Chapter III: Part 3

These seed catkins (5) are covered with greenish scales, which are tightly pressed together at first. But in the warm spring sunshine the scales unclose, and from the foot of each scale rises a small green pear-shaped seed-vessel which has two tiny straps standing up at the top. The wind wafts the stamen dust to the tree, and some of it falls on these two small straps, which act as messengers and carry the dust down to the inside of the seed-vessel, where the plant makes ready the new seed. Unless you have a seed-bearing tree and a stamen-bearing tree growing within reach of each other, you cannot have any new seeds; but it is possible to increase the number of Willow trees by cutting off branches and planting them in a particular way in the ground, when they will send out roots and grow.

There are two other kinds of White Willow which are found nearly as frequently as the one I have just described, and neither is difficult to recognise. The Golden Willow is the name usually given to one, on account of its twigs, which are a bright shade of yellow-green, and these golden twigs are very noticeable in winter beside the dark branches of the Elms and Beeches. In this Willow the stamens and scales of the dust-producing catkins are the colour of a canary’s feathers, and in the spring sunshine they glisten like gold. This is the loveliest of all the Willow trees.

The third White Willow is known as the Crack Willow, because the branches are very easily broken; a knock will snap them from the tree trunk. If ever you try to gather a twig from other Willow trees, you will find how difficult it is to separate it from the branch. The thin green peel, with the leaves clinging to it, comes away in your hand, leaving the bare white twig still clinging to the branch, and without a knife you will scarcely force them apart. But the twigs of the Crack Willow may be snapped across easily, and the large branches are readily broken on a windy night.

THE GOAT WILLOW

1. Goat Willow or Sallow Tree
2. Leaf Spray
3. Pussy Buds
4. Stamen Catkins
5. Seed Catkins]

The wood of the White and of the Golden Willow is valuable, and is much used by builders for floors and rafters. Coopers say it makes excellent casks, and many of our best cricket bats are made from Willow wood. When straw is scarce people are said to make hats from Willow sprays. They gather the small branches and split them into long, thin strips, and these are woven into fine plaits, which are then joined together.

PLATE XVI

THE GOAT WILLOW OR SALLOW

“In Rome upon Palm Sunday
They bear true palms,
The cardinals bow reverently
And sing old psalms.

Elsewhere these psalms are sung
Beneath the olive branches,
The holly-bush supplies their place
Amid the avalanches.”

The second Willow or group of Willows you should learn about is the most difficult of all. In it there are many different varieties, and you would require to plant one of each kind in your garden, as a gentleman in England has done, and study them carefully for many years to discover the points wherein each Willow differs from the other.

Though the Goat Willow or Sallow (1) sometimes grows into a tall tree, it is more often seen as a bush--a bush with a short, rough stem, which does not rise far above the ground, and which sends up many tall, slender branches, covered with smooth, purplish brown peel or skin. Early in March, before the snowdrops have withered, you will find the Goat Willow in every hedge and coppice bursting into scaly brown buds. It is one of our earliest trees, and after a few days of warm sunshine the brown scales unclose and the branches are dotted with the softest and silkiest little pussy buds (3), shaped like tiny eggs and covered with grey down.

These buds grow alternately on the smooth stem with a small space between each bud. In a few days the baby buds have changed, and you may find two Willow bushes growing quite near each other on which the buds are very different. For those woolly buds are the flower catkins, and the Goat Willow bears two kinds of flowers, which do not grow on the same tree.

The bees have found out that the Willow is in flower; you can hear a swarm of them buzzing in the leafless branches, and you wonder where there is any honey to be found. On one tree the soft grey downy buds have grown larger, and they are now golden yellow catkins (4). The whole bud is covered with dainty yellow-headed stamens, nestling in pairs among oval scales edged with silky down, and it is at the base of these yellow-headed stamens that the bee finds the sweet drops of honey juice.

For many hundreds of years branches of the Goat Willow or Sallow have been carried in this country to church on Palm Sunday in remembrance of the branches of palm which the people strewed in front of Christ when He entered Jerusalem. Troops of boys and girls go into the country lanes and coppices to gather Willow-palms, which they sometimes pluck so roughly and carelessly that the tree remains broken and ruined for the rest of the year. These silky stamen catkins of the Goat Willow are one of the most welcome signs of the return of spring.

