Transcriber's Note

Minor changes to punctuation and formatting are made without comment. Changes to the text, to correct typographical errors, are listed as follows:

Page [69] (paragraph on the Eared Sallow): changed "that" to "than" (... which are usually less than two inches long,...)

[TITLE PAGE.]
[PREFACE.]
[INTRODUCTORY.]
[PART I. Native Trees and Shrubs.]
[PART II. Exotic Trees and Shrubs.]
[CLASSIFIED INDEX.]
[INDEX.]

	[ ]

A LIST OF THE VOLUMES IN
THE
WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND SERIES

WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND BLOSSOMS

A Pocket Guide to British Wild Flowers, for the Country Rambler.
(First and Second Series.)
With clear Descriptions of 760 Species. By EDWARD STEP, F.L.S.
And Coloured Figures of 257 Species by MABEL E. STEP.

WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND TREES

A Pocket Guide to the British Sylva. By EDWARD STEP, F.L.S.
With 175 Plates from Water-colour Drawings by MABEL E. STEP
and Photographs by HENRY IRVING and the Author.

WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND FERNS

A Pocket Guide to the British Ferns, Horsetails and Club-Mosses.
By EDWARD STEP, F.L.S.
With Coloured Figures of every Species by MABEL E. STEP.
And 67 Photographs by the Author.

THE BUTTERFLIES OF THE BRITISH ISLES

A Pocket Guide for the Country Rambler.
With clear Descriptions and Life Histories of all the Species.
By RICHARD SOUTH, F.E.S.
With 450 Coloured Figures photographed from Nature, and numerous
Black and White Drawings.

THE MOTHS OF THE BRITISH ISLES

(First and Second Series).
A Complete Pocket Guide to all the Species included in the Groups
formerly known as Macro-lepidoptera. By RICHARD SOUTH, F.E.S.
With upwards of 1500 Coloured Figures photographed from Nature,
and numerous Black and White Drawings.

AT ALL BOOKSELLERS.

Full Prospectuses on application to the Publishers—
FREDERICK WARNE AND CO.
London: 15, Bedford Street, Strand.
New York: 12, East 33rd Street.

WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND TREES.

Wayside and Woodland Trees

A POCKET GUIDE TO THE BRITISH SYLVA

EDWARD STEP, F.L.S.

AUTHOR OF
"WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND BLOSSOMS"
"THE ROMANCE OF WILD FLOWERS" "SHELL LIFE"
ETC.

WITH ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE PLATES FROM
WATER-COLOUR DRAWINGS BY MABEL E. STEP AND
PHOTOGRAPHS BY HENRY IRVING AND
THE AUTHOR.

LONDON
FREDERICK WARNE & CO.
AND NEW YORK

"Of all man's works of art, a cathedral is greatest. A vast and majestic tree is greater than that."

Henry Ward Beecher.

PREFACE.

The purpose of this volume is not the addition of one more to the numerous treatises upon sylviculture or forestry, but to afford a straightforward means for the identification of our native trees and larger shrubs for the convenience of the rural rambler and Nature-lover. The list of British arborescent plants is a somewhat meagre one, but all that could be done in a pocket volume by way of supplementing it has been done—by adding some account of those exotics that have long been naturalized in our woods, and a few of more recent introduction that have already become conspicuous ornaments in many public and private parks.

In this edition forty-eight extra plates have been added, of which twenty-four are in colours. The latter are in part reproductions of water-colour studies of flowers and fruits, and partly from photographs by a new method. For the black and white plates, the photographs, it should be explained, have been taken upon a novel plan in most cases. This consists in photographing a deciduous tree in its summer glory, and returning to the same spot in winter and photographing the same individual, so that a striking comparison may be made between the summer

and winter aspects of the principal species. Supplementary photographs are given, in many cases, of the bole, which exhibit the character of the bark, and should prove a valuable aid in the identification of species. Others show in larger detail the flowers or fruit, and the characteristic leaf-buds in spring.

The figures in the text have all been expressly drawn for the work with a view to showing at a glance the general character of the foliage, and in most cases the flower and fruit.

The work is divided into two sections. [Part I]. including those species that are generally considered to be indigenous to the British Islands, with briefer notices of the introduced species that are closely related to them. [Part II]. being devoted to those of foreign origin, some of them introduced so long ago that they are commonly regarded as native by those who are not botanists.

INTRODUCTORY.

There are two points of view from which to regard trees—the mercantile and the æsthetic. The former is well exemplified in Dumbiedyke's advice to Jock: "Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping." The canny Scot was thinking of the "unearned increment" another generation might gather in, due to the almost unceasing activity of the vegetable cells in the manufacture of timber. The other view was expressed by "the Autocrat of the Breakfast-table" in a letter to a friend: "Whenever we plant a tree we are doing what we can to make our planet a more wholesome and happier dwelling-place for those who come after us, if not for ourselves." But, after all, it is the trees that have been planted by Nature that give the greatest pleasure apart from commercial considerations—the lonely Pine, that grows in rugged grandeur on the edge of the escarpment where its seed was planted in the crevice by the wind; the Oak that grows outside the forest, where a squirrel or a jay dropped the acorn, and where the young tree had room all its life to throw out its arms as it would; the little cluster of Birches that springs from the ferns and moss of the hillside. All trees so grown develop an individuality that is not apparent in their fellows of the timber forest; and however we may delight in the peace and quiet of the forest, with its softened light and cool fragrant air, we can there only regard the trees in a mass.

We might, indeed, reverse the old saying, and declare that we cannot see the trees on account of the wood.

Nature and the timber-producer have different aims and pursue different methods in the making of forests, though the latter is not above taking a hint from the former occasionally. Nature mixes her seeds and sows them broadcast over the land she intends to turn into forest, that the more vigorous kinds may act as nurses, sheltering and protecting the less robust. Then comes the struggle for existence, with its final ending in the survival of the fittest. In the mean time the mixed forest has given shelter to an enormous population of smaller fry—plants, mammals, birds, and insects—and has been a delightful recreation ground for man. The timber-producer aims at so controlling the struggle for existence that the survival of the fit is maintained from start to finish. He plants his young trees in regular order, putting in nurses at intervals and along the borders, intending to cut them down when his purpose has been served. The timber trees are allowed no elbow-room, the putting forth of lateral branches is discouraged, but steady upward growth and the production of "canopy" is abetted. His aim is to get these timber-sticks as near alike as possible, free from individuality, and with the minimum of difference in girth at top and bottom of each pole. This means a thicker and longer balk of clean timber when the tree is felled and squared. The continuous canopy induces growth in the upward direction only, and discourages the weeds and undergrowth that add to the charm of the forest, but which unprofitably use up the wood-producing elements in the soil. This plan contrasts strongly with the views on planting formerly prevalent in this country, John Evelyn, for example, making a special point of giving the Oak room to stretch out its arms, "free from all incumbrances." But, then, unlike the timber-producers, Evelyn had an eye for landscape beauty, and giving an opportunity for the display of such beauty. He says: "And if thus his Majesty's forests and chases

were stored, viz. with this spreading tree at handsome intervals, by which grazing might be improved for the feeding of deer and cattle under them (for such was the old Saltus), being only visited with the gleams of the sun, and adorned with the distant landscapes appearing through the glades and frequent valleys, nothing could be more ravishing."

The greater the success of the forester, the more profound is the solemn stillness of the forest—and the more monotonous. In place of the natural forest, with its varied and teeming life, we have what Wordsworth called a timber factory. In the natural forest, with its mixture of many kinds of trees, the undergrowth of shrubs, and carpet of grass and weeds, the stronger trees spread out their arms in all directions, and fritter away (as the scientific forester would say) their wood-producing powers in making much firewood and little valuable timber. But the result is very beautiful, and the nature-lover can wander among it without tiring, and can study without exhausting its treasures. Emerson says: "In the woods is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years." To the scientific forester this is all waste land, and he pleads for the "higher culture" being applied to it. With every desire that the natural resources of our country should be properly developed, we do hope that he will not be entirely successful in his efforts, and that a few of the woods and wastes of Nature's own planting may be left for the recreation of the simple folk who have not yet taken to appraising the value of everything by the price it will fetch in the market.

The trees described in this volume are the really wild growths that have lived a natural life; and though many of the photographs are from planted trees, they are such as have been allowed to grow as they would, and show the characteristic branching of the species.

A few words on the life of a tree may be welcomed here by those readers who have not made a study of botany. Although the nurseryman makes use of suckers and cuttings for the quicker multiplication of certain species, every tree in its natural habitat produces seeds and is reproduced by them. The flowering of our forest trees is a phenomenon that does not as a rule attract attention, but their fruiting or seed-bearing becomes patent to all who visit the woods in autumn. A tree has lived many years before it is capable of producing seed. The seed-bearing age is different in each species; thus the Oak begins to bear when it is between sixty and seventy years old, the Ash between forty and fifty, the Birch and Sweet Chestnut at twenty-five years. Some produce seed every year after that period is reached, others every second, third, or fifth year; others, again, bear fitfully except at intervals of from six to nine years, when they produce an enormous crop. Most tree-seeds germinate in the spring following their maturity, but they are not all distributed when ripe. The Birch, the Elm, and the Aspen, for examples, retain their seeds until spring, and these germinate soon after they have been dispersed.

The seeds contain sufficient nutriment to feed the seedling whilst it is developing it roots and first real leaves. We can, of course, go further back in starting our observations of the life progress of the monarch of the forest. We can dissect the insignificant greenish flower of the Oak when the future seed (acorn) is but a single cell, a tiny bag filled with protoplasm. From that early stage to the period when the tree is first ripe for conversion into timber we span a century and a half, equal to two good human lives, and the Oak is but at the point where a man attains his majority. The Oak is built up after the fashion by which man attains to his full stature. It is a process of multiplication of weak, minute cells, which become specialized for distinct offices in the economy of the vegetable community we call a tree. Some go to renew and enlarge the roots, others

to the perfecting of that system of vessels through which the crude fluids from the roots are carried up to the topmost leaf, whence, after undergoing chemical transformation in the leaf laboratory, it is circulated to all parts of the organism to make possible the production of more cells. Each of these has a special task, and it becomes invested with cork or wood to enable it to become part of the bark or the timber; or it remains soft and develops the green colouring matter, which enables it, when exposed to sunlight, to manufacture starch from carbon and water.

This is very similar to what takes place in the human organism, where the nutriment taken in is used up in the production of new cells, which are differentiated into muscle-cells, bone-cells, epidermal-cells, and so forth, building up or renewing muscles or nerves, bones or arteries; but the mechanism of distribution is different, the heart-pump doing the work of capillary attraction and gravitation. The ancients believed in the Dryads, spirits that were imprisoned in trees, and whose life was coterminous with that of the tree; and it will be seen that they had stronger physical justification for their belief than they knew. Shakespeare relates how Sycorax, the witch-mother of Caliban, imprisoned Ariel in a tree; and Huxley finely tells us that "The plant is an animal confined in a wooden case; and Nature, like Sycorax, holds thousands of 'delicate Ariels' imprisoned in every oak. She is jealous of letting us know this; and among the higher and more conspicuous forms of plants reveals it only by such obscure manifestations as the shrinking of the Sensitive Plant, the sudden clasp of the Dionæa, or, still more slightly, by the phenomena of the cyclosis."

