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Getting Acquainted with the Trees
BY
J. HORACE McFARLAND
_Illustrated from Photographs by the Author_
NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1914
Copyright, 1904
By The Outlook Company
* * * * *
Published April, 1904
Reprinted April, 1904
New edition September, 1906
Reprinted August, 1913 March, 1914.
Foreword
These sketches are, I fear, very unscientific and unsystematic. They
record the growth of my own interest and information, as I have recently
observed and enjoyed the trees among which I had walked unseeing far too
many years. To pass on, as well as I can, some of the benefit that has
come into my own life from this wakened interest in the trees provided
by the Creator for the resting of tired brains and the healing of
ruffled spirits, as well as for utility, is the reason for gathering
together and somewhat extending the papers that have brought me, as they
have appeared in the pages of "The Outlook," so many letters of
fellowship and appreciation from others who have often seen more clearly
and deeply into the woods than I may hope to.
Driven out from my desk by weariness sometimes--and as often, I confess,
by a rasped temper I would fain hide from display--I have never failed
to find rest, and peace, and much to see and to love, among the common
and familiar trees, to which I hope these mere hints of some of their
features not always seen may send others who also need their silent and
beneficent message.
J. H. McF.
_March 17, 1904_
Contents
PAGE
A STORY OF SOME MAPLES 1
THE GROWTH OF THE OAK 25
PINES 49
APPLES 73
WILLOWS AND POPLARS 95
THE ELM AND THE TULIP 131
NUT-BEARING TREES 157
SOME OTHER TREES 185
INDEX 235
BOTANICAL NAMES 239
List of Illustrations
PAGE
Silver maple flowers 4
Young leaves of the red maple 7
"The Norway maple breaks into a wonderful bloom" 9
Samaras of the sugar maple 11
A mature sycamore maple 13
Sycamore maple blossoms 15
Flowers of the ash-leaved maple 17
Ash-leaved maples in bloom 19
Striped maple 21
The swamp white oak in winter 29
Flowers of the pin-oak 31
The swamp white oak in early spring 36
An old post-oak 39
A blooming twig of the swamp white oak 41
Acorns of the English oak 47
A lone pine on the Indian river 53
Hemlock Hill, Arnold Arboretum 56
The long-leaved pines of the South 61
Fountain-like effect of the young long-leaved pines 62
An avenue of white pines 67
Cones of the white spruce 71
An apple orchard in winter 78
When the apple trees blossom 81
The Spectabilis crab in bloom 84
Fruits of the wild crab 87
The beauty of a fruiting apple branch 91
Bloom of double-flowering apple 94
A weeping willow in early spring 100
The weeping willow in a storm 103
A pussy-willow in a park 106
Blooms of the white willow 108, 109
A white willow in a characteristic position 112
Clump of young white willows 116
White poplars in spring-time 119
Carolina poplar as a street tree 123
Winter aspect of the cottonwood 126
Lombardy poplar 129
A mature American elm 136
The delicate tracery of the American elm in winter 139
The English elm in winter 143
Winter effect of tulip trees 148
A great liriodendron in bloom 150
Flowers of the liriodendron 153
The wide-spreading black walnut 162
The American sweet chestnut in winter 165
Sweet chestnut blooms 167
The chinquapin 170
A shagbark hickory in bloom 173
The true nut-eater 178
The American beech in winter 180
The witch-hazel 181
Sweet birch in spring 191
Yellow birches 192
Flowers of the spice-bush 194
Leaves and berries of the American holly 195
American holly tree at Trenton 196
Floral bracts or involucres of the dogwood 199
The red-bud in bloom 201
Blooms of the shad-bush 206
Flowers of the American linden 207
The American linden 209
Flowers of the black locust 211
Young trees of the black locust 212
The sycamore, or button-ball 215
Button-balls--fruit of the sycamore 217
The liquidambar 220
The leaves and fruit of the liquidambar 222
The papaw in bloom 226
Flowers of the papaw 227
The persimmon tree in fruiting time 231
Berries of the spice-bush 234
* * * * *
A Story of Some Maples
This is not a botanical disquisition; it is not a complete account of
all the members of the important tree family of maples. I am not a
botanist, nor a true scientific observer, but only a plain tree-lover,
and I have been watching some trees bloom and bud and grow and fruit for
a few years, using a camera now and then to record what I see--and much
more than I see, usually!
In the sweet springtime, when the rising of the sap incites some to
poetry, some to making maple sugar, and some to watching for the first
flowers, it is well to look at a few tree-blooms, and to consider the
possibilities and the pleasures of a peaceful hunt that can be made with
profit in city street or park, as well as along country roadsides and in
the meadows and the woods.
Who does not know of the maples that are all around us? Yet who has
seen the commonest of them bloom in very early spring, or watched the
course of the peculiar winged seed-pods or "keys" that follow the
flowers? The white or "silver" maple of streets or roadsides, the soft
maple of the woods, is one of the most familiar of American trees. Its
rapid and vigorous growth endears it to the man who is in a hurry for
shade, and its sturdy limbs are the joy of the tree-butcher who "trims"
them short in later years.
