THE “SHOWN TO THE CHILDREN” SERIES
EDITED BY LOUEY CHISHOLM
TREES
The “Shown to the Children” Series
1. BEASTS
With 48 Coloured Plates by PERCY J. BILLINGHURST.
Letterpress by LENA DALKEITH.
2. FLOWERS
With 48 Coloured Plates showing 150 flowers, by
JANET HARVEY KELMAN. Letterpress by C. E.
SMITH.
3. BIRDS
With 48 Coloured Plates by M. K. C. SCOTT.
Letterpress by J. A. HENDERSON.
4. THE SEA-SHORE
With 48 Coloured Plates by JANET HARVEY
KELMAN. Letterpress by REV. THEODORE WOOD.
5. THE FARM
With 48 Coloured Plates by F. M. B. and A. H.
BLAIKIE. Letterpress by FOSTER MEADOW.
6. TREES
With 32 Coloured Plates by JANET HARVEY
KELMAN. Letterpress by C. E. SMITH.
7. NESTS AND EGGS
With 48 Coloured Plates by A. H. BLAIKIE.
Letterpress by J. A. HENDERSON.
8. BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS
With 48 Coloured Plates by JANET HARVEY
KELMAN. Letterpress by Rev. THEODORE WOOD.
9. STARS
By ELLISON HAWKS.
10. GARDENS
With 32 Coloured Plates by J. H. KELMAN.
Letterpress by J. A. HENDERSON.
11. BEES
By ELLISON HAWKS. Illustrated in Colour and
Black and White.
12. ARCHITECTURE
By GLADYS WYNNE. Profusely Illustrated.
13. THE EARTH
By ELLISON HAWKS. Profusely Illustrated.
14. THE NAVY
By PERCIVAL A. HISLAM. 48 Two-colour Plates.
15. THE ARMY
By A. H. ATTERIDGE. 16 Colour and 32 Black Plates.
[Illustration: PLATE I
THE OAK
1. Oak Tree
2. Leaf Spray
3. Spray with Flower Catkins
4. Stamen Catkin
5. Seed Catkin
6. Fruit]
TREES
SHOWN TO THE CHILDREN
BY
JANET HARVEY KELMAN
DESCRIBED BY
C. E. SMITH
[Illustration]
THIRTY-TWO COLOURED PICTURES
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK, Ltd.
35 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
AND EDINBURGH
To
THOMAS FORBES SACKVILLE WILSON
Dear children,--In this little book I have written about some of the
trees which you are likely to find growing wild in this country, and
Miss Kelman has painted for you pictures of these trees, with drawings
of the leaves and flowers and fruit, so that it will be easy for you to
tell the name of each tree. But I think there is one question which you
are sure to ask after reading this small book, and that is, “How do the
trees grow?”
The tree grows very much as we do, by taking food and by breathing. The
food of the tree is obtained from two sources: from the earth and from
the air. Deep down in the earth lie the tree roots, and these roots
suck up water from the soil in which they are embedded. This water, in
which there is much nourishment, rises through many tiny cells in the
woody stem till it reaches the leaf, twigs, and green leaves. As it
rises the growing cells keep what they need of the water. The rest is
given off as vapour by the leaves through many tiny pores, which you
will not be able to see without a microscope.
While it is day the green leaves select from the air a gas called
carbonic acid gas. This they separate into two parts called oxygen
and carbon. The plant does not need the oxygen as food, so the leaves
return it to the air, but they keep the carbon. This carbon becomes
mixed in some strange way with the water food drawn from the soil by
the roots. Forming a liquid, it finds its way through many small cells
and channels to feed the growing leaves and twigs and branches.
But, like ourselves, a tree if it is to live and thrive must breathe as
well as take food. By night as well as by day the tree requires air for
breathing. Scattered over the surface of the leaves, and indeed over
the skin of the tree, are many tiny mouths or openings called stomata.
It is by these that the tree breathes. It now takes from the air some
oxygen, which, you will remember, is the gas that the leaves do not
need in making their share of the tree food. Now you can see why it
is that a tree cannot thrive if it is planted in a dusty, sooty town.
The tiny mouths with which it breathes get filled up, and the tree
is half-choked for lack of air. Also the pores of the leaves become
clogged, so that the water which is not needed cannot easily escape
from them. A heavy shower of rain is a welcome friend to our dusty town
trees.
As a rule tree flowers are not so noticeable as those which grow in
the woods and meadows. Often the ring of gaily-coloured petals which
form the corolla is awanting, so are the green or coloured sepals of
the calyx, and the flower may consist, as in the Ash tree, of a small
seed-vessel standing between two stamens, which have plenty of pollen
dust in their fat heads.
It is very interesting to notice the various ways in which the tree
flowers grow. In some trees the stamens and seed-vessels will be found
close together, as in the Ash tree and Elm. Or they may grow on the
same branch of a tree; but all the stamens will be grouped together on
one stalk and all the seed-vessels close beside it on another stalk,
as in the Oak tree. Or the stamen flowers may all be found on one tree
without any seed flowers, and on another tree, sometimes a considerable
distance away, there will be found nothing but seed flowers. This
occurs in the White Poplar or Abele tree.
You must never forget that both kinds of flowers are required if the
tree is to produce new seed, and many books have been written to point
out the wonderful ways in which the wind and the birds and the bees
carry the stamen dust to the seed-vessels, which are waiting to receive
it.
