Field and Woodland Plants

by William S. Furneaux

The Mountain Ash.

We have yet another representative of the Rose order in the Mountain Ash, Rowan, or Fowler's Service Tree (P. Aucuparia), which is common in mountainous woods, and supplies an edible fruit. It is a very graceful and beautiful tree, with a smooth greyish bark; and pinnate leaves with from thirteen to seventeen serrate leaflets, downy on the under side. The flowers are small, of a creamy white colour, in large corymbs. They bloom in May and June; and later in the year their place is occupied by the scarlet globular fruits, with a yellow pulp, enclosing from two to four chambers.

The Black Currant (Ribes nigrum), of the order Grossulariaceæ, or sometimes included in the Saxifragaceæ, is sometimes found wild in moist woods, flowering in April or May. It is well known as a garden shrub, and may be easily recognised by the characteristic odour emitted from its stems and leaves when bruised. In some northern woods the Red Currant (R. rubrum) is also found wild.

The Wayfaring Tree or Mealy Guelder Rose (Viburnum Lantana—order Caprifoliaceæ) is moderately common in the woods and hedges of dry districts, especially on calcareous soils. It grows from ten to twenty feet high, and flowers during May and June. Its young shoots are covered with star-like hairs, which give them a characteristic mealy or downy appearance. The leaves are simple, elliptical-cordate, serrate, without stipules, and are downy beneath. The flowers are small, white, perfect, and arranged in terminal cymes. In late summer the tree is rendered conspicuous by its flattened berries, which become scarlet as they ripen and afterwards turn black. A photograph of a twig in fruit is given on p. [338].

The Ash Tree (Fraxinus excelsior—order Oleaceæ) is easily recognised at a distance, either in summer or winter, by the graceful curves of the lower branches, which droop, and then bend upward at their extremities; also, on a closer inspection, by the light ashy colour of the smooth bark of the twigs, and the large, black, triangular, terminal buds. The leaves are pinnate, with from nine to seventeen oblong-lanceolate, sessile, serrate leaflets. The flowers appear before the leaves in April and May, in dense clusters. They have no perianth: some consist only of an ovary, some only of two dark purple stamens, while others are perfect flowers with both ovary and stamens. Some trees have male blossoms only, and therefore produce no fruit; others bear dense tufts of pendulous, winged fruits which are ripe in October (p. [336]), but often remain on the tree till the following spring. The wing of the fruit is slightly twisted, and thus, when the fruit is detached, it falls with a slow, spinning motion that allows it to be carried some distance by the wind, reaching the ground with its seed-end downwards. The seed does not germinate until the second spring. A variety of the Ash occurs with simple leaves.

Very early in the Spring—February to April—we may often see the Spurge Laurel (Daphne Laureola) in flower in woods and copses. This is an erect, smooth shrub, from two to four feet high, with a few erect branches bearing at their summits crowded clusters of thick, glossy, narrow, evergreen leaves. Its flowers, of a yellowish green colour, are in drooping, axillary clusters among the leaves. They have a tubular, inferior perianth, with four spreading lobes; eight stamens inserted in the top of the tube; and a free ovary of one cell, containing a single ovule. The perianth falls early; and the ovary afterwards becomes a berry-like fruit with a single stone.

The Spurge Laurel.

Another similar shrub, known as the Mezereon (Daphne Mezereum), is found in similar situations, and flowers at the same time, but it may be known by its deciduous leaves, and by its pale red flowers arranged in threes on the side of the stem. These two species are the only British representatives of the order Thymelaceæ.