Chapter I: Part 1

THE “SHOWN TO THE CHILDREN” SERIES

EDITED BY LOUEY CHISHOLM

TREES

The “Shown to the Children” Series

1. BEASTS

With 48 Coloured Plates by PERCY J. BILLINGHURST.
Letterpress by LENA DALKEITH.

2. FLOWERS

With 48 Coloured Plates showing 150 flowers, by
JANET HARVEY KELMAN. Letterpress by C. E.
SMITH.

3. BIRDS

With 48 Coloured Plates by M. K. C. SCOTT.
Letterpress by J. A. HENDERSON.

4. THE SEA-SHORE

With 48 Coloured Plates by JANET HARVEY
KELMAN. Letterpress by REV. THEODORE WOOD.

5. THE FARM

With 48 Coloured Plates by F. M. B. and A. H.
BLAIKIE. Letterpress by FOSTER MEADOW.

6. TREES

With 32 Coloured Plates by JANET HARVEY
KELMAN. Letterpress by C. E. SMITH.

7. NESTS AND EGGS

With 48 Coloured Plates by A. H. BLAIKIE.
Letterpress by J. A. HENDERSON.

8. BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS

With 48 Coloured Plates by JANET HARVEY
KELMAN. Letterpress by Rev. THEODORE WOOD.

9. STARS

By ELLISON HAWKS.

10. GARDENS

With 32 Coloured Plates by J. H. KELMAN.
Letterpress by J. A. HENDERSON.

11. BEES

By ELLISON HAWKS. Illustrated in Colour and
Black and White.

12. ARCHITECTURE

By GLADYS WYNNE. Profusely Illustrated.

13. THE EARTH

By ELLISON HAWKS. Profusely Illustrated.

14. THE NAVY

By PERCIVAL A. HISLAM. 48 Two-colour Plates.

15. THE ARMY

By A. H. ATTERIDGE. 16 Colour and 32 Black Plates.

THE OAK

1. Oak Tree
2. Leaf Spray
3. Spray with Flower Catkins
4. Stamen Catkin
5. Seed Catkin
6. Fruit]

TREES
SHOWN TO THE CHILDREN

BY
JANET HARVEY KELMAN

DESCRIBED BY
C. E. SMITH

THIRTY-TWO COLOURED PICTURES

LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK, Ltd.
35 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
AND EDINBURGH

To
THOMAS FORBES SACKVILLE WILSON

Dear children,--In this little book I have written about some of the trees which you are likely to find growing wild in this country, and Miss Kelman has painted for you pictures of these trees, with drawings of the leaves and flowers and fruit, so that it will be easy for you to tell the name of each tree. But I think there is one question which you are sure to ask after reading this small book, and that is, “How do the trees grow?”

The tree grows very much as we do, by taking food and by breathing. The food of the tree is obtained from two sources: from the earth and from the air. Deep down in the earth lie the tree roots, and these roots suck up water from the soil in which they are embedded. This water, in which there is much nourishment, rises through many tiny cells in the woody stem till it reaches the leaf, twigs, and green leaves. As it rises the growing cells keep what they need of the water. The rest is given off as vapour by the leaves through many tiny pores, which you will not be able to see without a microscope.

While it is day the green leaves select from the air a gas called carbonic acid gas. This they separate into two parts called oxygen and carbon. The plant does not need the oxygen as food, so the leaves return it to the air, but they keep the carbon. This carbon becomes mixed in some strange way with the water food drawn from the soil by the roots. Forming a liquid, it finds its way through many small cells and channels to feed the growing leaves and twigs and branches.

But, like ourselves, a tree if it is to live and thrive must breathe as well as take food. By night as well as by day the tree requires air for breathing. Scattered over the surface of the leaves, and indeed over the skin of the tree, are many tiny mouths or openings called stomata. It is by these that the tree breathes. It now takes from the air some oxygen, which, you will remember, is the gas that the leaves do not need in making their share of the tree food. Now you can see why it is that a tree cannot thrive if it is planted in a dusty, sooty town. The tiny mouths with which it breathes get filled up, and the tree is half-choked for lack of air. Also the pores of the leaves become clogged, so that the water which is not needed cannot easily escape from them. A heavy shower of rain is a welcome friend to our dusty town trees.

As a rule tree flowers are not so noticeable as those which grow in the woods and meadows. Often the ring of gaily-coloured petals which form the corolla is awanting, so are the green or coloured sepals of the calyx, and the flower may consist, as in the Ash tree, of a small seed-vessel standing between two stamens, which have plenty of pollen dust in their fat heads.

It is very interesting to notice the various ways in which the tree flowers grow. In some trees the stamens and seed-vessels will be found close together, as in the Ash tree and Elm. Or they may grow on the same branch of a tree; but all the stamens will be grouped together on one stalk and all the seed-vessels close beside it on another stalk, as in the Oak tree. Or the stamen flowers may all be found on one tree without any seed flowers, and on another tree, sometimes a considerable distance away, there will be found nothing but seed flowers. This occurs in the White Poplar or Abele tree.