The tree, as we have indicated, gets its food from the air and the soil. The rootlets have the power of dissolving the mineral salts in the soil in which they ramify; some authorities believing that they are materially helped in this respect—so far as organic matter is concerned—by a fungus that invests them with a

mantle of delicate threads. However that may be, the fluid that is taken up by the roots is not merely water, but water plus dissolved mineral matter and nitrogen. At the same time as the roots are thus absorbing liquid nutriment, the leaves, pierced with thousands of little stomata, or mouths, take in atmospheric air, which is compounded chiefly of the gases oxygen and carbon. The leaf-cells containing the green colouring matter (chlorophyll) seize hold of the carbon and release the oxygen. The carbon is then combined with the fluid from the roots by the vital chemistry of the leaves, and is circulated all over the system for the sustenance of all the organs and tissues.

The flowering of the trees varies so greatly that it can only be dealt with satisfactorily as each species is described. It may be stated, however, that all the true forest trees are wind-fertilized, and therefore have inconspicuous greenish blossoms. By true forest trees we mean those that alone or slightly mixed are capable of forming high forest. The smaller trees, such as Crab, Rowan, Cherry, Blackthorn, Hawthorn, Buckthorn, etc., belong more to the open woodland, to the common and the hedgerow. These, from their habitat, can be seen singly, and therefore can make use of the conspicuous flowers that are fertilized by insects.

WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND TREES.

PART I.
NATIVE TREES AND SHRUBS.

The Oak (Quercus robur).

When good John Evelyn wrote his "Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees," he was greatly concerned lest our "wooden walls" should diminish in strength for want of a succession of stout Oaks in our woodlands, and therefore he put the Oak in the forefront of his discourse. To-day steel and teak have largely supplanted oak in the building of our navy, and our walls of defence are no longer of wood. Yet in spite of these changes, and the consequent reduction of the Oak's importance, we must still look upon it as the typical British tree, and, regardless of its place in botanical classifications, we shall follow the lead of our master and place it first on our list.

There is no necessity for entering upon a minute description of the botanical characters of so well known a tree. The sturdy, massive trunk, firm as a rock; the broad, rounded outline of its head, caused by the downward sweeping extremities of the wide-spreading lower limbs; the wavy outline of the lobed leaves, and the equally distinct egg-and-cup-shaped fruit—these are characters that cannot be confused with those

of any other tree, and are the most familiar objects in the landscape in most parts of our islands. To my mind, no wood is so awe-inspiring as one filled with old oaks, all so much alike, yet each with a distinct individuality. We regard with reverence a human centenarian, who may have nothing beyond his great age to commend him to us; but we think of the long period of history of which he has been a spectator, possibly an active maker of history. The huge Oak has probably lived through ten or twenty such periods. Compared with the Oak, man is but of mushroom growth. It does not produce an acorn until sixty or seventy years old, and even then it is not mature. Not till a century and a half have passed over its head is its timber fit for use, and as a rule it is not felled under the age of two hundred years. Many trees are left to a much greater age, or we should not have still with us so many venerable specimens, and where they have not been left until partially decayed, the timber is found to be still very valuable when finally cut down. Of one of these patriarchs of the forest, cut down in the year 1810, we have figures of quantity and value from a contemporary record. It was known as the Gelenos Oak, and stood about four miles from Newport, Monmouthshire. When felled, it yielded 2426 cubic feet of sound timber, and six tons of bark. It was bought just as it stood for £405, and the purchaser had to pay £82 for labour for stripping, felling, and converting into timber. Five men were employed for twenty days in stripping the bark and felling the tree, and after that a pair of sawyers, working six days a week, were five months cutting it up. But the bark realized £200, and the timber about £400. The timber and bark from this one tree were about equal to the average produce of three acres of oak coppice after fifteen years growth.

Full-grown oaks vary in height from sixty to one hundred and thirty feet, the difference depending upon situation; the

tallest, of course, being those that have been drawn up in forests, at the expense of their branches. Trees growing freely in the open are of less height, and are made to appear comparative dwarfs by the huge proportions of the bole. In the forest this may be no more than ten feet in girth, but in isolated specimens may be as much as fifty-four feet (Cowthorpe Oak), with a much broader base. The thick rough bark is deeply furrowed in a large network pattern, which affords temporary hiding-places for insects. The branches are much given to turn and zig-zag from side to side—a character that

makes them very useful in boat-building, as "knees" of various angles may be cut from them without having recourse to bending. The best knees are to be obtained from Oaks grown in the hedgerow.

The Oak flowers in April or May, and the blossoms are of two distinct forms—male and female. The males are in little clusters, which are borne at intervals along a hanging stalk, two or three inches in length. They are green, and therefore inconspicuous; but examined separately, they will be found to have a definite calyx, whose margin is cut into an uncertain number (4-7) of lobes. There are no petals, but attached to the sides of the calyx there are ten stamens. The female flowers are fewer, and will be found on short erect stalks above the male catkins. Each female flower consists of a calyx, invested by a number of overlapping scales, and enclosing an ovary with three styles. The ovary is divided into three cells, each containing two seed-eggs. An acorn should therefore contain six kernels, but, as a rule, only one of the seed-eggs develops, though occasionally an acorn contains two kernels. The overlapping scales at the base of the female flower become the rough cup that holds the acorn.

The Oak is subject to a considerable amount of variation, probably due to differences of situation, soil, etc., and some authors have sought to elevate certain of the varieties into species by giving them distinctive names. It does not appear to be certain, however, that these forms are at all constant, and they are connected by intermediate forms that make the identification of many individuals a matter of difficulty. In one of these forms (sessiliflora) the stalk of the acorns connecting them with the branch is very short, but the leaves have a distinct footstalk, from half an inch to an inch long. This form is more plentiful in the north and west, and is conspicuous in the Forest of Dean. A second form, known

as pedunculata, has the leaf-stalk short or absent, the base of the leaf broad and somewhat heart-shaped, and the stalk upon which the acorns are borne very long. A third form (intermedia), commonly known as Durmast, has short leaf-stalks, short stalks to the acorns, and the under side of the leaf downy. Pedunculata is found more on the lower hills and the sides of valleys, whilst sessiliflora prefers higher ground, with a southern or western aspect.

The Oak is most abundant on clay soils, but is at its best when growing in deep sandy loam, where there is also plenty of humus. Its roots in such soil strike down to a depth of five feet, and therefore it thrives in association with Beech, whose roots are much nearer the surface, and whose fallen leaves supply it with humus.

The Oak is more persistently attacked by insects than any other tree. One authority (Leunis) has tabulated the species that get their living mainly or entirely from their attacks on the foliage, timber, or bark, and they number about five hundred. With some species this warfare is waged on so extensive a scale, that in some years by early summer the Oaks are almost divested of their foliage, and a new crop of leaves becomes a necessity. But the reserve forces of the Oak are quite equal to this drain, and the tree does not appear to suffer, though a much less thorough attack would be serious to a Conifer. One of the worst of these Oak-spoilers—though it by no means restricts its energies to attacks on this tree—is the Mottled Umber Moth (Hibernia defoliaria), whose pretty caterpillars may be seen hanging by silken threads from the leafless twigs.

A striking Oak insect is the Stag Beetle (Lucanus cervus), which, in warm evenings in the south of England, may be seen flying round the Oaks, the size and antler-like jaws of the male arousing feelings of respect in the minds of those who are not acquainted with its habits. The formidable

looking "horns" are usually harmless. The beetle spends its larval stage in the wood of unhealthy Oaks, and, when mature, seeks his hornless mate among its foliage.

Perhaps the most interesting of the Oak's pensioners to the woodland rambler will be the varied forms of gall on different parts of the tree. There is the so-called Oak-apple, of uneven surface and spongy to the touch, which certain people still wear on May 29th, in honour of Charles II.; the well-rounded hard Bullet-gall of Cynips kollari, the Artichoke-gall of Cynips gemmæ, the Spangle-galls of Neuroterus lenticularis, so plentiful on the back of the leaf, and the Root-gall of Biorhiza aptera. All these galls are abnormal growths, due to the irritation set up by the Gall-wasps named, when they pierced the young tissues in order to lay their eggs in them. Where any of these galls are perforated it may be known that the Gall-wasp whose grub fed within has flown, but where there is no such perforation the grub is still within, feeding upon the flesh of the gall, or in the chrysalis stage, awaiting translation to the winged condition.

Several Oaks of foreign origin are also grown in our parks and open spaces; among them the Holm Oak (Quercus ilex) whose evergreen leathery leaves have toothed or plain edges, and occasionally the lower ones develop marginal spines, whence its name of Holm or Holly Oak. It is notable for retaining its lower branches, so that its appearance, as Loudon remarks, "even when fully grown, is that of an immense bush, rather than that of a timber tree." It is a native of Southern Europe and North Africa, and appears to have been introduced about the middle of the sixteenth century. It usually attains a height of from twenty to thirty feet, but occasionally specimens are seen up to sixty feet. It has a much thinner, more even bark than that of our native Oak, and of a black colour. The long brown acorns do not ripen until the second year.

The Turkey Oak (Quercus cerris) is a much larger tree, attaining to similar heights to our British Oak, but easily distinguishable by its more pyramidal outline, and its attenuated leaves. The lance-shaped lobes of these are unequal, sharp, and angular; and the footless acorn-cups are covered with bristly or mossy-looking scales. The acorns, which are small and exceedingly bitter, rarely ripen till their second autumn. The whole tree—trunk, branches, and twigs—is of straighter growth than Quercus robur. It is a native of Southern Europe and the Levant, and was introduced about one hundred and seventy years ago.

The spring rambler in the woods may come upon a party of woodmen stripping young Oaks of their bark, or felling them, whilst cylinders of separated bark rest across poles in the process of drying. This is the industry of barking for the purpose of the tanner. When the Oaks in a coppice are about sixteen years old they are most suitable for this purpose, the bark then containing a larger percentage of tannin than at any other period. The operation is best performed in May, when the sap is in flow, and should be completed between the first swelling of the leaf-buds and the unrolling of the leaves. If the weather is cold and damp the bark will peel the better, provided there is an absence of north or east winds. Before the tree is cut down the bole is stripped, the first ring being taken from just above the roots to a height of two and a half feet above. When the tree is felled, it is cut into lengths and the bark stripped from them; then all branches that are an inch or more in diameter are peeled. The bark is piled to dry for a couple of weeks, and is then broken into small pieces and sent away in sacks.

It is not alone in the use of the bark that the tannic acid of the Oak is made evident; it is to the presence of this that the austerity of the acorn is due, and also the ink-producing properties of certain Oak-galls. Everything connected with

the tree gets a roughness of flavour from this same principle. Even that remarkable fungus, the Vegetable Beef-steak, that may be found on old Oaks in autumn, is impregnated with it.

