LEAFLET XXXIII.
EVERGREENS AND HOW THEY SHED THEIR LEAVES.[45]
By H. P. GOULD.
Note to the teacher.—This leaflet has two particular objects: to teach how evergreens shed their leaves, and to enable you to distinguish a few of the evergreens which are most commonly met. These studies (and those suggested in Leaflet No. XXIX) should be the means of adding much cheer to the winter. Encourage pupils to make collections of cones, to observe when they shed their seeds, and how long (how many seasons) they remain attached to the branch. Remember that mere identification of the kinds of trees is not the highest type of nature-study.
Cones are good subjects for free-hand drawing. Beginners should draw them in outline, omitting the shading. Encourage pupils to draw single leaf-clusters of the different pines, cautioning them to show the right number of leaves in each case.
Cone-bearing evergreens are familiar to everyone; yet this familiarity is usually with the trees as entire objects. We do not often stop to analyze a tree in order to find out what gives it its characteristic appearance or to see what makes it look as it does.
We shall often find, if we stop to look, that much of the character of a tree,—that is, its general appearance or the way in which it impresses us,—is due to the leaves and to their arrangement on the branches. This is true of many of the evergreen trees.
Why are certain kinds of trees called evergreen in distinction from those which are said to be deciduous? The reason is obvious. One kind is always green from the presence of foliage, while the other sheds all of its leaves every season. The evergreen trees, like the pines and the spruces and the firs, always appear to be well covered with foliage; hence it does not often occur to us that these trees shed their leaves. And yet perhaps we can recall happy hours when we used to play beneath some large pine tree where the ground was carpeted with pine "needles."
The falling of the leaves of the maple trees or the oaks is a familiar sight, but who has seen the spruce leaves fall, and who can tell when the pine needles drop?
That the evergreen trees do shed their foliage, as truly as the maples and the elms do, we will not question, for we can see the fallen leaves under any tree. Look up into the top of a spruce or pine. See that the interior is bare of foliage. The leaves are towards the ends of the branches, where they receive sunlight. Yet the branches which are now in the interior once bore leaves, for we can see the leaf-scars.