But there are other Willow flowers to be looked at: flowers which may not be so attractive, but which bear the seeds and make ready the new plants. These flowers are silky too, and underneath the soft down is an egg-shaped catkin (5), covered with small pear-shaped green seeds. Each seed has a thick yellow point at the top, and at the base there rises a scale which is pointed like a cat’s ear and is covered with long, silky hairs. When the stamen flowers are ripe their yellow heads burst, and the fine dust which fills them falls on the backs of the bees who are sipping the honey juice. Then they fly away to find another honey flower, and they often alight on a seed catkin, where the pollen dust is shaken off among the little yellow points which are waiting for it to help in the making of the new seeds. Each flower catkin sits upright on a tuft of small pale green leaves.

The leaves (2) of the Goat Willow are very different from those of the other Willows; they are broad and oval, with edges which are crinkled or waved all round and with a network of fine veins covering the leaf. These leaves, when they first come out, are covered with white down, but by the time they are full grown they are dark and shiny on the upper side, and are only downy beneath.

There is another bushy Willow which perhaps you might mistake for the Goat Willow or Sallow: this is the Purple Osier. It grows in boggy marshes, by the banks of slow-running streams, and it too has silky grey catkins. But you will easily recognise the Purple Osier by two things. It has long, slender stems like whips, rising straight from the tree trunk. These slender stems are covered with a fine purple skin or peel, and if you try to pick an Osier stem the peel comes away in your hand, leaving the white Willow stem still growing. These Osier stems are valuable for making baskets, and are grown in great quantities for this purpose.

The second point in which the Purple Osier differs from the Goat Willow is this: if you gather a yellow catkin and look at the yellow-headed stamens which cover it, you will see that the slender stalks of the stamens are joined together, making one stalk with two yellow heads, whereas in the Goat Willow or Sallow each yellow stamen head sways at the end of its own stalk.

There is one other Willow tree I should like to tell you about, because it is so curious. It is a tree which creeps close to the ground, and which is found growing in great quantities in the Highlands among the grass and heather. It is called the Dwarf Willow, and it too has silky catkins which grow on the tough wiry branches.

You might not notice these stamen catkins, but you could not help noticing the seed catkins. These cover the ground with tufts of white cotton wool like thistle-down, and when you lift one of these tufts you find that the pear-shaped green seed-vessels have split down the centre to allow many tiny seeds to escape, and each seed is winged with a tuft of silky down. After all the seeds have flown away on the wind, the withered seed-vessels still remain on the catkin, no longer green, but a rusty red-brown colour, which is very noticeable among the small glossy green leaves.

PLATE XVII

THE SCOTCH PINE OR SCOTCH FIR

The Scotch Pine (1), or, as it is often called by mistake, the Scotch Fir, is one of our noblest trees; it is tall, and rugged, and sturdy, with a beauty which lies in its strength and dignity rather than in its grace. In bygone days large tracts of Scotland were clothed with vast forests of Scotch Pine, under whose gloomy branches many wolves roamed and the wild deer wandered in herds. But the owners of these noble forests cut down the trees to get money for the timber, and the wolves have disappeared. There is now only a scanty remnant of the great army of Pine trees which once clothed the northern lands of Britain.

Those vast forests were not planted by man. The young trees sprang from seeds which had fallen from the woody fruit cones, and were carried by rooks or other birds to places where human beings rarely trod. There the young seeds grew and sent out their greedy roots. If the soil was good and plentiful they produced a strong carrot-shaped root, which bored deep into the ground and gave the tree such a firm hold that no storm could tear it up. But if the ground had only a little earth on the surface and there were hard rocks beneath, then the roots crept like serpents near the surface of the soil, clasping the rocks with a tight grip to steady the tree.