[Illustration: Silver maple flowers]
Watch this maple in very early spring--even before spring is any more
than a calendar probability--and a singular bloom will be found along
the slender twigs. Like little loose-haired brushes these flowers are,
coming often bravely in sleet and snow, and seemingly able to "set" and
fertilize regardless of the weather. They hurry through the bloom-time,
as they must do to carry out the life-round, for the graceful
two-winged seeds that follow them are picked up and whirled about by
April winds, and, if they lodge in the warming earth, are fully able to
grow into fine little trees the same season. Examine these seed-pods,
keys, or samaras (this last is a scientific name with such euphony to it
that it might well become common!), and notice the delicate veining in
the translucent wings. See the graceful lines of the whole thing, and
realize what an abundant provision Dame Nature makes for
reproduction,--for a moderate-sized tree completes many thousands of
these finely formed, greenish yellow, winged samaras, and casts them
loose for the wind to distribute during enough days to secure the best
chances of the season.
This same silver maple is a bone of contention among tree-men, at times.
Some will tell you it is "coarse"; and so it is when planted in an
improper place upon a narrow street, allowed to flourish unrestrained
for years, and then ruthlessly cropped off to a headless trunk! But set
it on a broad lawn, or upon a roadside with generous room, and its noble
stature and grace need yield nothing to the most artistic elm of New
England. And in the deep woods it sometimes reaches a majesty and a
dignity that compel admiration. The great maple at Eagles Mere is the
king of the bit of primeval forest yet remaining to that mountain rest
spot. It towers high over mature hemlocks and beeches, and seems well
able to defy future centuries.
But there is another very early maple to watch for, and it is one widely
distributed in the Eastern States. The red or scarlet maple is well
named, for its flowers, not any more conspicuous in form than those of
its close relation, the silver maple, are usually bright red or yellow,
and they give a joyous color note in the very beginning of spring's
overture. Not long are these flowers with us; they fade, only to be
quickly succeeded by even more brilliant samaras, a little more delicate
and refined than those of the silver maple, as well as of the richest
and warmest hue. Particularly in New England does this maple provide a
notable spring color showing.
[Illustration: Young leaves of the red maple]
The leaves of the red maple--it is also the swamp maple of some
localities--as they open to the coaxing of April sun and April
showers, have a special charm. They are properly red, but mingled with
the characteristic color is a whole palette of tints of soft yellow,
bronze and apricot. As the little baby leaflets open, they are shiny and
crinkly, and altogether attractive. One thinks of the more aristocratic
and dwarfed Japanese maples, in looking at the opening of these
red-brown beauties, and it is no pleasure to see them smooth out into
sedate greenness. Again, in fall, a glory of color comes to the leaves
of the red maple; for they illumine the countryside with their scarlet
hue, and, as they drop, form a brilliant thread in the most beautiful of
all carpets--that of the autumn leaves. I think no walk in the really
happy days of the fall maturity of growing things is quite so pleasant
as that which leads one to shuffle through this deep forest floor
covering of oriental richness of hue.
As the ground warms and the sun searches into the hearts of the buds,
the Norway maple, familiar street tree of Eastern cities, breaks into a
wonderful bloom. Very deceptive it is, and taken for the opening foliage
by the casual observer; yet there is, when these flowers first open, no
hint of leaf on the tree, save that of the swelling bud. All that soft
haze of greenish yellow is bloom, and bloom of the utmost beauty. The
charm lies not in boldness of color or of contrast, but at the other
extreme--in the delicacy of differing tints, in the variety of subtle
shades and tones. There are charms of form and of fragrance, too, in
this Norway maple--the flowers are many-rayed stars, and they emit a
faint, spicy odor, noticeable only when several trees are together in
bloom. And these flowers last long, comparatively; so long that the
greenish yellow of the young leaves begins to combine with them before
they fall. The tints of flower and of leaf melt insensibly into each
other, so that, as I have remarked before, the casual observer says,
"The leaves are out on the Norway maples,"--not knowing of the great
mass of delightful flowers that have preceded the leaves above his
unseeing eyes. I emphasize this, for I hope some of my readers may be on
the outlook for a new pleasure in early spring--the blooming of this
maple, with flowers so thoroughly distinct and so entirely beautiful.
[Illustration: "The Norway maple breaks into a wonderful bloom"]
The samaras to follow on this Norway maple are smaller than those of the
other two maples mentioned, and they hang together at a different angle,
somewhat more graceful. I have often wondered how the designers, who
work to death the pansies, the roses and the violets, have managed to
miss a form or "motive" of such value, suggesting at once the near-by
street and far-away Egypt.