You must never forget that both kinds of flowers are required if the tree is to produce new seed, and many books have been written to point out the wonderful ways in which the wind and the birds and the bees carry the stamen dust to the seed-vessels, which are waiting to receive it.

Each summer the tree adds a layer of new wood in a circle round the tree trunk; a broad circle when there has been sunshine and the tree has thriven well, and a narrow circle when the season has been wet and sunless. This new layer of wood is always found just under the bark or coarse, outer skin of the tree. The bark protects the soft young wood, and if it is eaten by cattle, or cut off by mischievous boys, then the layer of young wood is exposed, and the tree will die.

When winter approaches and the trees get ready for their long sleep, the cells in this layer of new wood slowly dry, and it becomes a ring of hard wood. If you look at a tree which has just been cut down, you will be able to tell how many years old the tree is by counting the circles of wood in the tree trunk. When a tree grows very slowly these rings are close and firm, and the wood of the tree is hard and valuable.

Many, many years ago, when a rich Scotch landlord lay dying, he said to his only son, “Jock, when you have nothing else to do, be sticking in a tree; it will aye be growing when you are sleeping.” He was a clever, far-seeing old man, Jock’s father, for he knew that in course of time trees grow to be worth money, and that to plant a tree was a sure and easy way of adding a little more to the wealth he loved so dearly.

But a tree has another and a greater value to us and to the world than the price which a wood merchant will give for it as timber. Think what a dear familiar friend the tree has been in the life of man! How different many of our best-loved tales would be without the trees that played so large a part in the lives of our favourite heroes. Where could Robin Hood and his merry men have lived and hunted but under the greenwood tree? Without the forest of Arden what refuge would have sheltered the mischief-loving Rosalind and her banished father? How often do we think of the stately Oak and Linden trees into which good old Baucis and Philemon were changed by the kindly gods.

And do you remember what secrets the trees told us as we lay under their shady branches on the hot midsummer days, while the leaves danced and flickered against the blue, blue sky? Can you tell what was the charm that held us like a dream in the falling dusk as we watched their heavy masses grow dark and gloomy against the silvery twilight sky?

In a corner of a Cumberland farmyard there grew a noble tree whose roots struck deep into the soil, and whose heavy branches shadowed much of the ground. “Why do you not cut it down?” asked a stranger; “it seems so much in the way.” “Cut it down!” the farmer answered passionately. “I would sooner fall on my knees and worship it.” To him the tree had spoken of a secret unguessed by Jock’s father and by many other people who look at the trees with eyes that cannot see. He had learned that the mystery of tree life is one with the mystery that underlies our own; that we share this mystery with the sea, and the sun, and the stars, and that by this mystery of life the whole world is “bound with gold chains” of love “about the feet of God.”

C. E. SMITH.

LIST OF PLATES

PLATE I

The Oak

PLATE II

The Beech

PLATE III

The Birch

PLATE IV

The Alder

PLATE V

The Hornbeam

PLATE VI

The Hazel

PLATE VII

The Lime or Linden

PLATE VIII

The Common Elm and Wych or Broad-Leaved Elm

PLATE IX

The Ash

PLATE X

The Field Maple

PLATE XI

The Sycamore, or Great Maple, or Mock Plane

PLATE XII

The Oriental Plane

PLATE XIII

The White Poplar or Abele Tree

PLATE XIV

The Aspen

PLATE XV

The White Willow

PLATE XVI

The Goat Willow or Sallow

PLATE XVII

The Scotch Pine or Scotch Fir

PLATE XVIII

The Yew

PLATE XIX

The Juniper

PLATE XX

The Larch

PLATE XXI

The Spruce Fir

PLATE XXII

The Silver Fir

PLATE XXIII

The Holly

PLATE XXIV

The Wild Cherry or Gean

PLATE XXV

The Whitebeam

PLATE XXVI

The Rowan or Mountain Ash

PLATE XXVII

The Hawthorn

PLATE XXVIII

The Box

PLATE XXIX

The Walnut

PLATE XXX

The Sweet Chestnut or Spanish Chestnut

PLATE XXXI

The Horse Chestnut

PLATE XXXII

The Cedar of Lebanon

TREES

PLATE I

THE OAK

Of all our forest trees the Oak is undoubtedly the king. It is our most important tree, the monarch of our woods, full of noble dignity and grandeur in the summer sunshine, strong to endure the buffeting of the wintry gales. It lives to the great age of seven hundred years or more, and is a true father of the forest. We read of the Oak tree in the story books of long ago. There are many Oak trees mentioned in the Bible. In Greece the Oak was believed to be the first tree that God created, and there grew a grove of sacred Oaks which were said to utter prophecies. The wood used for the building of the good ship Argo was cut from this grove, and in times of danger the planks of the ship spoke in warning voices to the sailors.

In Rome a crown of Oak leaves was given to him who should save the life of a citizen, and in this country, in the days of the Druids, there were many strange customs connected with the Oak and its beautiful guest the mistletoe. The burning of the Yule log of Oak is an ancient custom which we trace to Druid times. It was lit by the priests from the sacred altar, then the fires in all the houses were put out, and the people relit them with torches kindled at the sacred log. Even now in remote parts of Yorkshire and Devonshire the Yule log is brought in at Christmas-time and half burned, then it is taken off the fire and carefully laid aside till the following year.

