Chapter XIII: Preface (6)

But there is no end of the smaller plants that spring up everywhere, some in the open space, others under the protection of a tuft of sedge-grass or a broad-leaved fern. The sweet-scented pyrola is abundant in all shady thickets, and the cymbidium and arethusa decorate the low grounds among the nodding panicles of quaking-grass and the spreading flowers of meadow-rue. The loosestrife, with its long pyramidal spikes of yellow flowers, is always conspicuously grouped in the low grounds, side by side with similar plats of low swamp-roses or crimson-spiked willow herb. But the most attractive flower in the whortleberry pasture is the red summer lily,—the cynosure of the happy children who assemble there, the queen of the meadow, and the delight of every rambler in the coppice.

The man who thinks of nature only as a field for the display of magnificent art may sneer at these rustic scenes and their native ornaments. But pride cannot make unadorned nature contemptible, nor can the grandeur of a princely estate deprive its occupants, if their culture equals their wealth, of the interest with which they behold a field covered with spontaneous vegetation, or a simple rustic farm. From the opening of spring until the fall of the leaf, the whortleberry pasture is a garden full of the fairest flowers and the most healthful fruits. And if Great Britain’s isle had been covered with whortleberries, like our New England hills, these fruits would have been celebrated in English poetry, like the fruit of the vine and the olive in the poetry of Greece and Rome.

WHORTLEBERRIES AND HUCKLEBERRIES.

We may vulgarize a word by associating it with the market. The wild pastures abound in summer with well-known fruits, some of jet and some of azure. We go out with a few friends and gather them with flowers, for present amusement. These fruits are _Whortleberries_. This is their poetical and their botanical name, the one that is associated with all the beautiful things that cluster in the same field. These fruits are also gathered for the market, and exposed for sale with cucumbers, new potatoes, and squashes. They are now _Huckleberries_. Shelley has defined poetry to be the art “that lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” This is done partly by a choice selection of words; and whenever a common thing is known by two names equally euphonious, we should always select that which is not in commercial use. We should say Whortleberries if we are writing an essay or a poem about them, and Huckleberries if we are going to buy a few of them in the market. The usages of the market in other matters ought to be excluded from literature. In commerce, for example, fishes are fish; in natural history fish are fishes.

THE HAZEL.

“Now let us sit beneath the grateful shade
Which Hazels interlaced with elms have made.”
_Virgil_, Eclogue V.

The Hazel, under which Menalcas invites his brother-shepherd to sit, is a tree of considerable size, while the American hazels are mere shrubs, seldom overtopping a rustic stone-wall. The Hazel among the Romans, like the olive among the Jews, was regarded as the emblem of peace; and this estimation of it was transmitted to the people of a later period. Hence, in popular works of fancy on the language of flowers, this is recorded as its symbolic meaning; and in ancient times a Hazel rod was supposed to have power of reconciling friends who had been separated by disagreement. These superstitions connected with the Hazel, and more particularly the one relating to the Hazel rod, named the Caduceus, assigned by the gods to Mercury as a means of restoring harmony to the human race, probably gave origin to the divining-rod, which was first made of Hazel and afterwards of the witch-elm. It is remarkable that in America this use was made of the hamamelis, a very different plant in its botanical characters, and hence called the Witch-Hazel.

There are two New England species, both delighting in the shelter of rude fences, and producing their flowers before their leaves. They are distinguished chiefly by the shape of their fruit. The common Hazel is the one most generally known. In this the shells or husks that enclose the nuts are of the same round shape, growing in a cluster, and each invested with a calyx like that of an ordinary flower. The Beaked Hazel is a smaller bush and frequents more solitary places than the other. “The calyx enclosing the nut, densely hispid and round at base, is contracted like a bottle into a long narrow neck, which is cut and toothed at the extremity.” The whole nut with its envelope resembles a bird’s head and beak. A dry sandy loam is the soil generally occupied by the Hazel. Along the old roads that pass over dry sandy plains, that border many of the river-banks in the Northern States, the Hazel, growing in frequent clumps, forms in some of these locations the most common kind of shrubbery. When we see a pitch-pine wood on one side of a road, the cultivated land on the opposite side is usually bordered with a growth of Hazels.

Both species are particularly worthy of protection and preservation. They produce a valuable nut without our care; they are ornamental to our fields and by-roads; they feed the squirrels and shelter the birds, and they add a lively interest to natural objects by their spontaneous products. The Hazel is associated with many pleasant adventures in our early days, with nut-gatherings and squirrel-hunts, and with many pleasant incidents in classical poetry. The Hazel has been a favorite theme of poets, especially those of the Middle Ages. In the songs of that period are constant allusions to the Hazel-bush, probably from its frequency in natural hedge-rows, and its valuable fruit.

THE BUTTON-BUSH.

Not much has been written of the Button-bush. We hear but little of those shrubs that do not readily admit of culture, and are not susceptible of modification by the arts of florists. The Button-bush is confined to wet, solitary places; indeed, it may be considered a true aquatic, as it grows in most cases directly out of the water. It is associated with the complaining song of the blackbird, whose nest is often placed in the forks of its branches, and it accompanies the ruder aspects of nature. It is far from being an elegant plant; and the little beauty it possesses belongs to the perfectly globular shape of its heads of flowers, which are nearly white. It is generally seen bordering the sluggish streams that flow through the level swamps, and often forms little islets of shrubbery in the middle of a sheet of water.

