On our barren hills, near the coast, where they are so common as to be the most conspicuous feature of certain regions, they display a great variety of shapes and grotesque peculiarities of outline. Yet the normal shape of this tree is a perfect spire. When it presents this form, it is, in the true sense of the word, a beautiful object. Even its rusty-green foliage gives variety to the hues of the landscape, and heightens by contrast the verdure of other trees. This effect is the more remarkable at midsummer, when the green of the different trees has become nearly uniform in its shades. At this time the mixture of the duller tints of the Juniper is very agreeable.
The Juniper is very full of branches, irregularly disposed at a small angle with the trunk, forming an exceedingly dense mass of foliage. A singular habit of this tree is that of producing tufts of branches with foliage resembling that of the prostrate Juniper, as if a branch of that shrub had been ingrafted upon it. The berries, which are abundant in the fertile trees, are of a light bluish color, and afford a winter repast to many species of birds, particularly the waxwing. The branches, when their extremities are brought into contact with the soil, readily take root. Hence we sometimes find a clump of small trees gathered like children around the parent tree.
The trunk of this tree diminishes so rapidly in size as to lose its value for many purposes to which the wood is adapted; but this rapid diminution in diameter is one of its picturesque properties, and the cause in part of that spiry form which is so much admired in this tree. The lateral branches, always inserted obliquely, diminish in size proportionally with the decrease of the trunk. The Juniper is first discovered on Cedar Island in Lake Champlain, and, south of this latitude, extends all along the coast to the Cape of Florida, and along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
THE ARBOR-VITÆ.
The American Arbor-Vitæ is a small tree growing very much in the spiry form of the juniper, but narrower in the lower part. It is like the juniper also in its numerous and irregularly disposed branches. It is not seen in the woods near Boston; and it is rare even in cultivated grounds, where the Siberian Arbor-Vitæ, on account of its superior foliage, is preferred. The American tree grows abundantly in high northern latitudes. It is remarkable, with its kindred species, for the flattened shape of its leaves; and in its native woods it is hardly ever without a mixture of yellow and faded leaves interspersed with the green and healthy foliage. The terminal branch invested by the leaflets—resembling scales, and not a true leaf—constitutes this fan-like appendage, resembling the frond of a fern. The leaves have the flavor and odor of tansy.
In Maine the Arbor-Vitæ, next to the black spruce and hemlock, is more frequent than any other of the evergreens. It delights in cold, damp soils, and abounds on the rocky shores of streams and lakes. It sometimes constitutes a forest of several acres, with but a slight intermixture of other trees, predominating in proportion to the wetness of the soil. In the driest parts of these bogs we find the black spruce, the hemlock, the red birch, and, rarely, a few white pines.
THE YEW.
In Great Britain the Yew is one of the most celebrated of trees, the one that is generally consecrated to burial-grounds, and that most frequently overshadows the graves of the dead. It is a tree of second magnitude, and remarkable for its longevity. The American Yew is seldom anything more than a prostrate shrub, resembling branches of fir spreading over the ground. It is said, however, that although it is a creeping shrub on the Atlantic coast, it becomes a tree on the coast of the Pacific; in like manner the alder, which is a shrub here, becomes a tree in Oregon and California.
In New England, the Yew is a solitary tree, growing among deciduous trees as if it required their protection. It never constitutes a forest either here or in Europe. It seems to love the shade, and when it is not under the protection of trees, it is found on the shady sides of hills, and in moist, clayey soils, but never on sandy plains. I shall not speak of the romantic customs associated with the European Yew; but the absence of this tree deprives us of a very romantic feature in landscape.