We know that in Saxon times this country was covered with dense forests, many of which were of Oak trees. Huge herds of swine fed on the acorns which lay in abundance under the trees; and a man, when he wished to sell his piece of forest, did not tell the buyer how much money the wood in it was worth, but how many pigs it could fatten. In times of famine the acorns used to be ground, and bread was made of the meal. There have been many famous Oak trees in England: one of these we have all heard of--the huge Oak at Boscobel in which King Charles II. hid with a great many of his men after he was defeated at the battle of Worcester.

I think you will have no difficulty in recognising an Oak tree (1) at any time of the year. Look at its trunk in winter: how dark and rough it is; how wide and spreading at the bottom to give its many roots a broad grip of the earth into which they pierce deeply. Then as the stem rises it becomes narrower, as if the tree had a waist, for it broadens again as it reaches a height where the branches divide from the main trunk. And what huge branches these are--great rough, dark arms with many crooked knots or elbows, which shipbuilders prize for their trade. These Oak-tree arms are so large and heavy that the tree would need to be well rooted in the ground to stand firm when the gale is tossing its branches as if they were willow rods.

The Oak tree does not grow to a great height. It is a broad, sturdy tree, and it grows very slowly, so slowly that after it is grown up it rarely increases more than an inch in a year, and sometimes not even that. But just because the Oak tree lives so leisurely, it outlasts all its companions in the forest except, perhaps, the yew tree, and its beautiful hard, close-grained wood is the most prized of all our timber.

In the end of April or early in May, the Oak leaves (2) appear; very soft and tender they are too at first, and of a pale reddish green colour. But soon they darken in the sunshine and become a dark glossy green. Each leaf is feather-shaped and has a stalk. The margin is deeply waved into blunt lobes or fingers, and there is a strongly-marked vein up the centre of the leaf, with slender veins running from it to the edge.

In autumn these leaves change colour: they become a pale brown, and will hang for weeks rustling in the branches till the young buds which are to appear next year begin to form and so push the old leaves off. If a shrivelling frost or a blighting insect destroys all the young Oak leaves, as sometimes happens, then the sturdy tree will reclothe itself in a new dress of leaves, which neither the Beech, nor the Chestnut, nor the Maple, could do. It shows what a great deal of life there is in the stout tree.

The flowers of the Oak arrive about the same time as the leaves, and they grow in catkins which are of two kinds. You will find a slender hanging catkin (3) on which grow small bunches of yellow-headed stamens (4). Among the stamens you can see six or eight narrow sepals, but these stamens have no scales to protect them as the Hazel and Birch catkins have. On the same branch grows a stouter, upright catkin, and on it are one or maybe two or three tiny cups (5), made of soft green leaves called bracts, and in the centre of this cup sits the seed-vessel, crowned with three blunt points. As the summer advances this seed-vessel grows larger and fatter and becomes a fruit (6) called an acorn, which is a pale yellow colour at first, and later is a dark olive brown. The soft leafy cup hardens till it is firm as wood, and in it the acorn sits fast till it is ripe. It then falls from the cup and is greedily eaten by the squirrels and dormice, as it was in the olden times by the pigs. From those acorns that are left lying on the ground all winter, under the withered leaves, will grow the tiny shoots of a new tree when the spring sunshine comes again.

The Oak tree is the most hospitable of trees: it is said that eleven hundred insects make their home in its kindly shelter. There are five kinds of houses, which are called galls, built by insects, and you can easily recognise these, and must look for them on the Oak tree. Sometimes on the hanging stamen catkins you will find little balls like currants with the catkin stem running through the centre. These are the homes of a tiny grub which is living inside the currant ball, and which will eat its way out as soon as it is ready to unfold its wings and fly.

Often at the end of an Oak twig you find a soft, spongy ball which is called an Oak apple. It is pinkish brown on the outside and is not very regular in shape. This ball is divided inside into several cells, and in each cell there lives a grub which will also become a fly before summer is over.

Sometimes if you look at the back of an Oak leaf you will see it covered with small red spangles which are fringed and hairy. These spangles each contain a small insect, and they cling to their spangled homes long after the leaves have fallen to the ground.

Another insect home or gall grows in the leaves, and this one is much larger, sometimes as big as a marble. It too is made by an insect which is living inside, and this is called a leaf gall.

There is still another insect which attacks the leaf buds and causes them to grow in a curious way. Instead of opening as usual, the bud proceeds to make layers of narrow-pointed green leaves which it lays tightly one above the other, like the leaves of an artichoke or the scales of a fir cone. If you cut one of these Oak cones in half you will find many small insects inside, which have caused the bud to grow in this strange way.

And there is one other oak gall you must note. When the leaves have all fallen and the twigs are brown and bare, you see clusters of hard brown balls growing on some of them. They are smooth and glossy and the colour of dried walnuts. These also have been made by an insect. Sometimes you see the tiny hole in the ball by which the grub has bored its way out. This kind of gall does great harm to the tree, as it uses up the sap that should nourish the young twigs.