[Illustration: Samaras of the sugar maple]
A purely American species, and one of as much economic importance as any
leaf-dropping tree, is the sugar maple, known also as rock maple--one
designation because we can get sweetness from its sap, the other
because of the hardness of its wood. The sugar maples of New England, to
me, are more individual and almost more essentially beautiful than the
famed elms. No saccharine life-blood is drawn from the elm; therefore
its elegance is considered. I notice that we seldom think much of beauty
when it attaches to something we can eat! Who realizes that the common
corn, the American maize, is a stately and elegant plant, far more
beautiful than many a pampered pet of the greenhouse? But this is not a
corn story--I shall hope to be heard on the neglected beauty of many
common things, some day--and we can for the time overlook the syrup of
the sugar maple for its delicate blossoms, coming long after the red and
the silver are done with their flowers. These sugar-maple blooms hang on
slender stems; they come with the first leaves, and are very different
in appearance from the flowers of other maples. The observer will have
no trouble in recognizing them after the first successful attempt, even
though he may be baffled in comparing the maple leaves by the apparent
similarity of the foliage of the Norway, the sugar and the sycamore
maples at certain stages of growth.
[Illustration: A mature sycamore maple]
After all, it is the autumn time that brings this maple most strongly
before us, for it flaunts its banners of scarlet and yellow in the
woods, along the roads, with an insouciant swing of its own. The sugar
possibility is forgotten, and it is a pure autumn pleasure to appreciate
the richness of color, to be soon followed by the more sober cognizance
of the elegance of outline and form disclosed when all the delicate
tracery of twig and bough stands revealed against winter's frosty sky.
The sugar maple has a curious habit of ripening or reddening some of its
branches very early, as if it was hanging out a warning signal to the
squirrels and the chipmunks to hurry along with their storing of nuts
against the winter's need. I remember being puzzled one August morning
as I drove along one of Delaware's flat, flat roads, to know what could
possibly have produced the brilliant, blazing scarlet banner that hung
across a distant wood as if a dozen red flags were being there
displayed. Closer approach disclosed one rakish branch on a sugar maple,
all afire with color, while every other leaf on the tree yet held the
green of summer.
Again in the mountains, one late summer, half a lusty sugar maple set up
a conflagration which, I was informed, presaged its early death. But the
next summer it grew as freely as ever, and retained its sober green
until the cool days and nights; just as if the ebullition of the season
previous was but a breaking out of extra color life, rather than a
suggestion of weakness or death.
[Illustration: Sycamore maple blossoms]
The Norway maple is botanically _Acer platanoides_, really meaning
plane-like maple, from the similarity of its leaves to those of the
European plane. The sycamore maple is _Acer Pseudo-platanus_, which,
being translated, means that old Linnaeus thought it a sort of false
plane-like maple. Both are European species, but both are far more
familiar, as street and lawn trees, to us dwellers in cities than are
many of our purely American species. There is a little difference in the
bark of the two, and the leaves of the sycamore, while almost identical
in form, are darker and thicker than those of the Norway, and they are
whitish underneath, instead of light green. The habit of the two is
twin-like; they can scarcely be distinguished when the leaves are off.
But the flowers are totally different, and one would hardly believe them
to be akin, judging only by appearances. The young leaves of the
sycamore maple are lush and vigorous when the long, grape-like
flower-clusters appear below the twigs. "Racemes" they are,
botanically--and that is another truly good scientific word--while the
beautiful Norway maple's flowers must stand the angular designation of
"corymbs." But don't miss looking for the sycamore maple's long,
pendulous racemes. They seem more grape-like than grape blossoms; and
they stay long, apparently, the transition from flower to fruit being
very gradual. I mind me of a sycamore I pass every winter day, with its
dead fruit-clusters, a reminiscence of the flower-racemes, swinging in
the frosty breeze, waiting until the spring push of the life within the
twigs shoves them off.
To be ready to recognize this maple at the right time, it is well to
observe and mark the difference between it and the Norway in the summer
time, noting the leaves and the bark as suggested above.
[Illustration: Flowers of the ash-leaved maple]
Another maple that is different is one variously known as box-elder,
ash-leaved maple, or negundo. Of rapid growth, it makes a lusty,
irregular tree. Its green-barked, withe-like limbs seem willing to grow
in any direction--down, up, sidewise--and the result is a peculiar
formlessness that has its own merit. I think of a fringe of box-elders
along Paxton Creek, decked in early spring with true maple flowers on
thread-like stems, each cluster surmounted by soft green foliage
apparently borrowed from the ash, and it seems that no other tree could
fit better into the place or the season. Then I remember another, a
single stately tree that has had a great field all to itself, and stands
up in superb dignity, dominating even the group of pin-oaks nearest to
it. 'Twas the surprising mist of bloom on this tree that took me up the
field on a run, one spring day, when the running was sweet in the air,
but sticky underfoot. The color effect of the flowers is most delicate,
and almost indescribable in ordinary chromatic terms. Don't miss the
acquaintance of the ash-leaved maple at its flowering time, in the very
flush of the springtime, my tree-loving friends!
I have not found a noticeable fragrance in the flowers of the box-elder,
such as is very apparent where there is a group of Norway maples in
bloom together. The red maples also give to the air a faint and
delightfully spicy odor, under favorable conditions. May I hint that the
lusty box-elder, when it is booming along its spring growth, furnishes
a loose-barked whistle stick about as good as those that come from the
willow? The generous growth that provides its loosening sap can also
spare a few twigs for the boys, and they will be all the better for a
melodious reason for the spring ramble.