Each summer the tree adds a layer of new wood in a circle round the
tree trunk; a broad circle when there has been sunshine and the tree
has thriven well, and a narrow circle when the season has been wet and
sunless. This new layer of wood is always found just under the bark or
coarse, outer skin of the tree. The bark protects the soft young wood,
and if it is eaten by cattle, or cut off by mischievous boys, then the
layer of young wood is exposed, and the tree will die.
When winter approaches and the trees get ready for their long sleep,
the cells in this layer of new wood slowly dry, and it becomes a ring
of hard wood. If you look at a tree which has just been cut down, you
will be able to tell how many years old the tree is by counting the
circles of wood in the tree trunk. When a tree grows very slowly these
rings are close and firm, and the wood of the tree is hard and valuable.
Many, many years ago, when a rich Scotch landlord lay dying, he said to
his only son, “Jock, when you have nothing else to do, be sticking in a
tree; it will aye be growing when you are sleeping.” He was a clever,
far-seeing old man, Jock’s father, for he knew that in course of time
trees grow to be worth money, and that to plant a tree was a sure and
easy way of adding a little more to the wealth he loved so dearly.
But a tree has another and a greater value to us and to the world than
the price which a wood merchant will give for it as timber. Think
what a dear familiar friend the tree has been in the life of man! How
different many of our best-loved tales would be without the trees that
played so large a part in the lives of our favourite heroes. Where
could Robin Hood and his merry men have lived and hunted but under the
greenwood tree? Without the forest of Arden what refuge would have
sheltered the mischief-loving Rosalind and her banished father? How
often do we think of the stately Oak and Linden trees into which good
old Baucis and Philemon were changed by the kindly gods.
And do you remember what secrets the trees told us as we lay under
their shady branches on the hot midsummer days, while the leaves danced
and flickered against the blue, blue sky? Can you tell what was the
charm that held us like a dream in the falling dusk as we watched their
heavy masses grow dark and gloomy against the silvery twilight sky?
In a corner of a Cumberland farmyard there grew a noble tree whose
roots struck deep into the soil, and whose heavy branches shadowed
much of the ground. “Why do you not cut it down?” asked a stranger;
“it seems so much in the way.” “Cut it down!” the farmer answered
passionately. “I would sooner fall on my knees and worship it.” To him
the tree had spoken of a secret unguessed by Jock’s father and by many
other people who look at the trees with eyes that cannot see. He had
learned that the mystery of tree life is one with the mystery that
underlies our own; that we share this mystery with the sea, and the
sun, and the stars, and that by this mystery of life the whole world is
“bound with gold chains” of love “about the feet of God.”
C. E. SMITH.
LIST OF PLATES
PLATE I
The Oak
PLATE II
The Beech
PLATE III
The Birch
PLATE IV
The Alder
PLATE V
The Hornbeam
PLATE VI
The Hazel
PLATE VII
The Lime or Linden
PLATE VIII
The Common Elm and Wych or Broad-Leaved Elm
PLATE IX
The Ash
PLATE X
The Field Maple
PLATE XI
The Sycamore, or Great Maple, or Mock Plane
PLATE XII
The Oriental Plane
PLATE XIII
The White Poplar or Abele Tree
PLATE XIV
The Aspen
PLATE XV
The White Willow
PLATE XVI
The Goat Willow or Sallow
PLATE XVII
The Scotch Pine or Scotch Fir
PLATE XVIII
The Yew
PLATE XIX
The Juniper
PLATE XX
The Larch
PLATE XXI
The Spruce Fir
PLATE XXII
The Silver Fir
PLATE XXIII
The Holly
PLATE XXIV
The Wild Cherry or Gean
PLATE XXV
The Whitebeam
PLATE XXVI
The Rowan or Mountain Ash
PLATE XXVII
The Hawthorn
PLATE XXVIII
The Box
PLATE XXIX
The Walnut
PLATE XXX
The Sweet Chestnut or Spanish Chestnut
PLATE XXXI
The Horse Chestnut
PLATE XXXII
The Cedar of Lebanon
TREES
PLATE I
THE OAK
Of all our forest trees the Oak is undoubtedly the king. It is our
most important tree, the monarch of our woods, full of noble dignity
and grandeur in the summer sunshine, strong to endure the buffeting
of the wintry gales. It lives to the great age of seven hundred years
or more, and is a true father of the forest. We read of the Oak tree
in the story books of long ago. There are many Oak trees mentioned in
the Bible. In Greece the Oak was believed to be the first tree that
God created, and there grew a grove of sacred Oaks which were said to
utter prophecies. The wood used for the building of the good ship Argo
was cut from this grove, and in times of danger the planks of the ship
spoke in warning voices to the sailors.
In Rome a crown of Oak leaves was given to him who should save the life
of a citizen, and in this country, in the days of the Druids, there
were many strange customs connected with the Oak and its beautiful
guest the mistletoe. The burning of the Yule log of Oak is an ancient
custom which we trace to Druid times. It was lit by the priests from
the sacred altar, then the fires in all the houses were put out, and
the people relit them with torches kindled at the sacred log. Even now
in remote parts of Yorkshire and Devonshire the Yule log is brought in
at Christmas-time and half burned, then it is taken off the fire and
carefully laid aside till the following year.
We know that in Saxon times this country was covered with dense
forests, many of which were of Oak trees. Huge herds of swine fed on
the acorns which lay in abundance under the trees; and a man, when he
wished to sell his piece of forest, did not tell the buyer how much
money the wood in it was worth, but how many pigs it could fatten. In
times of famine the acorns used to be ground, and bread was made of the
meal. There have been many famous Oak trees in England: one of these we
have all heard of--the huge Oak at Boscobel in which King Charles II.
hid with a great many of his men after he was defeated at the battle of
Worcester.
