All the seasons display some peculiar beauty that comes from the tints
as well as the forms of vegetation. Even the different months have their
distinguishing shades of light and color. Nature, after the repose of
winter, very slowly unfolds her beauties, and is not lavish in the early
months of any description of ornament. Day by day she discloses the
verdure of the plain, the swelling buds with their lively and various
colors, and the pale hues of the early flowers. She brings along her
offerings one by one, leading from harmony to harmony, as early twilight
ushers in the ruddy tints of morn. We perceive both on the earth and in
the skies the forms and tints that signalize the revival of Nature, and
every rosy-bosomed cloud gives promise of approaching gladness and
beauty.
By the frequent changes that mark the aspect of the year we are
preserved at all times in a condition to receive pleasure from the
outward forms of Nature. Her tints are as various as the forms of her
productions; and though spring and autumn, when the hues of vegetation
are more widely spread and yield more character to the landscape, are
the most remarkable for their general beauty, individual objects in
summer are brighter and more beautiful than any that can be found at
other times. In the early part of the year, Nature tips her productions
with softer hues, that gradually ripen into darker shades of the same
color, or into pure verdure. By pleasant and slow degrees she mingles
with the greenness of the plain the hues of the early flowers, and
spreads a charming variety of warm and mellow tints upon the surface of
the wood.
In treating of vernal tints, I shall refer chiefly to effects produced,
without the agency of flowers, by that general coloring of the leaves
and spray which may be considered the counterpart of the splendor of
autumn. In the opening of the year many inconspicuous plants are brought
suddenly into notice by their lively contrast with the dark and faded
complexion of the ground. The mosses, lichens, and liverworts perform,
therefore, an important part in the limning of the vernal landscape. On
the bald hills the surfaces of rocks that project above the soil, and
are covered with these plants, are brighter than the turf that surrounds
them, with its seared grasses and herbage. They display circles of
painted lichens, varying from an olive-gray to red and yellow, and tufts
of green mosses which surpass the fairest artificial lawn in the
perfection of their verdure. Many of the flowerless plants are
evergreen, especially the ferns and lycopodiums, and nearly all are
earlier than the higher forms of vegetation in ripening their peculiar
hues.
The first remarkable vernal tinting of the forest is manifest in the
spray of different trees. As soon as the sap begins to flow, every
little twig becomes brightened on the surface, as if it had been glossed
by art. The swelling of the bark occasioned by the flow of sap gives the
whole mass a livelier hue. This appearance is very evident in the
peach-tree, in willows and poplars, in the snowy mespilus, and in all
trees with a long and slender spray. Hence the ashen green of the
poplar, the golden green of the willow, and the dark crimson of the
peach-tree, the wild rose, and the red osier, are perceptibly heightened
by the first warm days of spring. Nor is this illumination confined to
the species I have named; for even the dull sprays of the apple-tree,
the cherry, the birch, and the lime, are dimly flushed with the hue of
reviving life. As many of the forest trees display their principal
beauty of form while in their denuded state, this seasonal polish
invites our attention, particularly to those with long and graceful
branches.
The swelling buds, which are for the most part very highly colored,
whether they enclose a leaf or a flower, add greatly to this luminous
appearance of the trees. These masses of innumerable buds, though mere
colored dots, produce in the aggregate a great amount of color. This is
apparent in all trees as soon as they are affected by the warmth of the
season. But as vegetation comes forward, the flower-buds grow brighter
and brighter, till they are fully expanded, some in the form of fringes,
as in most of our forest trees, others, as in our orchard trees, in
clusters of perfect flowers. This drapery of fringe, seldom highly
colored, but containing a great variety of pale shades, that hangs from
the oak, the birch, the willow, the alder, and the poplar, is sufficient
to characterize the whole forest, and forms one of the most remarkable
phenomena of vernal wood-scenery.
It is generally supposed that the beauties of tinted foliage are
peculiar to autumn. I do not recollect any landscape painting in which
the tints of spring are represented. All the paintings of colored leaves
are sketches of autumnal scenes, or of the warm glow of sunlight. Yet
there is hardly a tree or a shrub that does not display in its opening
leaves a pale shade of the same tints that distinguish the species or
the individual tree at the time of the fall of the leaf. The birch and
the poplar imitate in their half-developed leaves the yellow tints of
their autumnal dress, forming a yellow shade of green. The tender leaves
of the maple and of the different oaks are all greenish purple of
different shades. On the other hand, the foliage of trees that do not
change their color in the autumn displays only a diluted shade of green,
in its half-unfolded state. This remark, however, is not universal in
its application; for we see the lilac, that appears in autumn without
any change, coming out in the spring with dark impurpled foliage.
Green cannot, therefore, be said to characterize a vernal landscape. It
belongs more especially to summer. The prevailing color of the forest
during the unfolding of the leaf, when viewed from an elevated stand, is
a cinereous purple, mingled with an olivegreen. The flowers of the elm,
of a dark maroon, and the crimson flowers of the red maple, coming
before their leaves, are an important element in the earliest hues of
the wood. The red maple, especially, which is the principal timber of
the swamps in all the southern parts of New England, yields a warm and
ruddy glow to the woods in spring, hardly less to be admired than its
own bright tints in October. Green hues, which become, day by day, more
apparent in the foliage, do not predominate until summer has arrived and
is fully established.
It is only in the spring that the different species of the forest can be
identified by their colors at distances too great for observing their
botanical characters. A red-maple wood is distinguished by the very
tinge that pervades the spray, when the trees are so far off that we
cannot see the forms of their branches and flowers, as if the ruddy hues
of morning illuminated the whole mass. A grove of limes would be known
by their dark-colored spray, approaching to blackness; an assemblage of
white birches by that of a chocolate-color diverging from their clean
white shafts. A beechen grove would manifest a light cinereous color
throughout, mixed with a pale green as the foliage appears.