[Illustration: The ash-leaved maples in bloom]
The striped maple of Pennsylvania, a comparatively rare and entirely
curious small tree or large shrub, is not well known, though growing
freely as "elkwood" and "moosewood" in the Alleghanies, because it is
rather hard to transplant, and thus offers no inducements to the
nurserymen. These good people, like the rest of us, move along the lines
of least resistance, wherefore many a fine tree or fruit is rare to us,
because shy or difficult of growth, or perhaps unsymmetrical. The fine
Rhode Island Greening apple is unpopular because the young tree is
crooked, while the leather-skinned and punk-fleshed Ben Davis is a model
of symmetry and rapidity of growth. Our glorious tulip tree of the
woods, because of its relative difficulty in transplanting, has had to
be insisted upon from the nurserymen by those who know its superb
beauty. For the same reason this small charming maple, with the large,
soft, comfortable leaves upon which the deer love to browse, is kept
from showing its delicate June bloom and its remarkable longitudinally
striped bark in our home grounds. I hope some maple friends will look
for it, and, finding, admire this, the aristocrat among our native
species.
[Illustration: Striped maple]
The mountain maple--the nurserymen call it _Acer spicatum_--is another
native of rather dwarf growth. It is bushy, and not remarkable in leaf,
its claim for distinction being in its flowers and samaras, which are
held saucily up, above the branches on which they grow, rather than
drooping modestly, as other maples gracefully bear their bloom and
fruit. These shiny seeds or keys are brightly scarlet, as well, and thus
very attractive in color. There is a reason for this, in nature's
economy; for while the loosely hung samaras of the other maples are
distributed by the breezes, the red pods of this mountain maple hold
stiffly upward to attract the birds upon whom it largely depends for
that sowing which must precede its reproduction.
Of the other maples of America--a score of them there are--I might write
pages, to weariness. The black maple of the Eastern woods, the
large-leaved maples of the West, these and many more are in this great
family, to say nothing of the many interesting cultivated forms and
variations introduced from European nurseries, and most serviceable in
formal ornamental planting. But I have told of those I know best and
those that any reader can know as well in one season, if he looks for
them with the necessary tree love which is but a fine form of true love
of God's creation. This love, once implanted, means surer protection for
the trees, otherwise so defenseless against the unthinking vandalism of
commercialism or incompetence--a vandalism that has not only devastated
our American forests, but mutilated shamefully many trees of priceless
value in and about our cities.
Of the Japanese maples--their leaves seemingly a showing of the
ingenuity of these Yankees of the Orient, in their twists of form and
depths of odd color--I could tell a tale, but it would be of the tree
nursery and not of the broad outdoors. Let us close the book and go
afield, in park or meadow, on street or lawn, and look to the maples for
an unsuspected feast of bloom, if it be spring, or for richness of
foliage in summer and autumn; and in coldest winter let us notice the
delicate twigs and yet sturdy structure of this tree family that is most
of all characteristic of the home, in city or country.
The Growth of the Oak
The old saw has it, "Great oaks from little acorns grow," and all of us
who remember the saying have thus some idea of what the beginning of an
oak is. But what of the beginning of the acorn? In a general way, one
inferentially supposes that there must be a flower somewhere in the
life-history of the towering white oak that has defied the storms of
centuries and seems a type of everything sturdy and strong and
masculine; but what sort of a flower could one imagine as the source of
so much majesty? We know of the great magnolias, with blooms befitting
the richness of the foliage that follows them. We see, and some of us
admire, the exquisitely delicate blossoms of that splendid American
tree, the tulip or whitewood. We inhale with delight the fragrance that
makes notable the time when the common locust sends forth its white
racemes of loveliness. But we miss, many of us, the flowering of the
oaks in early spring, and we do not realize that this family of trees,
most notable for rugged strength, has its bloom of beginning at the
other end of the scale, in flowers of delicate coloring and rather
diminutive size.
The reason I missed appreciating the flowers of the oak--they are quite
new to me--for some years of tree admiration was because of the
distracting accompaniment the tree gives to the blooms. Some trees--most
of the maples, for instance--send out their flowers boldly ahead of the
foliage, and it is thus easy to see what is happening above your head,
as you stroll along drinking in the spring's nectar of spicy air.
Others, again, have such showy blooms that the mass of foliage only
accentuates their attractiveness, and it is not possible to miss them.
[Illustration: The swamp white oak in winter]
But the oak is different; it is, as modest as it is strong, and its
bloom is nearly surrounded by the opening leaves in most seasons and in
most of the species I am just beginning to be acquainted with. Then,
too, these opening leaves are of such indescribable colors--if the
delicate chromatic tints they reflect to the eye may be so strongly
named--that they harmonize, and do not contrast, with the flowers. It is
with them almost as with a fearless chipmunk whose acquaintance I
cultivated one summer--he was gay with stripes of soft color, yet he so
fitted any surroundings he chose to be in that when he was quiet he
simply disappeared! The oak's flowers and its exquisite unfolding of
young foliage combine in one effect, and it is an effect so beautiful
that one easily fails to separate its parts, or to see which of the mass
of soft pink, gray, yellow and green is bloom and which of it is
leafage.