The wood of the Oak is very valuable. Sometimes a fine old tree will be sold for four hundred pounds, and every part of it can be used. The bark is valuable because it contains large quantities of an acid which is used in making ink; also in dyeing leather. Oak that has been lying for years in a peat bog, where there is much iron in the water, is perfectly black when dug out, black as ink, because the acid and the iron together have made the inky colour.

THE BEECH

1. Beech Tree in Autumn
2. Leaf Spray
3. Bud
4. Buds in Winter
5. Seed Flower
6. Stamen Flower
7. Fruit
8. Fruit when Ripe]

The wood of an Oak tree lasts very long: there are Oak beams in houses which are known to be seven hundred years old, and which are as good as the day they were cut. For centuries our ships were built of Oak, the wooden walls of old England, hearts of Oak, as they have often been called, because Oak wood does not readily splinter when struck by a cannon ball. And Oak wood will not quickly rot: we know of piles which have been driven into river beds centuries ago and are still sound and strong. In pulling down an old building lately in London, which was built six hundred and fifty years ago, the workmen found many oak piles in the foundations, and these were still quite sound.

PLATE II

THE BEECH

In the south of England there lived a holy hermit named St. Leonard whose hut was surrounded by a glade of noble Beech trees. The saint loved the beautiful trees, but by day he could not sit under their shady branches because of the vipers which swarmed about the roots, and by night the songs of many nightingales disturbed his rest. So he prayed that both the serpents and the birds might be taken away, and from that day no viper has stung and no nightingale has warbled in the Hampshire forests. So we read in the old story books. There are many such legends connected with the Beech tree. It has grown in this country as far back as we have any history, and it is often called the mother of the forest, because its thickly covered branches give shelter and protection to younger trees which are struggling to live.

The Beech is a cousin of the Oak. It is a large, handsome tree, with a noble trunk and widely spreading branches which sweep downward to the ground, and in summer every branch and twig is densely covered with leaves. No other tree gives such shade as the Beech, and in a hot summer day how tempting it is to lie underneath the branches and watch the squirrels glancing in and out among the rustling leaves and tearing the young bark.

In early spring you will recognise the Beech tree (1) by its smooth olive-grey trunk. Only the Beech tree has such a smooth trunk when it is fully grown, and in consequence, every boy with a new knife tries to cut his name on its bark. In summer the young bud (3) of next year’s leaf is formed where each leaf joins the stem. All winter time you can see slender-pointed buds (4) growing at the end of every twig, and when April comes each of these pointed buds has become a loose bunch of silky brown scales. Inside these protecting scales is hidden the young leaf bud, and soon the winter coverings unclose. For a short time they hang like a fringe round the base of the leaf stalk, but they quickly fall off and strew the ground beneath. The young leaves inside are folded like a fan, and they have soft silky hairs along the edges. How lovely they are when open! Each leaf (2) is oval, with a blunted point at the end, and the edges are slightly waved.

At first the leaf colour is a clear pale green, through which the light seems to shine; and there is nothing more lovely than a Beech tree wood in early May when the young leaves are glistening against the clear blue sky. But as summer comes nearer the leaf colour darkens, and by July it is a deep, glossy green. You can then see very distinctly the veins which run from the centre to the edge of every leaf. These leaves grow so thickly that no stems or branches can be seen when the tree is in full foliage; and they are beautiful at all seasons. When autumn comes, bringing cold winds and a touch of frost, then the Beech tree leaves change colour: they seem to give us back again all the sunshine they have been storing up during summer, for they blaze like the sunset sky in myriad shades of gold, and red, and orange. In windy open places, these beautiful leaves soon strew the ground with a thick carpet that whirls and rustles in every breeze. But in sheltered glades, and especially in hedges, the leaves will hang all winter till they are pushed off by the new spring buds, and they glow russet red in the December sunshine, like the breast of the robin that is singing on the twig.

At every stage the Beech tree is a thing of beauty, and it is one of England’s most precious possessions.

The young flowers appear about the same time as the leaves, and, like many other trees, the Beech has two kinds of flowers. The stamen flower (6) has a long, drooping stalk, from the end of which hangs a loose covering of fine brown scales, with pointed ends. Beyond this scaly covering hangs a tassel of purplish brown stamens, eight or twelve, or more, each with a yellow head.

On the same twig, not very far distant, you find the seed flower (5). This grows upright on a short stout stalk which bears at the end a bristly oval ball (7). At the top of this bristly ball you see six slender threads waving in the air. These rise from two seeds which are enclosed in the bristly covering. By and by the ball opens at the top and forms a cup with four prickly brown sides, each lined with silky green down. Inside the cup are two triangular green nuts which are the fruit (8). These nuts become dark brown when they ripen, and on windy days they are blown in thousands from their coverings and fall to the ground, where they lie hidden among the rustling brown leaves.

THE BIRCH

1. Birch Tree in Autumn
2. Leaf Spray
3. Seed Catkin
4. Stamen Catkin
5. Winged Seed enlarged
5A. Winged Seed natural size]

In old times people called these Beech nuts Beech-mast or food, and herds of pigs were taken to the Beech woods to feed on the nuts, which are said to contain oil. But pigs prefer to eat acorns, and nowadays the Beech nuts are left to fatten the squirrels and dormice, and the thrushes and deer, except those which children gather to string into necklaces.

