calyx nor corolla, though their association in large clusters makes them
fairly conspicuous as they droop from the sides of the branches in April
or May. Stamens and pistils are borne by the same or separate flowers,
and both kinds or one only may be found on the same tree. The pistil is
a greenish yellow pear-shaped body, and the stamens are very dark
purple. The flowers are succeeded by bunches of "keys"--each one, when
ripe, a narrow-oblong scale, with a notch at one end and a seed lying
within at the other. The correct name for these is samaras. In looking
at a bunch of these "keys"--they are something like the keys to the
primitive locks of the ancients--one is struck by the fact that they all
have a little twist in the wing or sail, which causes the "key" to spin
steadily on the wind and reach the earth seed-end first. They are,
therefore, sometimes known as "spinners." These are ripe in October; but
though the trees produce seed nearly every year after the fortieth, one
may chance to look at a dozen Ashes before he comes upon one that bears
a seed. The reason for this lies in the fact that some trees have no
female blossoms. The seeds do not germinate until the second spring
after they are sown.
[Illustration: _Pl. 41._ Bole of Ash.]
Much of the Ash-wood in use for carriage-poles, oars, axe and hammer
shafts, and similar purposes where only small diameters are needed, are
obtained from Ash-coppice, which rapidly produces well-developed poles.
So strong and elastic is the Ash timber when taken from young trees,
that it is claimed it will bear a greater strain than any other European
timber of equal thickness. The Ash is not one of the long-lived trees,
its natural span being about two hundred years, but its wood is regarded
as best between the ages of thirty and sixty years.
[Illustration: _Pl. 42._ Ash--winter.]
Cattle and horses are fond of Ash leaves, which were formerly much used
for fodder, and still are in some districts; but it is said that to
indulge cows in this food is fatal to the production of good butter
from their milk. In some country places there is still extant a
"Shrew-Ash"--a tree into which a hole has been bored sufficiently large
to admit a living shrew-mouse, which has then been plugged in, to die of
suffocation. A touch of a leaf from this tree was reputed to cure cramp,
but especially that form of it supposed to be caused by a shrew passing
over man or beast. Then there was the Ash whose bole had been cleft that
it might be a "sovran" remedy for infantile hernia. It is difficult to
account for the origin of these ideas, but they are deep-rooted and die
hard. John Evelyn remarks of this latter superstition: "I have heard it
affirmed, with great confidence and upon experience, that the rupture,
to which many children are obnoxious, is healed by passing the infant
through a wide cleft in the bole or stem of a growing Ash-tree; it is
then carried a second time round the Ash, and caused to repass the same
aperture as before. The rupture of the child being bound up, it is
supposed to heal as the cleft of the tree closes and coalesces."
The origin of the name Ash is uncertain, though many fanciful
suggestions have been made in explanation of its meaning. Its
Anglo-Saxon form was aesc, a word used by the same people for spear, but
that was because their spear-shafts were made of Ash-wood.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Pl. 43._ Field Maple.]
The Maple (_Acer campestre_).
There are a number of Maples in cultivation, but only three of them are
commonly met with in the open, and of these one alone is a native. This
is the Small-leaved, Common, or Field Maple (_Acer campestre_), a small
tree that attains a height of twenty or thirty feet in the tall hedgerow
or in the wood, but is most familiar as a mere bush or as a constituent
of the low field-hedge. It does not grow to any considerable thickness
of bole, so has no importance as timber, but the turner, the
cabinet-maker, and the artist in fancy pipes and snuff-boxes, are glad
to make use of its fine-grained, pale-brown wood. This is often
beautifully veined, especially the wood from the roots, and as it will
take a high polish, which brings out these markings plainly, it is a
very desirable wood for such purposes. The brown bark gives little clue
to the character of the wood it covers, for in young trees it is rough
and deeply fissured, though with age it becomes smooth.
[Illustration: Field Maple.]
[Illustration: _Pl. 44._ Fruits of Sycamore.]
[Illustration: _Pl. 45._ Sycamore--summer.]
