TREE STUDIES IN THE SPRING
THE AWAKENING OF THE TREES
All winter the grey beech trunks look almost white among the dark trunks of neighbouring trees. Their branches are dark at the tips, and the buds are long, slim, and sharp-pointed. Silky, brown bud scales, in many layers, protect the young shoots hidden in these buds. In April these shoots impatiently push aside their wrappings. The outer scales fall, the inner ones grow longer, but the growing tip leaves them behind, and they fall, while the silky-coated, fan-plaited baby leaves hang limp and helpless on the lengthening stem.
No tree of the woods is more beautiful than the beech as its twigs cover themselves with the tender green of spring. Beech leaves are handsome when full grown. In the short hours of their babyhood they are lovely.
The sturdy shagbark hickory is late in waking. Poplars and beeches are in full leaf when the big buds of this familiar tree with the shaggy bark begin to swell, and show the pale, silky inner scales under the black outer pairs, which soon fall off.
The branches are stiff and angular, but the twigs hold up their big buds, and the trees look like great candelabra, each holding up a thousand lighted candles. As the pointed buds push upward, the protecting scales grow rapidly larger, and the outer ones turn back like the sepals of an iris. Wonderful tints of olive and yellow, violet and rose, blend in their silky covering. Out of this petal-like frill rises the cluster of young leaves, small but perfectly formed, and just as varied and delicate in colouring under their velvet covering. These complete the flower-like appearance of the young shoots. The illusion lasts only until the leaves spread out, and take on their natural, colour and size. The scales fall, their duty done, and the flower catkins come out, under the broad umbrellas of the fresh, new leaves. The tree is thoroughly awake, and has begun its long summer’s work.
The great winter buds of the shagbark hickory open like flowers in May
Pink and silvery catkins of trembling aspen, and the white, flannel-like leaves, just opened