Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation have been standardised but all other spelling and
punctuation remains unchanged.
Italics are represented thus _italic_.
The notes remain at the end of the text as in the original.
FOREST TREES AND
FOREST SCENERY
[Illustration: A River Scene in Florida]
FOREST TREES AND
FOREST SCENERY
BY
G. FREDERICK SCHWARZ
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration: Publisher’s Device]
NEW YORK
THE GRAFTON PRESS
1901
Copyright, 1901, by
G. FREDERICK SCHWARZ
PREFACE
In the ensuing pages I have made simple inquiries into the sources
of beauty and attractiveness in American forest trees and sylvan
scenery. In the concluding chapter, by way of contrast, I have given
a short account of the esthetic effects of the artificial forests of
Europe. The system which shaped these forests and gave them their
present appearance should, however, possess more than a comparative
interest for Americans. It has, in fact, a further connection, though
a slight one, with the subject, and therefore requires a few words of
explanation.
It is well known that in many parts of Europe the forests have long
been subjected to a systematic treatment known as forestry. The term,
at first strange, is gradually becoming quite familiar to us Americans,
for the application of this comparatively new science has already begun
in many sections of our country. The principles of European forestry
will naturally undergo many modifications in their new environment,
and the vastness of our forest areas, as well as the long life that
naturally belongs to trees, will impose a very gradual progress.
Nevertheless, the movement for a rational use of our forests is rapidly
advancing and is certain in time to find a very wide application.
Although the aims of forestry are utilitarian and not artistic, the
technical character of the operations which it involves impresses upon
natural forest scenery a changed aspect. Eventually the work performed
upon our forests will be manifested in a new outward appearance, a
change that cannot but be preferable to the scenes ordinarily presented
by our cut-over and abandoned timberlands, and one that will be
appreciated not only by forest lovers in general, but also by those who
are engaged in the lumber industry itself, who are often forced through
competition and prevailing methods to leave a desolate picture behind.
In a word, forestry interests us here because, having already obtained
a foothold in our country, through it forest beauty stands on the
threshold of a new relationship. This relationship, which is to grow
more intimate with time, appears to justify a certain discrimination in
the choice of the trees and forests herein described, and an occasional
reference to some of the less technical matters of forestry that may
incidentally suggest themselves as being of some interest to the
general reader. To have attempted more than this would have detracted
from the unity of the subject. While the reader may, therefore, find in
these pages some facts that are new to him, he will notice that these
facts have been made subordinate to the leading object of the book,
an appreciation of the esthetic value of some of our commonest forest
trees.
The illustrations have been derived from various sources. The plates
facing pages 38, 58, 62, 64, 66, 116, 120, 130, are reproductions
from original photographs that were furnished through the courtesy
of the Bureau of Forestry, United States Department of Agriculture.
My grateful acknowledgments are due Mr. Overton W. Price, Assistant
Chief of the Bureau of Forestry, for photographs chosen out of his
collection to supply the plates facing pages 69, 148, 158. The
remaining illustrations have been reproduced from photographs in my own
collection.
Notes of reference, which are indicated by superior figures in the
text, and an index to the names of the trees that have been described
or specially referred to in these pages, will be found at the close of
the book. The index has been compiled from a well-known bulletin of the
Bureau of Forestry, United States Department of Agriculture, entitled
“Check List of the Forest Trees of the United States.” Courteous
acknowledgment is here made to the author, Mr. George B. Sudworth,
and to the Division of Publications, of the same Department, for kind
permission to make extracts from the bulletin referred to.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I FOREST TREES 1
The Broadleaf Trees 3
The Cone-Bearers 29
II FOREST ADORNMENT 63
III DISTRIBUTION OF AMERICAN FORESTS 83
IV CHARACTER OF THE BROADLEAF FORESTS 97
V THE CONIFEROUS FORESTS 116
VI THE ARTIFICIAL FORESTS OF EUROPE 141
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
A River Scene in Florida _Frontispiece_
Facing page
Foliage of the White Oak 8
Spray of the Sugar Maple 12
Spray of the Red Maple 12
The Dogwood in Bloom 22
Tulip Trees 26
Character of the White Pine 34
Sugar Pines 36
A Pinery in the South 38
The Bull Pine in its California Home 40
A Silver Fir at Middle Age 50
Redwood Forest in California 58
Devastation in the Forest 60
Where the Sheep Have Been 62
A Passageway through Granite Rocks 64
Shrubbery and River Birches. New Jersey 66
Fern Patch in a Grove of White Birch 69
A Yucca in the Chaparral 78
Virgin Forest Scene in Florida 110
A Group of Conifers. Montana 116
Mount Rainier. Washington 120
A Thicket of White Firs 125
An Open Forest in the Southwest 130
A Storm-beaten Veteran 132
A German “Selection Forest” 148
A “High Forest” of Spruce in Saxony 158
FOREST TREES AND
FOREST SCENERY
“One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.”
WORDSWORTH.