THE CLETHRA.

After the flowers of the azalea have faded, we are attracted in like situations by a similar fragrance from the Clethra, or Spiked Alder, remarkable as one of the latest bloomers of the American flowering shrubs. It bears its white flowers in a long spike, or raceme, somewhat like those of the black cherry-tree. The Clethra, when in blossom, is not destitute of elegance, and it is valuable for the lateness of its flowering. The foliage of this plant is homely, and its autumnal tints are yellow, while the prevailing tints of our wild shrubbery are different shades of red and purple. It is found in wet and boggy places, where it is very common, displaying its floral clusters as late as the fourth week in August. This shrub, when cut up for brushwood, is called the “Pepperbush” by the fishermen of our coast, from the resemblance of its roundish fruit to peppercorns. The picturesque attractions of the Clethra are not to be despised, when its long racemes of white flowers are seen projecting from crowded masses of verdure on the edges of the wooded swamps.

THE WESTERN PLANE.

When journeying through the older towns of New England, the melancholy forms of the ill-fated Planes attract our attention by their superior size, and still more by the marks of decay which are stamped upon all. This appearance is most remarkable in the early part of summer; for the trees are not dead, but some hidden malady caused the first crop of foliage to perish for several successive years. The trees, after putting forth a new crop of leaves from a second growth of buds, had not time to ripen their wood before the frosts of winter came and destroyed their recent branches. This disaster was repeated annually for ten or fifteen years, causing an accumulation of twigs at the extremities of the branches, making a broom-like appendage, and greatly deforming the spray of the tree.

The Western Plane, or Buttonwood, is a well-known tree by the waysides in New England and in the forests of the Middle and Western States. It belongs to a genus of which there are only three known species, and this genus constitutes a whole natural family. It may, therefore, be something more than a fanciful hypothesis, that all its noble kindred have perished and disappeared from the face of the earth, with other plants of a distant geological era, and that the three remaining species are destined to share the same fate, as signalized by the mysterious fatality which has attended both the Western and Oriental Plane. The Buttonwood is remarkable for its great height and magnitude, its large palmate leaves, and its globular fruit. The foliage is rather sparse, of a light, rusty green, and resembles in many points that of the common grapevine. Near the insertion of every leaf, and a little above it, is a stipule forming a plaited ruff that encircles the growing branch. These ruff-like appendages are among its generic marks of distinction.

“The Buttonwood,” says Michaux, “astonishes the eye by the size of its trunk and the amplitude of its head. But the white elm has a more majestic appearance, which is owing to its great elevation, to the disposition of its principal limbs, and the extreme elegance of its summit.” He considers the Buttonwood “the largest and loftiest tree of the United States.” He mentions one growing on a small island in the Ohio River, which at five feet from the ground measured forty feet and four inches in circumference; and he found another on the right bank of the Ohio that measured, at four feet from the ground, forty-seven feet in circumference, or nearly sixteen feet in diameter, and showed no marks of decay. He states that the Buttonwood is confined “to moist, wet grounds, where the soil is loose, deep, and fertile, and it is never found upon dry lands of irregular surface.”

It was probably the rapid growth and great size of the Buttonwood that caused our ancestors to plant it so extensively as a shade-tree. It rises also to a great height before it sends out any branches, thereby affording the inmates of houses the advantage of its shade, without intercepting their prospect, and without interfering with passing objects when planted by roadsides. But these noble trees, so conspicuous and so thrifty thirty years ago, have been slowly perishing from some mysterious cause which no theory can satisfactorily explain. It is generally supposed to be connected with a want of hardihood in the constitution of the tree, that renders it unable to endure all the vicissitudes of a Northern climate.

In England the same misfortune has fallen upon both the American and Oriental Plane. The late spring frosts are mentioned as the probable cause of the phenomenon, though there is but little resemblance between our climate and that of England. This tendency of the two species has prevented the general planting of them for shade and ornament. English writers give their preference to the American Plane, which they assert equals the other in size, and surpasses it in beauty of foliage. In England the American Plane has frequently attained a very great magnitude. Selby mentions one which, at forty years from the time it was planted, measured a hundred feet in height. The specific differences between the two Planetrees consist chiefly in the size and shape of their leaves, those of the Oriental Plane being smaller, and more deeply lobed or divided into segments. Both species have the same habit of annually shedding their bark, leaving the trunk with a smooth and whitish surface.

THE MYRTLE.

Among the Greeks and Romans, the oak was dedicated to Jupiter, the olive to Minerva, and the Myrtle, from the delicacy and beauty of its foliage, to Venus; and the temple of this goddess was surrounded by Myrtle groves. Hence the Myrtle and the rose have always been twined with garlands and prizes for beauty,—the one being admired for its flowers, the other for its delicate and aromatic leaves. A great deal of the romance of botany is lost to us, the inhabitants of the New World, on account of the absence from our woods of many of the plants most celebrated in classic poetry and medieval romance. We have not the heath, nor the olive, nor the ivy; and many of the humble flowers of the meadow, familiar to the reader of classical lore, are absent from our soil. Their absence, notwithstanding the beauty and elegance of many flowers and shrubs that seem to stand in the place of them, can never cease to be felt. The sacredness which a plant acquires by its association with ancient poetry and romance and with Holy Writ cannot be transferred to one of our indigenous plants of equal beauty. But there is romance in our own lives, and there are plants never mentioned in the literature of the romantic ages which are associated with certain hallowed periods and events in our youth that render them ever sacred to memory.

