A year among the trees

by Wilson Flagg

THE LOCUST.

The waysides in the Middle States do not contain a more beautiful tree than the Locust, with its profusion of pinnate leaves and racemes of flowers that fill the air with the most agreeable odors. In New England the Locust is subject to the ravages of so many different insects that it is commonly stinted in its growth, its branches withered and broken, and its symmetry destroyed. But the deformities produced by the decay of some of its important limbs cannot efface the charm of its fine pensile foliage. In winter it seems devoid of all those proportions we admire in other trees. It rears its tall form, withered, shapeless, and deprived of many valuable parts, without proportional breadth, and wanting in any definite character of outline. Through all the early weeks of spring we might still suppose it would never recover its beauty. But May hangs on those withered boughs a green drapery that hides all their deformity; she infuses into their foliage a perfection of verdure that no other tree can rival, and a beauty in the forms of its leaves that renders it one of the chief ornaments of the groves and waysides. June weaves into this green leafage pendent clusters of flowers of mingled brown and white, filling the air with fragrance, and enticing the bee with odors as sweet as from groves of citron and myrtle.

The finely cut and delicate foliage of the Locust and its jewelled white flowers, hanging gracefully among its dark green leaves, yield it a peculiar style of beauty, and remind us of some of the finer vegetation of the tropics. The leaflets, varying in number from nine to twenty-five on a common stem, have a singular habit of folding over each other in wet and dull weather and in the night, thus displaying a sensitiveness that is remarkable in all the acacia family. The Locust is not highly prized by landscape gardeners, who cannot reconcile its defects to their serpentine walks and their velvety lawns. But I am not sure that the accidental deformities of the Locust may not contribute to its picturesque attractions, when, for example, from its furrowed and knotted trunk a few imperfect limbs project, and suspend over our heads a little canopy of the finest verdure.

Phillips says of the Locust, that, when planted in shrubberies, it becomes the favorite resort of the nightingale, to avail itself of the protection afforded by its thorns. There are many other small birds that seek the protection of thorny bushes for their nests. On the borders of woods, a barberry or hawthorn bush is more frequently selected by the catbird and the yellow-throat than any other shrub. I have observed that the indigo-bird shows a remarkable attachment to the Locust, attracted, perhaps, by some favorite insect that lives upon it. The only nests of this bird I have ever discovered were in the branches of the Locust. It is worthy of notice, that, notwithstanding its rapid and thrifty growth in favorable situations, this tree never occupies exclusively any large tracts of country. It is found only in small groups, scattered chiefly on the outside of woods containing different species. The foliage of the Locust, like that of other leguminous plants, is very fertilizing to the soil, causing the grassy turf that is shaded by this tree to be always green and luxuriant.