Prior regards the name Oak (Anglo-Saxon ac) as originally belonging to the fruit, and only later transferred to the tree that produces it. The more obvious explanation (though we know that in etymological and other matters the obvious is not always the true interpretation) is, that acorn (ac-corn) signified the corn or fruit of the ac. Selby tells us that "During the Anglo-Saxon rule, and even for some time after the Conquest, Oak-forests were chiefly valued for the fattening of swine. Laws relating to pannage, or the fattening of hogs in the forest, were enacted during the Heptarchy; and by Ina's statutes, any person wantonly injuring or destroying an Oak-tree was mulcted in a fine varying according to size, or the quantity of mast it produced."

The Beech (Fagus sylvatica).

We speak of the Oak as the "Monarch of the Woods," and to the Beech the title "Mother of Forests" has been given. To the timber-merchant the Beech has little importance, but the grower of timber freely acknowledges his heavy indebtedness to this nursing mother, for, in the words of Professor Gayer, the Bavarian forestry expert, "without Beech there can no more be properly tended forests of broad-leaved genera, as along with it would have to be given up many other valuable timber-trees, whose production is only possible with the aid of Beech." Quite apart from utilitarian considerations, we should be very sorry to lose the Beech, with its towering, massive shaft clad in smooth grey bark, its spreading roots above the soil, and the dense shade of its fine foliage. Fortunately for the lover of natural beauty, it is this luxuriant growth of leaves and the shade it gives that are the redeeming virtues of the Beech

in the eye of the forester. Its drip destroys most of the soil-exhausting weeds, its shade protects the soil from over-evaporation, and the heavy crop of leaves enriches it by their decomposition. On these points the forestry experts of to-day join hands with John Evelyn, who, nearly 250 years ago, thus referred to it—"The shade unpropitious to corn and grass, but sweet, and of all the rest, most refreshing to the weary shepherd—lentus in umbra, echoing Amaryllis with his oaten pipe." And, again, after giving us a long catalogue of the varied uses to which Beechwood may be put, he adds—"Yet for all this, you would not wonder to hear me deplore the so frequent use of this wood, if you did consider that the industry of France furnishes that country for all domestic utensils with excellent Walnut, a material infinitely preferable to the best Beech, which is indeed good only for shade and for the fire." In the days of open hearths and chimney corners the Beech was extensively used for fuel, and it is still reputed to make good charcoal; but to-day the chairmaker and the turner are the chief users of its wood.

The Beech well grown attains a height of about 100 feet, and a girth of 20 feet. There was, until recently, a Beech in Norbury Park, Surrey, 160 feet in height. Its branches horizontally spreading gave it a head of enormous proportions. Hooker gives the diameter of the Knowle Beech as 352 feet, which means a circumference of about as many yards. It will grow in most upland places where the Oak thrives, though it does not need so deep a soil, and has a preference for land containing lime. Fresh mineral soils, rich in humus, are the best for it. In poor soils its growth is slow and its life is longer. It begins to bear mostly at about eighteen years of age, and thereafter gives good crops at intervals of three or five years.

In spring, just before the buds expand, the twigs of the Beech have a very distinct appearance. They are long and slender, placed alternately along the twig, and the brown

envelopes retain their shape long after they have been cast off. It is interesting to note how well these are mimicked by a glossy spindle-shaped snail (Clausilia laminata) that has a decided fondness for the Beech. As the snails crawl up the bole or over the moss at its base, it is not easy at a glance to say which are snails and which bud-envelopes. This is one of the protective resemblances adopted by many animals to give them a chance of eluding their natural enemies—in this case the thrush and other birds.

In the bud the leaf is folded fan-wise, and the folds run parallel with the nerves. They expand into an oval, smooth-faced leaf, with slightly scooped edges, and a most delicate fringe of short gossamer, which falls off later. These leaves Evelyn recommended as a stuffing for beds, declaring that if "gathered about the fall, and somewhat before they are much frost-bitten, [they] afford the best and easiest mattresses in the world to lay under our quilts instead of straw.... In Switzerland I have sometimes lain on them to my great refreshment." That last clause seems to imply that the authorities at home would not allow the introduction of new-fangled bed-stuffings, but remained true to straw. These leaves are rich in potash, and as they readily decay, they produce an admirable humus. In sheltered places the leaves, turned to a light ruddy-brown colour, are retained on the lower branches until cast off by the expansion of the new buds.

In early summer, whilst the leaves are still pellucid, the shade of a big Beech is particularly inviting. Later the leaves become opaque, and their glossy surfaces throw back the heat rays. Then the play of light upon the great mass of foliage is very fine; but when autumn has turned their deep green to orange and warm ruddy brown, and they catch the red rays of the westering sun, the tree appears to be turned into a blazing fire.

The Beech flowers in April or May. The blossoms are rather more conspicuous than is the case with the Oak, for the male

flowers are gathered together in a hanging purplish-brown rounded tassel with yellow anthers. The female flowers, to the number of two, three, or four, are clustered in a "cupule" of overlapping scales, like those of the Oak. But in the Beech the "cupule" becomes a bristly closed box, which afterwards opens by one end splitting into four triangular silk-hair-lined valves, which turn back and reveal the three-sided, sharp-edged "mast." This mast was formerly a very valuable product of the Beech-woods, when herds of swine were turned in them to feed upon the fallen Beech-nuts. Agricultural methods have changed;

but though our hogs are now confined in styes, and fed on a diet that more rapidly fattens, Beech-mast is still a good food eagerly taken by such woodland denizens as badgers, deer, squirrels, and dormice.

The vitality of the Beech is so high that quite frequently the bole divides at its upper part into several trunks, which rise straight up, and each attains the dimensions of a complete tree. Often such a tree stands on a sandy bank, and seems in imminent danger of toppling over, but its uprightness secures it against strain, and the roots that it sent down the steep side of the bank have thickened into strong props. Many such trees may be found along the hollow lanes in the Greensand district of Surrey, and we have more than once sheltered from a storm under their roots.

We have already mentioned the value of the Beech as a nurse for other trees, and its frequent use for that purpose, but it should also be stated that it is a powerful competitor with other trees, and if these are left to fight their own battles unaided, the Beech will be the conqueror. Evelyn saw this more than two centuries ago, and pointed out that where mixed woods of Oak and Beech were left to themselves, they ultimately became pure Beech woods. The Beech appears to gain this advantage through rooting in the surface soil, and, exhausting it of food elements, suffers none to penetrate to the lower strata, where the Oak has its roots.

A number of insects feed upon the Beech, but they are mostly more beautiful or more singular than destructive. The Copper Beech, which is so effectively used for ornament in parks, is merely a sub-variety of the Common Beech, and all the examples in cultivation are believed to be "sports" from the purple variety, which itself was a natural sport discovered in a German wood little more than a hundred years ago.

The modern word Beech is derived from the Anglo-Saxon boc, bece, beoce, which had very similar equivalents in all branches

of the German and Scandinavian family, and from the fact that the literature of these people was inscribed on tablets of Beech, our word book has the same origin.

The Birch (Betula alba).

"The Lady of the Woods," as Coleridge christened the Birch, is at once the most graceful, the hardiest, and the most ubiquitous of our forest trees. It grows throughout the length and breadth of our islands, and seems happy alike on a London common, in a suburban garden, or far up in the Scottish highlands (2500 feet). It penetrates farther north than any other tree, and its presence is a great boon to the natives of Lapland. It will grow where it is subjected to great heat, as well as where it must endure extreme cold, with its slender roots exploring the beds of peat, the rich humus of the old wood, or the raw soil of the mountain-side, where it has to cling to rocks and a few mosses. Given plenty of light, and it seems to care for little else. Though a mere shrub in the far north, with us the Birch has a trunk sometimes as tall as eighty, but more frequently fifty feet, and a girth of from two to three feet. In its first decade it increases in height at the rate of a foot and a half or two feet in a year; but, of course, there is little breadth to be built up at the same time. It reaches maturity in half a century, and before the other half is reached the Birch will have passed away.

The bark of the Birch is more enduring than its timber, which may be partly due to its habit of casting off the outer layer in shreds, like fine tissue-paper, from time to time. The greater part of the bark is silvery white, which adds to the apparent slenderness of the tree, and makes it conspicuous from a long distance; for the attenuated and drooping branches, dressed in small and loosely hung leaves, sway so constantly

that the trunk is scarcely hidden. The glossy, leathery leaves vary in shape from a triangular form to a pointed oval, their edges doubly toothed, and their footstalks long and slender.

About April the hanging catkins of the Birch, which were in evidence in the previous autumn, have matured and become dark crimson; the scales separate and expose the two stamens of each flower, which has a single sepal. The female flowers are in a short, more erect spike, which consists of overlapping scales (bracts), each containing two or three flowers. The flowers have neither petals nor sepals, each consisting merely of an ovary with two slender styles. After fertilization the female spike has developed into a little oblong cone. The minute nuts have a pair of delicate wings to each, and as they are set free from the cones they flutter on the breeze like a swarm of small flies. The moss that usually covers the ground beneath the Birch will be found in October to be thickly speckled with these fruits, which are something more than seeds, as they are commonly termed; they are really analogous to the acorn—a nut within a thin shell. The tree sometimes begins to produce seed when only fifteen years old; but, as a rule, it is ten years older before it bears, and thereafter it has a crop every year.

It is strange how so striking and graceful a tree could have been so persistently ignored by the old school of landscape painters, when one remembers with what good effect modern artists have utilized it. In this connection we need not apologize for quoting at length a description of the tree from the artist's point of view, because it also gives attention to those points one would like the rambler to notice. Mr. P. G. Hamerton in his Sylvan Year, says—

"The stem ... of the Silver Birch is one of the masterpieces of Nature. Everything has been done to heighten its unrivalled brilliance. The horizontal peeling of the bark, making dark rings at irregular distances, the brown spots, the dark colour of

the small twigs, the rough texture near the ground, and the exquisite silky smoothness of the tight white bands above, offer exactly that variety of contrast which makes us feel a rare quality like that smooth whiteness as strongly as we are capable of feeling it. And amongst the common effects in all northern countries, one of the most brilliant is the opposition of birch trunks in sunshine against the deep blue or purple of a mountain distance in shadow. At all seasons of the year the beauty of the birch is attractive and peculiarly its own. The young beech may remind you of it occasionally under strong effects of light, and is also very graceful, but we have no tree that rivals the

birch in its own qualities of colour and form, still less in that air and bearing which are so much more difficult to describe. In winter you see the full delicacy of the sprays that the lightest foliage hides, and in early spring this tree clothes itself, next after the willow, with tiny triangular leaves, inexpressibly light in the mass, so that from a distance they have the effect of a green mist rather than anything more material. When the tree is isolated sufficiently to come against the sky, you may see one of the prettiest sights in Nature—the pure deep azure of heaven, with the silvery white and fresh green of the birch in opposition. And yet it is not a crude green, for there is a good deal of warm red in it, which gives one of those precious tertiaries that all true colourists value."

