a light ash colour, and has the property of throwing off its bark in
scales; thus naturally cleansing itself, at least its larger boughs,
from moss, and other parasitical encumbrances." This would be no
recommendation of it in a picturesque light, if the removal of these
encumbrances did not substitute as great a beauty in their room. These
scales are very irregular, falling off sometimes in one part, and
sometimes in another; and, as the under bark is, immediately after its
excoriation, of a lighter hue than the upper, it offers to the pencil
those smart touches which have so much effect in painting. These flakes,
however, would be more beautiful if they fell off in a circular form,
instead of a perpendicular one: they would correspond and unite better
with the round form of the bole. "No tree forms a more pleasing shade
than the Occidental Plane. It is full-leafed, and its leaf is large,
smooth, of a fine texture, and seldom injured by insects. Its lower
branches shooting horizontally, soon take a direction to the ground, and
the spray seems more sedulous than that of any tree we have, by twisting
about in various forms, to fill up every little vacuity with shade. At
the same time, it must be owned that the twisting of its branches is a
disadvantage to this tree, as it is to the beech. When it is stripped of
its leaves, and reduced to a skeleton, it has not the natural appearance
which the spray of the oak, and that of many other trees, discovers in
winter; nor, indeed, does its foliage, from the largeness of the leaf
and the mode of its growth, make the most picturesque appearance in
summer. One of the finest Occidental Planes I am acquainted with stands
in my own garden at Vicar's Hill; where its boughs, feathering to the
ground, form a canopy of above fifty feet in diameter."
The Occidental Plane is propagated by cuttings, which will hardly fail
to succeed if they are taken from strong young wood, and are planted
early in the autumn in a moist good mould.
[Illustration: THE POPLAR TREE.]
THE POPLAR TREE.
[_Populus._[Q] Nat. Ord.--_Amentiferæ_; Linn.--_Dioec. Octa._]
[Q] _Generic characters._ Flowers of both kinds in cylindrical catkins.
_Barren_ flowers consisting of numerous stamens, arising out of a small,
oblique, cup-like perianth. _Fertile_ flowers consisting of 4 or 8
stigmas, arising out of a cup-like perianth; _fruit_ a follicle,
2-valved, almost 2-celled by the rolling in of the margins of the
valves.
The Poplars are deciduous trees, mostly growing to a large size; natives
of Europe, North America, some parts of Asia, and the north of Africa.
They are all of rapid growth, some of them extremely so; and they are
all remarkable for a tremulous motion in their leaves, when agitated by
the least breath of wind. The species delight in a rich, moist soil, in
the neighbourhood of running water, but they do not thrive in marshes or
soils saturated with stagnant moisture. Their wood is light, of a white
or pale yellowish colour, very durable when kept dry, not liable to warp
or twist when sawn up, and yields, from its elasticity, without
splitting or cracking when struck with violence; that of some species is
also very slow in taking fire, and burns, when ignited, in a smouldering
manner, without flame, on which account it is valuable, and extensively
used for the flooring of manufactories and other buildings. Of the
fifteen species of Poplar described in Loudon's _Arboretum_, three are
believed to be natives of this country--_P. canescens_, _P. tremula_,
and _P. nigra_.
_P. canescens_, the Gray or Common White Poplar, and its different
varieties, form trees of from eighty to one hundred feet high and
upwards, with silvery smooth bark, upright and compact branches, and a
clear trunk, to a considerable height, and a spreading head, usually in
full-grown trees, but thinly clothed with foliage. The leaves are
roundish, deeply waved, lobed, and toothed; downy beneath, chiefly
grayish; leaves of young shoots cordate-ovate, undivided fertile catkins
cylindrical. Stigmas 8.
[Illustration: Leaves, Flowers, and Catkins of _P. canescens_.]
The White Poplar is commonly propagated by layers, which ought to be
transplanted into nursery lines for at least one year before removal to
their final situation. The tree is admirably adapted for thickening or
filling up blanks in woods and plantations; and, for this purpose,
truncheons may be planted from three to four inches in diameter, and
from ten to twelve feet high. These truncheons have the great advantage
of not being overshadowed by the adjoining trees, which is almost always
the case when young plants are used for filling up vacancies among old
trees. In a moderately good and moist soil, the White Poplar will attain
in ten years, the height of thirty feet or upwards, with a trunk from
six to nine inches in diameter.