[Illustration: Flowers of the pin-oak]
Take the pin-oak, for instance, and note the softness of the greenery
above its flowers. Hardly can we define the young leaves as green--they
are all tints, and all beautiful. This same pin-oak, by the way (I mean
the one the botanists call _Quercus palustris_), is a notable
contradiction of the accepted theory that an oak of size and dignity
cannot be reared in a lifetime. There are hundreds of lusty pin-oaks all
over the Eastern States that are shading the homes of the wise men who
planted them in youth, and they might well adorn our parks and avenues
in place of many far less beautiful and permanent trees. With ordinary
care, and in good soil, the pin-oak grows rapidly, and the
characteristic spreading habit and the slightly down-drooping branches
are always attractive. In its age it has not the ruggedness of its kin,
though it assumes a stately and somewhat formal habit, and, I must
confess, accumulates some ragged dead branches in its interior.
This raggedness is easily cared for, for the tree requires--and few
trees do--no "trimming" of its outer branches. The interior twigs that
the rapid growth of the tree has deprived of air and light can be
quickly and easily removed. In Washington, where street-tree planting
has been and is intelligently managed under central authority, the
avenues of pin-oaks are a splendid feature of the great boulevards which
are serving already as a model to the whole country. Let us plant oaks,
and relieve the monotony of too many maples, poplars and horse-chestnuts
along our city and village highways.
I like, too, to see the smooth little acorns of the pin-oak before the
leaves drop; they seem so finished and altogether pleasing, and with the
leaves make a classical decorative motive worth more attention from
designers.
While I am innocent of either ability or intent to write botanically of
the great oak family, I ought perhaps to transcribe the information that
the flowers we see--if we look just at the right time in the
spring--are known as "staminate catkins,"--which, being interpreted,
means that there are also pistillate flowers, much less conspicuous, but
exceedingly necessary if acorns are to result; and also the fact that
the familiar "pussy-willow" of our acquaintance is the same form of
bloom--the catkin, or ament. I ought to say, too, that some of the oaks
perfect acorns from blossoms in one year, while others must grow through
two seasons before they are mature. Botanically, the oak family is
nearly a world family, and we Americans, though possessed of many
species, have no monopoly of it. Indeed, if I may dare to refer the
reader to that great storehouse of words, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, I
think he will find that the oak is there very British, and that the
English oak, surely a magnificent tree in England anyway, is
patriotically glorified to the writer.
But we want to talk of some of our own oaks. The one thoroughly
characteristic is surely the noble white oak, a tree most admirable in
every way, and most widely distributed over the Northern States. Its
majestic form, as it towers high above the ordinary works of man,
conveys the repose of conscious strength to the beholder. There is a
great oak in Connecticut to which I make pilgrimages, and from which I
always get a message of rest and peace. There it stands, strong,
full-powered, minding little the most furious storms, a benediction to
every one who will but lift his eyes. There it has stood in full majesty
for years unknown, for it was a great oak, so run the title-deeds, way
back in 1636, when first the white man began to own land in the
Connecticut Valley. At first sight it seems not large, for its perfect
symmetry conceals its great size; but its impression grows as one looks
at it, until it seems to fill the whole landscape. I have sat under it
in spring, when yet its leafy canopy was incomplete; I have looked into
its green depths in midsummer, when its grateful shadow refreshed the
highway; I have seen the sun set in redness beyond its bare limbs, the
snowy countryside emphasizing its noble lines; I have tried to fathom
the mystery in its sturdy heart overhead when the full moon rode in the
sky; and always that "great oak of Glastonbury" has soothed and cheered
and rested, and taken me nearer the Giver of all such good to restless
humanity.
Do I wonder at my friend who has built his home where he may look always
at this white oak, or that he raged in anger when a crabbed neighbor
ruthlessly cut down a superb tree of the same kind that was on his
property line, in order that he might run his barbed-wire fence
straight? No; I agree with him that this tree-murderer has probably a
barbed-wire heart, and we expect that his future existence will be
treeless, at least!
[Illustration: The swamp white oak in early spring]
Sometimes this same white oak adapts itself to the bank of a stream,
though its true character develops best in the drier ground. Its
strength has been its bane, for the value of its timber has caused many
a great isolated specimen to be cut down. It is fine to know that some
States--Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island also, I think--have
given to trees along highways, and in situations where they are part of
the highway landscape, the protection of a wise law. Under this law each
town appoints a tree-warden, serving without pay (and therefore with
love), who may seal to the town by his label such trees as are truly the
common possession, regardless of whose land they happen to be on. If the
owner desires to cut down a tree thus designated, he must first obtain
permission, after stating satisfactory reasons, of the annual
town-meeting, and this is not so easy as to make cutting very frequent.