I think you will have no difficulty in recognising an Oak tree (1) at
any time of the year. Look at its trunk in winter: how dark and rough
it is; how wide and spreading at the bottom to give its many roots a
broad grip of the earth into which they pierce deeply. Then as the
stem rises it becomes narrower, as if the tree had a waist, for it
broadens again as it reaches a height where the branches divide from
the main trunk. And what huge branches these are--great rough, dark
arms with many crooked knots or elbows, which shipbuilders prize for
their trade. These Oak-tree arms are so large and heavy that the tree
would need to be well rooted in the ground to stand firm when the gale
is tossing its branches as if they were willow rods.
The Oak tree does not grow to a great height. It is a broad, sturdy
tree, and it grows very slowly, so slowly that after it is grown up it
rarely increases more than an inch in a year, and sometimes not even
that. But just because the Oak tree lives so leisurely, it outlasts all
its companions in the forest except, perhaps, the yew tree, and its
beautiful hard, close-grained wood is the most prized of all our timber.
In the end of April or early in May, the Oak leaves (2) appear;
very soft and tender they are too at first, and of a pale reddish
green colour. But soon they darken in the sunshine and become a
dark glossy green. Each leaf is feather-shaped and has a stalk. The
margin is deeply waved into blunt lobes or fingers, and there is a
strongly-marked vein up the centre of the leaf, with slender veins
running from it to the edge.
In autumn these leaves change colour: they become a pale brown, and
will hang for weeks rustling in the branches till the young buds which
are to appear next year begin to form and so push the old leaves off.
If a shrivelling frost or a blighting insect destroys all the young Oak
leaves, as sometimes happens, then the sturdy tree will reclothe itself
in a new dress of leaves, which neither the Beech, nor the Chestnut,
nor the Maple, could do. It shows what a great deal of life there is in
the stout tree.
The flowers of the Oak arrive about the same time as the leaves, and
they grow in catkins which are of two kinds. You will find a slender
hanging catkin (3) on which grow small bunches of yellow-headed stamens
(4). Among the stamens you can see six or eight narrow sepals, but
these stamens have no scales to protect them as the Hazel and Birch
catkins have. On the same branch grows a stouter, upright catkin,
and on it are one or maybe two or three tiny cups (5), made of soft
green leaves called bracts, and in the centre of this cup sits the
seed-vessel, crowned with three blunt points. As the summer advances
this seed-vessel grows larger and fatter and becomes a fruit (6) called
an acorn, which is a pale yellow colour at first, and later is a dark
olive brown. The soft leafy cup hardens till it is firm as wood, and in
it the acorn sits fast till it is ripe. It then falls from the cup and
is greedily eaten by the squirrels and dormice, as it was in the olden
times by the pigs. From those acorns that are left lying on the ground
all winter, under the withered leaves, will grow the tiny shoots of a
new tree when the spring sunshine comes again.
The Oak tree is the most hospitable of trees: it is said that eleven
hundred insects make their home in its kindly shelter. There are five
kinds of houses, which are called galls, built by insects, and you
can easily recognise these, and must look for them on the Oak tree.
Sometimes on the hanging stamen catkins you will find little balls like
currants with the catkin stem running through the centre. These are the
homes of a tiny grub which is living inside the currant ball, and which
will eat its way out as soon as it is ready to unfold its wings and fly.
Often at the end of an Oak twig you find a soft, spongy ball which is
called an Oak apple. It is pinkish brown on the outside and is not very
regular in shape. This ball is divided inside into several cells, and
in each cell there lives a grub which will also become a fly before
summer is over.
Sometimes if you look at the back of an Oak leaf you will see it
covered with small red spangles which are fringed and hairy. These
spangles each contain a small insect, and they cling to their spangled
homes long after the leaves have fallen to the ground.
Another insect home or gall grows in the leaves, and this one is much
larger, sometimes as big as a marble. It too is made by an insect which
is living inside, and this is called a leaf gall.
There is still another insect which attacks the leaf buds and causes
them to grow in a curious way. Instead of opening as usual, the bud
proceeds to make layers of narrow-pointed green leaves which it lays
tightly one above the other, like the leaves of an artichoke or the
scales of a fir cone. If you cut one of these Oak cones in half you
will find many small insects inside, which have caused the bud to grow
in this strange way.
And there is one other oak gall you must note. When the leaves have
all fallen and the twigs are brown and bare, you see clusters of hard
brown balls growing on some of them. They are smooth and glossy and
the colour of dried walnuts. These also have been made by an insect.
Sometimes you see the tiny hole in the ball by which the grub has bored
its way out. This kind of gall does great harm to the tree, as it uses
up the sap that should nourish the young twigs.
The wood of the Oak is very valuable. Sometimes a fine old tree will
be sold for four hundred pounds, and every part of it can be used. The
bark is valuable because it contains large quantities of an acid which
is used in making ink; also in dyeing leather. Oak that has been lying
for years in a peat bog, where there is much iron in the water, is
perfectly black when dug out, black as ink, because the acid and the
iron together have made the inky colour.