As an ornamental tree, the White Poplar is not unworthy of a place in
extensive parks and grounds, particularly when planted in lone
situations, or near to water; it ought, however, to be grouped and
massed with trees of equally rapid growth, else it soon becomes
disproportionate, and out of keeping with those whose progress is
comparatively slow. It is well adapted in our climate for a wayside
tree, as it has no side branches to prevent the admission of light and
free circulation of air; and also to form avenues, when an effect is
wished to be produced in the shortest possible time.
The Aspen or Trembling Poplar, _P. tremula_, is inferior to few of its
tribe, presenting the appearance of a tall, and, in proportion to its
height, rather a slender tree, with a clean straight trunk; the head
ample, and formed of horizontal growing branches, not crowded together,
which assume, towards the extremities, a drooping or pendulous
direction. The leaves are nearly orbicular, sinuate, or toothed, smooth
on both sides; foot-stalks compressed; young branches hairy; stigmas 4,
crested and eared at the base. The foliage is of a fine rich green; and
the upper surface of the leaves being somewhat darker than the under, a
sparkling and peculiar effect is produced by the almost constant
tremulous motion with which they are affected by the slightest breath
of air, and which is produced by the peculiar form of the foot-stalks,
which in this species is flattened, or vertically compressed in relation
to the plane of the leaf, causing a quivering or double lateral motion,
instead of the usual waving motion, where the foot-stalk is round, or
else compressed horizontally.
The Black Poplar, _P. nigra_, is a tree of the largest size, with an
ample head, composed of numerous branches and terminal shoots. The bark
is ash-coloured, and becomes rough and deeply furrowed with age. The
catkins are bipartite, cylindrical; the barren appear in March or April,
long before the expansion, of the leaves, and, being large and of a deep
red colour, produce a rich effect at that early period of the year. The
capsules or seed-vessels of the fertile catkin are round, and contain a
pure white cottony down, in which the seeds are enveloped. The leaves
appear about the middle of May, and, when they first expand, their
colour is a mixture of red and yellow; afterwards they are of a pale
light green, with yellowish foot-stalks; remarkably triangular,
acuminate, serrate, smooth on both sides; stigmas 4.
There is a Black Poplar at Alloa House, in Clackmannanshire, which, in
1782, at the height of between three and four feet from the ground,
measured thirteen feet and a half in circumference. There is also a very
graceful and beautiful tree of the same species at Bury St. Edmunds,
ninety feet in height, and which measures, at the distance of three feet
from the ground, fifteen feet in girth. The trunk rises forty-five feet
before it divides, when it throws out a vast profusion of branches.
The Poplar was dedicated by the Romans to Hercules, in honour of his
having destroyed the monster Cacus in a cavern near to the Aventine
Mount, where the Poplar formerly flourished in abundance. In Pitt's
translation of Virgil, the following reference is made to the rite of
crowning with the Poplar:--
From that blest hour th' Arcadian tribe bestowed
Those solemn honours on their guardian god.
Potitius first, his gratitude to prove,
Adored Alcides[2] in the shady grove;
And with the old Pinarian sacred line
These altars raised, and paid the rites divine,--
Rites, which our sons for ever shall maintain;
And ever sacred shall the grove remain.
Come, then, with us to great Alcides pray,
And crown your heads, and solemnize the day.
Invoke our common god with hymns divine,
And from the goblet pour the generous wine.
He said, and with the Poplar's sacred boughs,
Like great Alcides, binds his hoary brows.
[2] The Greek name of Hercules.
[Illustration: THE SCOTCH FIR, OR PINE.]
THE SCOTCH FIR, OR PINE.
[_Pinus[R] sylvestris._ Nat. Ord.--_Coniferæ_; Linn.--_Monoec. Mon._]
[R] _Generic characters._ Flowers monoecious. Cones woody, with
numerous 2-seeded scales, thickened and angular at the end. Seeds with a
crustaceous coat, winged. Leaves acerose, in clusters of from 2 to 5,
surrounded by scarious scales at the base.