There are two or three plants in our own land that bear the classical name of Myrtle, not from any botanical resemblance or affinity to this plant, either in leaf or in flower, but from the aromatic odor of the leaves, like that of the true Myrtle. These plants are the Sweet-Gale, the bayberry, and the sweet-fern.

THE DUTCH MYRTLE, OR SWEET-GALE.

Along the low banks of rivers, and on the wooded shores of ponds and lakes that do not rise above the water-level, grows a slender and rather elegant bush, with dark and dull green foliage, possessing a very agreeable odor, which is perceived when the leaf is crushed. The Sweet-Gale is indigenous both in Europe and America. It is found only in wet places, where it forms knolls and copses, excluding all other plants by the density and vigor of its growth. This exclusive habit is owing to the multitude and tenacity of its roots, that form a subterranean network almost impenetrable. The Sweet-Gale is about half aquatic; it grows out of the water like the button-bush, and is, I believe, never found except in lands which are annually inundated.

It is this shrub that regales the sight with fresh verdure, rising out of the bosom of shallow waters in compact masses and forming little islets of shrubbery, without the mixture of any other plant. Through these wooded islets, on angling excursions, we propel our boat, while the surface of the lake is spangled with water-lilies, which, intermingled with the long blue spikes of pickerelweed and other aquatic flowers, while the notes of the veery and the red mavis are heard from the shore, afford the scene a kind of tropical splendor.

THE BAYBERRY.

This species has an odor very similar to that of the sweet-gale, and from its fragrance and its waxy fruit it has obtained the name of the Candleberry Myrtle. It delights in dry pastures upon the hills and uplands, to which it is a humble, but not insignificant ornament. This plant can make no very evident pretensions to beauty, having rough and crooked branches, and imperfect flowers and fruit, without any elegance of form. But its foliage is so regular, so dense, and of so bright a verdure, that it never fails to attract attention. Indeed, it displays some of the finest masses of pure green leafage to be seen among our upland shrubbery. But seldom does any tint except the green of summer appear in the Bayberry. It takes no part in the grand pageant of autumn. The fruit of this plant is a subject of great curiosity. It consists of little greenish-gray berries, stemless, and completely covering the branches like warts, thickly coated with a waxy substance, which is soluble in boiling water. This substance, when collected, makes a very hard wax of a greenish color.

THE SWEET-FERN.

Another of those humble shrubs which, though wanting in the beauty afforded by flowers, is very generally sought and admired, is the Sweet-Fern, at the very name of which we are inspired with pleasant remembrances of spring. The Sweet-Fern is a common plant on all our hills, the close companion of the bayberry, the wild rose, and the small kalmia. It is bound into all the nosegays gathered in May, and is a part of the garlands with which young girls crown the head of their May-queen, before the eglantine has put forth its leaves, and when the only flowers of the meadow are a few violets and anemones. This little shrub occupies a wide extent of territory, mingling its incense with almost every breeze that is scented by the rose. It is abundant in all the North-eastern States and the British Provinces.

The Sweet-Fern is a peculiar shrub, branching in such a manner as to form a perfect miniature tree, beautifully ramified with a neatly rounded head. The leaves are agreeably aromatic, and shaped unlike those of any other phenogamous plant, resembling a true fern-leaf, having alternate indentations that extend not quite to the midrib. It is a very grateful, not to say beautiful, ornament of our dry hills and pastures, and is more admired than any other equally homely shrub in our woods.

RELATION OF TREES TO THE SOIL.

I have spoken of trees as the purifiers and renovators of the atmosphere, as regulators of its humidity, equalizers of the electric fluid, and as safeguards against both drought and inundations; but I have not yet alluded to the fact that they are, in dense assemblages, the actual creators, in many places, of the soil upon which they stand. The trees by means of their foliage are direct fertilizers of the ground they cover, causing it to increase in bulk as long as they stand upon it. But the leaves of trees are not the only source of this increase of bulk and fertility. The lichens and mosses, and various incrustations upon their bark, and the offal of birds, insects, and quadrupeds, all contribute to the same end. Hence the most barren situations will produce good crops for several years after the removal of their wood; and from these facts we may learn why a forest is still vigorous, though it has remained for centuries upon the same ground. If it were fertilized only by the decayed foliage of the trees, it would gradually lose its fitness to promote the health and growth of the timber. But the foreign matters I have enumerated, the decayed cryptogamous plants, and the relics and deposits of animals which have lived and died there, supply the soil with nitrogenous ingredients in which decomposed leaves are wanting.

But what are the sources of all the matters which are furnished by the trees alone? They are chiefly the atmosphere and the deeper strata of the soil. The roots of the trees, penetrating to a considerable depth, draw up from the subsoil certain nutritive salts that enter into the substance of all parts of the tree. This is restored to the surface by every tree or branch that falls and moulders upon it, and the leaves increase its bulk still more by their annual decay. According to Vaupell, “the carbonic acid given out by decaying leaves, when taken up by water, serves to dissolve the mineral constituents of the soil, and it is particularly active in disintegrating feldspar and the clay derived from its decomposition.” These facts explain why the surface soil in a forest may constantly increase in bulk, without communication with any foreign sources of supply.