No grass or plant will grow below the Beech tree branches: the leaves are too close together to let the sunshine reach the ground; also the roots are greedy, and are said to use up all the nourishment.

About a hundred years ago a Beech tree was found in Germany whose young leaves were dark purple red, and never became green. Young plants from this strange tree were much sought after, and now in many parts of the country you see red or copper beeches, as we usually call them.

Beech wood is used in various ways. In France the peasants make it into shoes--wooden shoes called sabots, which keep out the damp better than those made of any other wood. It is also used in ship-building and for making cheap furniture; but Beech wood is not nearly so valuable as that of the Oak, or Ash, or Elm.

PLATE III

THE BIRCH

“Sweet bird of the meadow, soft be thy nest,
Thy mother will wake thee at morn from thy rest:
She has made a soft nest, little redbreast, for thee,
Of the leaves of the birch, and the moss of the tree.”

--Leyden.

The Birch tree is the daintiest and most fairy-like of all our forest trees, and, strange to say, it is one of the hardiest. Who would believe that the delicate tracery of purple twigs and branches, which looks like fairy fretwork against the grey wintry sky, could thrive in places where the sturdy Oak tree dies?

In the far, far north, in Lapland, where the ground is snow-covered all the year, the Birch tree flourishes, and many are the uses to which it is put in that dreary land.

Look at the Birch tree (1) early in the year before the sun has awakened the trees, and flowers, and seeds from their long winter sleep. It is easy to recognise, because no other tree has such delicate twigs and branches, and the colour of the trunk is peculiarly its own. Most tree trunks are grey, or grey-green, or brown, but the trunk of the Birch is covered with a silvery white bark that glistens like satin. In many places this bark is marked with dark bands which crack across the tree trunk on the silvery surface.

This silver bark is a wonderful thing. It peels off readily in large flakes which resemble tissue paper, and which look very easy to destroy, but are wonderfully tough and lasting. It burns readily, but in almost no other way can it be destroyed. If a Birch tree is blown down and left lying on the damp ground for many years, all the wood inside the silvery bark will decay, but the outside of the trunk remains unchanged. Stand on it, and you find that what you took to be a solid tree is nothing but a hollow tube of bark.

In North America the Indians cover their canoes with Birch bark, and in some snow-covered countries the people use it for tiles with which to roof their houses. Some time ago, when men were digging in the peat-bogs of Lancashire, they found the remains of Birch trees which must have been there for a thousand years. The wood had turned into stone, but the bark was still the same as when it grew on the tree.

In April the young leaves (2) cover the tree like a green mist. They are very tiny, the smallest and most fairy-like of all our tree leaves. Each leaf is oval in shape, with a glossy surface, and has a double row of teeth, first a large tooth, then a smaller one, cut unequally all round the edge. The leaf stalk is very slender and wiry, and the twig to which it is attached is very little stouter, so that the leaves dance and rustle in the slightest breath of wind. Sometimes the back of a Birch leaf is covered with fine yellow powder. This powder is really a tiny plant which has made its home on the Birch tree leaf and feeds on it, just as the ivy and mistletoe do on larger trees. In autumn these leaves turn pale yellow, and the moss and heather are strewn with their flakes of gold.

There is another stranger makes its home on some of the Birch trees. In spring, before the leaves come, you may often notice curious bunches of twigs that look like crows’ nests high up among the branches. These are caused by a tiny insect which has come to stay on the Birch tree, and, in some way which we do not understand, it makes all the twigs crowd together in that curious manner. “Witches’ Knots” they are called in Scotland.

In May the Birch tree is in flower. You know that tree flowers are not so easy to see as meadow flowers: they require to be sought for and looked at carefully if you wish to know about them. The Birch tree has two kinds of flowers, and both are needed if the seed from which new trees may grow is to be made ready. It takes the tree a whole year to prepare one kind of flower. During summer look at the foot of a leaf stalk, where it joins the twig, and you will find two tiny green stamen catkins (4) with all their soft scales tightly closed together. In autumn these little catkins become dark purple, and they hang on the tree all winter. Early in the following spring they change entirely. The scales unclose and the catkins grow longer till they look like a pair of caterpillars loosely shaking in the wind. Behind the scales in these reddy-brown caterpillars you find a mass of flowers, each made up of one tiny sepal, also two slender stamens with small yellow heads.

Now look at the other kind of flower, the seed catkin (3). These also are small and green, but they grow singly and are fatter and rounder than the stamen catkins. Their scales never open very wide, but if you look closely you will see behind each scale three little pear-shaped seed-vessels with two slender horns standing up from the top of each.

When the seeds in this catkin are ripe they resemble tiny nuts with wings on each side (5): and on windy days you can see clouds of these little winged seeds (5_a_) fluttering to the ground like small flies. Birds are very fond of Birch tree seeds, and one kind of finch, the siskin, is usually found hovering among the Birch trees.

