid. 5. _P. pinnatifida_, with deeply pinnatified leaves.
[Illustration: THE BLACK-FRUITED MULBERRY.]
THE BLACK-FRUITED MULBERRY.
[_Morus nigra._[N] Nat. Ord.--_Urticaceæ_; Linn.--_Monoec.
Tetra._]
[N] _Morus. Flowers_ unisexual; _barren_ flowers disposed in a drooping,
peduncled, axillary spike; _fertile_ flowers in ovate, erect spikes.
_Calyx_ of 4 equal sepals, imbricate in estivation, expanded in
flowering. _Stamens_ 4. _Ovary_ 2-celled, one including one pendulous
ovate, the other devoid of any. _Stigmas_ 2, long. Seed pendulous.
The Black-fruited, or Common Mulberry, is generally supposed to be a
native of Persia, where there are still masses of it found in a wild
state. It was first brought to England in 1548, when some trees were
planted at Sion, near London, one of which still survives. About 1608
James I. recommended by royal edict, and by letter in his own writing to
the lord-lieutenant of every county, the planting of Mulberry-trees and
the rearing of silk-worms, which are fed upon the leaves; also offering
plants at three farthings each, and packets of Mulberry seeds to all who
would sow them. Although the king failed to naturalize the production of
silk in this country, he rendered the tree so fashionable, that there is
scarcely an old garden or gentleman's seat throughout the country, which
can be traced back to the seventeenth century, in which a Mulberry-tree
is not to be found. It was at this time that Shakspeare planted the one
in his garden at Stratford-on-Avon, which was known as "Shakspeare's
Mulberry-Tree," until it was felled in 1756; and that it was a black
Mulberry we learn from Mr. Drake, a native of Stratford, who frequently
in his youth ate of its fruit, some branches of which hung over the wall
which bounded his father's garden.--Drake's _Shakspeare_, vol. ii., p.
584.
In this country the Black-fruited Mulberry always assumes something of a
dwarf or stunted character, spreading into thick arms or branches near
the ground, and forming a very large head. The bark is rough and thick,
and the leaves cordate, unequally serrated, and very rough. The fruit is
large, of a dark purple, very wholesome, and agreeable to the palate.
This tree is remarkable for the slowness of its growth, and for being
one of the last trees to develope its leaves, though it is one of the
first to ripen its fruit. It is also wonderfully tenacious of life: "the
roots of one which had lain dormant in the ground for twenty-four years,
being said, after the expiration of that time, to have sent up shoots."
The Black-fruited Mulberry will grow in almost any soil or situation
that is moderately dry, and in any climate not much colder than that of
London. North of York it requires a wall, except in very favourable
situations. It is very easily propagated by truncheons, or pieces of
branches, eight or nine feet in length, planted half their depth in
tolerably good soil, when they will bear fruit the following year. It is
now rarely propagated by seeds, which seldom ripen in this country. No
tree, perhaps, receives more benefit from the spade and the dunghill
than the Mulberry; it ought, therefore, to be frequently dug about the
roots, and occasionally assisted with manure. The fruit is very much
improved by the tree being trained as an espalier, within the reflection
of a south wall. As a standard tree, whether for ornament or the
production of well-sized fruit, the Mulberry requires very little
pruning, or attention of any kind.
[Illustration: Leaves and Fruits of _M. nigra_.]
The Black-fruited Mulberry has been known from the earliest records of
antiquity; it is mentioned four times in the Bible, 2 Sam. v. 23, 24; 1
Chron. xiv. 14, 15. It was dedicated by the Greeks to Minerva, probably
because it was considered as the wisest of trees; and Jupiter the
Protector was called Mored. Ovid has celebrated the Black Mulberry in
the story of Pyramus and Thisbe; in which he relates that its fruit was
snow-white until the commingled blood of the unfortunate lovers, who
killed themselves under its shade, was absorbed by its roots, when
Dark in the rising tide the berries grew,
And white no longer, took a sable hue;
But brighter crimson springing from the root,
Shot through the black, and purpled all the fruit.
Cowley, in the fifth book of his poem on plants, has given a very plain
and accurate description of the apparently cautious habits of this tree.
He also thus alludes to the above fable:
But cautiously the Mulberry did move,
And first the temper of the skies would prove;
What sign the sun was in, and if she might
Give credit yet to winter's seeming flight:
She dares not venture on his first retreat,
Nor trust her fruit or leaves to doubtful heat;
Her ready sap within her bark confines,
Till she of settled warmth has certain signs!
Then, making rich amends for the delay,
With sudden haste she dons her green array;
In two short months her purple fruit appears,
And of two lovers slain the tincture wears.
Her fruit is rich, but she doth leaves produce
Of far surpassing worth, and noble use.
* * * * *
* * * They supply
The ornaments of royal luxury:
The beautiful they make more beauteous seem,
The charming sex owe half their charms to them;
To them effeminate men their vestments owe;
How vain the pride which insect worms bestow!