Linnæus named our common Birch Betula alba; but more than a century ago Ehrhart pointed out that there were two well-defined forms of the tree, which he proposed to separate as distinct species under the names of B. verrucosa and B. pubescens. Hooker regards the first of these as the typical form, for which he properly retains the Linnæan name. It is distinguished by having the base of the bole covered with coarse, rough, and blackish bark, the smooth leaves looking as though their base had been cut off, and the twigs warty. The B. pubescens of Ehrhart appears to be a variety of Fries' B. glutinosa, which Hooker treats as a sub-species of B. alba. The bark at its base is smooth and white, its downy leaves have a triangular base, and its twigs are free from warts. It sometimes assumes a bush-like form.

The Dwarf Birch (Betula nana) is a distinct species, which occurs locally in the mountainous parts of Northumberland and Scotland. It is not a tree, but a bush, only two or three feet in height. Its firm-textured, round leaves have scalloped margins and short footstalks.

The foliage of the Birch in autumn turns to a yellow hue. At this period—and, indeed, for a month earlier—there may be

seen beneath the Birch-trees one of the most striking of our toadstools, the Fly Agaric (Amanita muscarius), so-called from its use as the lethal ingredient in the making of fly-papers. From a bulbous base a creamy yellow stem arises, decked about half its height with an ample hanging frill. The upper side of the spreading "cap" is painted with crimson, over which are scattered flecks of white or cream kid—the remains of an outer envelope that was ruptured by the expansion of the cap, and of which the frill represents the lower portion. This species is really poisonous, and the Kamschatkans are said to make their vodka superlatively intoxicating by the addition of this fungus to it. On the trunk of the Birch may sometimes be found a large fungus named Polyporus betulinus, whose root-like portion penetrates the bark and sucks up the sap.

Birch-bark is used for tanning certain kinds of leather, and the peculiar odour of Russian leather is said to be due to the use of Birch in its preparation. The Birch agrees with the Beech in two respects—it is of little value for timber, but as a nurse to young timber-trees it is of considerable importance. Its name is from the Anglo-Saxon beorc, birce, and signifies the Bark-tree.

The Alder (Alnus glutinosa).

Although the Alder is abundant by riversides and in all low-lying moist lands as far north as Caithness, it is not so generally well known at sight as the Oak, the Beech, and the Birch. It is a small tree ordinarily only thirty to forty feet in height, with a girth from three to six feet, though occasionally it aspires to seventy feet in height. This is when it is growing in moist loam, upon which rain or floods have washed down good layers of humus from woods at a higher elevation. If, with its roots thus well cared for, its head is in a humid atmosphere, the Alder is in happy case. If it has had the misfortune to get into a porous

soil, though this may be moist enough to please an Ash, the Alder becomes merely a big bush.

The bark of the Alder is rough and black, and the wood soft. Whilst the tree is alive its wood is white, but when cut and exposed to the air it becomes red; finally, on drying, it changes to a pinkish tint. As timber it has no great reputation, except for piles or other submerged purposes, when it is said to be exceedingly durable. It has also enjoyed a great reputation for making the best charcoal for the gunpowder mills, and it is largely used by the turner, the wood-carver, and the cabinet-

maker. The leaves, which have short stalks, and are from two to four inches long, are roundish with a wedge-shaped base. They have a waved and toothed margin, and remain green long after the leaves of other trees have fallen. In their young condition these leaves are covered with hairs, and are sticky to the touch, and it is to this fact that the name glutinosa has reference.

The flowering of the Alder is very similar to that of the Birch, but the male catkins have red scales, and each flower four stamens. The female spikes have the fleshy scales covered by red-brown bracts of a woody consistence, which persist after the fruit has dropped out of them. Seed is not produced until the Alder is twenty years old, and the crop is repeated almost every year after. The cones are ripe about October or November, when they scatter their fruit, but the empty ones persist in hanging to the branches throughout the winter in numbers sufficient to give the leafless tree a brown appearance from a little distance. The immature male catkins are in evidence at the same time.

There is a variety (incisa) of the Alder in which the leaves are so deeply toothed that they bear a close resemblance to those of the Hawthorn.

In some localities the tree is called the Howler and Aller, the latter word apparently the original name, for its Anglo-Saxon forms were ælr, alr, and aler.

The Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus).

The Hornbeam is frequently passed by as a Beech, to which it has a very close superficial likeness, but a comparison of leaves, flowers, or bole would at once make the differences obvious. It is usually found in similar situations to the Beech, though it does not ascend so far up the hills as that species. On dry, poor soils it does not attain its full proportions and may only be classed as a small tree; but when growing on low ground, in rich loam

or good clay, it reaches a height of seventy feet, with a girth of ten feet. If two measurements of the bole's diameter be taken at right angles to each other, they will be found to differ greatly. A section of the trunk will not show a circular outline, but rather an ellipse, the bole appearing to have been flattened on two sides. It is coated with a smooth grey bark, usually spotted with white.

The leaves are less symmetrical than those of Beech, and are broader towards the base. They are of rougher texture, hairy on the underside, and their edges are doubly toothed. In autumn they turn yellow, then to ruddy gold, but a few days later they have settled into the rusty hue they retain throughout the winter, in those cases where they remain on the tree until spring.

The wood is exceedingly tough, and not to be worked up with ease, but it is considered to make admirable fuel. Evelyn says, "It burns like a candle." There are those who say that the name Hornbeam has reference to the tough or hornlike character of its beams; others declare that in the days when bullocks were yoked to the plough the yoke was made of this wood, as being fitted by its toughness to stand the strain, and as it was attached to the horns, it became the horn-beam. A third theory is that the name was derived from Ornus, the Manna-ash, with which early botanists confused it, but with all respect to the authority of Dr. Prior, who favours it, we prefer to stand on the first suggestion, with old John Gerarde, who says ("Herball," 1633): "In time it waxeth so hard that the toughnesse and hardnesse of it may be rather compared to horn than unto wood, and therefore it was called Hornbeam or hardbeam." The carpenter is not pleased who has hornbeam to work up, for his tools lose their edge far too quickly for his labour to be profitable. Evelyn tells us that it was called by some the Horse-beech, from the resemblance of the leaves.

The two kinds of catkins are similar and cylindrical, but whilst the male is pendulous from the beginning, the female is

erect until after the formation of the fruit, when it gradually assumes the hanging position. The bracts of the male are oval, with sharp tips, each containing an uncertain (3-12) number of stamens. In the female the bracts fall early, but their place is taken by three-lobed bracteoles, which enlarge after flowering, and become an inch or an inch and a half long. A single flower occupies each bracteole, consisting of a two-celled ovary and two styles. Only one cell develops, so that the hard green fruit contains but one seed. The appearance of these fruits in autumn as they hang in a spray from the underside of the branches is quite distinct from those of any other of our native trees.

The Hornbeam's title to be considered indigenous has had some doubts thrown upon it because there are some records of specimens having been introduced during the fifteenth century, but that is not sufficient ground upon which to deny nationality. We have known persons to bring home from distant parts as treasures wild plants and ferns that were growing within a mile of their own homes. It appears to be a real native of the southern and midland counties of England, and of Wales. A line drawn across the map from North Wales to Norfolk roughly marks the limit; north of that line the Hornbeam appears to have been planted, as also in Ireland.

The Hazel (Corylus avellana).

It is rarely that the Hazel is allowed in this country to develop into a tree; as a rule it is a shrub, forming undergrowth in wood or copse, or part of a hedge. As it is cut down with the copse or hedge, it cannot form a standard of any size. But that the Hazel left alone will develop into a small tree is shown by an example in Eastwell Park, Kent, whose height a few years ago was thirty feet, with a circumference of three feet round the bole. As soon as the nuts are formed the bush is easily identified by all, so that a description of its character is hardly necessary. The large, roundish, heart-shaped leaves are arranged alternately in two rows along the straight downy shoots. Their margins are doubly toothed, and when in the bud they are plaited, the folds being parallel to the midrib. Soon after the buds open, many of the leaves assume a purplish tint for a while; in autumn they turn brown, and finally pale to yellow.

Before the leaves appear the Hazel is rendered conspicuous by the male catkins, which are familiar to country children under the name of Lamb's-tails. These may be seen in an undeveloped condition in the autumn, when the nuts are being sought. A cluster of two or three hard, little, grey-green cylinders is all that may

then be seen of them; but throughout the winter they lengthen, their scales loosen, and in February they are a couple of inches long, pliant, and yellow with the abundant pollen which blows out of them as they swing. The female flowers are by no means conspicuous, and have to be looked for. They will be found in the form of swollen buds on the upper parts of the shoots and branches, from which issue some fine crimson threads. These are the styles and stigmas, and on dissection of the budlike head, each pair of styles will be seen to spring from a two-celled ovary nestling between the bracts or scales of which the head is composed. It

is only rarely that the seed-egg in each cell develops; as a rule one shrivels, and the other develops into the sweet "kernel" of the Hazel-nut. The shell is the ovary that has become woody and hard; the ragged-edged leathery "shuck" is the enlarged bracts that surrounded the minute flower.

The Hazel likes a good soil, and will not really flourish without it, though it will grow almost anywhere, except where the moisture is stagnant. Its wood is said to be best when grown on a chalky subsoil. Of course, as timber, the Hazel does not count, but its tough and pliant rods and staves are valuable for many small uses, such as the making of hoops for casks, walking-sticks, and—divining-rods! The bark is smooth and brown.

The Barcelona nut, imported so largely in winter, is only a variety of the Hazel; as also the Cob and the Filbert, so largely cultivated in Kent. The name is the Anglo-Saxon hæsl, or hæsel, and signifies a baton of authority, from the use of its rods in driving cattle and slaves.

The Lime (Tilia platyphyllos).

Those persons who obtain their ideas of trees mainly from the specimens they can see in suburban roads and gardens are in danger of getting quite a false impression of the Lime. It is a long suffering, good-tempered tree, and like human individuals of similar temperament, is subjected to shameful treatment. The suburban gardener who has a row of Limes to trim uses the saw, and amputates every arm close up to the shoulder, so that when the season of budding and burgeoning arrives the row of Limes will look like an upward extension in green of the brick wall. Such are the atrocities upon which Suburbia has to base its ideas of one of the most imposing of trees.

The Large-leaved Lime, growing in park-land or meadow, with its roots deep in good light loam, and its head eighty or

ninety feet above, is quite another matter. Such a tree is a thing of beauty, and one can stand long at its base looking up among the wide-spreading limbs so well clothed with leaves of fine texture and tint. The girth of such a specimen at four feet from the ground would be about fifteen feet. Larger individuals have been recorded, up to twenty-seven feet.

There are three kinds of Lime in general cultivation in this country, but the differences between them are not great. They are the Large-leaved (Tilia platyphyllos), the Small-leaved (T. parvifolia), and the Intermediate or Common Lime (T. vulgaris). The last-named is generally admitted to be an introduced kind, and it is the one most commonly planted. Respecting the claims of the other two to rank as natives, there has been some difference of opinion among authorities. The Small-leaved Lime, which does not occur in woods north of Cumberland, was regarded by Borrer as a true indigene, but H. C. Watson considered its claims as open to doubt, though he had no such doubt of the Large-leaved Lime, which is only growing really wild in the woods of Herefordshire, Radnorshire, and the West Riding of Yorkshire.