I
FOREST TREES
The beauty of a forest is not simple in character, but is due to many
separate sources. The trees contribute much; the shrubs, the rocks, the
mosses, play their part; the purity of the air, the forest silence,
the music of wind in the trees—these and other influences combine to
produce woodland beauty and charm. A first consideration, however,
should be to know the beauty that is revealed by the trees themselves.
Here it will be wise to make a selection: to choose out of the
great variety of our forest flora those trees that most deserve
our attention. Many of our forest trees have naturally a restricted
range; others are narrowing or widening their range through human
interference; still others have already established their right to
a preëminence among the trees of the future, because, possessing to
an unusual degree the qualities that will make them amenable to the
new and improved methods of treatment known as “forestry,” they are
certain to receive special care and attention; while those that are not
so fortunate will be left to fight their own battles, or may even be
exterminated to make room for the more useful kinds. Among all these
the rarest are not necessarily the most beautiful. Those that are
commonest and most useful are often distinguished for qualities that
please the eye or appeal directly to the mind.
In accordance with the ideas already expressed in the Preface, the
considerations that will determine what trees shall be described are
as follows: first, trees of beauty; next, those that are common and
familiar; finally, those that are important both for the present and
the future because they are useful and have an extended geographical
distribution.
The trees selected for description will here be divided into the two
conventional groups of broadleaf species and conifers, beginning with
the former.
THE BROADLEAF TREES
In the “Landscape Gardening” of Downing we read concerning the oak,—
“When we consider its great and surpassing utility and beauty, we are
fully disposed to concede it the first rank among the denizens of the
forest. Springing up with a noble trunk, and stretching out its broad
limbs over the soil,
‘These monarchs of the wood,
Dark, gnarled, centennial oaks,’
seem proudly to bid defiance to time; and while generations of man
appear and disappear, they withstand the storms of a thousand winters,
and seem only to grow more venerable and majestic.”
It would be difficult to say whether Downing had any particular species
of oak in mind when he wrote these words. The common white oak and the
several species of red and black oak possess in an eminent degree the
grandeur and strength which he describes and for which we commonly
admire the tree.
Of all the oaks[1] the white oak is the most important. This tree will
impress us differently as we see it in the open field or in the dense
forest. Where it stands by itself in the full enjoyment of light, it
has a round-topped, dome-shaped crown, and is massive and well poised
in all its parts. Quite as often, however, we shall see it gathered
into little groups of three or four on the greensward of some gently
sloping hill, where it has a graceful way of keeping company. The
groups are full of expression, the effect is diversified from tree
to tree, yet harmonious in the whole. In the denser forest the white
oak often reaches noble proportions and assumes its most individual
expression. There it mounts proudly upward, contending in height at
wide intervals with sugar maples and tulip trees, its common associates
in the forest. Its lofty crown may be seen at a distance, lifted
conspicuously above the heads of its neighbors. Stand beneath it,
however, and look up at its lower branches, and there is revealed an
intricacy of branchwork and a tortuosity of limb such as is unattained
when it stands alone in the field. The boldness with which the white
oak will sometimes throw out its limbs abruptly, and twist and writhe
to the outermost twig, I have never seen quite equaled in the other
oaks. The live oak, it must be admitted, is even more abrupt where the
limb divides from the trunk, but it does not continue its vagaries to
the end.
It is to be noted that these forms are not without a purpose and a
meaning. Under difficulties and obstacles the twigs and branches have
groped their way; often one part has been sacrificed for the good of
another, in order that all gifts of air, and moisture, and light might
be received in the fullness of their worth. Thus the entire framework
of the tree becomes infused with life and meaning, almost with sense,
and its character is reflected in its expression.
The observer is also impressed by the character of the foliage. The
leaves are usually rather blunt and ponderous, varying a little—as,
indeed, do those of several other trees —according to the nature of
their environment. They clothe the tree in profusion, but do not hide
the beauty of the ramification of its branches. In truth, they are not
devoid of beauty themselves. It was natural for Lowell to exclaim,—
A little of thy steadfastness,
Rounded with leafy gracefulness,
Old oak, give me.
While the leaves of the white oak do not deflect and curve as much in
their growth as those of some of the more graceful and elegant trees,
they nevertheless fall into natural and pleasing groups, unfolding a
pretty variation as they work out their patient spiral ascent, leaf
after leaf, round the stemlet; showing a changefulness in the sizes
of the several leaves, and a choice in the spacing. In the first
weeks of leafing-time there is to be added to these features the
effects derived from transitions of color in the leaves. For the very
young leaves are not green, but of a deep rose or dusky gray. They are
velvety in texture, and lie nestling within the groups of the larger
green leaves that have preceded them. Just as it was said a little
while ago that there was expressiveness throughout the branches, it may
now be said that there is a fitness of the foliage for all parts of the
tree.
[Illustration: Foliage of the White Oak]
In winter, however, the beauty of the oak’s foliage is gone. The dry
leaves still hang on the boughs, sometimes even until spring, but they
look disheveled and dreary. Still, they are not without some esthetic
value, though it be through the sense of hearing instead of sight.