[Illustration: PLATE II
THE BEECH
1. Beech Tree in Autumn
2. Leaf Spray
3. Bud
4. Buds in Winter
5. Seed Flower
6. Stamen Flower
7. Fruit
8. Fruit when Ripe]
The wood of an Oak tree lasts very long: there are Oak beams in
houses which are known to be seven hundred years old, and which are as
good as the day they were cut. For centuries our ships were built of
Oak, the wooden walls of old England, hearts of Oak, as they have often
been called, because Oak wood does not readily splinter when struck
by a cannon ball. And Oak wood will not quickly rot: we know of piles
which have been driven into river beds centuries ago and are still
sound and strong. In pulling down an old building lately in London,
which was built six hundred and fifty years ago, the workmen found many
oak piles in the foundations, and these were still quite sound.
PLATE II
THE BEECH
In the south of England there lived a holy hermit named St. Leonard
whose hut was surrounded by a glade of noble Beech trees. The saint
loved the beautiful trees, but by day he could not sit under their
shady branches because of the vipers which swarmed about the roots,
and by night the songs of many nightingales disturbed his rest. So he
prayed that both the serpents and the birds might be taken away, and
from that day no viper has stung and no nightingale has warbled in
the Hampshire forests. So we read in the old story books. There are
many such legends connected with the Beech tree. It has grown in this
country as far back as we have any history, and it is often called the
mother of the forest, because its thickly covered branches give shelter
and protection to younger trees which are struggling to live.
The Beech is a cousin of the Oak. It is a large, handsome tree, with
a noble trunk and widely spreading branches which sweep downward to
the ground, and in summer every branch and twig is densely covered
with leaves. No other tree gives such shade as the Beech, and in a hot
summer day how tempting it is to lie underneath the branches and watch
the squirrels glancing in and out among the rustling leaves and tearing
the young bark.
In early spring you will recognise the Beech tree (1) by its smooth
olive-grey trunk. Only the Beech tree has such a smooth trunk when it
is fully grown, and in consequence, every boy with a new knife tries to
cut his name on its bark. In summer the young bud (3) of next year’s
leaf is formed where each leaf joins the stem. All winter time you can
see slender-pointed buds (4) growing at the end of every twig, and when
April comes each of these pointed buds has become a loose bunch of
silky brown scales. Inside these protecting scales is hidden the young
leaf bud, and soon the winter coverings unclose. For a short time they
hang like a fringe round the base of the leaf stalk, but they quickly
fall off and strew the ground beneath. The young leaves inside are
folded like a fan, and they have soft silky hairs along the edges. How
lovely they are when open! Each leaf (2) is oval, with a blunted point
at the end, and the edges are slightly waved.
At first the leaf colour is a clear pale green, through which the light
seems to shine; and there is nothing more lovely than a Beech tree
wood in early May when the young leaves are glistening against the
clear blue sky. But as summer comes nearer the leaf colour darkens, and
by July it is a deep, glossy green. You can then see very distinctly
the veins which run from the centre to the edge of every leaf. These
leaves grow so thickly that no stems or branches can be seen when
the tree is in full foliage; and they are beautiful at all seasons.
When autumn comes, bringing cold winds and a touch of frost, then the
Beech tree leaves change colour: they seem to give us back again all
the sunshine they have been storing up during summer, for they blaze
like the sunset sky in myriad shades of gold, and red, and orange. In
windy open places, these beautiful leaves soon strew the ground with a
thick carpet that whirls and rustles in every breeze. But in sheltered
glades, and especially in hedges, the leaves will hang all winter till
they are pushed off by the new spring buds, and they glow russet red in
the December sunshine, like the breast of the robin that is singing on
the twig.
At every stage the Beech tree is a thing of beauty, and it is one of
England’s most precious possessions.
The young flowers appear about the same time as the leaves, and, like
many other trees, the Beech has two kinds of flowers. The stamen flower
(6) has a long, drooping stalk, from the end of which hangs a loose
covering of fine brown scales, with pointed ends. Beyond this scaly
covering hangs a tassel of purplish brown stamens, eight or twelve, or
more, each with a yellow head.
On the same twig, not very far distant, you find the seed flower (5).
This grows upright on a short stout stalk which bears at the end a
bristly oval ball (7). At the top of this bristly ball you see six
slender threads waving in the air. These rise from two seeds which are
enclosed in the bristly covering. By and by the ball opens at the top
and forms a cup with four prickly brown sides, each lined with silky
green down. Inside the cup are two triangular green nuts which are the
fruit (8). These nuts become dark brown when they ripen, and on windy
days they are blown in thousands from their coverings and fall to the
ground, where they lie hidden among the rustling brown leaves.
[Illustration: PLATE III
THE BIRCH
1. Birch Tree in Autumn
2. Leaf Spray
3. Seed Catkin
4. Stamen Catkin
5. Winged Seed enlarged
5A. Winged Seed natural size]
In old times people called these Beech nuts Beech-mast or food, and
herds of pigs were taken to the Beech woods to feed on the nuts, which
are said to contain oil. But pigs prefer to eat acorns, and nowadays
the Beech nuts are left to fatten the squirrels and dormice, and the
thrushes and deer, except those which children gather to string into
necklaces.
No grass or plant will grow below the Beech tree branches: the leaves
are too close together to let the sunshine reach the ground; also the
roots are greedy, and are said to use up all the nourishment.
About a hundred years ago a Beech tree was found in Germany whose young
leaves were dark purple red, and never became green. Young plants from
this strange tree were much sought after, and now in many parts of the
country you see red or copper beeches, as we usually call them.
Beech wood is used in various ways. In France the peasants make it into
shoes--wooden shoes called sabots, which keep out the damp better than
those made of any other wood. It is also used in ship-building and for
making cheap furniture; but Beech wood is not nearly so valuable as
that of the Oak, or Ash, or Elm.