The Scotch Fir or Pine, and its varieties, are indigenous throughout the
greater part of Europe. It also extends into the north, east, and west
of Asia; and is found at Nootka Sound in Vancouver's Island, on the
north-west coast of North America. In the south of Europe it grows at
an elevation of from 1000 to 1500 feet; in the Highlands of Scotland, at
2700 feet; and in Norway and Lapland, at 700 feet. Widely dispersed,
however, as the species is throughout the mountainous regions of Europe,
it is only found in profusion between 52° and 65° N. lat. It occurs in
immense forests in Poland and Russia, as well as in northern Germany,
Sweden, Norway, and Lapland, up to the 70° of N. lat. The indigenous
forests of Scotland, which formerly occupied so large a portion of its
surface, have been greatly reduced within the last sixty years, chiefly
on account of the pecuniary embarrassments of their proprietors.
[Illustration: Foliage, Flowers, Cones; Cone opened, showing the Seeds.]
The Scotch Fir, in favourable situations, attains the height of from
eighty to one hundred feet, with a trunk from two to four feet in
diameter, and a head somewhat conical or rounded, but generally narrow
in proportion to its height, as compared with the heads of other
broad-leafed trees. The bark is of a reddish tinge, comparatively
smooth, scaling off in some varieties, and rough and furrowed in others.
The branches are disposed in whorls from two to four together, and
sometimes five or six; they are at first slightly turned upwards, but
finally become somewhat pendant, with the exception of those branches
which form the summit of the tree. The leaves are in sheaths, spirally
disposed on the branches; they are distinguished at first sight from all
other pines in which the leaves are in pairs, by being much more
glaucous, more especially when in a young state, and straighter. The
general length of the leaves, in vigorous young trees, is from two to
three inches; but in old trees they are much shorter; they are smooth on
both surfaces, stiff, obtuse at the extremities, with a small point, and
minutely serrated; dark green on the upper side, and glaucous and
striated on the under side. The leaves remain green on the tree during
four years, and generally drop off at the commencement of the fifth
year, Long before this time, generally at the beginning of the second
year, they have entirely lost their light glaucous hue, and have become
of the dark sombre appearance which is characteristic of this tree at
every season except that of summer, when the young glaucous shoots of
the year give it a lighter hue. The flowers appear commonly in May and
June. The barren flowers are from half an inch to upwards of an inch
long, are placed in whorls at the base of the young shoots of the
current year, and contain two or more stamens with large yellow anthers,
which discharge a sulphur-coloured pollen in great abundance. The
fertile flowers, or embryo cones, appear on the summits of the shoots of
the current year, generally two on the point of a shoot, but sometimes
from four to six. The colour of these embryo cones is generally purple
and green; but they are sometimes yellowish or red. It requires eighteen
months to mature the cones; and in a state of nature it is two years
before the seeds are in a condition to germinate. The cone, which is
stalked, and, when mature, begins to open at the narrow extremity, is
perfectly conical while closed, rounded at the base, from one to two
inches in length, and about an inch across in the broadest part; as it
ripens, the colour changes from green to reddish brown. The scales of
the cone are oblong, and terminate externally in a kind of depressed
pyramid, which varies in shape and height. At the base of each scale,
and close to the axis of the cone, two oval-winged seeds or nuts are
lodged. From these nuts the young plant appears in the shape of a
slender stem, with from five to six linear leaves or cotyledons. In ten
years, in the climate of London, plants will attain the height of from
twenty-five to thirty feet; and in twenty years, from forty to fifty
feet.
The great contempt in which the Scotch Fir is commonly held, says
Gilpin, "arises, I believe, from two causes--its dark murky hue is
unpleasing, and we rarely see it in a picturesque state. In perfection
it is a very picturesque tree, though we have little idea of its beauty.