The whole country should have such a law, and I should enjoy its
application right here in Pennsylvania, where oaks of a hundred years
have been cut down to make room for a whisky sign, and where a superb
pin-oak that I passed today is devoted to an ignominious use. If I may
venture to become hortatory, let me say that the responsibility for the
preservation of the all-too-few remaining great primeval trees, and of
their often notable progeny, in our Eastern States, rests with those who
care for trees, not alone with those who ought to care. To talk about
the greatness and beauty of a fine oak or maple or tulip, to call
attention to its shade value, and to appeal to the cupidity of the
ground owner by estimating how much less his property will be worth
when the trees are gone or have been mishandled, will aid to create the
necessary public sentiment. And to provide wise laws, as may be often
done with proper attention, is the plain duty and the high privilege of
the tree-loving citizen. The trees are defenseless, and they are often
unreplaceable; if you love them protect them as you would your children.
The white-oak leaf is the most familiar and characteristic, perhaps, of
the family; but other species, close to the white oak in habit, show
foliage of a very different appearance. The swamp white oak, for
instance, is a noble tree, and in winter particularly its irregular
branches give it an especial expression of rugged strength as it grows
along a brookside; but its leaves smooth up on the edges, giving only a
hint of the deep serrations that typify its upland brother. Deeply green
above are these leaves and softly white below, and in late summer there
appears, here and there, on a stout stem, a most attractive acorn of
large size. Its curious cup gives a hint, or more than a hint, as to the
special designating character of another oak, the mossy-cup or bur. This
latter species is beautiful in its habit, rich in its foliage, and the
fringed or mossed acorns are of a remarkable size.
[Illustration: An old post-oak]
Of all the oaks, the sturdy but not lofty post-oak spreads the richest
display of foliage. Its peculiar habit leads to the even placing of its
violoncello-shaped leaves, and its generous crop of acorns gives added
distinction in late summer. It is fine in the forest, and a notable
ornament anywhere.
It has been said that a proper penance for an offending botanist would
be a compulsory separation and description of the involved and
complicated goldenrod family; and I would suggest that a second edition
of the same penance might be a requirement to name off-hand the first
dozen oak trees the same poor botanist might meet. So much do the
foliage, the bark, and the habit of growth vary, and so considerable is
the difference between individuals of the same species, that the wisest
expert is likely to be the most conservative. An unbotanical observer,
who comes at the family just because he loves trees in general, and is
poking his eyes and his camera into unusual places, doesn't make close
determinations; he tells what he thinks he sees, and leaves exact work
to the scientists.
[Illustration: A blooming twig of the swamp white oak]
There are some oaks, however, that have borrowed the foliage of other
trees so cunningly that one at first scouts the possibility of the
Quercus parentage, until he sees an undeniable acorn thrusting itself
forward. Then he is sure that what seemed a rather peculiarly shaped
chestnut tree, with somewhat stumpy foliage, is none other than the
chestnut-oak. A fine tree it is, too, this same chestnut-oak, with its
masquerading foliage of deep green, its upright and substantial habit,
its rather long and aristocratic-looking acorns. The authorities tell
that its wood, too, is brownish and valuable; but we tree-lovers are not
enthusiastic over mere timber values, because that means the killing of
the trees.
The willow-oak will not deceive, because its habit is so oak-like and so
willow-less; but its foliage is surely borrowed from its graceful and
more rapidly growing neighbor. Not so large, by any means, as the white
oak or the chestnut-oak, it has somewhat rough and reddish bark, and its
acorns are perfected in the second year of their growth, close to the
twigs, in the way of the pin-oak. The general aspect of the tree is
upright, rather than spreading, and it partakes thus of the maple
character in its landscape effect. The willow-oak is one of the species
I would, if I were writing a tree-planting article, heartily commend to
those who wish to add adornment to the countryside that shall be
permanent and satisfactory. Just a hint here: nursery-grown oaks, now
obtainable from any modern establishment, have usually been frequently
moved or transplanted, as the trade term goes, and this means that they
have established a somewhat self-contained root system, which will give
them far greater vigor and cause them to take hold sooner when finally
placed in a situation where they are to be permanent features. The
reason is plain: the forest seedling, in the fierce struggle for
existence usually prevailing, must send its roots far and wide for food,
and when it is dug out their feeding capacity is so seriously curtailed
as to check the growth of the tree for many years. The nursery-grown
tree, on the contrary, has been brought up "by hand," and its food has
always been convenient to it, leading to more rapid growth and a more
compact root system. I only interject this prosaic fact here in the hope
that some of my tree-loving readers will undertake to plant some oaks
instead of only the soft-wooded and less permanent maples, poplars, and
the like.
Another simulative leaf is that of the laurel-oak, and it is color and
gloss as well as shape that have been borrowed from its humbler
neighbor in the forest. The shining green of the laurel is seen in these
oak leaves; they are also half evergreen, thus being one of the family
particularly belonging to our Southern States, and hardly enduring the
chill of the winters north of Virginia. It is one of the galaxy of oaks
I remember as providing a special interest in the Georgia forests, where
the long-leaved pine also gave a new tree sensation to the visitor from
the North, who at first could hardly imagine what those lovely little
green fountains of foliage were that he saw along the roadside and in
the woods. The Georgia oaks seem to me to have a richness of foliage, a
color and substance and shine, that compare only with the excellence of
two other products of the same State--the peach and the watermelon. The
long summer and the plenitude of sunshine seem to weave into these
products luxuriance found nowhere else; and when one sees for the first
time a happy, rollicking bunch of round-eyed negro children, innocent
alike of much clothing or any trouble, mixing up with the juicy Georgia
melon under the shade of a luxuriant oak, he gets a new conception of
at least one part of the race problem!