PLATE III
THE BIRCH
“Sweet bird of the meadow, soft be thy nest,
Thy mother will wake thee at morn from thy rest:
She has made a soft nest, little redbreast, for thee,
Of the leaves of the birch, and the moss of the tree.”
--Leyden.
The Birch tree is the daintiest and most fairy-like of all our forest
trees, and, strange to say, it is one of the hardiest. Who would
believe that the delicate tracery of purple twigs and branches, which
looks like fairy fretwork against the grey wintry sky, could thrive in
places where the sturdy Oak tree dies?
In the far, far north, in Lapland, where the ground is snow-covered all
the year, the Birch tree flourishes, and many are the uses to which it
is put in that dreary land.
Look at the Birch tree (1) early in the year before the sun has
awakened the trees, and flowers, and seeds from their long winter
sleep. It is easy to recognise, because no other tree has such delicate
twigs and branches, and the colour of the trunk is peculiarly its own.
Most tree trunks are grey, or grey-green, or brown, but the trunk of
the Birch is covered with a silvery white bark that glistens like
satin. In many places this bark is marked with dark bands which crack
across the tree trunk on the silvery surface.
This silver bark is a wonderful thing. It peels off readily in large
flakes which resemble tissue paper, and which look very easy to
destroy, but are wonderfully tough and lasting. It burns readily,
but in almost no other way can it be destroyed. If a Birch tree is
blown down and left lying on the damp ground for many years, all the
wood inside the silvery bark will decay, but the outside of the trunk
remains unchanged. Stand on it, and you find that what you took to be
a solid tree is nothing but a hollow tube of bark.
In North America the Indians cover their canoes with Birch bark, and
in some snow-covered countries the people use it for tiles with which
to roof their houses. Some time ago, when men were digging in the
peat-bogs of Lancashire, they found the remains of Birch trees which
must have been there for a thousand years. The wood had turned into
stone, but the bark was still the same as when it grew on the tree.
In April the young leaves (2) cover the tree like a green mist. They
are very tiny, the smallest and most fairy-like of all our tree leaves.
Each leaf is oval in shape, with a glossy surface, and has a double
row of teeth, first a large tooth, then a smaller one, cut unequally
all round the edge. The leaf stalk is very slender and wiry, and the
twig to which it is attached is very little stouter, so that the leaves
dance and rustle in the slightest breath of wind. Sometimes the back of
a Birch leaf is covered with fine yellow powder. This powder is really
a tiny plant which has made its home on the Birch tree leaf and feeds
on it, just as the ivy and mistletoe do on larger trees. In autumn
these leaves turn pale yellow, and the moss and heather are strewn with
their flakes of gold.
There is another stranger makes its home on some of the Birch trees.
In spring, before the leaves come, you may often notice curious bunches
of twigs that look like crows’ nests high up among the branches. These
are caused by a tiny insect which has come to stay on the Birch tree,
and, in some way which we do not understand, it makes all the twigs
crowd together in that curious manner. “Witches’ Knots” they are called
in Scotland.
In May the Birch tree is in flower. You know that tree flowers are not
so easy to see as meadow flowers: they require to be sought for and
looked at carefully if you wish to know about them. The Birch tree has
two kinds of flowers, and both are needed if the seed from which new
trees may grow is to be made ready. It takes the tree a whole year to
prepare one kind of flower. During summer look at the foot of a leaf
stalk, where it joins the twig, and you will find two tiny green stamen
catkins (4) with all their soft scales tightly closed together. In
autumn these little catkins become dark purple, and they hang on the
tree all winter. Early in the following spring they change entirely.
The scales unclose and the catkins grow longer till they look like a
pair of caterpillars loosely shaking in the wind. Behind the scales in
these reddy-brown caterpillars you find a mass of flowers, each made up
of one tiny sepal, also two slender stamens with small yellow heads.
Now look at the other kind of flower, the seed catkin (3). These also
are small and green, but they grow singly and are fatter and rounder
than the stamen catkins. Their scales never open very wide, but if you
look closely you will see behind each scale three little pear-shaped
seed-vessels with two slender horns standing up from the top of each.
When the seeds in this catkin are ripe they resemble tiny nuts with
wings on each side (5): and on windy days you can see clouds of these
little winged seeds (5_a_) fluttering to the ground like small flies.
Birds are very fond of Birch tree seeds, and one kind of finch, the
siskin, is usually found hovering among the Birch trees.
The Birch tree lives till it is about a hundred years old. It is not
grown up till it is twenty-five, so you will find no seeds on the young
birches. It is a tree with many useful qualities. The bark is sometimes
twisted into torches, as it contains a good deal of oil, and it is also
used in tanning leather. The delicious scent of Russian leather is due
to Birch bark oil. And there is sugar in the sap which may be made into
wine. Furniture is largely made from the prettily grained Birch wood.
PLATE IV
THE ALDER
The Alder tree (1) is a cousin of the Birch and the Hazel, and like
them its flowers and seeds are borne in catkins. It is usually to be
found growing by the side of a slow-running stream, over which its
slender branches bend gracefully, while its spreading roots cling to
the boggy soil at the water’s edge. For the Alder does not thrive in
dry ground: it is a water-loving tree, and its many tiny roots attract
moisture, and suck it up greedily; so that the ground where the Alder
grows is often a marshy swamp.