The leaves vary greatly in size, those growing on a tree being much
larger than those produced by a bush. They range from two to four inches
in diameter, and are always in pairs--springing from the sides of the
branch exactly opposite to each other. The general form of the leaf is
kidney-shaped, but it is cut up into five lobes, which are more or less
toothed. They are downy when young, of a deep green colour, but too
frequently this is disguised by a thick layer of road-dust. In October
they turn to a rich yellow, and the Maple is then prominent even in a
distant view, for the bright colour of the foliage makes the tree stand
out prominently, in strong contrast with the still deep green of the
Oaks or Firs beyond.
The Maples are among the trees that have complete flowers, although in
this case they happen to be greenish yellow. They are about a quarter of
an inch across, have narrow sepals and narrower petals, eight stamens,
and a two-lobed flattened ovary, that develops into the pair of
broad-winged "keys," or samaras. These are individually much like those
of the Ash, but unsymmetrical and curved, half an inch long, with their
bases joined together. Sometimes in late summer these "keys" take on a
colouring of deep crimson, previous to turning brown as they ripen. As a
rule the contained seeds take eighteen months to germinate, though a few
may start growth the first spring.
The Common Maple is thought to be indigenous only from the county of
Durham to the southern coast, and in Ireland. In Scotland it is only an
introduced plant that has become naturalized.
The Great Maple, Sycamore, or False Plane (_Acer pseudo-platanus_) is
not a native tree, but it appears to have been introduced from the
Continent as far back as the fifteenth century, so that it has had time
during the intervening centuries to get well established among us, and
by means of its winged seeds to distribute itself to remote corners of
our islands. It appears to be fond of exposed situations, growing to a
large size even near the sea, where the salt-laden gales destroy all
other deciduous trees. Recently in Ireland we ascended a hill where the
planting of pines and other trees had resulted in comparative failure,
and found that the wind-borne seeds of the Sycamore had produced a large
number of young trees, which will probably serve later as nurses for
more desirable timber-producers. The close-grained, firm wood, which can
be worked with ease, is not highly esteemed.
[Illustration: Sycamore.]
[Illustration: _Pl. 46._ Leaf-buds of Sycamore.]
[Illustration: _Pl. 47._ Bole of Sycamore.]
Its name of False Plane is due to the Scots calling it the Plane,
misled of old by the similarity of the leaves, and the fact that patches
of the fine ash-grey bark flake off, as in the true Plane, showing other
tints. It grows to a height of sixty or even eighty feet so quickly that
it is full-grown when only fifty or sixty years old, though it is
supposed to live from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty
years. Like that of the Common Maple, the wood of the Sycamore is firm
and fine-grained, which does credit to the efforts of the
French-polisher. The leaves are more heart-shaped, but cut into five
lobes, whose edges are unequally toothed; they are six or eight inches
across. The flowers are similar to those of the Common Maple, but
larger, and in a long hanging raceme, which has a rather fine
appearance. The samaras are scimitar-shaped and red-brown, about an inch
and a half long. These are produced freely after the tree is about
twenty years old. Like many other Maples, the Sycamore has sap which
contains much sugar. Some of this appears also to exude through the
leaves, for they are often found to be quite sticky to the touch. The
black patches so frequent on Sycamore leaves are the work of a small
fungus--_Rhytisma acerinum_.
The Norway Maple (_Acer platanoides_) is a tree of much more recent
(1683) introduction from the Continent. Its height is from thirty to
sixty feet, and its early growth is very rapid. The leaves are even
larger than those of Sycamore, of similar shape, but the lobes are only
slightly toothed. The clusters of bright yellow flowers are almost
erect; the tree does not produce seed until it is between forty and
fifty years old.
The Maple was the Mapel-treow or Mapulder of the Anglo-Saxons; it was
originally the Celtic _mapwl_, and the name indicated those knotty
excrescences on the trunk from which the cabinet-maker got the mottled
wood that was so highly prized in early times for the making of bowls
and table-tops, for which fabulous prices have been paid.
[Illustration: _Pl. 48._ Sycamore--winter.]
The Poplars (_Populus_).
Almost everybody who has an elementary acquaintance with trees knows a
Poplar at sight, the foliage being so very distinct from that of other
trees. But the distinctions between the several species are not so
immediately obvious. Five kinds of Poplar are commonly grown in this
country, of which only two are regarded as distinct indigenous species.