Thoreau says,—
“The dry rustle of the withered oak-leaves is the voice of the wood in
winter. It sounds like the roar of the sea, and is inspirating like
that, suggesting how all the land is seacoast to the aërial ocean.”
Deep and glorious, too, is the light that rests in the oak woods on
midsummer days. It filters, softened and subdued, through the wealth
of foliage, and wraps us in a mellow radiance. Its purity and calm
depth lift the senses to a higher level. Most limpid is the light in a
misty shower, when the sun is low and the level rays break through the
moist leaves and dampened air, while we stand within and see everything
bathed in a golden luster.
Our common chestnut is of less economic value than the oak, but one
suggests the other, for the two are often found together and are
similar in size and habit. The chestnut is, in truth, one of our finest
deciduous trees. It has a luxuriance of healthy, dark-green foliage,
and is happy-looking in its abundance of yellow-tasseled blossoms. It
is even more beautiful in August, when the young burs mingle their even
tinge of brown with the fresh green of the glossy leaves. In old age it
has the same firmness that is so noticeable in the oak, and seems to be
just as regardless of the winds and gales.
The character of the leaf and the manner in which the branches of a
tree divide and ramify have so much to do with certain beautiful
effects, that I shall make some remarks on these features in two of
our maples. The sugar or hard maple is the most useful member of this
genus, and may advantageously be compared with the red maple, which is
perhaps more beautiful.
It is of great advantage to both of these trees that the sweep of
their branches, which is carried out in ample, undulating lines, is
in perfect harmony with the elegance of their foliage. In the sugar
maple the latter spreads over the boughs in soft and pleasing contours.
The leaves are a trifle larger than those of the red maple, and their
edges are wavy or flowing, while their surfaces are slightly undulating
and have less luster than those of the other tree. They are thus well
fitted to receive a flood of light without being in danger of
presenting a clotted appearance. The petioles, or little leaf-stems,
assume a more horizontal position than they do in the red maple, and
the twigs are usually shorter, which allows a denser richness in the
foliage, which every breeze plays upon and ruffles as it passes by.
[Illustration: Spray of the Sugar Maple]
[Illustration: Spray of the Red Maple]
The red maple has a more airy look. This is due partly to the character
of the leaf, but primarily to that of the branchwork. The main branches
spread out in easy, flowing lines, much as they do in the sugar maple;
but they assume an ampler range, and the last divisions, the twigs,
take on decided curves, rising to right and left. On these the leaves
multiply, each leaf poised lightly upon its curved petiole. As
compared with the leaf of its congener, that of the red maple is firmer
and a shade lighter, especially underneath. It is also more agile in
the wind. The effect of the whole is more that of a shower of foliage
than of pillowed masses. The curving lines, the elastic spring of every
part, and a kind of freedom among the many leaves, make the red maple
one of the cheerfullest of trees.
The sugar maple is the larger of the two, and seeks the intervales
and uplands, where its size is well set off in the landscape. The red
maple, which finds its natural home along riverbanks and in moist
places, is interesting at all seasons. When young it is particularly
attractive in summer where it fringes lakes and streams. In winter
its bright, red twigs present a pleasing contrast to the gray bark or
to the snow-covered earth. In the earliest days of spring the little
scarlet blossoms break out in tufts that soon ripen into brilliant
little keys, looking very pretty where they intermingle with the pale
green of the opening leaves.
There is, in fact, more color in the woods in the opening days of
spring than is generally admitted or noticed. Many kinds of trees
unfold their leaves in some tender shade of rose or golden brown;
while others lend a distinct color to a whole section of forest by the
opening of their early blossoms.
The maples, however, are chiefly famous for their wonderful richness
of color in the fall of the year; particularly the sugar and the red
maple, whose brilliancy at this season it would be difficult to match.
They exhibit, in truth, a gamut of beautiful tones, from pale yellow to
deep orange, and from bright scarlet to vivid crimson. They are among
the first to change the color of their leaves, but are quickly followed
by other species of trees, whose varying hues blend together and enrich
the autumn landscape. The “scarlet” and “red” oaks now justify their
names; the flowering dogwood and the sweet gum show their soft depth
of purple; the milder tulip tree takes on a golden tint and shimmers
in the sun, mingling with ruddy hornbeams, browned beeches, variegated
sassafras trees, or the fiery foliage of the tupelos. The swamps are
aflame with the brilliancy of red maples, contrasting with the quieter
tones of alders and willows.
We may speak of brilliancy and color in our leafy woods at the ebb-tide
of the year; but to know their beauty well we must walk among the
trees. Nor can pictures tell us all the truth about the tints of
autumn. How should we receive from them the atmospheric effects that
nature gives, and the indescribable blending and softening that comes
from innumerable rays of diffused and reflected light? The beauty also
changes from day to day and from hour to hour, for weeks.