All our Limes have similar straight tall stems, clad in smooth bark, and with a similar habit of growth. They are trees that demand genial climatic conditions for their proper development, and in consequence they do not put forth their leaves until May. The period of their leafy glory is comparatively short, for they are among the trees that lose their leaves earliest in autumn, after having been for a few days transmuted into gold. The leaf of the Lime is heart-shaped, with one of the basal lobes larger than the other, and the edges cut into saw-like teeth. There are slight differences in those of the three species, which will be indicated below.

In its floral arrangements the Lime differs from the trees previously mentioned in that it has distinct sepals and petals, an abundance of honey, and strong, sweet fragrance as of

Honeysuckle. Unlike them, it does not trust to so rough and ready an agent of fertilization as the wind, so that it waits until its boughs are well clothed with leaves before putting forth its yellowish-white blossoms. These are in clusters (cymes) of six or seven, the stalks of all arising from one very long and stouter stalk, which is attached for half its length to a thin and narrow bract. Individually regarded, the flowers will be found to consist of five sepals, five petals, an oval ovary with a style ending in a five-toothed stigma, and surrounded by a large number of stamens. The stamens discharge their pollen before the stigma of that flower is fitted to receive it, so that cross-fertilization is ensured by the visits of the innumerable bees that visit the flowers for the abundant nectar they contain, and which the bees convert into a first-rate honey.

The flowers are succeeded by globose little fruits, each about

a quarter of an inch across, yellow, and covered with pale down. In a good season these will be found to contain one or two seeds, but too often in this country the summers are too cool to ripen them. The Lime does not begin to bear until about its thirty-fifth year. It flowers every year thereafter, but the question of its seed-crop depends entirely upon the weather.

For the purposes to which large timber is usually put, the light white wood of the Lime is not highly esteemed, not being considered of sufficient durability; yet it serves for many smaller uses, where its lightness and fine grain are strong recommendations. It must not be forgotten that the wonderful carvings of Grinling Gibbons were executed in this wood. It is largely used by the makers of musical instruments; and, as every one knows, it is from the inner bark of the Lime that those useful bast mats, which are imported from Russia in such large numbers, are made. Probably owing to its lightness, again, the wood was used in old times for making bucklers. The question of its value as timber is probably never taken into account when it is planted in this country, where its ornamental appearance as an avenue or shade-tree is its great recommendation. It is one of the long-lived trees, its full life-period being certainly five centuries. Those in St. James's Park are popularly supposed to have been planted, at the suggestion of John Evelyn, somewhere about the year 1660. There is a fine Lime avenue in Bushey Park, probably planted by Dutch William.

Deer and cattle are fond of the foliage and young shoots if they can get at them. Numerous insects exhibit a like partiality; of these the caterpillar of the large and handsome Lime Hawk-moth (Smerinthus tiliæ) is the most characteristic.

The differences between the three species may be briefly noted:

—

Small-leaved Lime (Tilia parvifolia). Does not attain the large proportions of the others. Leaves about two inches across, smooth; on the lower surface the axils of the nerves are glaucous and downy, with hairy patches between nerves. Fruit thin-shelled and brittle, downy, and very faintly ribbed. The upper leaves show a tendency to lobing.

Large-leaved Lime (Tilia platyphyllos). Bark rougher. Twigs hairy. Leaves larger (four inches) and rougher, downy beneath, axils of the nerves woolly. Fruit of more oval shape, woody and strongly ribbed when ripe.

Common Lime (Tilia vulgaris). Intermediate between the others. Leaves larger than those of T. parvifolia, smaller than those of T. platyphyllos; downy in axils beneath. Twigs smooth. Fruit woody, but without ribs.

The name Lime was originally Linde, a form which, with the addition of n, is in use to-day. Chaucer and other English writers spell it Line and Lyne, and the transition from this form to that commonly used to-day has been effected by changing the n to m. Originally it meant pliant, and had reference to the useful bast from which cordage and other flexible things were made.

The Wych Elm (Ulmus montana).

Of the two species of Elms commonly grown in these islands this alone is a native, though the Common or Small-leaved Elm (Ulmus campestris) was introduced from the Continent by the Romans, so that it has had time to get itself widely distributed over our country. Other names for the Wych Elm are Mountain Elm, Scots Elm, and Witch Hazel—the last-named being now more generally applied to an American plant, the Hamamelis. The philologists appear to be uncertain as to the origin and meaning of Wych, but it seems most probably a form

of Witch. Just as a Hazel-rod is used by water-finders, who declare that its movements indicate the presence of hidden springs, so a wand of Ulmus montana may have furnished the Witch-finder with a Witch Hazel for the detection of witches!

The names montana, campestris, and Mountain Elm must not be allowed to mislead us as to the habits of the two species, for though the Wych Elm is known to reach an altitude of 3300 feet in the Alps, here it ascends only to 1300 feet (Yorks.), whilst Ulmus campestris, which might be understood to be less a hill-climber, grows at an elevation of 1500 feet in Derbyshire. As a matter of fact, both species are much fonder of valleys than of mountains.

The Wych Elm forms a trunk of large size, from 80 to 120 feet or more in height, with a girth of 50 feet, and covered with rough bark that is often corky. Its long slender branches spread widely with a downward tendency, the downy forking twigs bearing their leaves in a straight row along each side. The leaves are somewhat oval in general form, but the two sides of the midrib are unequal in size and shape. Their edges are doubly or trebly toothed, and the surfaces are rough and harsh to the touch. The hairs that cover the strong ribs on the under surface serve for the protection of the breathing pores from dust. On leaves of the pendulous form of this tree, grown in the London parks and gardens, these hairs will be found to be quite black with the soot particles gathered from the air. Trees need carbon, but in this gross form they are too often suffocated by it.

In March or April the brownish flowers are produced in bunches from the sides of the branches. They are a quarter of an inch long, bell-shaped, their edges cut into lobes, and finely fringed. The ovary, with its two awl-shaped styles, is surrounded by four or five stamens with purple anthers. They appear in March or April, before the leaf-buds have opened,

and are dependent on the wind for the transfer of pollen. The fruit is an oblong samara, about an inch long. This consists of a single seed in the centre, invested by a thin envelope, which is extended all round as a light membranous wing, which gives it buoyancy and enables it to float through the air to a little distance. These seeds are not produced until about the thirtieth year of the tree's life, and though they are ripened almost annually thereafter, good crops are biennial or triennial only. It has often been stated that the Wych Elm does not send up suckers, but it does, though not invariably; it does so chiefly as the result of root-pruning or some other check to the extension of the root-system.

The Elm most frequently seen is the Small-leaved Elm

(Ulmus campestris), which is therefore entitled to its alternative name of Common Elm. Constantly grown as a hedgerow tree, it meets us at every turn, though it is much less plentiful in Scotland than in other parts of the United Kingdom. It is in all respects very similar to the Wych Elm, but its leaves are smaller—usually from two to three inches long, the twigs often covered with a corky bark, and the seed, instead of being in the centre of the samara, is much nearer to the notched end. The leaves are proportionately narrower than those of montana, and it will be found that the hairs which cover the midrib below possess in minor degree the irritating qualities of the Nettle's stings. This is a fact not generally known, but I became painfully aware of it a few years ago when clearing away the suckers of an Elm that were encroaching too much upon my garden border. Examination of these hairs shows that they are constructed much on the same plan as those of the Nettle—a member of the same Natural Order, by the way. The fact that these leaves are browsed by cattle and deer may explain this development of the hairs, which, whilst they may serve to keep off sheep, have not yet reached a degree of acridity sufficient to protect them from the larger beasts. Both flowers and samaras are about a third smaller than those of montana; but seed is very seldom produced in this country, and the tree seeks to reproduce itself by throwing up abundant suckers round the base of the bole, and even from root-branches at a considerable distance from the trunk. These, of course, if allowed to grow, would soon surround the tree with copse.

Campestris often attains a greater height with its straighter trunk than montana, but its girth is not so great, seldom being more than twenty feet. Its dark wood is harder and finer grained than that produced by the native tree. Its favour as a hedgerow tree is probably due to the fact that it gives shade which is not obnoxious to the growth of grass.

Both species are subject to a great amount of variation, and in nurserymen's catalogues these forms have appropriate names, but they are not regarded as of sufficient permanence to merit scientific distinction. In point of age—Elms are known to exceed five hundred years.

Among the insects that feed upon the Elm's foliage, the most noteworthy is the caterpillar of the fine Large Tortoiseshell Butterfly (Vanessa polychloros). I have already mentioned the relationship subsisting between Elms and Nettles, and it is a point worth noting that nearly all our native species of Vanessa feed in the larval state upon the leaves of the Nettle. In London parks and squares the Elms are much infested

by the caterpillars of the Vapourer-moth, whose wingless females may be seen like short-legged spiders on the bark, whilst the male flutters in an apparently aimless way on wings of rich brown with central white spots.

In October the leaves, which have for some time assumed a very dull dark-green tint, suddenly turn to orange, then fade to pale yellow, and fall in showers.

The name Elm was derived from the Latin Ulmus, and appears to indicate an instrument of punishment—probably from its rods having been used to belabour slaves. Prior remarks that the word is "nearly identical in all the Germanic and Scandinavian dialects, but does not find its root in any of them. It plays through all the vowels ... but stands isolated as a foreign word which they have adopted." This "playing through the vowels" may be thus illustrated—Alm, Ælm, and Elm (Anglo-Saxon and English); Ilme, Olm, and Ulme, in various German dialects.

The Ash (Fraxinus excelsior).

So commanding, yet at the same time so light and graceful, does a well-grown Ash appear, that Gilpin called it the "Venus of the Woods." This may appear to some to be rather too close an approach to the "Lady of the Woods" (Birch), but in our opinion it well expresses the characteristics of the two. They are both exceedingly graceful, but the beauty of the Birch is that of the nymph, whilst that of the Ash is the combined grace and strength of the goddess. I have said "a well-grown" Ash, a phrase by which the timberman would understand a tree that had been hemmed in so closely by other trees that it has had no chance of developing as a tree, but only as a straight stout stick of wood, from eighty to one hundred feet long. My well-grown Ash is in a meadow,

where both soil and atmosphere are moist and cool; where it has had elbow-room to reach its long graceful arms upwards and outwards, and to cover them with the plumy circlets of long leaves. It is there, or on the outskirts of the wood, or in the hedgerow, that the Ash is able to do credit to Gilpin's name for it.

Before the reign of iron and steel was quite so universal, Ash timber was in demand for many uses where the metals have now supplanted it. It was then far more widely grown as a hedgerow tree than is now the case. Selby laments the neglect of this former custom, which kept up a supply of

tough and elastic timber, useful in all agricultural operations, and added much to the beauty of the country. No doubt the noxious drip and shade of the Ash have had much to do with this abandonment of it, for few things can live beneath it—a condition helped by its numerous fibrous roots, which quickly exhaust and drain the soil, and so starve out other plants. Although it thus drains the surface soil, it is not dependent upon these upper layers for food, for its much-branched roots extend very deeply in the porous soils it prefers.