One of the things I wanted much to see when I first traveled South was
the famed live-oak, the majesty and the mournfulness of which had been
long sung into me. Perhaps I expected too much, as I did of the
palmetto, another part of my quest, but surely there was disappointment
when I was led, on the banks of the Manatee River in Florida, to see a
famous live-oak. It was tall and grand, but its adornment of long,
trailing gray Spanish moss, which was to have attached the sadness to
it, seemed merely to make it unkempt and uncomfortable. I was instantly
reminded of a tree at home in the far North that I had never thought
particularly beautiful, but which now, by comparison, took on an
attractiveness it has never since lost. Imagine a great spreading
weeping willow turned dingy gray, and you have a fair picture of a
moss-covered live-oak; but you will prefer it green, as is the willow, I
believe.
One day a walk about Savannah, which city has many splendid live-oaks
in its parks and squares, involved me in a sudden shower, when, presto!
the weeping willow of the North was reincarnated before my eyes, for the
falling rain turned the dingy moss pendants of the live-oak to the
whitish green that makes the willow such a delightful color-note in
early spring. I have been thankful often for that shower, for it gave a
better feeling about the live-oak, and made me admire the weeping
willow.
The live-oak, by the way, has a leaf very little like the typical
oak--it is elliptical in shape and smooth in outline. The curious
parasitic moss that so frequently covers the tree obscures the really
handsome foliage.
The English Oak, grand tree that it is, grows well in America, as
everything English should by right, and there are fine trees of this
_Quercus Robur_ on Long Island. The acorns are of unusual elegance, as
the photograph which shows them will prove.
The red oak, the black oak, the scarlet oak, all splendid forest trees
of the Northeast, are in the group of confusion that can be readily
separated only by the timber-cruiser, who knows every tree in the
forest for its economic value, or by the botanist, with his limp-bound
Gray's Manual in hand. I confess to bewilderment in five minutes after
the differences have been explained to me, and I enjoyed, not long ago,
the confusion of a skilful nurseryman who was endeavoring to show me his
young trees of red oak which the label proved to be scarlet! But the
splendidly effective trees themselves can be fully appreciated, and the
distinctions will appear as one studies carefully the features of these
living gifts of nature's greenness. The trees wait on one, and once the
habit of appreciation and investigation is formed, each walk afield, in
forest or park, leads to the acquirement of some new bit of tree-lore,
that becomes more precious and delightful as it is passed on and
commented upon in association with some other member of the happily
growing fraternity of nature-lovers.
[Illustration: Acorns of the English oak]
These oak notes are not intended to be complete, but only to suggest
some points for investigation and appreciation to my fellows in the
brotherhood. I have never walked between Trenton and New York, and
therefore never made the desired acquaintance with the scrub-oaks along
the way. Nor have I dipped as fully into the oak treasures of the Arnold
Arboretum as I want to some day. But my camera is yet available and the
trees are waiting; the tree love is growing and the tree friends are
inviting, and together we will add to the oak knowledge and to that
thankfulness for God and life and love and friends that the trees do
most constantly cause to flourish.
The Pines
In popular estimation, the pines seem to belong to the North, not quite
so exclusively as do the palms to the South. The ragged, picturesque old
pines, spruces and hemlocks of our remembrance carry with them the
thought of great endurance, long life and snowy forests. We think of
them, too, as belonging to the mountains, not to the plains; as clothing
steep slopes with their varied deep greens rather than as standing
against the sky-line of the sea. Yet I venture to think that the most of
us in the East see oftenest the pines peculiar to the lowlands, as we
flit from city to city over the steel highways of travel, and have most
to do, in an economical sense, with a pine that does not come north of
the Carolinas--the yellow pine which furnishes our familiar
house-flooring.
The pine family, as we discuss it, is not all pines, in exactitude--it
includes many diverse trees that the botanist describes as conifers.
These cone-bearing trees are nearly all evergreens--that is, the foliage
persists the year round, instead of being deciduous, as the
leaf-dropping maples, oaks, birches, and the like are scientifically
designated. Historically the pines are of hoary age, for they are
closely related to the growths that furnished the geologic coal measures
stored up in the foundations of the earth for our use now. Economically,
too, all the pine family together is of vast importance--"the most
important order of forest trees in the economy of civilized man," says
Dr. Fernow; for, as he adds, the cone-bearing trees "have furnished the
bulk of the material of which our civilization is built." As usual,
civilization has destroyed ruthlessly, thoughtlessly, almost viciously,
in using this material; wherefore the devastation of the forests, moving
them back from us farther and farther until in many regions they are but
a thin fringe, has left most of us totally unfamiliar with these trees,
of the utmost beauty as well as of the greatest value.