Some of the other broadleaf trees deserve to be noticed, though in
less detail, as objects of beauty in the forest. The honey locust,
one of our largest trees of this class, is distinguished principally
for the elegant forms of its branches. The smaller divisions, the
twigs, follow a zigzag course which in itself is not beautiful, but
the effect is so bound up with the complex spiral evolutions of the
larger divisions, the boughs and branches, that the result is only to
heighten the elegance of the latter. The foliage of this tree is very
delicate, being composed of numerous elliptically shaped leaflets, that
are gathered into sprays that hang airily among the bold and sweeping
boughs.
Much might be said here in commendation of the sassafras tree, were
it economically more important. Its brown, sculptured bark is very
attractive, and its yellowish blossoms, that break in early spring,
are fragrant. The leaves are of several shades of green, and vary
considerably in outline. When in full leaf, the outward form of the
tree is striking in appearance, its foliage being massed into rounded
and hemispherical shapes that group themselves in the crown of the tree
in well-proportioned and tasteful outlines.
The birches, too, are very attractive trees, especially where they
have ample room to develop. The white birch appears at its best where
it is sprinkled in moderation among open groves of other trees. To
the forester it is of some importance, as its seedlings rapidly cover
denuded or burnt areas. They also shield from excessive sunlight or
from frost the seedlings of more valuable kinds that may have sprouted
in their welcome shade; until, gaining strength, the latter after
a few years push up their tops between the open foliage of their
protecting “nurses.” The white birch may be seen performing this
good office in many a fire-scarred piece of woodland throughout the
Northeastern States. Often, too, we see it standing a little apart, as
at the edge of a forest; its slender branches drooping around the pure
white trunk and its agile leaves gleaming as they wave in the light
breeze. It is like one of those single notes in music that glide into
universal harmony with irresistible charm.
The yellow birch, on the contrary, is most beautiful in the depth of
the forest. It is a large, useful tree. In the Adirondacks I have often
admired its tall, straight trunk as it rose above the neighboring
firs and spruces and unfolded its large, regular crown of dense
dark foliage, relieved underneath by the thin, shining, silvery to
golden-yellow bark, torn here and there into shreds that curled back
upon themselves around the stem.
The white elm, well represented in the avenues of New England, is
widely distributed. It is a tree for the meadow, although its natural
grace and, one might almost say, inborn gentleness are preserved along
the fringes of the forest and on the banks of streams. It needs some
room to show the refinement of its closely interwoven spray. Watch its
beauty as it sways in the light wind; or look at a grove of elms after
a hoar-frost on some early morning in winter, when the leaves are gone
and all its outlines are penciled in finest silver.
The flowering dogwood is one of our smaller trees, but is exceptionally
favored with all manner of beauty. Although it is very common in many
of the States, and is not without its special uses, it occupies a
subordinate position in the eyes of the forester, being often no more
than a mere shrub in form. And yet, while some of the larger trees by
their majestic presence lend grandeur to the forest, the dogwood brings
to it a charm not easily forgotten. In spring, when it is showered all
over with interesting, large, creamy-white flowers, it is an emblem
of purity. Its leaves, which appear very soon after the bloom, are
elegantly curved in outline, soft of texture, light-green in summer,
and of a deep crimson or rich purple-maroon in autumn.[2] In winter the
flowers are replaced by bright, red berries. Its spray of twigs and
branchlets, formed by a succession of exquisitely proportioned waves
and upward curves, is not as conspicuous, though hardly less ornamental
at this season than the fruit.
[Illustration: The Dogwood in Bloom]
As a shrub, being among the very first to bloom, it decorates the
forest borders in spring, or stands conspicuously within the forest. It
is found everywhere in the Appalachian region. In the coastal plain it
is associated with the longleaf pine, or may be seen among broadleaf
trees, or standing among red junipers, as tall as they and quite at
home in their company.
Before turning to coniferous trees, the tulip tree deserves some
attention on account of its usefulness, its extended habitat, and its
beauty as a forest tree. It is closely related to the magnolias, to
which belongs the big laurel of the Gulf region, an evergreen species
that might be called the queen of all broadleaf trees. But the big
laurel must here give place to the tulip tree, because it is not
so distinctively a forest tree, and is much more restricted in its
geographical distribution.
The first general impression of the tulip tree is, I venture to say,
one of strangeness. There is a foreign look about the heavy, truncated
leaves, and an oriental luxury in the large, greenish-yellow flowers.
These appear in May or June, while the conelike fruit ripens in
the fall. When the seeds have scattered, the open cones, upright in
position, remain for a long time on the tree, where they are strikingly
ornamental.
Esthetically the most important feature of the tulip tree is an
expression of dignity and stateliness, which gives it a character of
its own. Its extraordinary size renders it a conspicuous object in
the forest, the more so because we usually find it associated with a
variety of other trees of quite different aspect. Michaux, who has told
us much about the forest flora of the eastern United States, could
find no tree among the deciduous kinds, except the buttonwood, that
would bear comparison with it in size, and he calls it “one of the most
magnificent vegetables of the temperate zone.” Its columnar trunk
continues with unusual straightness and regularity nearly to the summit
of the tree. Its limbs and branches divide in harmonious proportions,
reaching out as if conscious of their strength, and yet with sufficient
gracefulness to lend dignity to the tree. The lower boughs, especially,
are inclined to assume an elegant sweep, deflecting sidewise to the
earth, and ending with an upward curve and a droop at the outer
extremity. Often the crowded environment of the forest does not admit
of such ample development; yet even under such conditions the tulip
tree preserves much of its elegance and is generally well balanced.