It must not be supposed from the foregoing remarks that the Ash is confined to the lowlands. In Yorkshire it is found growing at an elevation of 1350 feet; in Mid-Germany it grows as far up as 3500 feet, and in the Alpine districts 500 feet higher still. It has a preference for the northern and eastern sides of hills, where the atmosphere is moist and cool, and the soil deep and porous, for it loves free and not stagnant moisture for its roots.

The bark of both trunk and branches is pale grey, and some look to this as the origin of the tree's English name. On examining the leafless branches in early spring, two things strike the observer—the blackness of the big opposite leaf-buds, and the stoutness of the twigs. This latter fact is due to the great size of the leaves they have to support, which implies a considerable strain in wind or rain. What are generally regarded as the leaves of the Ash are only leaflets, though they are equal in size to the leaves of most of our trees. The largest of the leaflets are about three inches in length, and there are from four to seven—mostly six—pairs, and an odd terminal one, to each leaf. They are lance-shaped, with toothed edges. The leaves are late in appearing, but, like Charles Lamb and his office-hours, they make up for it by an early departure.

The flowers of the Ash are very poor affairs, for they have

neither calyx nor corolla, though their association in large clusters makes them fairly conspicuous as they droop from the sides of the branches in April or May. Stamens and pistils are borne by the same or separate flowers, and both kinds or one only may be found on the same tree. The pistil is a greenish yellow pear-shaped body, and the stamens are very dark purple. The flowers are succeeded by bunches of "keys"—each one, when ripe, a narrow-oblong scale, with a notch at one end and a seed lying within at the other. The correct name for these is samaras. In looking at a bunch of these "keys"—they are something like the keys to the primitive locks of the ancients—one is struck by the fact that they all have a little twist in the wing or sail, which causes the "key" to spin steadily on the wind and reach the earth seed-end first. They are, therefore, sometimes known as "spinners." These are ripe in October; but though the trees produce seed nearly every year after the fortieth, one may chance to look at a dozen Ashes before he comes upon one that bears a seed. The reason for this lies in the fact that some trees have no female blossoms. The seeds do not germinate until the second spring after they are sown.

Much of the Ash-wood in use for carriage-poles, oars, axe and hammer shafts, and similar purposes where only small diameters are needed, are obtained from Ash-coppice, which rapidly produces well-developed poles. So strong and elastic is the Ash timber when taken from young trees, that it is claimed it will bear a greater strain than any other European timber of equal thickness. The Ash is not one of the long-lived trees, its natural span being about two hundred years, but its wood is regarded as best between the ages of thirty and sixty years.

Cattle and horses are fond of Ash leaves, which were formerly much used for fodder, and still are in some districts; but it is said that to indulge cows in this food is fatal to

the production of good butter from their milk. In some country places there is still extant a "Shrew-Ash"—a tree into which a hole has been bored sufficiently large to admit a living shrew-mouse, which has then been plugged in, to die of suffocation. A touch of a leaf from this tree was reputed to cure cramp, but especially that form of it supposed to be caused by a shrew passing over man or beast. Then there was the Ash whose bole had been cleft that it might be a "sovran" remedy for infantile hernia. It is difficult to account for the origin of these ideas, but they are deep-rooted and die hard. John Evelyn remarks of this latter superstition: "I have heard it affirmed, with great confidence and upon experience, that the rupture, to which many children are obnoxious, is healed by passing the infant through a wide cleft in the bole or stem of a growing Ash-tree; it is then carried a second time round the Ash, and caused to repass the same aperture as before. The rupture of the child being bound up, it is supposed to heal as the cleft of the tree closes and coalesces."

The origin of the name Ash is uncertain, though many fanciful suggestions have been made in explanation of its meaning. Its Anglo-Saxon form was æsc, a word used by the same people for spear, but that was because their spear-shafts were made of Ash-wood.

The Maple (Acer campestre).

There are a number of Maples in cultivation, but only three of them are commonly met with in the open, and of these one alone is a native. This is the Small-leaved, Common, or Field Maple (Acer campestre), a small tree that attains a height of twenty or thirty feet in the tall hedgerow or in the wood, but is most familiar as a mere bush or as a constituent of the low field-hedge. It does not grow to any

considerable thickness of bole, so has no importance as timber, but the turner, the cabinet-maker, and the artist in fancy pipes and snuff-boxes, are glad to make use of its fine-grained, pale-brown wood. This is often beautifully veined, especially the wood from the roots, and as it will take a high polish, which brings out these markings plainly, it is a very desirable wood for such purposes. The brown bark gives little clue to the character of the wood it covers, for in young trees it is rough and deeply fissured, though with age it becomes smooth.

The leaves vary greatly in size, those growing on a tree being much larger than those produced by a bush. They range from two to four inches in diameter, and are always in pairs—springing from the sides of the branch exactly opposite to each other. The general form of the leaf is kidney-shaped, but it is cut up into five lobes, which are more or less toothed. They are downy when young, of a deep green colour, but too frequently this is disguised by a thick layer of road-dust. In October they turn to a rich yellow, and the Maple is then prominent even in a distant view, for the bright colour of the foliage makes the tree stand out prominently, in strong contrast with the still deep green of the Oaks or Firs beyond.

The Maples are among the trees that have complete flowers, although in this case they happen to be greenish yellow. They are about a quarter of an inch across, have narrow sepals and narrower petals, eight stamens, and a two-lobed flattened ovary, that develops into the pair of broad-winged "keys," or samaras. These are individually much like those of the Ash, but unsymmetrical and curved, half an inch long, with their bases joined together. Sometimes in late summer these "keys" take on a colouring of deep crimson, previous to turning brown as they ripen. As a rule the contained seeds take eighteen months to germinate, though a few may start growth the first spring.

The Common Maple is thought to be indigenous only from the county of Durham to the southern coast, and in Ireland. In Scotland it is only an introduced plant that has become naturalized.

The Great Maple, Sycamore, or False Plane (Acer pseudo-platanus) is not a native tree, but it appears to have been introduced from the Continent as far back as the fifteenth century, so that it has had time during the intervening centuries to get well established among us, and by means of its

winged seeds to distribute itself to remote corners of our islands. It appears to be fond of exposed situations, growing to a large size even near the sea, where the salt-laden gales destroy all other deciduous trees. Recently in Ireland we ascended a hill where the planting of pines and other trees had resulted in comparative failure, and found that the wind-borne seeds of the Sycamore had produced a large number of young trees, which will probably serve later as nurses for more desirable timber-producers. The close-grained, firm wood, which can be worked with ease, is not highly esteemed.

Its name of False Plane is due to the Scots calling it the

Plane, misled of old by the similarity of the leaves, and the fact that patches of the fine ash-grey bark flake off, as in the true Plane, showing other tints. It grows to a height of sixty or even eighty feet so quickly that it is full-grown when only fifty or sixty years old, though it is supposed to live from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty years. Like that of the Common Maple, the wood of the Sycamore is firm and fine-grained, which does credit to the efforts of the French-polisher. The leaves are more heart-shaped, but cut into five lobes, whose edges are unequally toothed; they are six or eight inches across. The flowers are similar to those of the Common Maple, but larger, and in a long hanging raceme, which has a rather fine appearance. The samaras are scimitar-shaped and red-brown, about an inch and a half long. These are produced freely after the tree is about twenty years old. Like many other Maples, the Sycamore has sap which contains much sugar. Some of this appears also to exude through the leaves, for they are often found to be quite sticky to the touch. The black patches so frequent on Sycamore leaves are the work of a small fungus—Rhytisma acerinum.

The Norway Maple (Acer platanoides) is a tree of much more recent (1683) introduction from the Continent. Its height is from thirty to sixty feet, and its early growth is very rapid. The leaves are even larger than those of Sycamore, of similar shape, but the lobes are only slightly toothed. The clusters of bright yellow flowers are almost erect; the tree does not produce seed until it is between forty and fifty years old.

The Maple was the Mapel-treow or Mapulder of the Anglo-Saxons; it was originally the Celtic mapwl, and the name indicated those knotty excrescences on the trunk from which the cabinet-maker got the mottled wood that was so highly prized in early times for the making of bowls and table-tops, for which fabulous prices have been paid.

The Poplars (Populus).

Almost everybody who has an elementary acquaintance with trees knows a Poplar at sight, the foliage being so very distinct from that of other trees. But the distinctions between the several species are not so immediately obvious. Five kinds of Poplar are commonly grown in this country, of which only two are regarded as distinct indigenous species. These are the White Poplar (Populus alba), and the Aspen (P. tremula). A third indigenous form, the Grey Poplar (P. canescens), is thought to be either a sub-species of P. alba, or a hybrid between that species and P. tremula. Then of common introduced species we have the Black Poplar (Populus nigra), and the Lombardy Poplar (P. fastigiata).

The Poplars (Populus) and the Willows (Salix) together constitute the Natural Order Salicineæ. The two genera agree broadly in the construction and arrangement of their flowers in catkins, but whereas the Poplars have broad leaves and drooping catkins, the Willows, with few exceptions, have long slender leaves and erect catkins. The sexes are not only in distinct flowers, but on separate trees—what botanists describe by the term diœcious. The males appear to be far more numerous than the females. In the popular sense there are no flowers, for there are neither sepals nor petals, each set of sexual organs being protected merely by a scale. The catkins containing these flowers usually appear before the leaves. As there is nothing to attract insects to the work, the trees have to rely upon the wind for conveying the pollen to the female trees. The first three species described below have from four to twelve stamens; P. nigra and P. fastigiata have from twelve to twenty stamens. The Poplars share the love of the Willows for moist places. They are found more frequently in gardens and hedgerows than in woods. Their

growth is rapid, and their timber, consequently, is of little value, though its softness and lightness render it suitable for making boxes, and its whiteness and non-liability to splinter fit it for use as flooring. An additional point in favour of White Poplar for the latter purpose is its unreadiness to burn.

The White Poplar, or Abele (Populus alba), grows into a large tree, something between sixty and a hundred feet high, covered with smooth grey bark. Its branches spread horizontally, and its broad heart-shaped leaves, which vary from an inch to three inches long, are hung on long slender foot-stalks.

In most trees the leaf-stalks are flattened from above, but in the case of the Poplars they are flattened from the sides, so that when moved by the wind they flutter laterally. These leaves have a waved margin, a smooth upper surface, and are snowy white and cottony beneath. The leaf-buds are also invested by cottony filaments. The roots produce numerous suckers, even at a distance from the trunk, and the leaves on these sucker-shoots are very large—two to four inches broad—of a more triangular shape, the outline lobed and toothed. The catkins, which appear in March and April, are cylindrical; those of the male trees may be as much as four inches long, each flower containing from six to ten stamens with purple anthers. The female catkins are not nearly so long, the two yellow stigmas are slender with slit tips, and the ovaries develop into slender egg-shaped capsules, each with its fringed scale. This species is said not to produce flowers in Scotland. In July, when the seed capsules open, the surrounding vegetation and ground are thickly strewn with the long white cotton filaments attached to the seeds. The wood of this tree is softer and more spongy than that of other Poplars.