Sometimes you will find an Alder which has grown into a lofty tree with
a rough brown-black bark, and with many large branches; but it is much
more frequently found as a low-growing and rather gloomy bush, about
the same size as the Hazel.
The wood of the Alder is much sought after for buildings which stand
in water. In Venice one of the most famous bridges, the Rialto, is
built on piles, or great posts of Alder driven deep into the bed of the
canal: and one reads in old history books that boats were first made of
the trunks of the Alder tree. But it is of no use for fences or gate
posts, as it decays quickly in dry soil.
[Illustration: PLATE IV
THE ALDER
1. Alder Tree
2. Leaf Spray
3. Stamen Catkins
4. Seed Catkins
5. Last Year’s Seed Catkins
6. Next Year’s Seed Catkins]
If you watch a woodman cutting down an Alder tree you will notice that
the chips which fall under his axe are very white; but soon they change
colour and become a reddish pink. The hard wood knots which are found
in the tree trunk are beautifully streaked and veined and are much
prized by furniture makers.
In early spring you should walk to the banks of a stream and look for
an Alder tree. Like the Hazel, you will easily know it by its winter
catkins, though these are very different from Hazel catkins. Clinging
to the boughs you see groups of small brown oval cones, which are
quite hard and woody and which snap off easily. These woody cones are
the withered seed catkins (5) of last year. As well as these you find
bunches of long drooping caterpillars with tightly-shut purple-green
scales, which will not unclose till the spring days come. These are the
young stamen catkins, and they have taken six months to grow so far. By
these you will always know the Alder tree; and it is most interesting
to watch day by day how its catkins grow and change.
In spring the tree produces many groups of tiny seed catkins (4),
which are hard and oval and covered with closely-shut green scales. As
the days get warmer these cones grow larger and larger, and one day
you will find the scales opening as a fir cone does when it is ripe.
Underneath each scale are hidden two seeds, and from the top of each
seed rise two slender horns. There are no wings to the seed, as in the
Birch tree. These seed cones grow fatter and larger all summer, and by
autumn their scales, instead of remaining green and soft, have become
a dark reddish brown colour and are hard and woody. In October or
November the seed is quite ripe, and is shaken on to the boggy ground
below. Then the empty seed catkins become dry and shrivelled, and they
remain in groups clinging to the twigs all winter.
But the drooping caterpillars have been growing and changing too. Soon
after the seed catkins have unclosed their hard oval balls, so that the
sun and light may reach their tiny seeds, these drooping stamen catkins
(3) unclose, and their scales take on a deeper shade of reddish purple.
Each scale is edged with three points, and each point covers four tiny
stamens and four tiny petals. When the fine powder in the yellow stamen
heads is ripe, the wind blows it from the dangling tails on to the seed
cones which are waiting for it, as without the stamen powder the seeds
would never ripen: and soon after this happens the dangling tails fall
to the ground.
[Illustration: PLATE V
THE HORNBEAM
1. Hornbeam
2. Leaf Spray
3. Stamen Catkin
4. Seed Catkin
5. Fruit]
If you look at an Alder tree in late autumn you will find three kinds
of catkins. First, the empty seed catkins with dry woody scales;
second, the dangling stamen catkins with the fine stamen dust all
blown away; and third, there are tiny little caterpillar catkins
with their scales still tightly closed together--these are next year’s
stamen catkins (6) just begun to form.
The leaves (2) of the Alder are heavy and leathery. They are usually
rounded at the tips, but sometimes they are square, as if a piece had
been cut off. Each leaf is prettily toothed all round the edge, and
the veins, which run from the centre rib to the margin, are very much
raised. When the leaves are newly opened, the under-side is covered
with tufts of soft down, and they are slightly sticky. Sometimes they
are tinged with dull purple. These leaves are placed alternately on the
stem, and while still in bud each leaf is enclosed in a pair of oval
sheaths like small yellow ears. These ears do not fall off when the
leaf unfolds, as do the leaf coverings of the Birch and the Beech; you
will often find them at the bottom of the leaf stalk when the leaf is
fully grown.
PLATE V
THE HORNBEAM
This is a tree that many people tell you they have never noticed; even
people who know the names of most of our forest trees look surprised if
you ask them which is the Hornbeam (1); they have never heard of it.
And yet it grows freely in England in the woods and hedgerows, and
like the Beech it is invaluable for sheltering with its close bushy
branches younger trees that are struggling to live. If left to grow in
good soil the Hornbeam will become a tall tree over seventy feet high,
but it is not usual to find such well-grown Hornbeams, because the tree
is generally planted to form hedges, and as these require thickness and
bushiness rather than height, the top of the tree is often cut off, so
that all its strength may go to producing side-branches.
Last century it was the fashion to have curious puzzle-paths made in
gardens. You entered at a gap in a leafy hedge and walked on and on,
and in and out between growing hedges till you came to an open space in
the centre. Then the puzzle was to find your way out again, and this
was sometimes very difficult. This kind of puzzle-path was called a
maze, and the hedges of these mazes were frequently made of Hornbeam,
because this tree will allow itself to be clipped and cut into any
shape, and if its tall spreading branches are taken away, it at once
puts out many small side-shoots which form a thick hedge.
The Hornbeam branches have a curious habit of growing together where
they cross each other. You may find two good-sized branches which are
separate on the lower part of the tree, but higher up they cross and
touch each other, and frequently they join together and become one
branch.
In the town of Ghent in Belgium there is a winding walk arched with
Hornbeam: the trees have been planted so close that they meet overhead,
and they have then been clipped and cut till they form a green tunnel
under which you can walk for three hundred yards.