[Illustration: Tulip Trees]
When young it does not appear to much advantage, being rather too
symmetrical. Nevertheless I have found it described as a tree of
“great refinement of expression” at that age. As soon as it begins
to put on a richer crown of foliage and to develop a sturdier stem
and more elegant lines in the disposition of its branches, it becomes
invested with its peculiar aspect of magnificence, increasing in
gracefulness and grandeur from year to year. Its bark, at first smooth
and gray, gradually becomes chiseled with sharp small cuts; then takes
on a corrugated appearance, becomes brown, and finally turns into
deeply furrowed ridges in the old tree. Now the foliage, too, seems
to clothe the massive boughs more fitly, being denser and in size of
leaves more in accordance with the increased dimensions of the tree.
The foliage of the tulip tree is, in truth, one of its principal
points of beauty, and is inferior only to the stateliness of its form.
The opening leaf-buds are conical, exquisitely modeled, and of the
tenderest green. The leaves unfold from them much as do the petals in
a flower, but quickly spread apart on the stem. As they grow larger
they still preserve their light-green color, but take on a mild gloss.
They are ready to shift and tremble on their long leaf-stalks in every
breath of wind, which gives them a decided air of cheerfulness. We may
see the same thing in the aspen and in some of the poplars. Under the
tulip tree, however, the light that descends and spreads out on the
ground is far superior. It is softer and purer. We need not look up
to appreciate it, but may watch it on the soil, over which it moves in
flecks of light and dark.
“The chequer’d earth seems restless as a flood
Brushed by the winds, so sportive is the light
Shot through the boughs; it dances, as they dance,
Shadow and sunshine intermingling quick,
And dark’ning, and enlight’ning (as the leaves
Play wanton) every part.”
THE CONE-BEARERS
The cone-bearing trees are usually provided with needle-shaped or
awl-shaped leaves, in contradistinction to the broad and flat ones
that belong to the group described in the preceding section of this
chapter. Most of them preserve their foliage through the winter, and
are commonly recognized by this evergreen habit. They are much more
important to the forester than the other class. The conifers grow
on the true forest soils. They range along mountain crests or are
scattered over dry and semi-arid regions or along the sandy seashore,
while the broadleaf species usually require a better soil and a more
congenial climate. This circumstance causes many deciduous forests to
be cut down, in order that the better land on which they grow may be
utilized for agricultural purposes. Moreover, the wood of the conifers
is generally more useful, being in several of the species of great
economic importance. Lastly, in their habit of denser growth, and from
the fact that these trees are ordinarily found in the form of “pure”
forests (in contradistinction to those forests in which a number
of species grow intermingled), they furnish certain very important
conditions for practical and successful forestry.
The common white pine well deserves to stand at the head of all the
conifers or evergreens east of the Mississippi. Though it once covered
vast areas in more or less “pure” forests it has been largely cut away,
and recurring fires have generally prevented its return; but in certain
places it could even now be restored by careful treatment. At present
the last remnants of these pineries are disappearing swiftly, and
before the methods of the forester can be applied to such extensive
areas, this valuable heritage will probably have vanished. Heretofore
it has been to us Americans in the supply of wood what bread and water
are in daily life. It has been hardly less valued by other nations,
having been planted as a forest tree in Germany a full century ago.
I cannot say what I admire most in the white pine; whether it be the
luxuriance and purity of its foliage, or the very graceful spread of
its boughs. There is hardly a tree that can equal it for softness and
rich color. The tufts of needlelike leaves densely cover the upper
surfaces of the spreading branches, and are of a mild, uniformly
pure olive-green. Seen from beneath they appear tangled in the
beautifully interwoven twigs and stems. It is here that we first begin
to notice the exquisite manner of the white pine. The boughs reach out
horizontally, with here and there one that ascends or turns aside to
assume a position exceptionally graceful and to fill out a space that
seems specially to have been vacated for it. I speak of the white pine
at the age preceding maturity, when it is in its full strength, but
before it has attained the picturesqueness of old age. Following an
easy curve, the branch divides at right and left into dozens of finer
branchlets, all extending forward and straining, as it were, to reach
the light; and these in turn lift up hundreds of twigs and little stems
to enrich the upper surfaces with bushy tufts of lithe green needles.
The elegance of this habit in the white pine appears to advantage when
we stand a little above it on a gentle slope and see the branches
clearly defined against the surface of a lake below or some far-away
gray cloud.