It is a hardy plant, and is therefore put to every servile office. If
you wish to screen your house from the south-west wind, plant Scotch
Firs; and plant them close and thick. If you want to shelter a nursery
of young trees, plant Scotch Firs; and the phrase is, you may afterwards
weed them out as you please. I admire its foliage, both for the colour
of the leaf, and its mode of growth. Its ramification, too, is irregular
and beautiful, and not unlike that of the stone pine; which it resembles
also in the easy sweep of its stem, and likewise in the colour of the
bark, which is commonly, as it attains age, of a rich reddish brown. The
Scotch Fir, indeed, in its stripling state, is less an object of beauty.
Its pointed and spiry shoots, during the first years of its growth, are
formal; and yet I have sometimes seen a good contrast produced between
its spiry points and the round-headed oaks and elms in its
neighbourhood. When I speak, however, of the Scotch Fir as a beautiful
individual, I conceive it when it has outgrown all the improprieties of
its youth; when it has completed its full age, and when, like Ezekiel's
cedar, it has formed its head high among the thick branches. I may be
singular in my attachment to the Scotch Fir. I know it has many enemies;
but my opinion will weigh only with the reasons I have given." Sir
Thomas Dick Lauder, in his commentary on this passage, says, "We agree
with Gilpin to the fullest extent in his approbation of the Scotch Fir
as a picturesque tree. We, for our part, confess, that we have seen it
towering in full majesty, in the midst of some appropriate Highland
scene, and sending its limbs abroad with all the unconstrained freedom
of a hardy mountaineer, as if it claimed dominion over the savage
regions around it; we have then looked upon it as a very sublime object.
People who have not seen it in its native climate and soil, and who
judge of it from the wretched abortions which are swaddled and
suffocated in English plantations, in deep, heavy, and eternally wet
clays, may well call it a wretched tree; but, when its foot is among its
own Highland heather, and when it stands freely on its native knoll of
dry gravel, or thinly covered rock, over which its roots wander afar in
the wildest reticulation, whilst its tall, furrowed, and often
gracefully sweeping red and gray trunk, of enormous circumference, rears
aloft its high umbrageous canopy, then would the greatest sceptic on
this point be compelled to prostrate his mind before it with a
veneration which, perhaps, was never before excited in him by any other
tree."
Some of the most picturesque trees of this kind, perhaps, in England,
adorn Mr. Lenthall's mansion, of Basilsleigh, in Berkshire. The soil is
a deep rich sand, which seems to be well adapted to them. As they are
here at perfect liberty, they not only become large and noble trees, but
they expand themselves likewise in all the careless forms of nature.
There is a remarkably fine specimen of the Scotch Fir at Castle Huntly,
in Perthshire. In 1796, it measured thirteen feet six inches in girth,
at three feet from the ground; and close to the ground, it measured
nineteen feet, and is thought not unlikely to be the largest planted Fir
in the country. The word _planted_ is very properly used here, as many
examples of larger _natural_ Firs have been produced. Professor Walker
observes, that few Fir-trees were planted before the beginning of the
present century; and that as the Fir is a tree which, from the number of
rings found in it, will probably grow four hundred years, it is
impossible that the planted Firs can have arrived at perfection. "This,"
says Sir T. Lauder, "may be all true; but as the reasoning proceeds upon
the fact of a natural Swedish tree, perfectly sound, having three
hundred and sixty circles in it, it by no means follows that a planted
Fir will not rot in a premature state of disease, and die before it has
sixty circles."
The acerose or needle leaf of the Pine seems necessary to protect the
tree from injury; for if their leaves were of a broader form, the
branches would be borne down, in winter, by the weight of snow in the
northern latitudes, and they would be more liable to be uprooted by the
mighty hurricane. It is, however, enabled thus to evade both; as the
snow falls through, and the winds penetrate between, the interstices of
its filiform leaf. Struggling through the branches, the wind comes in
contact with such an innumerable quantity of points and edges, as, even
when gentle, to produce a deep murmur, or sighing; but when the breeze
is strong, or the storm is raging abroad, it produces sounds like the
murmuring of the ocean, or the beating of the surge and billows among
the rocks:--
The loud wind through the forest wakes
With sounds like ocean roaring, wild and deep,
And in yon gloomy Pines strange music makes,
like symphonies unearthly heard in sleep;
The sobbing waters wash their waves and weep:
Where moans the blast its dreary path along,
The bending Firs a mournful cadence keep,
And mountain rocks re-echo to the song,
As fitful raves the wind the hills and woods among.