If a wood be situated in a valley or on a level plain, it retains all these substances for its own benefit. But if it stand upon a declivity, a part of the _débris_ will be washed down by floods into the fields below. Hence, by preserving a growth of wood upon all barren slopes and elevations, the farmer derives benefit from it, both as a fertilizer and as a source of irrigation to the lower part of the slopes or the base of the hill. For some days after a rain, thousands of little rills are constantly oozing from the spongy bed of the wood, that cannot immediately become dry like an open surface. Hills, when either very barren or steep, are unprofitable alike for tillage or pasture. They require more manure than other grounds, and more labor in its distribution. Hence, if divested of wood, as I have often repeated, they are almost useless; while, if densely wooded, they fertilize and irrigate the lands below, protect them from winds, and afford a certain annual amount of fuel.

When I am journeying through the country and behold the rocky hills, sometimes for miles in extent, entirely bare of trees, and affording too little sustenance to support even a crop of whortleberry-bushes, where an acre would hardly pasture a single sheep, I am informed by the older inhabitants that these barren fields were since their childhood covered with forest. This wood cannot be restored, because the soil has been washed down from the surface into the plains below, and nothing remains to support a new growth of trees. And then I think, if our predecessors, instead of wrangling about theology, had left its mysteries to be explained by their pastors, and studied some of the plain laws of meteorology, this devastation had not taken place!

If these rising grounds, like most of the hills in New England, have a granite foundation and a comparatively barren surface soil, forests are the only means which can be used by nature to render them productive or useful in any way to the prosperity of agriculture. Were they stripped of trees, they could not long maintain their original fertility; for there is nothing to prevent the soil from washing down their sides, nothing to prevent inundations from copious rains, nothing to prevent their becoming rapidly parched by drought during a great part of every summer. Hence a mountain that is covered with a dense forest, how thin and meagre soever the soil may be from which the trees derive their support, is a source of perpetual fertilization to the lands below. Millions of living creatures, which are harbored in these woods, annually perish, leaving their remains upon the ground to fertilize it and increase its bulk. During their lifetime also, besides various substances which they have manipulated, they are constantly leaving deposits of many kinds upon the surface; and if the quantity thus spread upon a single acre of woodland could be measured, we should be astonished at the amount.

By means of forests, therefore, in favorable situations, a farmer obtains something apparently out of nothing, and makes the barren rocks and hills the sources of a part of the substances with which he fertilizes his grounds.

But I have said nothing of the pasturage afforded to cattle on the borders of woods. Out of every two or three tons of leaves which are cast upon the ground, a hundredweight at least is but a solidification of the gases of the atmosphere. All this would be lost to the farmer, if the upper parts of his barren elevations and the sides of his steep declivities were despoiled of their wood and shrubbery. Without this forest, tons of compost produced by the annual decay of leaves would never have been created. All that proceeds from living creatures would also be lost, because they would either have never come into existence, or they would have lived and died in another place and benefited some other region.

THE VIBURNUM.

Over all the land, save where excessive cultivation and dressing of the grounds have stripped the earth of its native garniture, the roadsides are adorned with the different species of Viburnum. We detect them in winter by their many colored branches and their finely divided spray. May clothes them with a profusion of delicate and sweet-scented flowers; lastly, autumn dyes their foliage purple and crimson, and hangs from their branches clusters of variegated fruit; so that as native ornaments of the borders of old fields and roads they are surpassed by no other shrubs. The Viburnum constitutes a great part of the underwood of our forests, thriving and bearing fruit under the deep shade of trees, but assuming a handsome shape only outside of the wood. The flowers, in circular clusters, or cymes, resemble those of the elder, but have less fragrance.

THE AMERICAN WAYFARING-TREE.

The largest and most conspicuous of this genus, and the one that seems to me to bear the most resemblance to the English Wayfaring-tree, is the Sweet Viburnum. It is a tall and wide-spreading shrub, with numerous branches and dense and elegant foliage, making a compact and well-rounded head. The leaves are single and opposite, finely serrate, and with prominent veins. Many of our shrubs produce more showy flowers, but few surpass it in the beauty of its fruit. The berries are of the size of damsons, hanging profusely from the branches like clusters of grapes. They are dark purple when ripe, with a lustre that is not seen in the grape. Just before they ripen they are crimson, and berries of this color are often blended with the ripened fruit. Like the English Wayfaring-tree, the office of this shrub seems to be to overshadow the unfrequented byways, and afford coolness and refreshment to the traveller.

THE GUELDER ROSE.

This species is common to both continents. In Europe it is cultivated under the name of Guelder Rose. In America it is known as the Snowball-tree of our gardens, and it seems to be identical with the Maple-leaved Viburnum of our woods. In the garden variety the clusters are nearly globular, consisting entirely of barren flowers, and differing from those of the wild plant in the enlargement of the florets. In the wild tree some barren florets with enlarged petals may be seen mingled with others in the cyme, chiefly encircling the disk. The fruit of this species is of a bright scarlet, and bears a superficial resemblance to cranberries, having also a similar acid taste, but a different internal structure.

THE HOBBLE-BUSH.

Why so elegant a plant as this species should bear the disagreeable name of Hobble-Bush is apparent only when we become entangled by walking over a bed of it. I have seen it frequently in Maine, where it is called Moosewood, but seldom in Massachusetts. It is never entirely erect; its principal branches spread upon the ground, while the smaller ones that bear the leaves and fruit are erect. The leaves are very large, some lobed and others heart-shaped or nearly oval. Notwithstanding its procumbent growth, it is not a homely shrub. The numerous small and erect branches that spring from the creeping boughs resemble a bed of dense low shrubbery. And when we see it in an old, dark-shaded wood, crimsoned by the tinting of autumn, and full of bright scarlet fruit, we cannot but admire it.