The Grey Poplar (Populus canescens), which is thought to be indigenous only in the south-eastern parts of England, is not so tall a tree as P. alba, though it sometimes attains to eighty or ninety feet, with a circumference between ten and twenty-four feet. Its life extends to about a century, but its wood—which does not split when nails are driven through thin boards of it—is considered best between fifty and sixty years of age. The leaves on the branches are shaped like those of P. alba, but their under sides are either coated with grey down or are quite smooth; those of the suckers have their margins cut into angles and teeth. The female flowers mostly have four wedge-shaped purple stigmas (sometimes two), which are cleft into four at their extremities.

The Aspen or Asp (Populus tremula) does not attain either

to so large a size or so moderate an age as the Abele. Its height, when full grown, is from forty to eighty feet, and after fifty or sixty years its heart-wood begins to decay, and its destruction is then hastened by the attacks of such internal-feeding insects as the caterpillars of the Goat-moth and the Wood Leopard-moth. The leaves on the branches are broadly egg-shaped, approaching to round, the waved margin cut into teeth with turned-in points. In one form (var. villosa) the leaves are covered beneath with silky or cottony hairs; in the other form (var. glabra) they are almost smooth. The leaves on the suckers are heart-shaped, without teeth.

The leaf-stalks of the Aspen are longer than those of its congeners, so that they are constantly on the flutter—a circumstance that has led to an explanatory legend, to the effect that the cross of Calvary was made of Aspen-wood, and that the tree shivers perpetually in remembrance. Possibly the present inferiority of Aspen timber is to be explained in a similar manner. The catkins, which are two or three inches long, are similar to those of the foregoing species, but the scales have jagged edges. It is indigenous in all the British Islands as far north as Orkney, but, though commonly found in copses on a moist light soil, is more frequent as a planted tree in gardens and pleasure grounds. It is a characteristic tree of the plains throughout the Continent, but ascends to 1600 feet in Yorkshire, and in the Bavarian Alps is found as high as 4400 feet. It is not a deep-rooting tree, the root-branches running almost horizontally. Where accessible to cattle or deer, the foliage of the suckers is eagerly browsed by them.

The Black Poplar (Populus nigra) appears to be so called not by reason of any blackness of leaf or bark, but because of the absence of any white or grey down on the underside of its leaves. Its bark is grey, like that of the species already mentioned, but readily distinguished from them by the great swellings and nodosities that mar the symmetry of its trunk. It is a tree of erect growth, fifty to sixty feet in height, with horizontal branches, and leaves that vary in shape from triangular and rhombic to almost circular, and in width from an inch to four inches. They have rounded teeth on the margins, which are at first also fringed, and in their young state the underside is silky. The flowers in the catkins of this and the next species are not so densely packed. Those of the male are two or three inches in length, and dark red in colour; their abundance before the tree has put out its leaves makes the male tree a conspicuous object. The female catkins

are shorter and do not droop. When the roundish capsules burst in May or June to distribute their seeds, the white cotton with which the latter are invested gives prominence to the female tree. The wood is chiefly used by the turner; in Holland, where it is extensively cultivated, it provides the material for sabots. The Black Poplar is not a native of this country, but it is generally distributed throughout Europe and Northern Asia. The date of its introduction is not known, but it has been here for many centuries, and is quite naturalized, springing up on river banks and in other moist situations. Some botanists regard it as only a variety of the Lombardy Poplar, but apart from the very different habit of the tree—not

by itself sufficient grounds for separation—there is the more important fact that the Black Poplar rarely produces suckers from its roots, whilst the Lombardy Poplar does so constantly. However, this is a point we can leave for the botanists to discuss; for the purposes of this book the two trees are sufficiently distinct to be treated separately.

The Lombardy Poplar (Populus fastigiata) is no more a native of Italy than of England. Its home is in the Taurus and the Himalayas, whence it has spread into Persia. Introduced into Southern Europe, it has become specially abundant along the rivers of Lombardy, and so in France and England it bears the name of that country. Lord Rochford introduced it to England from Turin in 1758. Its leaves are like those of the Black Poplar, but its branches, instead of spreading, all grow straight upwards, so that the fastigiate or spire shape of the tree is produced—a shape only found otherwise among coniferous trees, particularly in the Cypress, the Juniper and the Irish Yew. It is its form, great height (100 to 150 feet), and rapidity of growth that have led to its wide use here as an ornamental tree—in many cases as a mere vegetable hoarding to shut out some offensive view. Its growth is extremely rapid, especially during its first score of years, when it will attain a height of sixty feet or more, provided it be grown in good, moist (but not marshy) soil. Its wood is, of course, of little value, and is chiefly used for making boxes and packing-cases, where its lightness, combined with toughness and cheapness, is an advantage. The bark is rough and deeply furrowed, unlike the other species, and the trunk is twisted. Like the Black Poplar, it has smooth shoots, and the unopened buds are sticky. It is propagated in this country by suckers and cuttings. It is said that the first trees introduced were so obtained, and that they were all from male trees; consequently, that we have no female trees here, and seed production is impossible. If the female grows here, it is certainly very scarce. The bark has been used for tanning.

The Black Italian Poplar (Populus monilifera) is another misnamed tree, for it is a native of North America, though introduced to England from the Continent in 1772 by Dr. John Hope. It has the distinction of being considered the most rapid-growing even of the Poplars. Loudon gives its rate of growth in the neighbourhood of London as between thirty and forty feet in seven years! Even in Scotland (where it has been largely planted as a substitute for Larch, since the partial failure of that tree) it attains a height of 120 feet in sixty years, when planted along the river banks. It is probably only a variety of P. nigra, which it resembles in most points, but is larger, and of very erect growth.

The Tacamahac or Balsam Poplar (Populus balsamifera) is another importation from North America, introduced in 1692. In its native country it grows to a height of eighty feet, but here forty or fifty feet is more usual. Its leaves are of more slender form than those of the other Poplars, egg-shaped, with a near approach to being lance-shaped. Their edges are toothed, their upper surface dark green and smooth, the underside whitish with cotton. The distinctive character of the tree is the fragrance of its foliage, which scents the air on moist evenings, and makes the Tacamahac a desirable tree to plant near the water, where alone it attains any moderate size.

The Willows (Salix).

There is not in the whole of the British flora another genus of plants that presents such difficulties of identification as the genus Salix. Even so hardened a botanist as Sir J. D. Hooker, in reviewing the tangle of species, varieties (natural and cultivated), and hybrids, is so far stirred from his ordinary composure that he stigmatizes it as a "troublesome genus." When Sir Joseph chose that mild adjective he was at Kew surrounded by the national herbaria and with nicely labelled living plants at hand

for comparison. What, then, can the rambling nature-lover hope to do with the Willows he comes across one at a time, without much chance of comparing? He must be content to follow the "lumpers," who group a number of these uncertain forms under the name of a species to which they have evident relationship. When he has mastered the distinctions between these aggregate species, it will be early enough to attempt the segregation of the forms and varieties under each.

In their natural condition Willows are graceful and picturesque, but a large number of the examples met with in our rambles have been so altered for commercial reasons as to be more grotesque than beautiful. It is not the timber-man who is responsible this time, for a pollard Willow, though it produces a shock-head of long slender shoots, suitable for basket-rods, lets in moisture at the top of the bole, and the wood is more or less decayed and worthless. Only four of our native Willows can be regarded as timber trees. These are the White Willow, the Crack Willow, the Bedford Willow, and the Sallow. Like the Poplars, their growth is very rapid, and their wood is consequently light, but it has the advantage of Poplar-wood in being tougher, and therefore serving for purposes where Poplar is of no value. In the present day the growers of straight-boled Willows find their best market among the makers of cricket-bats. A good deal of it is also cut into thin strips for plaiting into chip-hats and hand-baskets. The Osier is grown in extensive riverside beds for the production of long pliant shoots for the basket-weavers; though many of the so-called Osier-rods are really stool-shoots from Willows that have been pollarded, or whose leading shoot has never been allowed to grow. On those parts of our coast where the crab and lobster fishery is pursued, a regular supply of such shoots for weaving into "pots" and "hullies" is a necessity, and a "withy bed" will usually be found on some valley stream near, or on a damp terrace halfway up the cliffs.

The bark of the tree Willows has long been known to be rich in an alkaloid called salicine, which has tonic and astringent properties, and has often been used instead of quinine, though it is not nearly so powerful as the Peruvian drug. The bark is also used for tanning.

The association of the Willow with sadness is very old, but there does not appear to be any satisfactory reason for it—certainly to contemplate a naturally-grown Willow that grows on the edge of a limpid stream, in which its graceful shoots and slender leaves are reflected, does not suggest sad thoughts to the average healthy mind. The association is chiefly with maidens forsaken by their false lovers, as indicated by Shakespeare when he makes Desdemona say—

"My mother had a maid called Barbara:
She was in love; and he she loved proved mad,
And did forsake her; she had a song of 'Willow';
An old thing 'twas, but it expressed her fortune,
And she died singing it."

The Crack Willow or Withy (Salix fragilis) is one of the two most considerable of our tree Willows. In good soil it will in twenty years attain nearly its full height, which is eighty or ninety feet. Its bole sometimes has a girth of twenty feet. Its smooth, polished shoots afford the best ready means of distinguishing it, for instead of their base pointing to the centre of the trunk as in other trees, they grow obliquely, so that the shoots frequently cross each other. They are both tough and pliant, but if struck at the base they readily break off. This character explains the names Crack Willow and fragilis. The leaves are lance-shaped, three to six inches long, smooth, with glandular teeth, pale or glaucous on the underside, and with half-heart-shaped stipules, which, however, are soon cast off. As we have already indicated under the head of Poplars, the male and female catkins of the Willows are borne by different trees. In the case of the Crack Willow, the male catkins are an inch or two long, proportionately stout, each

flower bearing two stamens (occasionally three, four, or five). The female catkin is more slender, the flowers each containing a smooth ovary, ending in a short style that divides into two curved stigmas. The catkins appear in April or May. Although, like most of the Willows, this species is fond of cold, wet soil in low situations, it is not restricted to the plains. In Northumberland it is found at 1300 feet above the sea. Its northward range extends as far as Ross-shire, but it is a doubtful native in both Scotland and Ireland.

The Bedford Willow (S. russelliana) is believed to be a hybrid between S. fragilis and S. alba. It grows to a height of fifty feet, with a girth of twelve feet. The leaves are more slender

than those of S. fragilis, taper to a point at each end, and are very smooth on both sides. It occurs in swampy woods.