The trunk of the Hornbeam is a dull grey colour, and it is marked with
white spots. It is not round, as are most tree trunks, but looks as if
it had been slightly flattened, and so made oval when it was young. The
leaves are not unlike those of the Elm and the young Beech, and when
the tree is young it is sometimes mistaken for one or other of these.
But you will notice some differences if you look carefully.
The Hornbeam leaf (2) is oval and tapers to a sharp point. It has
strongly-marked veins running from the centre to the edge of the leaf,
and these veins stand up like cord on the under-side of the leaf. You
remember that the Beech leaf was smooth and glossy, and that the Elm
leaf was rough and hairy? The Hornbeam comes just between the two: it
is too rough to be a Beech leaf, and is also too pointed, and it is too
smooth to be an Elm leaf. Besides, the two sides of the Hornbeam leaf
meet exactly opposite each other on the leaf stalk, and in the Elm the
one side of the leaf very often joins the stalk farther down than the
other: the leaf is lopsided.
The Hornbeam leaves have two rows of teeth round the edge, and in
autumn they turn yellow, and this yellow colour changes into red-brown
as the winter draws near. In sheltered places the leaves will hang on
the branches all winter, till in spring they are pushed off by the
young leaf buds.
The Hornbeam has two kinds of flowers, which grow in catkins, and both
are found on the same tree. The stamen catkins (3) come with the young
leaves early in April, and they grow on those twigs which were produced
last year. It is not possible to mistake the Hornbeam for either the
Beech or the Elm if you see the flowers, for neither of these has
hanging catkins like the Hornbeam. Each catkin is made up of many green
scales covering the catkin loosely. These scales are broad and oval,
and they end in a sharp point. Hidden at the foot of each scale lies
a thick bunch of yellow-headed stamens with no petals and no sepals
around them. These yellow stamen heads end in tufts of fine hairs, and
they are filled with pollen dust. As soon as this dust is ripe the
yellow heads burst and scatter it over the seed flowers which have been
making ready to receive it. After this the stamen catkins shrivel, and
they soon fall from the tree.
But there are other Hornbeam flowers, also growing in catkins (4) which
appear at the end of this year’s young twigs. Each catkin is covered
with soft, silky spear leaves, and behind every three of these narrow
leaves there nestles a tiny seed with two little horns standing up at
the top. These silky leaves soon fall off and are replaced by others
which are very different. These are called bracts, and they look like
a small hand with one long finger and two much shorter fingers. They
are covered with a network of fine veins, and inside the hand sits the
fruit (5), a small three-sided nut. When you see a bushy, drooping
cluster of these green leafy bracts, each with its nut at the foot, you
wonder how any one could mistake the Hornbeam for either the Beech or
the Elm.
You will often see a dainty little bird called the hawfinch sitting on
the Hornbeam branches and eating the nuts.
The wood of this tree is said to be very hard. Joiners do not care to
work on Hornbeam, as it quickly blunts their tools; and some people
tell you that the name is really Hard-beam, and that we have got into
a careless habit of calling the tree by a wrong name. But there is
another tale which may be the true one. Long ago, when ploughing was
done by bullocks in this country, as it is to-day in many lands, each
pair of bullocks was fastened together with a wooden collar called a
yoke. This yoke was made of Hornbeam because of its strength, and the
tree might get its name because from it was made the beam of wood that
goes over the horns.
Nowadays the wood is little used except for making small things, such
as handles of knives, and spoons, and cog-wheels.
PLATE VI
THE HAZEL
There are few of us who think of the Hazel as one of our forest trees.
We know it as a large, straggling bush, with a thicket of leaves and
branches, among which are hidden delicious nuts. But in some places
the Hazel has quite outgrown the bush stage: in Middlesex there is a
Hazel tree sixty feet high, with a straight thick trunk and many large
branches covered luxuriantly with leaves.
The Hazel (1) has been known in history for many centuries. The Romans
wrote that its spreading roots did harm to the young vines, but they
found its supple twigs invaluable for tying up the straggling vine
shoots.
Scotland is said to have been called Caledonia from Cal Dun, which
means the hill of Hazel. And in Surrey we have the name Haslemere,
which tells its own story.
[Illustration: PLATE VI
THE HAZEL
1. Hazel Bush
2. Leaf Spray with Nuts
3. Stamen Catkin
4. Seed Catkins
5. Hazel Nuts]
In damp places beside streams, or on light soil close to quarries, or
among broken rocky ground, the Hazel thrives, and many are the happy
afternoons spent by children of all ages gathering nuts in the Hazel
coppice. This is the only tree we have which produces food good to eat
in its wild state.
You will not find the Hazel difficult to recognise at any time of year.
Before the month of January is over you will notice a pair of long
brown caterpillars dangling in the wind from many of the Hazel twigs:
lamb’s tails, the country children call them, but their correct name is
Hazel catkins; and like those of the Birch tree, they have been hanging
on the tree all winter, but were so small that you did not notice them.
In summer, if you look carefully, you find many tiny green stamen
catkins growing between the foot of the leaf stalk and the branch.
These green cones grow very, very slowly all autumn and winter, and
when January is nearly over they change into these dangling tails or
hanging catkins (3), and their tightly-folded scales begin to unclose.
Behind these scales lie eight stamens, each of which has a bright
yellow head. These yellow heads are filled with fine powder, and when
ripe they burst, and the fine powder is shaken out by the wind. Soon
after, the catkin turns brown and shrivelled, and before very long it
falls off; its work for the year is over.