THE ARROW-WOOD.

Among the several species which I shall not attempt to describe, one of the most common and familiar is the Arrow-Wood, so called from the general employment of its long, straight, and slender branches by the Indians for the manufacture of their arrows. This tree seldom rises above eight or ten feet in height, and is more common in the borders of fields which are low and wet than any other species. Its fruit is of a bluish slate-color. These peculiar shrubs are often seen in the damp forest, and in the borders of wood-paths, bearing conspicuous fruit and tempting us to gather and eat, while we refrain on account of the suspicions we naturally feel when we discover the fruit of a strange plant.

AUTUMN WOODS.

When the golden-rods in field and border have perceptibly faded, and we are growing weary of the monotony of summer landscape, autumn, the great limner of the forest, spreads over the earth new and enchanting pictures. Dim lights spring up daily among the shadows of the trees, and grove, copse, and thicket suffer a gradual metamorphosis. The woods are illuminated by such an array of colors that their late dark recesses appear to have the brightness of sunshine. Where a few days since there was but a shady obscurity of faded green, there gleams a luminous beauty from myriads of tinted leaves. As the twilight of the year comes on, the trees appear one after another in their new garniture, like the clouds of evening, as sunset deepens into darkness.

There is no scene in nature more purely delightful than the autumn woods when they have attained the fulness of their splendor. The sentiment of melancholy which is associated with the fall of the leaf increases our susceptibility to be affected by these parting glories of the year. So sweetly blended are the lights and colors in this gorgeous array, that no sense is wearied. The very imperfection of the hues gives a healthful zest to the spectacle, causing it never to weary like the more brilliant colors of a flower-bed. The hues of sunrise are more ethereal and exhilarating; but there is a sober mellowness in the tints of autumn that inspires the most healthful temper of mind. Far and near, from the wooded hills that display a variegated spectacle of gold, scarlet, and purple; from turrets of rocks embroidered with ferns and sumach; from old winding roads and lanes, hedged with a countless variety of gleaming shrubs, and rustic cottages half covered with scarlet creeper, down to the crimson patches of whortleberry-bushes, on the plains and in the valleys,—all is serenity and beauty.

I have often observed that the autumn woods never present that picture of gloom which is so manifest in them on a cloudy day in summer. In one respect the foliage itself is luminous, presenting warm colors that reflect light, so that the interior of a wood is actually brightened by the tinting of the leaves. I find but little pleasure in an evergreen wood at this time, unless it is illuminated by an occasional group of deciduous trees. Autumn is a sad time of the year,—the season of parting with all that was delightful in summer. The darkness of the atmosphere is even greater than in winter, when the earth is whitened by snow. We hail these warm tints of the woods, therefore, as a beneficent offering of nature for the refreshment of our spirits. All these things are beautiful even in cloudy weather, but the sun greatly enlivens the colors of the foliage, particularly when it goes down in a clear atmosphere, and every object is garnished with its beams, and mingles with golden reflections from hundreds of cottage windows. We watch their evanescent lights as they fade in the valleys and linger on the hill-tops, until twilight veils the scene in colorless shadow.

Though every one admires the beauty of autumn woods, not many are aware how imperfect are the colors that make up this gorgeous pageant. We speak of the scarlet and crimson of the maple, the oak, and the tupelo, and of many shrubs that equal them in brilliancy. But there is very little pure scarlet, crimson, or purple among these tints. If it were otherwise they would afford us less pleasure. In that case our senses would be intoxicated; now they are healthfully as well as agreeably stimulated. Pure colors spread over so wide an extent of surface would be too intense for perfect enjoyment. All the dyes of autumn foliage are sobered by the admixture of some earthy hue, something that prevents their rivalling the tints of heaven.

Green and yellow are often seen in their purity in the leaves of trees; crimson and scarlet are seldom pure, except in some parts of the brightest leaves. Even their green is not perfect, save in that stage of their development that precedes their full expansion. After this period, as the landscape-painter well knows, all verdure is tarnished and rusty. Indeed, the colors of leaves will not bear comparison with those of flowers, either in purity or variety; yet when viewed from a distance, and illuminated by sunshine, they seem nearly pure. Red leaves of different shades in sunshine produce at a distance the effect of crimson or scarlet, chocolate hues that of purple, and browns that of orange.

The hues of autumn are not very conspicuous before the middle of September, and it is worthy of notice that the brightest and purest colors are seen at the time when three fourths of the trees still remain unchanged. As one after another assumes its ruddy, golden and purple hues, the earlier and more brilliant drop their leaves; and some are entirely denuded, while others are fully covered with foliage and verdure. Even different individuals of the same species, of maples especially, manifest a great difference of habit in this respect, caused in some cases by the peculiarities of their situation. Trees in swamps and low grounds lose their leaves earlier than the occupants of a deep soil in the uplands.