Both in middle age and when it is old the white pine is a
distinguished-looking tree. When young it is sometimes elegantly
symmetrical; but more often, owing to a crowded position, it lacks the
air of neatness that belongs to a few of the other pines and to most
of the firs. At maturity it is a very impressive tree, especially in
the dense forest, where it develops a tall, dark, stately stem. In its
declining years the branches begin to break and fall away, no longer
able to bear the weight of heavy snows. This is often the time when
it is most picturesque.
[Illustration: Character of the White Pine.]
The representatives of the white pine in the West are the silver pine
and the sugar pine. Though both may be easily recognized as near
relatives of the eastern species, either by the typical form of the
cones or by the plan and structure of the foliage, each of the western
trees possesses a majesty and beauty of its own. The silver pine is
more compact in its branches than the white pine, and has somewhat
denser and more rigid foliage. Its dark aspect is well suited to the
mountains and ridges of the Northwest, where it commonly abounds.
The sugar pine, which is the tallest of all pines, impresses us by
its picturesque individuality. Its great perpendicular trunk not
infrequently rises, clear of limbs, to the height of a hundred and
fifty feet, and is surmounted by an open pyramidal crown of half that
length, composed of long and slender branches that are full of motion.
While the texture of the foliage is not as delicate as in the white
pine, it is smooth and elastic, and has an even bluish tinge that shows
to great advantage when the needles are stirred by the wind. Its cones,
which are of enormous size, hang in clusters from the extremities of
the distant boughs, which droop beneath the unusual weight. Two of
these cones, which I have lying before me, measure each nineteen inches
in length. Well might Douglas, the botanist who named this tree, call
it “the most princely of the genus.”
[Illustration: Sugar Pines
Young Bull Pines in the foreground at the right and an Incense Cedar at
the left.]
The longleaf pines of the Southern States should be noticed for
their picturesqueness. The Cuban pine is restricted to isolated tracts
in the region of the Gulf and eastern Georgia. The loblolly pine and
the longleaf pine, near relatives of the Cuban pine, cover extensive
tracts in low, level regions of the Southern States, and are most
interesting in old age. Standing, it may be, on a sandy plain not far
from the sea, among straggling palmettos, they lift their ample crowns
well up on their tall, straight stems, and contort their branches into
surprising forms; so that, looking through their crowns at a distance
in the dry, hazy air of the South, with possibly a red sunset sky for a
background, they are extremely fantastic and entertaining.
There are two other pines that have a similar tortuous habit in the
growth of their branches: the pitch pine of our eastern coast States
and the lodgepole pine of the Rocky Mountains. These, however, have an
esthetic value for quite a different reason. In the case of the pitch
pine it is due to a natural peculiarity otherwise rare among conifers;
for, this tree has the power of sprouting afresh from the stump that
has been left after cutting or forest fires, thus healing in time
the raggedness and devastation resulting from necessity, neglect, or
indifference. The lodgepole pine of the West performs the same patient
work over burned areas through the remarkable power of germination
belonging to its seeds, even after being scorched by fire. Thus both of
these trees not only furnish useful material, but restore health and
calmness to the forest.
[Illustration: _Courtesy of the Bureau of Forestry_
A Pinery in the South]
In connection with the longleaf pines of the Southern States, the
bull pine of the West deserves to be noticed on account of its near
botanical relationship and the somewhat similar economic position which
it occupies. It is the most widely distributed of western trees, being
found in almost every kind of soil and climate along the Pacific coast
and throughout the Rockies. Over so wide a range, growing under very
different conditions of soil, temperature, light, and moisture, it
varies greatly in form and appearance. We encounter it on dry, sterile
slopes or elevated plateaux in the interior, and walk for miles through
the monotony of these dark bull pine forests, in which the trees are
of small stature and seem to be struggling for their life. Again we
meet it on the humid western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, associated
with the sugar pine and other lofty trees. Here we scarcely recognize
it. It holds its own among the company of giants, and is full of
vitality, freedom, and strength; with brighter, redder bark and stout,
sinuous branches; with longer needles and larger cones. The sunlight
fills its ample crown spaces, and the wind murmurs in the foliage
overhead; for the pines are the master musicians of the woods.
[Illustration: The Bull Pine in its California Home]
The Southern States and the Gulf region furnish us with a conifer of
striking originality and great usefulness. This is the bald cypress,
which may have caught the reader’s eye in some northern park by
the elegant forms of its spirelike growth. It rises high and erect,
a narrow pyramid clothed in the lightest green foliage. The latter
is composed of delicate feathers of little elliptical leaves that
hang drooping among the finely interwoven short branches. This is in
its cultivated northern home, where it seems to thrive well on the
carefully kept greensward. But in reality it is a tree of deep swamps,
seeking the dank, flooded shores of southern rivers, or impenetrable
morasses, where few other trees can live. Here we may paddle our boat
through the strange-looking cypress knees that it sends up above the
water from the roots in the muddy soil beneath, and may admire the
straight, firm trunks that are ridged and buttressed below to form
wide, spreading bases. In this, its native home, when it has grown to
maturity, it looks far different from the trim, tall pyramid that we
see in the park. In place of the lofty spire it bears a broad, flat
crown, that is poised upon the tall, fibrous, reddish-gray trunk. Such
crowns, if the tree has had room to spread, may measure as much as a
hundred feet across; but where closely pressed at the sides by other
trees, they are contracted to much narrower dimensions. The foliage is
soft in texture as ever, and interspersed with little globular cones.