The Birch tree lives till it is about a hundred years old. It is not grown up till it is twenty-five, so you will find no seeds on the young birches. It is a tree with many useful qualities. The bark is sometimes twisted into torches, as it contains a good deal of oil, and it is also used in tanning leather. The delicious scent of Russian leather is due to Birch bark oil. And there is sugar in the sap which may be made into wine. Furniture is largely made from the prettily grained Birch wood.

PLATE IV

THE ALDER

The Alder tree (1) is a cousin of the Birch and the Hazel, and like them its flowers and seeds are borne in catkins. It is usually to be found growing by the side of a slow-running stream, over which its slender branches bend gracefully, while its spreading roots cling to the boggy soil at the water’s edge. For the Alder does not thrive in dry ground: it is a water-loving tree, and its many tiny roots attract moisture, and suck it up greedily; so that the ground where the Alder grows is often a marshy swamp.

Sometimes you will find an Alder which has grown into a lofty tree with a rough brown-black bark, and with many large branches; but it is much more frequently found as a low-growing and rather gloomy bush, about the same size as the Hazel.

The wood of the Alder is much sought after for buildings which stand in water. In Venice one of the most famous bridges, the Rialto, is built on piles, or great posts of Alder driven deep into the bed of the canal: and one reads in old history books that boats were first made of the trunks of the Alder tree. But it is of no use for fences or gate posts, as it decays quickly in dry soil.

THE ALDER

1. Alder Tree
2. Leaf Spray
3. Stamen Catkins
4. Seed Catkins
5. Last Year’s Seed Catkins
6. Next Year’s Seed Catkins]

If you watch a woodman cutting down an Alder tree you will notice that the chips which fall under his axe are very white; but soon they change colour and become a reddish pink. The hard wood knots which are found in the tree trunk are beautifully streaked and veined and are much prized by furniture makers.

In early spring you should walk to the banks of a stream and look for an Alder tree. Like the Hazel, you will easily know it by its winter catkins, though these are very different from Hazel catkins. Clinging to the boughs you see groups of small brown oval cones, which are quite hard and woody and which snap off easily. These woody cones are the withered seed catkins (5) of last year. As well as these you find bunches of long drooping caterpillars with tightly-shut purple-green scales, which will not unclose till the spring days come. These are the young stamen catkins, and they have taken six months to grow so far. By these you will always know the Alder tree; and it is most interesting to watch day by day how its catkins grow and change.

In spring the tree produces many groups of tiny seed catkins (4), which are hard and oval and covered with closely-shut green scales. As the days get warmer these cones grow larger and larger, and one day you will find the scales opening as a fir cone does when it is ripe. Underneath each scale are hidden two seeds, and from the top of each seed rise two slender horns. There are no wings to the seed, as in the Birch tree. These seed cones grow fatter and larger all summer, and by autumn their scales, instead of remaining green and soft, have become a dark reddish brown colour and are hard and woody. In October or November the seed is quite ripe, and is shaken on to the boggy ground below. Then the empty seed catkins become dry and shrivelled, and they remain in groups clinging to the twigs all winter.

But the drooping caterpillars have been growing and changing too. Soon after the seed catkins have unclosed their hard oval balls, so that the sun and light may reach their tiny seeds, these drooping stamen catkins (3) unclose, and their scales take on a deeper shade of reddish purple. Each scale is edged with three points, and each point covers four tiny stamens and four tiny petals. When the fine powder in the yellow stamen heads is ripe, the wind blows it from the dangling tails on to the seed cones which are waiting for it, as without the stamen powder the seeds would never ripen: and soon after this happens the dangling tails fall to the ground.

THE HORNBEAM

1. Hornbeam
2. Leaf Spray
3. Stamen Catkin
4. Seed Catkin
5. Fruit]

If you look at an Alder tree in late autumn you will find three kinds of catkins. First, the empty seed catkins with dry woody scales; second, the dangling stamen catkins with the fine stamen dust all blown away; and third, there are tiny little caterpillar catkins with their scales still tightly closed together--these are next year’s stamen catkins (6) just begun to form.

The leaves (2) of the Alder are heavy and leathery. They are usually rounded at the tips, but sometimes they are square, as if a piece had been cut off. Each leaf is prettily toothed all round the edge, and the veins, which run from the centre rib to the margin, are very much raised. When the leaves are newly opened, the under-side is covered with tufts of soft down, and they are slightly sticky. Sometimes they are tinged with dull purple. These leaves are placed alternately on the stem, and while still in bud each leaf is enclosed in a pair of oval sheaths like small yellow ears. These ears do not fall off when the leaf unfolds, as do the leaf coverings of the Birch and the Beech; you will often find them at the bottom of the leaf stalk when the leaf is fully grown.

PLATE V

THE HORNBEAM

This is a tree that many people tell you they have never noticed; even people who know the names of most of our forest trees look surprised if you ask them which is the Hornbeam (1); they have never heard of it. And yet it grows freely in England in the woods and hedgerows, and like the Beech it is invaluable for sheltering with its close bushy branches younger trees that are struggling to live. If left to grow in good soil the Hornbeam will become a tall tree over seventy feet high, but it is not usual to find such well-grown Hornbeams, because the tree is generally planted to form hedges, and as these require thickness and bushiness rather than height, the top of the tree is often cut off, so that all its strength may go to producing side-branches.