Drummond.
Wordsworth, also, thus speaks of Pine-trees moved by a gentle breeze:--
An idle voice the Sabbath region fills
Of deep that calls to deep across the hills,
Broke only by the melancholy sound
Of drowsy bells for ever tinkling round;
Faint wail of eagle melting into blue
Beneath the cliffs, and Pine-wood's steady sugh.
The quality of the timber of the Scotch Fir, according to some, is
altogether dependent on soil, climate, and slowness of growth; but,
according to others, it depends jointly on these circumstances, and on
the kind of variety cultivated. It is acknowledged that the timber of
the Scotch Fir, grown on rocky surfaces, or where the soil is dry and
sandy, is generally more resinous and redder in colour, than that of
such as grow on soils of a clayey nature, boggy, or on chalk. At what
time the sap wood is transformed into durable or red wood, has not yet
been determined by vegetable physiologists. The durability of the red
timber of this tree was supposed by Brindley, the celebrated engineer,
to be as great as that of the oak; and some of it, grown in the north
Highlands, is reported to have been as fresh and full of resin after
having been three hundred years in the roof of an old castle, as
newly-imported timber from Memel.
The red wood timber of the Scottish forests, similar, in every respect,
to the best Baltic Pine, is the produce of trees that have numbered from
one to two or more centuries. In Norway, it is not considered full-grown
timber till it has reached from one hundred and thirty to two hundred
years. It seems, then, rather preposterous, that any one should expect
that plantation Fir timber, cut down when, perhaps, not more than thirty
years old, and consisting entirely of sap wood, should be adapted to all
those purposes which require the best full-grown and matured timber; and
yet such seems very generally to have been the case, and to the
disappointment at not finding those expectations realized, may be
attributed a large portion of that prejudice and dislike so generally
entertained towards this tree.
On Hampstead Heath, near London, there are a number of Pines which are
said to have been raised from seed brought from Ravenna. If so, the
cones are very different from those of the Ravenna Pine described by
Leigh Hunt:--
Various the trees and passing foliage there,--
Wild pear, and oak, and dusky juniper,
With bryony between in trails of white,
And ivy, and the suckle's streaky light,
And moss warm gleaming with a sudden mark,
Like flings of sunshine left upon the bark;
And still the Pine long-haired, and dark, and tall,
In lordly right, predominant o'er all.
Much they admire that old religious tree,
With shaft above the rest up-shooting free,
And shaking, when its dark locks feel the wind,
Its wealthy fruit with rough Mosaic rind.
[Illustration: THE SILVER FIR.]
THE SILVER FIR.
[_Abies[S] picea._ Nat. Ord--_Coniferæ_; Linn.--_Monoec. Mon._]
[S] For the generic characters, see p. 221.
The Silver Fir is indigenous to the mountains of Central Europe, and to
the west and north of Asia, rising to the commencement of the zone of
the Scotch fir. It is found in France, on the Pyrenees, the Alps, and
the Vosges; in Italy, Spain, Greece, and the south of Germany; also in
Russia and Siberia; but it is not found indigenous in Britain or
Ireland. On the Carpathian mountains it is found to the height of 3200
feet; and on the Alps, to the height of from 3000 to 4000 feet. Wherever
it is found of a large size, as in the neighbourhood of Strasburg, and
in the Vosges, where it has attained the height of one hundred and fifty
feet, it invariably grows in good soil, and in a situation sheltered
rather than exposed. It appears to have been introduced into England
about the commencement of the seventeenth century; as we learn from
Evelyn, that in 1663 there were two Silver Firs growing at Harefield,
Middlesex, which were there planted sixty years before, at two years'
growth from the seed, the larger of which had risen to the height of 81
feet, and was 13 feet in girth below; and it was calculated that it
contained 146 feet of good timber.
[Illustration: Foliage and Cones of _A. picea_, or _Picea_.]