With the coming of winter, however, the sprays of foliage turn brown
and fall from the tree, the bald cypress being one of the very few
cone-bearers that shed their leaves.
In the South, especially in Florida and along the Gulf, the cypress
trees are likely to be overloaded with streamers of gray, mosslike
tillandsia. This epiphytic plant, commonly known as “Florida moss” or
“hanging moss,” sometimes hides the entire mass of foliage, and lends a
funereal aspect to whole groves and forests of these trees, detracting
much from their beauty.
One of the prettiest coniferous trees in the East is the hemlock.
Whatever may be the prejudice against the commercial qualities of this
tree,—for the value of its wood is not now appreciated as it should
be,—its appearance is admired by all who know it. I call it “pretty”
because it is fine and neat when young and grows to be comely and
graceful in middle age, rather than beautiful in the ordinary meaning
of that word. It is an easy, airy tree. And yet the time comes when
it loses its ease and grace, when its trunk grows darker and its
boughs become straggly and rough, when it puts on the strength of age
without its decrepitude and bears unflinchingly the weight of winter
snows. Is it now less interesting than in its youth? I think not.
It makes the woods rough and natural, and we admire its simplicity,
self-sufficiency, and endurance.
When young there is no tree with such elegant and yet loose and pretty
effects in the foliage, unless it should be one of its western cousins.
The spray hangs delicately from the sides of the tree and the top is
gracefully pendent. The little shoots, as they peep out from hundreds
of recesses, buoyant and lifelike, and the pendent top, are in some way
suggestive of a playing fountain, especially in quite young trees. In
the forest the symmetry of the hemlock is not always preserved; yet it
fits into the scene gracefully, whether fringing the mountain stream or
grouping itself among the other trees of the forest.
The two western hemlocks also have exceedingly graceful sprays and
majestic forms, but they are less familiar to most of us and are not as
widely distributed as the smaller eastern species.
One of the trees of widest geographical range in America is the red
cedar, or red jumper, as it should more properly be called. This
statement remains true notwithstanding the recent discovery that the
form of red juniper common to certain parts of the Rockies is distinct
from the eastern tree. Though of small size, except in the bottom lands
of Arkansas and Texas, it possesses some excellent qualities and is
useful in many ways. It is sometimes used in cabinet work, and is one
of the best materials for fence posts. The variety that grows along the
Florida coast furnishes the wood for the indispensable lead pencil.
The red juniper is at its best along the border of the forest or where
it strays a short distance away. Its foliage is dark and bushy, and
infinitely tender and soft in appearance. In the lower Appalachian
region it forms a fine setting for the gorgeous drifts of dogwood and
redbud that skirt the forest edges. It forms changeful and interesting
groups on the rocky knolls and ledges. On our Jersey shores it has
a tasteful way of gathering into little companies, just near enough
to the forest to belong to it, composing scenes that are pleasant to
remember. Singly, on the yellow sands, the young conical red juniper
edges off well against the sky. In its old age the same tree looks
gnarled and picturesque, but still beautiful, with its masses of small
blue-gray berries.[3] Many of us remember it so by the edge of the
ocean, and perhaps others, like myself, have allowed their imagination
to drift and have fancied that it looked solemn and thoughtful,
outlined against the pale-blue sky, listening to the swish and whisper
of the sea.
Several cone-bearing trees of the Western States remain to be
considered. These are the firs and spruces, which belong to the same
class as the pines; and the big tree and redwood, relatives of the bald
cypress.
The Douglas spruce, or red fir, is in reality neither a true spruce
nor a fir, though it has some of the characteristics of each. It was
discovered as long ago as 1795 by the famous explorer, Archibald
Menzies. This species and a smaller one that grows on the arid
mountains of southern California, with possibly a third that is found
in Japan, constitute together the whole genus _Pseudotsuga_. But
whatever its botanical peculiarities, the red fir is an important and
exceedingly useful tree, especially for the purposes of practical and
scientific forestry. Like the white pine it was planted long ago by
those pioneers in forestry, the Germans, and has proved itself among
them to be one of the few trees of foreign extraction that can be
called successful.
When young, the red fir grows rapidly and symmetrically, and has a
fresh, vigorous, healthy look. It then already possesses the bluish
depth to its foliage that it preserves throughout life, a color that
is comparable in its purity only to that of the white pine. In several
of its other features, however, it changes with the lapse of years. It
gradually loses the graceful lower boughs that feather to the ground in
the young tree; its bark becomes rough and very thick; and its trunk
develops into a tall, straight shaft that bears a long, spiry crown of
striking symmetry, in which tier after tier of branches rises to the
narrowing summit, ending some two or three hundred feet in air. This
is its aspect in the favored regions of its growth, near the shores of
Puget Sound and in the moist mountains of Washington and Oregon, where
it once formed forests of extraordinary density and dark grandeur,
portions of which are still preserved over this extensive territory.