Some species are perfectly uniform in their colors. The poplar and birch, for example, are invariably yellow; the sumach and whortleberry are chiefly red; while the maples display as many colors as if they were of different species. But each individual tree shows nearly the same every year, as apple-trees bear fruit of the same tints from year to year. Two red maples growing side by side are seldom alike, and in a group of them you will see almost as many shades of color as trees. Some are entirely yellow, others scarlet, some crimson, purple, or orange, others variegated with several of these colors. There is more uniformity in the tints of the sugar maple. I have seen long rows of this species that were only yellow and orange, though its colors generally vary from orange to scarlet. Purple and crimson are confined chiefly to the red maple; I have seen in different individuals of this species all the hues that are ever displayed in the autumn woods. The red maples, more than all other trees combined, are the crowning glory of a New England autumn. The sugar maple, though more brilliant, has a narrower range of colors.

As early as the last week in August, we perceive the tinting of a few red maples, which always exhibit the earliest change. Sometimes a solitary branch is tinted, while the remainder of the foliage is green, as if something affecting its vitality had prematurely colored it. Frequently the coloring process begins at the top; the purple crown of autumn is placed upon the green brow of summer, and we behold the two seasons represented at once in the same tree.

The first coloration is usually seen at the veins of the leaf, extending outwardly until the whole is tinted. Sometimes it appears in spots, like drops of blood upon the green surface; and in this case the leaf usually remains spotted. In the foliage of trees that assume a variety of colors, yellows generally predominate in the interior of the mass, red and purple on the outside. In the red maple, and less frequently in the rock maple when in a protected situation, the leaves are often formally variegated with figures of yellow, red, green, and purple. Those of the poison sumach, the cornel, and the snowy mespilus, are sometimes beautifully striated with yellow or orange upon a darker ground; but I have searched the woods in vain to find any other than a maple-leaf configurated like a butterfly’s wing.

In the foliage of the tupelo deep shades of purple first appear, brightening into crimson or scarlet before it falls. This tree more invariably shows a mass of unmixed crimson than any other species. Even in the maple, if the general presentation is red, you will find a considerable mixture of yellow. The colors of the scarlet oak are seldom pure or unmixed; but those of the tupelo are invariable, except as they pass through the gradations from purple to scarlet. If, therefore, the tupelo were as common in the woods as the maple, it would contribute more splendor to the scenery of autumn. There are many trees that never produce a red leaf. I have never found one in the foliage of the poplar, the birch, the tulip, the hickory, or the chestnut, which are all of some shade of yellow; but there are usually a few yellow leaves scattered among the ruddy foliage of any tree that assumes this color.

When all the circumstances attending the season have been favorable to the tints of autumn, there is no tree of the forest that would attract more admiration from the beautiful sobriety of its colors than the American ash. But this tree is so easily affected by drought, that after a dry summer its leaves fall prematurely and its tints are imperfect. The colors of the ash are quite unique, and distinguish it from all other trees. Under favorable circumstances its coloring process is nearly uniform. It begins with a general impurpling of the whole mass of foliage nearly at the same time, and its gradual changes remind me of those observed in sea-mosses during the process of bleaching. There is an invariable succession in these tints, as in the brightening beams of morn. They are first of a dark bronze, turning from this to a chocolate, then to a violet brown, and finally to a salmon-color, or yellow with a slight shade of lilac. When the leaves are faded nearly yellow, they are ready to drop from the tree. It is remarkable, that, with all this variety of hues, neither crimson nor any shade of scarlet is ever seen in the ash. It ought to be remembered that the gradations of autumn tints in all cases are in the order of those of sunrise, from dark to lighter hues, and never the reverse. I make no reference to the browns of dead leaves, which are darker than yellow or orange, from which they turn. I speak only of the changes of leaves before they are seared or dry.

After the middle of October, the oaks are the most conspicuous ornaments of the forest; but they are seldom brilliant. In their foliage there is a predominance of what we call leather-colors, with a considerable mixture of certain shades of red that are peculiar to the oak. We rarely find pure yellow or scarlet leaves in the foliage of any species of oak. The color of the scarlet oak is nearer a purple or crimson than any other shade of red. The white oak turns, with but little variation, to an ashen-purple or impure violet. The black and red oaks display varying and imperfect shades of drab and orange. The oaks are remarkable for the persistence of their foliage, and for the duration of their tints, which are chiefly the brown and russet of dead leaves with a lively polish. Long after other deciduous trees have become leafless, the various sombre shades of the different oaks cast a melancholy tinge over the waning beauty of the forest.

We are wont to speak of trees as the principal objects of admiration in autumnal scenery, but the shrubs, though less conspicuous on account of their inferior size, are not less brilliant. It is also remarkable that reds predominate in the shrubbery, and yellows in the trees. Reds and purples distinguish the whortleberry, the cornel, the viburnum, and the sumach, including all their species. There is indeed so small a proportion of yellow in the shrubbery, that it is hardly distinguishable in the general mass of scarlet, crimson, and purple. Among trees, on the contrary, yellows prevail in all miscellaneous woods. They distinguish the poplar, the birch, the hickory, the tulip-tree, the elm, and a good proportion of the maples. It ought to be remarked, however, that there are more shrubs than trees that do not change materially, but remain green until the fall of their leaves. The alder remains green; and as it covers a large proportion of our wet grounds, it might seem to an observer in those situations that the tints of autumn were confined to the trees.

