In our town and in our neighbourhood most of the trees drop their leaves
before winter comes, and stand with bare limbs for several months. Here
and there, however, a single tree stands, wearing the same green leaves
it wore all summer. Everybody knows this tree as an evergreen. It belongs
to a group of trees strangely different from those around it which have
shed their leaves. Let us see how it differs from them.
Take the one that is nearest to you, and pull down one of its leafy,
green branches. The leaves are like green needles, stiff, sharp-pointed,
with waxy resin on the brown twigs, that makes your fingers sticky. Up in
the tree tops strange oval, brown cones are hanging. Underfoot, a carpet
of dead needles lies thick upon the grass, and cones, with their
overlapping scales spread much wider than those upon the tree, lie about.
Squirrels have gnawed some of these scales away, leaving a central spike
like a cob from which the corn has been shelled. Little green cones, fat
and waxy, no larger than your thumb, are seen near the tips of some
branches. You can see the scales overlapping each other in these, even
though they seem to be grown solidly together.
If we walk through the village or the city in which we live, and stop
under each evergreen tree we come to, we shall find nearly all alike in
these two points: they have needle-like leaves, and they have cones. The
evergreens with needle-like leaves, and cones on and under them, belong
to four evergreen tree families, whose names every one would like to
know. These four evergreen families are named pine, spruce, fir, and
hemlock, and they are planted everywhere. But few people are very sure
they know one from another. It is perfectly right to call them all
evergreens, or conifers, which means cone-bearers. These names include
all the four families. But it is common for people to call a spruce, a
pine, or a hemlock, a spruce, when the truth is that one may very easily
know these trees apart.
Let us begin with the first needle-leaved cone-bearing evergreen we meet.
To find out whether this tree is a pine, a spruce, a fir, or a hemlock,
we must ask the tree some questions. It will answer them. First: “Are
your needles set _one_ in a place on the twig, or are they in groups, or
bundles, of _more than one_ at a place?” Pull down a twig and look
sharply for the answer. Suppose there are the leaves in pairs, or in
threes, or in fives, each bundle or group growing out of a single point
on the twig. The answer is: “Not single, but in bundles, more than one at
a place.” Towards the end of the shoot you will find a brownish or
silvery sheath binding the leaves into bundles. Further back, this sheath
may be missing, but the number of leaves in the bundle remains the same
for some distance back from the end of the shoot. The leaves begin to
fall from the bundles farthest from the tips, and therefore old. If two
leaves is the number in a bundle, there are never more than two, young
and old. If three is the number, you will find only threes. If five is
the number, then you will rarely find fewer than this in any bundle.
All the trees with more than one leaf in a bundle are pines. All of the
rest of the needle-leaved evergreens have a single leaf at a place upon
the twig. They are the spruces, firs, and hemlocks. Let us go and look
for them.
The very next evergreen we come to we must put the same question to: “Are
your leaves single, or are there more than one in a bundle?” Suppose
“three in a bundle” is the answer; we recognise the tree as a pine, and
pass it by.
Across the street is a tree of different shape, though an evergreen and a
conifer. We see the long cones hanging from its drooping branches,
especially near the top of the tree. Cross over and examine a twig; the
needles are short and sharp-pointed, and they are set singly in spiral
lines on the twigs. Every leaf sits on a little shelf, or bracket, that
stands out from the twig. Pick up a dead twig under the tree. The leaves
are gone, but these little brackets in spiral rows wind around the twig.
They are horny and sharp, and would tear your fingers if you drew the
twig quickly between them.
Notice that the little brackets are angled at the top. Pick up a dead
leaf and notice the shape of its base. The leaf itself has angled sides.
Roll it between your thumb and finger. It has three or four sides, and at
least three sharp angles.
This is a spruce, and the signs by which we know it are the brackets on
the twig, the thick, sharp, three- or four-angled leaf, and the stout
twigs, to match the stout leaves.
The next needle-leaved evergreen with cones we meet we may hope will turn
out to be a fir or hemlock, but the chances are that its twigs will show
two, three, or five needles in a bundle. What shall we call the tree? A
pine, of course, and pass it by. We need ask no further question.
The next tree has stiff twigs with brackets, and stout, stiff, angled and
pointed leaves. Cones hang down upon its branches. We recognise a spruce,
and go on.
Over yonder is an evergreen which waves a featherly spray of very slender
twigs. There is scarcely a breeze stirring, and yet the tree is all
a-tremble, and its drooping branches carry a load of pretty little brown
cones. Turn up a branch, and you notice that the leaves are all silvery
underneath. They are single on the twigs, so this is not a pine. They
part and lie flat, a row on each side of the twig. This is very different
from a spruce whose leaves stand out all around the twigs. These sprays
are flat, each like a feather. The leaves are soft, not stiff. They are
blunt, flat, and each has a tiny stem. The twigs are like fine wire, they
are so slender. The leaves are mounted on brackets, just as the spruce
leaves are, but the brackets are much smaller, to match the daintier
twigs and leaves.
It is a hemlock tree. The tiny leaf stem is the thing which sets it apart
from all other needle-leaved evergreens. Take a good look before you go,
at the leaf itself, at the slender twigs, with their little brackets, at
the shining upper surface of the flat leaf and the silvery lining that
makes this tree so lovely as the wind lifts the flexible branches. Pick
up a handful of dead leaves, and notice that though dead and brown, they
show the flat surface with a middle ridge on the under side, prolonged
into the short leaf stem. The pale lining is not so distinct now.
One tree family remains of the needle-leaved, cone-bearing evergreen.
That is the fir, the Christmas tree, and its close relatives. Not often
do we plant our native fir, because the trees are not as handsome, nor as
useful as pines, spruces, and hemlocks. We may walk far before we find an
evergreen which does not turn out to be a pine, a spruce, or a hemlock.
However, it is near Christmas time. The little firs will be brought into
market in sufficient numbers to supply a Christmas tree to every house.
This is our chance. We will go to market, and look at these little trees
that stand together, with their limbs trussed like fowls, ready to be
baked. This is for economy of space in shipping.
The clean, pungent odour of balsam comes from the bleeding stub, and we
see tears of the whitish wax wherever the bark of a twig or branch is
bruised. These are balsam firs. They have their name from this fragrant,
sticky resin that leaks from their veins.
First, as to the leaves. We find them single and spirally arranged, as in
the spruce, but there are no brackets on the twigs. Pull off a leaf and
the twig is smooth. The leaves are blunt, but flattened, and on most of
the twigs they spread, feather-like, on two sides. There are more of
them, however, than on the hemlock spray. They are white-lined, like the
hemlock leaves, but there are no little leaf stems. The twigs are stouter
than those of the hemlock, resembling the spruce twigs in size, but they
lack horny little leaf brackets which are so prominent on spruce twigs.
One reason that spruce trees make poor Christmas trees is that the leaves
fall so soon. Almost the day after Christmas the floor is scattered with
them. The fir trees keep their leaves for weeks. This little bracket
makes all the difference. Fir leaves seem to be fastened right into the
twig itself, and made thus more secure.
If it chances that you find a fir old enough to bear cones, you will see
another very distinct trait of this family. The cones are held erect on
the twigs; the cones of pines, and spruces, and hemlocks hang down. If
you are fortunate enough to find a fir tree growing, and old enough to
bear its fruit, these upright cones will tell you the tree’s name before
you come near enough to look at the leaves, and to see if the twigs are
smooth.