Another important conifer is the lowland fir of the Pacific coast.
All the silver firs, to which class this tree belongs, have distinct
features in their foliage and a characteristic habit of growth, a
description of which may enable the reader to picture to himself
not only the lowland fir itself, but to form some conception of the
esthetic value of the entire genus.
[Illustration: A Silver Fir at Middle Age]
The leaves are narrow, flat, and linear, usually about as long as a
pin or a needle, glossy green on the upper side, and streaked with a
longitudinal whitish line underneath. They are crowded horizontally
at the right and left sides of the shoot or twig, like the hairs on
the quill of a feather. The twigs themselves, and, in turn, the boughs
and branches, have a similar tendency to assume a horizontal position;
and thus the tree is built up in neat symmetrical stages, dwindling
in size to the summit, and presenting the typical conical form of the
cone-bearers.
Let it not be presumed, however, that there is anything awkward or
stiff in the appearance of the firs. Young firs are among the neatest
and most elegant objects in a park. The smooth gray bark, the lifelike
air in the distribution of the boughs and smaller branches, the glossy
green as seen from the side or above, varied to a blue or gray when we
stand beneath, redeem them from every charge of conventionality.[4]
The lowland fir as a young tree, and where it is afforded sufficient
room, has more of the drooping, plume-like, graceful air than is usual
with the members of this genus. The leaves are somewhat curled and
scattered about the stem. Like most trees it becomes more expressive as
it grows older and little by little rejects the features and traces of
its earlier years. Its arms gradually bend inward, and the whole tree
becomes more cylindrical, till in its maturity it speaks freely through
its broken and twisted boughs of storms and battles and insect ravages
of long ago; yet it strives to cover its scars with luxuriant masses of
verdure and numberless purplish cones—a truly magnificent spectacle of
a hoary veteran of crisp and sturdy aspect.
The Engelmann spruce, though a smaller tree than either the red fir
or the lowland fir, is one of the most important of the spruces. Its
home is in the elevated regions of Colorado, whence it spreads westward
and northward throughout the Rocky Mountains. Its well rounded hole is
scaly with small cinnamon-red plates, and its foliage is composed of
sharp, short, needlelike leaves, that bristle around the stem and are
bluish-green in color. Its small brown cones droop from the extremities
of the boughs and mass themselves in the top of the tree. Like most of
the spruces, this one climbs to high elevations. Many a wild mountain
slope in the West is covered by the dense ranks of these straight,
slender trees, with tapering spires that are green in summer and
frosted with snow and rime in winter.
The glory of our western forests, however, are the sequoias, those
gigantic trees of California that have become widely famous. The two
sequoias, the big tree of the Sierra Nevada and the redwood of the
Pacific coast, constitute the last remnants of a mighty race that
covered vast areas in North America and Europe in past geological ages.
It is believed that their days are almost over, for the big tree groves
are few in number and small in extent, and even these are falling
rapidly under the ax and saw. Nor does this species appear to reproduce
itself easily; for, although numberless seeds fall from the old trees,
they rarely sprout, and therefore are slow to replace what has been
taken away. The redwoods, too, are threatened with extinction, though
they still cover considerable tracts along the northern half of the
California coast. They are coveted even more than the big trees and
are disappearing with a rapidity that only modern industry has made
possible.
Fortunately the redwood possesses two gifts of inestimable value that
will prolong, but cannot perpetuate, its existence. The unusual amount
of moisture in its wood and the absence of pitch in the sap lessen the
danger from fire; while the same remarkable trait that we noticed in
the pitch pine, otherwise very rare in coniferous trees, of sprouting
from dormant buds at the edge of the stump will replace, for a time at
least, many of the giants that are taken away.
The general appearance or type of the sequoias resembles that of the
cypresses and cedars. The bald cypress is their nearest relative.
The big tree often has the same spreading base, and both have the
fluted, shreddy bark, traits that may also be noticed in the common
white cedar and in arbor-vitæ. The diameter of the trunk of the big
tree is strikingly large even for its wonderful height. Both trees
lift their crowns rather high, and have comparatively short boughs,
with dense, bushy, somewhat straggly-looking foliage. In its youthful
stage the foliage of the redwood, like its congener’s, has a bluish
tinge, which with advancing years turns to a dark and somber green
that contrasts strangely with the red color of the thick, spongy
bark. But the individuality of both trees, especially that of the big
tree, is so impressive and magnificent that all these minor essences
become involved in the majesty of the whole. The mighty bole rises in
splendid proportions to where the distant fronds hang loosely down,
disappearing within their somber shadows, but still carrying upward
the masses of foliage, as if striving to reach the very clouds. As we
view their stately and incomparable forms, so masterly wrought, so
unapproachable in their magnificence, we need hardly be told that these
trees are strangers from a distant and forgotten age.
[Illustration: _Courtesy of the Bureau of Forestry_
Redwood Forest in California]