The White Willow (Salix alba) is so called from the appearance of the leaves as the light is reflected from their silky surfaces, which are alike above and below. It is a tree from sixty to eighty feet high, with a girth of twenty feet, covered with thick and deeply fissured bark. The leaves are from two to four inches long, of a narrow elliptical shape. In the typical form the twigs are olive-coloured, but in the variety vitellina (known as the Golden Willow) these are yellow or reddish. In the variety cærulea the old leaves become quite smooth above, but retain

the glaucous appearance of the underside. The White Willow is found as far north as Sutherlandshire, but although it is believed to be an indigenous species, most of the modern specimens appear to have been planted. It affords good timber, and the bark is almost equal to that of Oak for tanning. A great number of the old Willows met with in our rambles are partially decayed, a condition frequently the result of lopping large branches, for the wound never heals, and decay setting in at that point, extends down the bole. Upon such decaying specimens one may often find one of the most handsome of our native beetles—the Musk-beetle, with long, slender body and long antennæ, all coloured in dark golden green, and diffusing the aroma of a rose.

The Almond-leaved or French Willow (Salix triandra) is a small tree about twenty feet high, distinguished by its bark being thrown off in flakes. Its slender lance-shaped leaves are smooth green above and glaucous beneath, two to four inches long, and with half-heart-shaped stipules. The male flowers offer another distinguishing mark in their stamens being three in number. Its habitats are the banks of rivers and streams, and in Osier-beds. It is extensively grown on account of the long, straight shoots produced from the stump when the tree is cut down, which are of great use in wicker-work.

The Bay-leaved Willow (Salix pentandra) is met with either as a small upright tree about twenty feet high, or as a shrub eight feet high. Its oval or elliptical leaves are rich green, smooth and sticky on the upper surface, and give out a pleasant fragrance like those of the Bay-tree; they vary from an inch to four inches long, and they may or may not bear stipules, but if these are present they will be egg-shaped or oblong. The stamens are normally five in each flower, but they vary up to twelve. This is reputed to be of all our Willows the latest to flower. A line drawn through York, Worcester, and North Wales will give roughly its southward range as a native species. South of that line it has been planted; north of it to the Scottish

border it is a native. It has been found growing at a height of 1300 feet in Northumberland.

The Sallow (Salix caprea) is the only other species that can properly be considered as a tree, as it attains to a height of thirty feet, though fifteen to twenty feet is a more common measurement. Its usually egg-shaped leaves vary from almost round to elliptical or lance-shaped, and from two to four inches in length. In the typical form, which occurs chiefly in woods, dry pastures, and hedgerows, they are broad, smooth, and dull-green above, covered with soft white down beneath; the stipules half-kidney-shaped. This is the earliest of all our

Willows to flower, and the gold (male) and silver (female) catkins are put out before the leaves. In the country, within a few miles of the larger cities, this can hardly be a desirable species to plant, for on the Sunday before Easter thousands who at no other period exhibit any strong religious tendency journey out to pick some "Palm," as they designate the Sallow bloom, and the rough pruning the Sallows then get must in many cases be disastrous. He who imagines that insect life is suspended until spring is on the verge of summer should visit the woods when the Sallow is in bloom; he will be astonished at the swarms of bees and moths that are collecting the abundant pollen or sipping the nectar provided for them. Before the bright catkins can be seen the locality of the tree may be known by the loud hum produced by hundreds of pairs of wings. The all but invariable rule among the Willows—as among Oaks, Beech, Birch, Hazel, and Pines—is to depend upon the wind for the transfer of pollen from one tree to the stigmas of another of the same species, but in the Sallow we find a breaking away from what was doubtless the primitive arrangement in all flowering plants, by the bribing with honey of more reliable and less wasteful winged carriers.

The Gray Sallow (Salix cinerea) is really a sub-species of S. caprea. It has a liking for moister places than the type, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that its growth in moister situations has brought about the differences by which it is separated from the parent form. These points are, briefly—the buds and twigs are downy, the leaves smaller and proportionately narrower, the upper surface downy, grey-green beneath; the anthers of the male pale yellow, the capsule of the female smaller.

The Eared Sallow (S. aurita) is probably also only another form of S. caprea, distinguished by its small, bushlike proportions (two to four feet high), long branches and red twigs; its small wrinkled leaves, which are usually less than two inches

long, are of an almost oblong shape, downy beneath, and with large ear-shaped stipules. Its likeness is much closer to S. cinerea than to the type; it is fond of damp copses and moist places on heaths, where it may be found at considerable elevations. In the Highlands it ascends to 2000 feet.

There are Willows of dwarf habit, some with long straggling branches and more or less prostrate stems, that grow upon heaths. Each has a name under which it has at some time or other been ranked as a distinct species, just as the forms of Bramble and Rose have been. The differences between them are minute, and of little interest save to the advanced scientific botanist, who with his dried specimens spread before him often detects subtle distinctions not apparent to the outdoor student of the living plant. For the purposes of those for whom this volume is intended they may be regarded as one.

Dwarf Silky Willow (Salix repens). It is a low bush from six to twelve inches high, the stem lying along the ground. Some of the branches straggle in the same fashion, but those which bear the flowers are more or less erect. The leaf-buds and the young leaves are silky, a condition that usually endures on the lower surface, and in some forms on the upper also. They are broadly or narrowly lance-shaped, varying in the different forms alluded to above; in size they range from a half to one and a half inches in length, and may have lance-shaped stipules, or none at all. The scales of the catkins are yellowish-green or purple, with dark tips. After they have shed their pollen the anthers turn black. One form or other of this species will be found in all parts of the British Islands where there are heaths or commons; in the Highlands it occurs as high as 2500 feet.

Another group of small Willows that form bushes (rarely a small tree) have been united under two species—the Dark-leaved Willow (Salix nigricans), and the Tea-leaved Willow

(Salix phylicifolia). None of them occur south of Yorkshire, and the chief distinction between the two species (?) consists in the leaves of S. nigricans turning black when being dried for the herbarium, whilst those of S. phylicifolia do not.

The Osier (Salix viminalis). Many of the foregoing Willows, when cut down low and induced to send out long, slender shoots, are known as Osiers, but only two species are botanically regarded as Osiers—this and the Purple Osier (S. purpurea). The present species may remain as a shrub or grow into a small tree, thirty feet high, with long, straight branches, which are silky when young, but afterwards become polished. The leaves vary in length from four to ten inches, and are slenderly lance-

shaped, tapering to a point in front, and narrowing into the foot-stalk behind. They have waved margins without teeth, and the upper surface netted with veins, the under surface silvery and silky; stipules narrow lance-shaped. The Osier may be seen in Osier-beds and wet places generally throughout the country as far north as Elgin and Argyll. There are several varieties and hybrids.

The Purple Osier (Salix purpurea). In all the other Willows mentioned the stamens, whatever their number, all have the filaments distinct from each other. In this species alone the filaments of the two stamens are more or less united. The Purple Osier gets its name from the red or purple bark which clothes the thin but tough twigs. It is a shrub, and grows from five to ten feet high. The leaves, which are rather thin in texture, are from three to six inches long, of slender-lance-shape, with toothed edges, smooth and glaucous on both sides, but especially beneath, somewhat hairy when young. They are almost opposite on the twigs, and when dried for the herbarium turn black. There are several varieties of this shrub, which were formerly honoured with specific rank.

There remains a group of several small species of very local occurrence, with which we can do little more here beyond naming them.

The Woolly Willow (Salix lanata) is a small shrub, two or three feet high, with twisted branches, woolly twigs, and hairy black buds. The broad egg-shaped or oblong leathery leaves are also woolly, and two or three inches long. There are half-heart-shaped stipules at the base of the very short leaf-stalk. It is an Alpine plant, and is found about the mountain rills of Perth, Forfar, Inverness, and Sutherland at elevations between 2000 and 2500 feet. Conspicuous in spring for its rich golden catkins. Sadler's Willow (S. sadleri), of which only two or three specimens have been found (in Glen Callater, 2500 feet), is probably a form of this species.

The Lapland Willow (Salix lapponum) is of a similar proportion to the last-named, sometimes erect, sometimes trailing. Its leaves are more elliptic in shape, covered above with silky hairs and below with cottony filaments. In lanata the raised veins form a network pattern; in lapponum they are straight. The stipules at the base of the long foot-stalk are small or altogether wanting. Like the preceding species, it is restricted to Scotch Alpine rocks, at elevations between 2000 and 2700 feet.

The Whortle-leaved Willow (Salix myrsinites) is a small, wiry, creeping, or half-erect shrub, six inches to a foot high, with toothed, dark glossy leaves, an inch or less in length, whose net-veining shows on both sides. It is restricted to the Alpine parts of mid-Scotland, from 1000 to 2700 feet.

The Small Tree-Willow (Salix arbuscula) is a small shrub, whose stem creeps along the ground and roots as it goes, sending up more or less erect branches a foot or two high. The downy twigs are first yellow, then reddish-brown. The small leaves vary from egg-shaped to lance-shaped, and are shining above and glaucous beneath; toothed. In the Highlands of Aberdeen, Argyll, Dumfries, Forfar, and Perth, between 1000 and 2400 feet.

The Least Willow (Salix herbacea) is not so restricted in its range, for it is found in all parts of the United Kingdom where there are heights sufficiently Alpine (2000 to 4300 feet) for its tastes. It is only an inch or two high, and has consequently the distinction of being the smallest British shrub. It is not so herbaceous as it seems, or as its name implies, for its shrubby stem and branches creep along underground, sending up only short, scantly leaved twigs. The curled, roundish leaves do not exceed half an inch in length; they are net-veined, toothed, and shining. The catkins appear after the leaves.

The Net-leaved Willow (Salix reticulata) is another of the Scotch Alpines. It is similar in habit to the last-named, but

larger, its buried branches sending up twigs a foot long. The roundish-oblong, leathery leaves are not toothed; they are smooth above and glaucous beneath, strongly net-veined on either side. The purplish or yellow catkins do not develop till after the leaves. It is restricted to the mountains of Aberdeen, Forfar, Inverness, Perth, and Sutherland.

The Weeping Willow (Salix babylonica), so conspicuous an ornament of riverside lawns, is an introduced species, whose slender branches hang downwards. It has large, lance-shaped, finely toothed leaves, smooth above and glaucous beneath. Further description of so well-known a tree is unnecessary. It attains a height of forty to fifty feet. The name babylonica was bestowed in the belief that its headquarters were on the banks of the Euphrates. It is now known to be a native of Japan, and other parts of Asia.

The name Willow is the Anglo-Saxon welig, indicating pliancy, willingness.

Transcriber's Note

Wayside and Woodland Trees

PREFACE.

INTRODUCTORY.

WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND TREES.

PART I.NATIVE TREES AND SHRUBS.

The Oak (Quercus robur).

The Beech (Fagus sylvatica).

The Birch (Betula alba).

The Alder (Alnus glutinosa).

The Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus).

The Hazel (Corylus avellana).

The Lime (Tilia platyphyllos).

The Wych Elm (Ulmus montana).

The Ash (Fraxinus excelsior).

The Maple (Acer campestre).

The Poplars (Populus).

The Willows (Salix).

PART I.
NATIVE TREES AND SHRUBS.