Besides the Black-fruited Mulberry, there are four other species
sufficiently hardy to bear our climate without protection; but it will
be here sufficient to give a short account of the White-fruited (_M.
alba_) as the next best known, and as the species whose leaves are used
in feeding silk-worms. _M. alba_, is only found truly wild in the
Chinese province of Seres, or Serica. It was brought to Constantinople
about the beginning of the sixth century, and was introduced into
England in 1596, where it is still not very common. In the south of
Europe it is grown in plantations by itself, like willows and fruit
trees; also in hedge-rows, and as hedges, as far north as
Frankfort-on-the-Oder. When allowed to arrive at maturity, this tree is
not less beautiful than the fairest elm, often reaching thirty or forty
feet in height. When cultivated to furnish food for the silk-worms, the
trees are never allowed to grow higher than three or four feet being cut
down to the ground every year in the same manner as a raspberry
plantation. In France and Italy the leaves are gathered only once
a-year; and when the trees are then wholly stripped, no injury arises
from the operation; but if any leaves are left on the trees, they
generally receive a severe shock.
The specific characters of the White-fruited Mulberry are--_Leaves_ with
a deep scallop at the base, and either cordate or ovate, undivided or
lobed, serrated with unequal teeth, glossy or smoothish, the projecting
portions on the two sides of the basal sinus unequal. The _fruit_ is
seldom good for human food, but is excellent for poultry. It is a tree
of rapid growth, attaining the height of twenty feet in five or six
years, and plants cut down producing shoots four or five feet long in
one season.
[Illustration: THE BRITISH OAK.]
THE BRITISH OAK.
[_Quercus_.[O] Nat. Ord.--_Amentiferæ_; Linn.--_Monoec. Polya._]
[O] _Generic characters. Barren_ flowers arranged in a loose, pendulous
catkin, the perianth single, the stamens 5-10. _Fertile_ flower in a
cupulate, scaly involucrum, with 3 stigmas. _Fruit_ an acorn, 1-celled,
1-seeded, seated in the cupulate, scaly involucrum.
The Oak, when living, monarch of the wood;
The English Oak, when dead, commands the flood.
Churchill.
On our entrance into the Woodland, the eye first greets the majestic
Oak, which is represented as holding the same rank among the plants of
the temperate regions throughout the world, that the lion does among
quadrupeds, and the eagle among birds; that is to say, it is the emblem
of grandeur, strength, and duration; of force that resists, as the lion
is of force that acts. In short, its bulk, its longevity, and the
extraordinary strength and durability of its timber, constitute it the
King of Forest trees. These and other characteristics of the Oak are
graphically expressed by the Roman poet:--
Jove's own tree,
That holds the woods in awful sovereignty,
Requires a depth of loading in the ground,
And next the lower skies a bed profound;
High as his topmast boughs to heaven ascend,
So low his roots to hell's dominions tend.
Therefore, nor winds, nor winter's rage o'erthrows
His bulky body, but unmoved he grows.
For length of ages lasts his happy reign,
And lives of mortal men contend in vain.
Full in the midst of his own strength he stands,
Stretching his brawny arms and leafy hands;
His shade protects the plains, his head the hills commands.
_Virgil's Georgics_, II.
"The Oak grows naturally in the middle and south of Europe; in the north
of Africa; and, in Asia, in Natolia, the Himalayas, Cochin-China, and
Japan, In America it abounds throughout the greater part of the northern
continent, more especially in the United States. In Europe, the Oak has
been, and is, more particularly abundant in Britain, France, Spain, and
Italy. In Britain two species only are indigenous; in France there are
four or five sorts; and in Spain, Italy, and Greece, six or seven sorts.
The number of sorts described by botanists as species, and as natives of
Europe, exceed 30; and as natives of North America, 40. The latter are
all comprised between 20° and 48° N. lat. In Europe, Asia, and Africa,
Oaks are found from 60° to 18° N. lat., and even in the Torrid Zone, in
situations rendered temperate by their elevation."
In Britain, the Oak is everywhere indigenous, the two species being
generally found growing together in a wild state. It, however, requires
a soil more or less alluvial or loamy to attain its full size, and to
bring its timber to perfection; these being seldom attained in the
Highlands of Scotland, where it is still abundant in an indigenous
state. The two species, _Q. robur_, or _pedunculata_, and _Q.
sessiliflora_, are readily distinguished from each other by the first
having the leaves on short stalks, and the acorns on long stalks, the
other by the leaves being long-stalked, and the acorns short-stalked. In
full-grown trees of the two species there is little or no difference
either in magnitude and general appearance, or in quality of timber. _Q.
robur_ being the most abundant, is called the Common Oak. Its twigs are
smooth and grayish-brown: leaves deciduous, sessile, of a thin texture,
obovate-oblong, serrated, with the lobes entire, and nearly blunt,
diminishing towards the base; a little blistered, and scarcely glossy,
with some down occasionally on the under side: acorns oblong, obtuse,
much longer than the hemispherical scaly cup, placed on long peduncles.