These are the White Poplar (_Populus alba_), and the Aspen (_P.
tremula_). A third indigenous form, the Grey Poplar (_P. canescens_), is
thought to be either a sub-species of _P. alba_, or a hybrid between
that species and _P. tremula_. Then of common introduced species we have
the Black Poplar (_Populus nigra_), and the Lombardy Poplar (_P.
fastigiata_).
[Illustration: _Pl. 49._ White Poplar, with Catkins--spring.]
The Poplars (_Populus_) and the Willows (_Salix_) together constitute
the Natural Order _Salicineae_. The two genera agree broadly in the
construction and arrangement of their flowers in catkins, but whereas
the Poplars have broad leaves and drooping catkins, the Willows, with
few exceptions, have long slender leaves and erect catkins. The sexes
are not only in distinct flowers, but on separate trees--what botanists
describe by the term _di[oe]cious_. The males appear to be far more
numerous than the females. In the popular sense there are no flowers,
for there are neither sepals nor petals, each set of sexual organs being
protected merely by a scale. The catkins containing these flowers
usually appear before the leaves. As there is nothing to attract insects
to the work, the trees have to rely upon the wind for conveying the
pollen to the female trees. The first three species described below have
from four to twelve stamens; _P. nigra_ and _P. fastigiata_ have from
twelve to twenty stamens. The Poplars share the love of the Willows for
moist places. They are found more frequently in gardens and hedgerows
than in woods. Their growth is rapid, and their timber, consequently,
is of little value, though its softness and lightness render it suitable
for making boxes, and its whiteness and non-liability to splinter fit it
for use as flooring. An additional point in favour of White Poplar for
the latter purpose is its unreadiness to burn.
[Illustration: White Poplar, or Abele. A, female catkin.]
The White Poplar, or Abele (_Populus alba_), grows into a large tree,
something between sixty and a hundred feet high, covered with smooth
grey bark. Its branches spread horizontally, and its broad heart-shaped
leaves, which vary from an inch to three inches long, are hung on long
slender foot-stalks. In most trees the leaf-stalks are flattened from
above, but in the case of the Poplars they are flattened from the sides,
so that when moved by the wind they flutter laterally. These leaves have
a waved margin, a smooth upper surface, and are snowy white and cottony
beneath. The leaf-buds are also invested by cottony filaments. The roots
produce numerous suckers, even at a distance from the trunk, and the
leaves on these sucker-shoots are very large--two to four inches
broad--of a more triangular shape, the outline lobed and toothed. The
catkins, which appear in March and April, are cylindrical; those of the
male trees may be as much as four inches long, each flower containing
from six to ten stamens with purple anthers. The female catkins are not
nearly so long, the two yellow stigmas are slender with slit tips, and
the ovaries develop into slender egg-shaped capsules, each with its
fringed scale. This species is said not to produce flowers in Scotland.
In July, when the seed capsules open, the surrounding vegetation and
ground are thickly strewn with the long white cotton filaments attached
to the seeds. The wood of this tree is softer and more spongy than that
of other Poplars.
[Illustration: _Pl. 50._ White Poplar--summer.]
[Illustration: _Pl. 51._ Bole of White Poplar.]
The Grey Poplar (_Populus canescens_), which is thought to be indigenous
only in the south-eastern parts of England, is not so tall a tree as _P.
alba_, though it sometimes attains to eighty or ninety feet, with a
circumference between ten and twenty-four feet. Its life extends to
about a century, but its wood--which does not split when nails are
driven through thin boards of it--is considered best between fifty and
sixty years of age. The leaves on the branches are shaped like those of
_P. alba_, but their under sides are either coated with grey down or are
quite smooth; those of the suckers have their margins cut into angles
and teeth. The female flowers mostly have four wedge-shaped purple
stigmas (sometimes two), which are cleft into four at their extremities.
[Illustration: Aspen.]
The Aspen or Asp (_Populus tremula_) does not attain either to so
large a size or so moderate an age as the Abele. Its height, when full
grown, is from forty to eighty feet, and after fifty or sixty years its
heart-wood begins to decay, and its destruction is then hastened by the
attacks of such internal-feeding insects as the caterpillars of the
Goat-moth and the Wood Leopard-moth. The leaves on the branches are
broadly egg-shaped, approaching to round, the waved margin cut into
teeth with turned-in points. In one form (var. _villosa_) the leaves are
covered beneath with silky or cottony hairs; in the other form (var.