[Illustration: A lone pine on the Indian River]
To know anything at all of the spruces, pines and hemlocks is to love
them for the refreshment there is in their living presence, rather than
to consider them merely for the timber value. But the point of view
differs immensely with one's occupation. I remember finding in the
depths of an Alleghany forest a comparatively rare native orchid, then
new to me--the round-leaved _or orbicular habenaria_. While I was
gloating over it with my camera a gray-haired native of the neighborhood
joined me, and, to my surprise, assisted in the gloating--he, too, loved
the woods and the plants. Coming a little later to a group of
magnificent hemlocks, with great, clean, towering trunks reaching up a
hundred feet through the soft maples and yellow birches and beeches
which seemed dwarfed by these veterans, I exclaimed in admiration.
"Yes," he said, "them's mighty fine hemlocks. I calc'late thet one to
the left would bark near five dollars' wuth!" On the rare plant we had
joined in esthetic appreciation, but the hemlock was to the old
lumberman but a source of tan-bark.
This search for tannin, by the way, is to blame for much wanton
destruction. Young hemlocks, from four to six inches in diameter, are
felled, stripped of their bark, and left cumbering the ground, to invite
fire and to make of the woods an unkempt cemetery. The fall of a tree
from natural causes is followed by the interesting and beauty-making
process of its mossy decay and return to the forest floor, furnishing in
the process nourishment for countless seedlings and plants. A tree
felled in maturity under enlightened forest management is all removed
for its timber, and leaves the ground clear; but the operations of the
bark-hunter leave only hideous destruction and a "slash" that is most
difficult to clear in later years.
This same hemlock makes a most impressive forest. To walk among primeval
hemlocks brings healing to the mind and peace to the soul, as one
realizes fully that "the groves were God's first temples," and that God
is close to one in these beneficent solitudes, where petty things must
fall away, vexations cease, and man's spiritual nature absorb the
message of the forest.
[Illustration: Hemlock Hill, Arnold Arboretum (Boston)]
I wonder how many of my readers realize that an exquisite bit of real
hemlock forest lies not five miles from Boston Common? At the Arnold
Arboretum, that noble collection of trees and plants, "Hemlock Hill" is
assuming deeper majesty year after year as its trees gain age and size.
It presents exactly the pure forest conditions, and makes accessible to
thousands the full beauty and soothing that nothing but a coniferous
forest can provide for man. There is the great collateral advantage,
too, that to reach Hemlock Hill, the visitor must use a noble entrance,
and pass other trees and plants which, in the adequate setting here
given, cannot but do him much good, and prepare him for the deep sylvan
temple of the hemlocks he is seeking. To visit the Arboretum at the time
when the curious variety of the apple relatives--pyruses and the
like--bloom, is to secure a great benefit of sight and scent, and it is
almost certain to make one resolve to return when these blossoms shall,
by nature's perfect work, have become fruit. Here the fruit is grown for
its beauty only, and thus no gastronomic possibilities interfere with
the appreciation of color, and form, and situation! But again, to come
to the Arboretum some time during the reign of the lilacs is to
experience an even greater pleasure, perhaps, for here the old farm
garden "laylock" assumes a wonderful diversity of form and color, from
the palest wands of the Persian sorts to the deepest blue of some of the
French hybrids.
The pines themselves will well repay any investigation and appreciation.
Seven species are with us in the New England and Middle Atlantic States,
seven more are found South, while the great West, with its yet
magnificent forests, has twenty-five pines of distinct character. The
white pine is perhaps most familiar to us, because of its economic
importance, and it is as well the tallest and most notable of all those
we see in the East. From its first essay as a seedling, with its
original cluster of five delicate blue-green leaflets, to its lusty
youth, when it is spreading and broad, if given room to grow, it is a
fine object, and I have had some thrills of joy at finding this splendid
common thing planted in well-placed groups on the grounds of wealthy
men, instead of some Japanese upstart with a name a yard long and a
truly crooked Oriental disposition! In age the white pine dominates any
landscape, wearing even the scars of its long battle with the elements
with stately dignity. A noble pair of white pines on the shore of Lake
Champlain I remember especially--they were the monarchs of the lakeside
as they towered above all other trees. Ragged they were, their symmetry
gone long years ago through attacks of storms and through strife with
the neighboring trees that had succumbed while they only suffered and
stood firm. Yet they seemed all complete, of proved strength and staying
power, and their aspect was not of defiance or anger, but rather
indicative of beneficent strength, as if they said, "Here we stand;
somewhat crippled, it is true, but yet pointing upright to the heavens,
yet vigorous, yet seed-bearing and cheerful!"
Another group of these white pines that stood close to some only less
picturesque red pines on the shores of a pond deep in the Adirondacks
emphasized again for me one May day the majesty of this beneficent
friend of mankind; and yet another old pine monarch against the sunset
sky pointed the westward way from the picturesque Cornell campus, and
alas! also pointed the danger to even this one unreplaceable tree when
modern "enterprise" constructs a trolley line on a scenic route,
ruthlessly destroying the very features that make the route desirable,
rather than go to any mechanical trouble!