THE SCOTCH PINE

1. Scotch Pine Tree
2. Leaf Needles
3. Stamen Flower
4. Seed Flower (pink cones)
5. Green Cones
6. Grey Cone
7. Seed with Wing]

How the wind roars in the Pine branches on the high mountain lands! It is like the sound of the sea. If the Pine tree had broad leaves, such as the Sycamore or the Lime tree, it would soon be blown down; but the storm gusts pass through its fine needle-leaves, and no harm is done.

The trunk of the Scotch Pine is very rough, and it is covered with rugged pieces of reddish bark, separated from each other by deep furrows. It rises to a great height, throwing out many large branches on each side, and there is always a bushy rounded tree-top looking up to the sky. In a Pine forest the lower part of the tree is usually bare. This is because the trees are planted so close together there is little air except near the top of the tree, and the lower branches are stifled.

Beneath the branches the ground is always carpeted with fallen Pine leaves, and very curious these Pine leaves (2) are. They look like green needles with soft blunt points, and the edges of each needle are rolled back so that the leaf appears round above and is boat-shaped below. The under-side of the needle is much lighter in colour than the dark green surface.

These needle-leaves usually grow in pairs, though you may find a bunch containing three or even four needles; they are held together by a thin grey sheath, which looks like paper and clasps the end of the bunch. These needle-bunches are placed all round the twig, close together, so as to form a dense brush. They remain on the tree for two or three years, then they fall; but their work is not done. Very often the Pine tree seed has been carried to some sandy sea-shore upon which nothing is willing to grow. There it takes root and flourishes, and in course of time it throws down handfuls of withered needle-leaves on the loose sandy ground. These needles decay and form a bed of soil which binds the sand together, and when the wind and the birds bring other seeds, they find a place in which they can take root and grow. In France great tracts of waste land have become valuable in this way through the planting of Pine trees.

The Pine tree has its flowers in catkins and its fruit in cones. The catkins are of two kinds, and they grow on the same tree, sometimes on the same branch. The stamen flowers (3) are found in dense spikes at the end of last year’s bushy twig. They look like a cluster of bunches of small yellow grains from which a tuft of fine green spears rises in the centre. These grains are the stamen heads, and in May and June they send out clouds of fine yellow powder, which floats in the air and settles on the leaves and on the grass and on the margins of lakes and rivers, where you can see little patches of it lying. Country peasants sometimes tell you that this yellow powder is sulphur which has fallen from the sky during a thunder-storm!

The seed flowers (4) of the Pine tree are very different. They grow either singly or in pairs at the end of this year’s new twig, and at first they are tiny pale pink cones. These cones are egg-shaped, and are made up of scales tightly pressed together, with little hard dots showing at the tip of each scale. The seeds are behind the scales, but you will not see them for a long time, as the cone takes eighteen months to grow up. At the end of the first summer you find that the pink cone has become a rich green colour (5) and is still soft, but when the second summer comes round, the cone is ash-grey in colour (6) and is hard and woody.

When the seeds are ripe the tightly-pressed scales unclose and curl up, showing thick wooden lips; at the base of each scale lie two white seeds, and each seed (7) has a thin filmy wing. When the seeds fall from the cone they are blown long distances, floating on the air by their filmy wings.

There is a bird called the crossbill which is very fond of Pine seeds, and very clever at picking them out of the half-opened cones.

You will occasionally find a tree, very similar to the Scotch Pine, in which the cones grow in groups of three or four together at the end of the twigs. This tree is called the Cluster Pine, and you will notice that its bunches of leaves are different in colour: they are a bluey green, and the tips of the needles are yellowish, as if they had begun to wither.

The wood of the Pine tree is very valuable. Thousands of pounds were paid for the trees in the old Scotch forests, and many stout ships were built from their sturdy trunks. Besides the good timber, the Pine tree gives us turpentine and resin from its juice. If you cut a hole in a Pine tree stem a thick juice will soon be seen oozing from this hole, and it quickly hardens into a clear gum.