_glabra_) they are almost smooth. The leaves on the suckers are
heart-shaped, without teeth. The leaf-stalks of the Aspen are longer
than those of its congeners, so that they are constantly on the
flutter--a circumstance that has led to an explanatory legend, to the
effect that the cross of Calvary was made of Aspen-wood, and that the
tree shivers perpetually in remembrance. Possibly the present
inferiority of Aspen timber is to be explained in a similar manner. The
catkins, which are two or three inches long, are similar to those of the
foregoing species, but the scales have jagged edges. It is indigenous in
all the British Islands as far north as Orkney, but, though commonly
found in copses on a moist light soil, is more frequent as a planted
tree in gardens and pleasure grounds. It is a characteristic tree of the
plains throughout the Continent, but ascends to 1600 feet in Yorkshire,
and in the Bavarian Alps is found as high as 4400 feet. It is not a
deep-rooting tree, the root-branches running almost horizontally. Where
accessible to cattle or deer, the foliage of the suckers is eagerly
browsed by them.
[Illustration: _Pl. 52._ Catkins of Aspen.]
[Illustration: _Pl. 53._ Black Poplar--summer.]
[Illustration: _Pl. 54._ Bole of Black Poplar.]
[Illustration: _Pl. 55._ Black Poplar--winter.]
[Illustration: Black Poplar.]
The Black Poplar (_Populus nigra_) appears to be so called not by reason
of any blackness of leaf or bark, but because of the absence of any
white or grey down on the underside of its leaves. Its bark is grey,
like that of the species already mentioned, but readily distinguished
from them by the great swellings and nodosities that mar the symmetry of
its trunk. It is a tree of erect growth, fifty to sixty feet in height,
with horizontal branches, and leaves that vary in shape from triangular
and rhombic to almost circular, and in width from an inch to four
inches. They have rounded teeth on the margins, which are at first also
fringed, and in their young state the underside is silky. The flowers in
the catkins of this and the next species are not so densely packed.
Those of the male are two or three inches in length, and dark red in
colour; their abundance before the tree has put out its leaves makes the
male tree a conspicuous object. The female catkins are shorter and
do not droop. When the roundish capsules burst in May or June to
distribute their seeds, the white cotton with which the latter are
invested gives prominence to the female tree. The wood is chiefly used
by the turner; in Holland, where it is extensively cultivated, it
provides the material for sabots. The Black Poplar is not a native of
this country, but it is generally distributed throughout Europe and
Northern Asia. The date of its introduction is not known, but it has
been here for many centuries, and is quite naturalized, springing up on
river banks and in other moist situations. Some botanists regard it as
only a variety of the Lombardy Poplar, but apart from the very different
habit of the tree--not by itself sufficient grounds for
separation--there is the more important fact that the Black Poplar
rarely produces suckers from its roots, whilst the Lombardy Poplar does
so constantly. However, this is a point we can leave for the botanists
to discuss; for the purposes of this book the two trees are sufficiently
distinct to be treated separately.
The Lombardy Poplar (_Populus fastigiata_) is no more a native of Italy
than of England. Its home is in the Taurus and the Himalayas, whence it
has spread into Persia. Introduced into Southern Europe, it has become
specially abundant along the rivers of Lombardy, and so in France and
England it bears the name of that country. Lord Rochford introduced it
to England from Turin in 1758. Its leaves are like those of the Black
Poplar, but its branches, instead of spreading, all grow straight
upwards, so that the fastigiate or spire shape of the tree is
produced--a shape only found otherwise among coniferous trees,
particularly in the Cypress, the Juniper and the Irish Yew. It is its
form, great height (100 to 150 feet), and rapidity of growth that have
led to its wide use here as an ornamental tree--in many cases as a mere
vegetable hoarding to shut out some offensive view. Its growth is
extremely rapid, especially during its first score of years, when it
will attain a height of sixty feet or more, provided it be grown in
good, moist (but not marshy) soil. Its wood is, of course, of little
value, and is chiefly used for making boxes and packing-cases, where its
lightness, combined with toughness and cheapness, is an advantage. The
bark is rough and deeply furrowed, unlike the other species, and the
trunk is twisted. Like the Black Poplar, it has smooth shoots, and the
unopened buds are sticky. It is propagated in this country by suckers
and cuttings. It is said that the first trees introduced were so
obtained, and that they were all from male trees; consequently, that we
have no female trees here, and seed production is impossible. If the
female grows here, it is certainly very scarce. The bark has been used
for tanning.
