Forest Trees and Forest Scenery

by G. Frederick Schwarz

seem proudly to bid defiance to time; and while generations of man appear and disappear, they withstand the storms of a thousand winters, and seem only to grow more venerable and majestic.”

It would be difficult to say whether Downing had any particular species of oak in mind when he wrote these words. The common white oak and the several species of red and black oak possess in an eminent degree the grandeur and strength which he describes and for which we commonly admire the tree.

Of all the oaks[1] the white oak is the most important. This tree will impress us differently as we see it in the open field or in the dense forest. Where it stands by itself in the full enjoyment of light, it has a round-topped, dome-shaped crown, and is massive and well poised in all its parts. Quite as often, however, we shall see it gathered into little groups of three or four on the greensward of some gently sloping hill, where it has a graceful way of keeping company. The groups are full of expression, the effect is diversified from tree to tree, yet harmonious in the whole. In the denser forest the white oak often reaches noble proportions and assumes its most individual expression. There it mounts proudly upward, contending in height at wide intervals with sugar maples and tulip trees, its common associates in the forest. Its lofty crown may be seen at a distance, lifted conspicuously above the heads of its neighbors. Stand beneath it, however, and look up at its lower branches, and there is revealed an intricacy of branchwork and a tortuosity of limb such as is unattained when it stands alone in the field. The boldness with which the white oak will sometimes throw out its limbs abruptly, and twist and writhe to the outermost twig, I have never seen quite equaled in the other oaks. The live oak, it must be admitted, is even more abrupt where the limb divides from the trunk, but it does not continue its vagaries to the end.

It is to be noted that these forms are not without a purpose and a meaning. Under difficulties and obstacles the twigs and branches have groped their way; often one part has been sacrificed for the good of another, in order that all gifts of air, and moisture, and light might be received in the fullness of their worth. Thus the entire framework of the tree becomes infused with life and meaning, almost with sense, and its character is reflected in its expression.

The observer is also impressed by the character of the foliage. The leaves are usually rather blunt and ponderous, varying a little—as, indeed, do those of several other trees —according to the nature of their environment. They clothe the tree in profusion, but do not hide the beauty of the ramification of its branches. In truth, they are not devoid of beauty themselves. It was natural for Lowell to exclaim,—

A little of thy steadfastness,

Rounded with leafy gracefulness,

Old oak, give me.

While the leaves of the white oak do not deflect and curve as much in their growth as those of some of the more graceful and elegant trees, they nevertheless fall into natural and pleasing groups, unfolding a pretty variation as they work out their patient spiral ascent, leaf after leaf, round the stemlet; showing a changefulness in the sizes of the several leaves, and a choice in the spacing. In the first weeks of leafing-time there is to be added to these features the effects derived from transitions of color in the leaves. For the very young leaves are not green, but of a deep rose or dusky gray. They are velvety in texture, and lie nestling within the groups of the larger green leaves that have preceded them. Just as it was said a little while ago that there was expressiveness throughout the branches, it may now be said that there is a fitness of the foliage for all parts of the tree.