When the snowdrops bloom, in the end of January, the other Hazel
flowers or seed catkins are ready. They are not easily seen, so you
must look for them carefully. On each side of the stalk you will find
a small scale-covered bud (4), and at the tip of this bud rises a tuft
of crimson threads. Inside this scale-covered bud are the seeds, and
from the top of each seed rise two crimson threads. On windy days the
fine powder from the yellow stamen heads is shaken over these crimson
threads, which carry it to the young seeds hidden beneath the scaly
covering. As spring advances this crimson tuft disappears and the bud
busies itself making the seed, which must be ready by autumn. The
covering of the seed hardens like a nut: at first this nut is pale
green, but in winter it becomes a glossy russet brown.
Inside this nut (5) lies the kernel of the seed, and it is this sweet
kernel which is the fruit we eat. Meantime the scaly leaves, which
formed the covering of the young bud, have grown much larger: they have
become tough and leathery, and their ends are deeply divided, as if
they were torn. In the Filbert Hazel, which is a cousin of the common
Hazel and very like it, these leathery coverings conceal the nut. But
in the common or Cobnut Hazel they form a cup in which the nut sits in
the same way as the acorn does in its cup.
The leaves (2) of the Hazel appear in early spring. They are rounded
leaves, sometimes slightly heart-shaped, and they have two rows of
teeth cut round the edge. Each leaf is rough and hairy, and is covered
with a network of veins which seems to pucker the leaf. At first the
young leaf stalk and branches are covered with fine down, but this soon
wears off. Notice how many long, straight shoots rise from the ground
beside the Hazel roots. On these Hazel shoots the leaves are placed in
two rows on each side of the shoot, with the leaves not opposite each
other, but alternate. The shoots make good baskets, and hoops, and
hurdles, because they can be so easily bent into many shapes without
breaking. The branches of the Hazel bush have the same good qualities,
and they are valuable for fishing rods and walking-sticks, and such
purposes, where toughness and elasticity are needed.
The Hazel leaves hang longer on the tree than most other leaves. The
frost changes their colour from a dull grey-green to a pale yellow, but
still they cling to their stalks till the winter wind strips them from
the branches.
It is said that Hazel shoots or twigs have the power of showing where
water is concealed. In places where there are no lakes, or rivers, or
streams near at hand, water is got by digging wells deep down into the
ground, and so allowing the stores which are hidden there to rise to
the surface. But it is not everywhere that these hidden supplies will
be found, and as digging a well costs a great deal of money, people are
unwilling to begin the work unless they are likely to succeed. So they
send for a man who is called a diviner, because he divines or guesses
where water will be found. He walks across the fields carrying a Hazel
rod in his hand, and when he reaches a spot where water lies beneath,
the Hazel rod changes position in his hand and the well is sunk at the
spot which the diviner points out. So the story goes.
For many generations it was a custom in this country to burn Hazel
nuts on the night of October 31, All-Hallow Eve. Friends would meet
together late in the evening, and each person would place two nuts as
near together as possible in a clear red fire. The nuts were supposed
to represent the two friends, and if they burned quietly and evenly,
then the future was sure to be happy; but if they flared angrily or
sputtered hissingly, especially if they burst with a loud report, then
misfortune was supposed to follow the friends.
Hazel nuts are eagerly devoured by squirrels and dormice, and there is
one bird, the Nuthatch, that is very busy and grows sleek and fat when
the Hazel fruit is ripe. This bird breaks off a nut branch and flies
away with it to an old oak tree. There he strips off the covering of
leaves and cleverly places the bare nut in a crevice of the rough oak
trunk. Then with his strong bill he hammers at the shell till it breaks
and he can get at the nut inside. On still October days in the quiet
woods you will hear his bill tap-tapping from the trunk of the oak tree.
[Illustration: PLATE VII
THE LIME
1. Lime Tree
2. Leaf Spray with Flowers
3. Pink Buds
4. Flower Cluster
5. Fruit with Bract]
PLATE VII
THE LIME OR LINDEN
“The Lime, a summer home of murmurous wings.”
--Tennyson.
The Lime or Linden (1) is one of the most familiar trees in our large
towns. It is very hardy, and you find it planted by the side of our
smoky streets, where it seems to thrive in spite of the clouds of sooty
dust that cover its delicate leaves.
But if you wish to know what a Lime tree really looks like at its
best, then you must find one growing in some country park where there
is space, and fresh air, and plenty of sunshine; then you will see
how beautiful a tree it can be. The Lime is a tall, stately tree. It
has many slender branches closely covered with leaves, which have
each a long stalk. In old trees the branches often bend down close to
the ground, but the sunshine always succeeds in finding its way under
the Lime tree branches, and it flickers on the grass as it never does
beneath the Beech tree boughs.
In winter the Lime tree is difficult to recognise, although there is
one feature you may notice: its bare stems and twigs are very black
against the sky, and many of the branches hang so awkwardly that they
look as if they were dead. But go to the park in spring, and at once
you will know which is the Lime tree. Every little twig is coloured a
delicate shade of olive green tinged with crimson, and bears many small
oval buds (3) which are red like rubies. In May these ruby buds burst
open, and their crimson coverings fall to the ground, disclosing the
pale emerald-green leaf that is tightly folded within. The leaves (2)
soon open in the sunshine, and you see that each is shaped like a large
pointed heart, and that the two sides of the heart are uneven.