The distinguishing characters or the less common species, _Q.
sessiliflora_, the sessile-fruited oak, are, leaves on longish
foot-stalks, deciduous, smooth, and oblong, the sinuses opposite, and
rather acute, the fruit sessile, oblong. In other respects it so closely
resembles the other species, that of the numerous trees recorded for
their enormous dimensions, age, and other peculiarities, the species is
seldom particularized. Loudon believed that no important or constant
difference exists between the mode of growth of the two kinds,
individuals of both being found equally pyramidal, fastigiate, or
orbicular. He considered, however, that _Q. sessiliflora_ could "readily
be distinguished even at a distance, by the less tufted appearance, and
generally palish green of its foliage in summer, and in winter by its
less tortuous spray and branches, by its light coloured bark, by its
large buds, and by its frequently retaining its leaves after they had
withered, till the following spring."
[Illustration: Leaves, Flowers, and Fruit of _Q. robur_.]
The Oak, says Mr. Gilpin, is confessedly the most picturesque tree in
itself, and the most accommodating in composition. It refuses no
subject, either in natural or artificial landscape; it is suited to the
grandest, and may with propriety be introduced into the most pastoral.
It adds new dignity to the ruined tower and Gothic arch; it throws its
arms with propriety over the mantling pool, and may be happily
introduced into the humblest scene.
Imperial Oak, a cottage in thy shade
Finds safety, or a monarch in thy arms:
Respectful generations see thee spread,
Careless of centuries, even in decay
Majestic: thy far-shadowing boughs contend
With time: the obsequious winds shall visit thee,
To scatter round the children of thy age,
And eternize thy latest benefits.
W. Tighe.
The longevity of the Oak is supposed to extend beyond that of any other
tree. It is through age that the Oak acquires its greatest beauty,
which often continues increasing, even into decay, if any proportion
exists between the stem and the branches. When the branches rot away,
and the trunk is left alone, the tree is in its decrepitude, the last
stage of life, and all the beauty is gone.
Spenser has given us a good picture of an Oak just verging towards its
last stage of decay:
--A huge Oak, dry and dead,
Still clad with reliques of its trophies old,
Lifting to heaven its aged, hoary head,
Whose foot on earth hath got but feeble hold,
And, half disbowelled, stands above the ground
With wreathed roots, and naked arms,
And trunk all rotten and unsound.
He also compares a gray-headed old man to an aged Oak-tree, covered with
frost:
There they do find that goodly aged sire,
With snowy locks adown his shoulders shed;
As hoary frost with spangles doth attire
The mossy branches of an Oak half dead.
Montgomery, too, does not forget to observe the longevity of the sturdy
Oak:
As some triumphal Oak, whose boughs have spread
Their changing foliage through a thousand years,
Bows to the rushing wind its glorious head.
As we before noted, the beauty of almost every species of tree increases
after its prime; but unless it hath the good fortune to stand in some
place of difficult access, or under the protection of some patron whose
mansion it adorns, we rarely see it in that grandeur and dignity which
it would acquire by age. Some of the noblest Oaks in England were, at
least formerly, found in Sussex. They required sometimes a score of oxen
to draw them, and were carried on a sort of wain, which in that deep
country is expressly called a _tugg_. It was not uncommon for it to
spend two or three years in performing its journey to the Royal
dock-yard at Chatham. One tugg carried the load only a little way, and
left it for another tugg to take up. If the rains set in, it stirred no
more that year; and frequently no part of the next summer was dry enough
for the tugg to proceed: so that the timber was generally pretty well
seasoned before it arrived at its destination.
In this fallen state alone, it is true, the tree becomes the basis of
England's glory, though we regret its fall. Therefore, we must not
repine, but address the children of the wood as the gallant Oak, on his
removal from the forest, is said to have addressed the scion by his
side:
Where thy great grandsire spread his awful shade,
A holy Druid mystic circles made;
Myself a sapling when thy grandsire bore
Intrepid Edward to the Gallic shore.
Me, now my country calls: adieu, my son!
And, as the circling years in order run,
May'st thou renew the forest's boast and pride,
Victorious in some future contest ride.
We are sure that all who can appreciate beautiful poetry will be
gratified by the following pathetic lamentation of the elegant Vanier:--
--No greater beauty can adorn
The hamlet, than a grove of ancient Oak.
Ah! how unlike their sires of elder times
The sons of Gallia now! They, in each tree
Dreading some unknown power, dared not to lift
An axe. Though scant of soil, they rather sought
For distant herbage, than molest their groves.
Now all is spoil and violence. Where now
Exists an Oak, whose venerable stem
Has seen three centuries? unless some steep,
To human footstep inaccessible,
Defend a favour'd plant. Now, if some sire
Leave to his heir a forest scene, that heir,
With graceless hands, hews down each awful trunk,
Worthy of Druid reverence. There he rears
A paltry copse, destined, each twentieth year,
To blaze inglorious on the hearth. Hence woods,
Which shelter'd once the stag and grisly boar,
Scarce to the timorous hare sure refuge lend.
Farewell each rural virtue, with the love
Of rural scenes! Sage Contemplation wings
Her flight; no more from burning suns she seeks
A cool retreat. No more the poet sings,
Amid re-echoing groves, his moral lay.