Many persons still believe frost to be the great limner of the foliage, as if it were a sort of dyeing material. On the contrary, the slightest frost will destroy the tints of every leaf that is touched by it. It is not uncommon to witness a general tarnishing of the autumnal tints by frost as early as September. In some years they are spoiled by it before they have begun to be developed. An autumn rarely passes when the colors of the foliage are not half ruined before the time when they ought to be in their brightest condition. But the injury they receive from slight frosts is not apparent to careless observation. In the meridian of their beauty, heat will damage the tints as badly as frost. A very hot and sunny day occurring the first or second week of October makes almost as much havoc with the ash and the maple as a freezing night, fading their leaves rapidly and loosening their attachment to the branches, so that the slightest wind will scatter them to the ground. Yet the action of heat differs materially from that of frost. Frost imbrowns and crisps or sears the leaves, while heat only fades them to lighter and more indefinite shades. Frost is destructive of their colors, heat is only a bleaching agent. Cool weather in autumn without frost is necessary for the preservation of its seasonal beauty.

The most brilliant autumnal hues appear after a wet summer, followed by a cool autumn, unattended with frost. Cool weather preserves not only the purity of the colors, but also the persistence of the foliage. If the early frosts are delayed, the tints are brighter for this delay while the weather remains cool. But a wet summer is so generally followed by premature cold, that the finest displays of autumn scenery are often suddenly ruined by a hard frost. Seldom are all the favorable circumstances for preserving the purity of the tints combined in any one season. Not more than once in six or eight years are both heat and frost kept away so as to permit the leaves to pass, unseared and untarnished, through all their beautiful gradations of color.

There are several herbaceous plants that display tints similar to those of the woods; but they are not very conspicuous. I must not fail to mention the samphire, a plant of the salt marshes, possessing no beauty of form, having neither leaves nor any very discernible flowers, which every year contributes more beauty of color to the grounds it occupies than any flower of summer. Though I have seen no printed account of its magnificent crimson spread interruptedly over miles of salt marsh, my attention has often been called to it by ladies, who are more sensitive than the other sex to such appearances, and more careful observers of them.

The tints of the forest in America are said greatly to surpass those of the European woods. Having never visited Europe, I cannot speak of the comparison from my own observation. But from descriptions of them by different authors who have treated the subject, I have been led to believe that the difference is caused by a larger admixture of scarlet and crimson among the tints of our own trees. To aid the reader in drawing a comparison between them, I have made a synopsis of the tints of American woods during September and October; and have copied a similar one, less full and particular, by George Barnard, of English woods.

NOTE.

There are a few trees and shrubs, of which the alder and buckthorn are
examples, that so seldom show any kind of a tint that I have not
included them in my list; and there are several species of oak that
display such a motley combination of green and rust, with faint shades
of purple and yellow, that it is impossible to classify them. In my
list I have only named the genera, except when the species are
distinguished by important differences. The brown hues of the oak and
the beech are the tints only of their dead leaves or dead parts of
leaves; but pure browns are sometimes seen in the living leaf of the
snowy mespilus, the pear-tree, and the smoke-tree; in others they
occur so seldom that they may be classed as accidental hues. I ought
to add that only a small part of what may be said of the tints of
trees is unqualifiedly correct. They are greatly modified by
circumstances which cannot always be understood. I have seen maples
that always remained green, apple-trees dressed in scarlet and yellow,
and lilacs in a deep violet; but I have never seen a purple, crimson,
or scarlet leaf on any of the trees of Division I. of the Synopsis.

SYNOPSIS OF THE TINTS OF DIFFERENT TREES AND SHRUBS IN SEPTEMBER AND
OCTOBER.

DIVISION I.

_Trees and Shrubs that display Yellow Tints alone, without ever a
Purple or Red Leaf of any Shade._

│SECTION 1.—Verdure of summer unchanged, or with a slight and
Althæa. │sometimes a considerable mixture of yellow leaves, before
│they fall.

Bayberry.│ „

Clethra. │ „

Dutch │ „ Myrtle. │

Elder. │ „

Locust. │ „

Privet. │ „

Willow. │ „

─────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Black │SECTION 2.—A general mixture of rusty green and yellow, Walnut. │sometimes pure yellow under favorable circumstances. The rust │attaches only to dead leaves or to the dead parts of leaves. Butternut.│ „ Catalpa. │ „ Chestnut.│ „ Elm. │ „ Grapevine.│ „ Hickory. │ „ Horse-Chestnut.│ „ Lime. │ „ Plane. │ „ White │ „ Birch. │ ─────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Beech. │SECTION 3.—Pure yellow, of different shades. Birch. │ „ Honey │ „ Locust. │ Mulberry.│ „ Poplar. │ „ Tulip-tree.│ „ Green-Brier.│ „

DIVISION II.

_Trees and Shrubs that display all Shades of Purple, Red, and Yellow._

│SECTION 1.—A predominance of green, with a slight and │sometimes a considerable mixture of purple, red, and yellow, Apple-tree.│of different shades. All the rosaceous plants are included in │this section or the following. Individuals of some of these │species are occasionally brilliant. Barberry.│ „ Blackberry.│ „ Cherry. │ „ Hawthorn.│ „ Lilac. │ „ Missouri │ „ Currant. │ Mountain │ „ Ash. │ Pear-tree.│ „ Peach-tree.│ „ Plum-tree.│ „ Quince-tree.│ „ Raspberry.│ „ River │ „ Maple. │ Rose. │ „ Spiræa. │ „ ─────────┴┬──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Blueberry.│SECTION 2.—Purple, crimson, and scarlet, with only a small │mixture of yellow, if any. Cornel. │ „ Hazel. │ „ Poison │ „ Ivy. │ Scarlet │ „ Oak. │ Smooth │ „ Sumach. │ Strawberry-tree.│ „ Tupelo. │ „ Velvet │ „ Sumach. │ Viburnum.│ „ Virginia │ „ Creeper. │ White │ „ Oak. │ Whortleberry.│ „ ─────────┬───┴───────────────────────────────────────────────────────── │SECTION 3.—Variegated tints, comprising all shades of purple, Mountain │crimson, scarlet, orange, and yellow on the same tree, or on Maple. │different trees of the same species. Leaves often striated, │and sometimes figured like a butterfly’s wing. Red │ „ Maple. │ Rock │ „ Maple. │ Poison-Dogwood.│ „ Smoke-tree.│ „ Snowy │ „ Mespilus.│ Striped │ „ Maple. │ ─────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── │Passing through all shades from a dark chocolate to violet, │brown, and salmon. The ash is perfectly unique in its tints, The Ash. │having no reds, and being the only tree that shows a clear │brown as one of its regular series of tints in the living │leaf.