Last century it was the fashion to have curious puzzle-paths made in gardens. You entered at a gap in a leafy hedge and walked on and on, and in and out between growing hedges till you came to an open space in the centre. Then the puzzle was to find your way out again, and this was sometimes very difficult. This kind of puzzle-path was called a maze, and the hedges of these mazes were frequently made of Hornbeam, because this tree will allow itself to be clipped and cut into any shape, and if its tall spreading branches are taken away, it at once puts out many small side-shoots which form a thick hedge.

The Hornbeam branches have a curious habit of growing together where they cross each other. You may find two good-sized branches which are separate on the lower part of the tree, but higher up they cross and touch each other, and frequently they join together and become one branch.

In the town of Ghent in Belgium there is a winding walk arched with Hornbeam: the trees have been planted so close that they meet overhead, and they have then been clipped and cut till they form a green tunnel under which you can walk for three hundred yards.

The trunk of the Hornbeam is a dull grey colour, and it is marked with white spots. It is not round, as are most tree trunks, but looks as if it had been slightly flattened, and so made oval when it was young. The leaves are not unlike those of the Elm and the young Beech, and when the tree is young it is sometimes mistaken for one or other of these. But you will notice some differences if you look carefully.

The Hornbeam leaf (2) is oval and tapers to a sharp point. It has strongly-marked veins running from the centre to the edge of the leaf, and these veins stand up like cord on the under-side of the leaf. You remember that the Beech leaf was smooth and glossy, and that the Elm leaf was rough and hairy? The Hornbeam comes just between the two: it is too rough to be a Beech leaf, and is also too pointed, and it is too smooth to be an Elm leaf. Besides, the two sides of the Hornbeam leaf meet exactly opposite each other on the leaf stalk, and in the Elm the one side of the leaf very often joins the stalk farther down than the other: the leaf is lopsided.

The Hornbeam leaves have two rows of teeth round the edge, and in autumn they turn yellow, and this yellow colour changes into red-brown as the winter draws near. In sheltered places the leaves will hang on the branches all winter, till in spring they are pushed off by the young leaf buds.

The Hornbeam has two kinds of flowers, which grow in catkins, and both are found on the same tree. The stamen catkins (3) come with the young leaves early in April, and they grow on those twigs which were produced last year. It is not possible to mistake the Hornbeam for either the Beech or the Elm if you see the flowers, for neither of these has hanging catkins like the Hornbeam. Each catkin is made up of many green scales covering the catkin loosely. These scales are broad and oval, and they end in a sharp point. Hidden at the foot of each scale lies a thick bunch of yellow-headed stamens with no petals and no sepals around them. These yellow stamen heads end in tufts of fine hairs, and they are filled with pollen dust. As soon as this dust is ripe the yellow heads burst and scatter it over the seed flowers which have been making ready to receive it. After this the stamen catkins shrivel, and they soon fall from the tree.

But there are other Hornbeam flowers, also growing in catkins (4) which appear at the end of this year’s young twigs. Each catkin is covered with soft, silky spear leaves, and behind every three of these narrow leaves there nestles a tiny seed with two little horns standing up at the top. These silky leaves soon fall off and are replaced by others which are very different. These are called bracts, and they look like a small hand with one long finger and two much shorter fingers. They are covered with a network of fine veins, and inside the hand sits the fruit (5), a small three-sided nut. When you see a bushy, drooping cluster of these green leafy bracts, each with its nut at the foot, you wonder how any one could mistake the Hornbeam for either the Beech or the Elm.

You will often see a dainty little bird called the hawfinch sitting on the Hornbeam branches and eating the nuts.

The wood of this tree is said to be very hard. Joiners do not care to work on Hornbeam, as it quickly blunts their tools; and some people tell you that the name is really Hard-beam, and that we have got into a careless habit of calling the tree by a wrong name. But there is another tale which may be the true one. Long ago, when ploughing was done by bullocks in this country, as it is to-day in many lands, each pair of bullocks was fastened together with a wooden collar called a yoke. This yoke was made of Hornbeam because of its strength, and the tree might get its name because from it was made the beam of wood that goes over the horns.

Nowadays the wood is little used except for making small things, such as handles of knives, and spoons, and cog-wheels.

PLATE VI

THE HAZEL

There are few of us who think of the Hazel as one of our forest trees. We know it as a large, straggling bush, with a thicket of leaves and branches, among which are hidden delicious nuts. But in some places the Hazel has quite outgrown the bush stage: in Middlesex there is a Hazel tree sixty feet high, with a straight thick trunk and many large branches covered luxuriantly with leaves.

The Hazel (1) has been known in history for many centuries. The Romans wrote that its spreading roots did harm to the young vines, but they found its supple twigs invaluable for tying up the straggling vine shoots.

Scotland is said to have been called Caledonia from Cal Dun, which means the hill of Hazel. And in Surrey we have the name Haslemere, which tells its own story.

THE HAZEL

1. Hazel Bush
2. Leaf Spray with Nuts
3. Stamen Catkin
4. Seed Catkins
5. Hazel Nuts]

In damp places beside streams, or on light soil close to quarries, or among broken rocky ground, the Hazel thrives, and many are the happy afternoons spent by children of all ages gathering nuts in the Hazel coppice. This is the only tree we have which produces food good to eat in its wild state.