[Illustration: _Pl. 56._ Lombardy Poplar--summer.]
[Illustration: _Pl. 57._ Bole of Lombardy Poplar.]
[Illustration: _Pl. 58._ Lombardy Poplar--winter.]
The Black Italian Poplar (_Populus monilifera_) is another misnamed
tree, for it is a native of North America, though introduced to England
from the Continent in 1772 by Dr. John Hope. It has the distinction of
being considered the most rapid-growing even of the Poplars. Loudon
gives its rate of growth in the neighbourhood of London as between
thirty and forty feet in seven years! Even in Scotland (where it has
been largely planted as a substitute for Larch, since the partial
failure of that tree) it attains a height of 120 feet in sixty years,
when planted along the river banks. It is probably only a variety of _P.
nigra_, which it resembles in most points, but is larger, and of very
erect growth.
The Tacamahac or Balsam Poplar (_Populus balsamifera_) is another
importation from North America, introduced in 1692. In its native
country it grows to a height of eighty feet, but here forty or fifty
feet is more usual. Its leaves are of more slender form than those of
the other Poplars, egg-shaped, with a near approach to being
lance-shaped. Their edges are toothed, their upper surface dark green
and smooth, the underside whitish with cotton. The distinctive character
of the tree is the fragrance of its foliage, which scents the air on
moist evenings, and makes the Tacamahac a desirable tree to plant near
the water, where alone it attains any moderate size.
The Willows (_Salix_).
There is not in the whole of the British flora another genus of plants
that presents such difficulties of identification as the genus _Salix_.
Even so hardened a botanist as Sir J. D. Hooker, in reviewing the tangle
of species, varieties (natural and cultivated), and hybrids, is so far
stirred from his ordinary composure that he stigmatizes it as a
"troublesome genus." When Sir Joseph chose that mild adjective he was at
Kew surrounded by the national herbaria and with nicely labelled living
plants at hand for comparison. What, then, can the rambling
nature-lover hope to do with the Willows he comes across one at a time,
without much chance of comparing? He must be content to follow the
"lumpers," who group a number of these uncertain forms under the name of
a species to which they have evident relationship. When he has mastered
the distinctions between these aggregate species, it will be early
enough to attempt the segregation of the forms and varieties under each.
In their natural condition Willows are graceful and picturesque, but a
large number of the examples met with in our rambles have been so
altered for commercial reasons as to be more grotesque than beautiful.
It is not the timber-man who is responsible this time, for a pollard
Willow, though it produces a shock-head of long slender shoots, suitable
for basket-rods, lets in moisture at the top of the bole, and the wood
is more or less decayed and worthless. Only four of our native Willows
can be regarded as timber trees. These are the White Willow, the Crack
Willow, the Bedford Willow, and the Sallow. Like the Poplars, their
growth is very rapid, and their wood is consequently light, but it has
the advantage of Poplar-wood in being tougher, and therefore serving for
purposes where Poplar is of no value. In the present day the growers of
straight-boled Willows find their best market among the makers of
cricket-bats. A good deal of it is also cut into thin strips for
plaiting into chip-hats and hand-baskets. The Osier is grown in
extensive riverside beds for the production of long pliant shoots for
the basket-weavers; though many of the so-called Osier-rods are really
stool-shoots from Willows that have been pollarded, or whose leading
shoot has never been allowed to grow. On those parts of our coast where
the crab and lobster fishery is pursued, a regular supply of such shoots
for weaving into "pots" and "hullies" is a necessity, and a "withy bed"
will usually be found on some valley stream near, or on a damp terrace
halfway up the cliffs.
[Illustration: _Pl. 59._ Crack Willow--summer.]
[Illustration: _Pl. 60._ Bole of Crack Willow.]
[Illustration: _Pl. 61._ Crack Willow--winter.]
The bark of the tree Willows has long been known to be rich in an
alkaloid called _salicine_, which has tonic and astringent properties,
and has often been used instead of _quinine_, though it is not nearly so
powerful as the Peruvian drug. The bark is also used for tanning.