=[From George Barnard’s “Drawings from Nature.”]=

_Calendar of the different Tints assumed by various Trees toward the End
of September_ (in England).

_English Maple._ The leaves of the maple change first of all to an ochrey yellow, then to a deeper tone.

_Ash._ Fine lemon yellow, soon falling and leaving bunches of seeds of a brown hue.

_Hornbeam._ Bright yellow.

_Elm._ Generally orange, but with some irregular patches of bright yellow.

_Hawthorn._ Tawny yellow, but greatly modified by tones of deep reddish-brown, and brilliant clusters of berries.

_Hazel._ Pale ochrey yellow, with browner shades for the clusters of nuts.

_Sycamore._ A dull brown.

_Oak._ Yellowish green.

_Horse-Chestnut._ A great variety of beautiful rich hues, from a pale yellow to a bright crimson orange [?].

_Beech._ Also finely varied in color, but more of a maroon color than the chestnut.

_Cherry._ Most diversified and charming, in tints of yellow, red, crimson, maroon, and purple.

NOTE.—I perceive that the author does not distinguish between the
tints of living and seared or dead leaves.

THE CORNEL.

The different species of Cornel abound in all places occupied by the viburnum, to which they bear a superficial resemblance, though the two genera are not allied. They are graceful and rather prim-looking shrubs, having a hard and close-grained wood, and containing in their bark a large proportion of the bitter principle of the cinchona. Their leaves and branches are opposite, which increases their resemblance to the viburnum. They are very abundant in the Northern States; and it is remarkable that the different species might be distinguished by the colors of their fruit. The Florida Cornel, called the Flowering Dogwood, bears scarlet berries; there is also a purple-fruited Cornel, a white-fruited and two blue-fruited species, one leaden-colored, and in Canada a species with dark brown berries.

It is seldom that the species of any genus of plants differ in the opposite or alternate characters of the leaves and branches. But the purple-fruited Cornel is called alternate-leaved, to distinguish it from the other species. It is not, however, a genuine exception; for the leaves come out around the stem, not in a true alternate arrangement, but in imperfect whorls, and mixed with some that are opposite. The flowers are small, in irregular cymes; the fruit of a dark purple. It is found in swamps and low moist woods, and, with the other species, constitutes a fair proportion of the underwood of our deciduous forests.

The white-fruited Cornel is very frequent by waysides, rising a little above our loose stone-walls. This seems to be the most abundant species outside of the woods in the vicinity of Boston. Its flowers are white and rather inconspicuous, and are succeeded by clusters of pearly white berries. The blue-fruited Cornel, or red osier, is remarkable for its colored branches and large round leaves with an acuminate termination. The blue fruit of this species is very ornamental, and it is distinguished after the fall of the leaf by its bright red stems and branches. The Cornel is hardly less important than the viburnum in adding variety to our wood-scenery at all seasons.

By far the most interesting and beautiful species of the genus is the Florida Cornel, so called from its abundance in the forests on the American side of the Gulf of Mexico. In all that region, the woods in May are white with its large conspicuous flowers, sometimes occupying tracts of many acres exclusively, covering them with an almost unvaried whiteness, before the leaves of the trees are put forth. The flowers are borne in semiglobular heads, enclosed in a large spreading involucre, which is often mistaken for the corolla, the florets within resembling superficially a collection of stamens. About the first of June, in New England, these trees are very attractive, seeming like masses of pure white inflorescence. In the North it does not constitute the principal growth of any wood; but it is admired by all when they see it scattered among the greenery, and admired the more from its infrequency in this region.

The small branches are greenish, striated with longitudinal and irregular white lines. The leaves are two or three inches long, oval, and of middle size. The flowers appear on the ends of the branches, included in an involucre consisting of four divisions. The head of florets thus enclosed ripens into a bunch of bright scarlet berries, surrounded by a dark purple calyx. In the autumn all the species turn to different shades of red and purple.

The little dwarf Cornel, though an herbaceous plant, deserves mention in connection with the other species. It may be compared to a flower cut off with a single whorl of leaves, and then inserted into the ground. You might suppose that the large tree Cornel was buried, and that these little whorls, with their flowers, were peeping up through the ground from the branches beneath. At some distance they are easily mistaken for wood-anemones, though on examination no resemblance is apparent. The flowers are very showy and attractive in the wild pastures and woods, and produce in the autumn a round and compact cluster of scarlet berries, which are said to be pleasant and wholesome, but rather insipid. In winter they are the food of many species of birds.

THE SUMACH.