You will not find the Hazel difficult to recognise at any time of year. Before the month of January is over you will notice a pair of long brown caterpillars dangling in the wind from many of the Hazel twigs: lamb’s tails, the country children call them, but their correct name is Hazel catkins; and like those of the Birch tree, they have been hanging on the tree all winter, but were so small that you did not notice them.

In summer, if you look carefully, you find many tiny green stamen catkins growing between the foot of the leaf stalk and the branch. These green cones grow very, very slowly all autumn and winter, and when January is nearly over they change into these dangling tails or hanging catkins (3), and their tightly-folded scales begin to unclose. Behind these scales lie eight stamens, each of which has a bright yellow head. These yellow heads are filled with fine powder, and when ripe they burst, and the fine powder is shaken out by the wind. Soon after, the catkin turns brown and shrivelled, and before very long it falls off; its work for the year is over.

When the snowdrops bloom, in the end of January, the other Hazel flowers or seed catkins are ready. They are not easily seen, so you must look for them carefully. On each side of the stalk you will find a small scale-covered bud (4), and at the tip of this bud rises a tuft of crimson threads. Inside this scale-covered bud are the seeds, and from the top of each seed rise two crimson threads. On windy days the fine powder from the yellow stamen heads is shaken over these crimson threads, which carry it to the young seeds hidden beneath the scaly covering. As spring advances this crimson tuft disappears and the bud busies itself making the seed, which must be ready by autumn. The covering of the seed hardens like a nut: at first this nut is pale green, but in winter it becomes a glossy russet brown.

Inside this nut (5) lies the kernel of the seed, and it is this sweet kernel which is the fruit we eat. Meantime the scaly leaves, which formed the covering of the young bud, have grown much larger: they have become tough and leathery, and their ends are deeply divided, as if they were torn. In the Filbert Hazel, which is a cousin of the common Hazel and very like it, these leathery coverings conceal the nut. But in the common or Cobnut Hazel they form a cup in which the nut sits in the same way as the acorn does in its cup.

The leaves (2) of the Hazel appear in early spring. They are rounded leaves, sometimes slightly heart-shaped, and they have two rows of teeth cut round the edge. Each leaf is rough and hairy, and is covered with a network of veins which seems to pucker the leaf. At first the young leaf stalk and branches are covered with fine down, but this soon wears off. Notice how many long, straight shoots rise from the ground beside the Hazel roots. On these Hazel shoots the leaves are placed in two rows on each side of the shoot, with the leaves not opposite each other, but alternate. The shoots make good baskets, and hoops, and hurdles, because they can be so easily bent into many shapes without breaking. The branches of the Hazel bush have the same good qualities, and they are valuable for fishing rods and walking-sticks, and such purposes, where toughness and elasticity are needed.

The Hazel leaves hang longer on the tree than most other leaves. The frost changes their colour from a dull grey-green to a pale yellow, but still they cling to their stalks till the winter wind strips them from the branches.

It is said that Hazel shoots or twigs have the power of showing where water is concealed. In places where there are no lakes, or rivers, or streams near at hand, water is got by digging wells deep down into the ground, and so allowing the stores which are hidden there to rise to the surface. But it is not everywhere that these hidden supplies will be found, and as digging a well costs a great deal of money, people are unwilling to begin the work unless they are likely to succeed. So they send for a man who is called a diviner, because he divines or guesses where water will be found. He walks across the fields carrying a Hazel rod in his hand, and when he reaches a spot where water lies beneath, the Hazel rod changes position in his hand and the well is sunk at the spot which the diviner points out. So the story goes.

For many generations it was a custom in this country to burn Hazel nuts on the night of October 31, All-Hallow Eve. Friends would meet together late in the evening, and each person would place two nuts as near together as possible in a clear red fire. The nuts were supposed to represent the two friends, and if they burned quietly and evenly, then the future was sure to be happy; but if they flared angrily or sputtered hissingly, especially if they burst with a loud report, then misfortune was supposed to follow the friends.

Hazel nuts are eagerly devoured by squirrels and dormice, and there is one bird, the Nuthatch, that is very busy and grows sleek and fat when the Hazel fruit is ripe. This bird breaks off a nut branch and flies away with it to an old oak tree. There he strips off the covering of leaves and cleverly places the bare nut in a crevice of the rough oak trunk. Then with his strong bill he hammers at the shell till it breaks and he can get at the nut inside. On still October days in the quiet woods you will hear his bill tap-tapping from the trunk of the oak tree.

THE LIME

1. Lime Tree
2. Leaf Spray with Flowers
3. Pink Buds
4. Flower Cluster
5. Fruit with Bract]

PLATE VII

THE LIME OR LINDEN

“The Lime, a summer home of murmurous wings.”

--Tennyson.

The Lime or Linden (1) is one of the most familiar trees in our large towns. It is very hardy, and you find it planted by the side of our smoky streets, where it seems to thrive in spite of the clouds of sooty dust that cover its delicate leaves.