PLATE XVIII

THE YEW

Once upon a time a discontented Yew tree grew in a country graveyard. Other trees, it thought, had larger and more beautiful leaves which fluttered in the breeze and became red and brown and yellow in the sunshine, and the Yew tree pined because the fairies had given it such an unattractive dress. One morning the sunshine disclosed that all its green leaves had changed into leaves made of gold, and the heart of the Yew tree danced with happiness. But some robbers, as they stole through the forest, were attracted by the glitter, and they stripped off every golden leaf. Again the tree bemoaned its fate, and next day the sun shone on leaves of purest crystal. “How beautiful!” thought the tree; “see how I sparkle!” But a hailstorm burst from the clouds, and the sparkling leaves lay shivered on the grass. Once more the good fairies tried to comfort the unhappy tree. Smooth broad leaves covered its branches, and the Yew tree flaunted these gay banners in the wind. But, alas, a flock of goats came by and ate of the fresh young leaves “a million and ten.” “Give me back again my old dress,” sobbed the Yew, “for I see that it was best.” And ever since its leaves remain unchanging, and it wears the sombre dress which covered its boughs in the days when King William landed from Normandy on our shores, and the swineherd tended his pigs in the great forests which covered so much of Merry England.

THE YEW

1. Yew Tree
2. Leaf Spray
3. Stamen Flower
4. Seed Flower
5. Spray with Fruit]

In history books we read how important the Yew tree once was. Long before the invention of guns and gunpowder, many of our soldiers carried bows made of Yew tree wood, and from these they shot deadly arrows with tremendous force. Three of England’s Kings--Harold, William Rufus, and Richard Cœur de Lion--were slain by such arrows, and it was from a Yew tree bow that Tell sent the arrow that halved the apple placed on his son’s head.

The Yew tree (1) grows very, very slowly; it never becomes a tall tree, not even when it has lived hundreds and hundreds of years, because, instead of sending up one thick trunk, it has the strange habit of dividing into a cluster of trunks, three or four or more of equal thickness, which rise from one root. These trunks are covered with browny red bark and are very smooth; the red bark peels off in thin flakes, and you can see that the wood beneath it is a deep orange red.

From the clustered trunks many branches stretch out to form a densely bushy tree; these branches are closely covered with small twigs, on which grow short narrow leaves (2), ending in blunt points, and with the edges slightly curved backwards. These leaves grow alternately all round the twig, and they are dark and glossy above but much paler beneath. They do not fall from the tree in winter, as the Yew, like the Holly, is one of our evergreen trees. Yew tree leaves are very poisonous, and many tales are told of cattle and horses which have died from eating them.

Some people believe that the Yew tree is planted in churchyards because it is poisonous and is associated with death; while others think just the opposite, and say that it is placed among the tombstones to remind us that the soul is undying, like the Yew tree leaves.

In February or March if you strike a Yew tree bough with a stick you will see clouds of fine yellow powder rising from the tree. This powder is the stamen dust, and if you pull a spray of leaves and examine it you will discover clusters of small oval yellow flowers (3) nestling close to the main stem where the leaf joins it. The Yew tree belongs to the great family of trees whose fruit is a cone and which bear their flowers in catkins. Take a magnifying-glass, and it will show you that each catkin is composed of a bunch of stamens rising from a slender pillar at the foot of which are a few dry, papery scales. Each stamen has six dust-bags at the end, and when the stamen powder is ripe these dust-bags open, and the fine yellow powder is blown like meal over the leaves and seeds.

The Yew tree has seed flowers (4) as well as those which bear the stamens. Usually they grow on a different tree, but occasionally you will find them on the same Yew, but on a separate branch. It is a curious thing about the Yew tree and its relations that these seeds are not covered in any way, but lie naked to the sun and rain. They always grow on the under-side of the stem, and at first they look like tiny acorns. You notice a small disc surrounded by a few scales, and on this disc sits the little green acorn with its olive green skin. This acorn is waiting for the stamen dust to reach it. As soon as the wind has blown the yellow powder over it a beautiful cup of pale pink wax grows round the green seed. There is no hard, woody cone on the Yew tree; the fruit (5) is this pale pink waxen berry, shaped like a fairy cup and filled with sticky juice. The walls of the pink cup are soft and fleshy, and you can just see the tip of the green seed standing up in the centre. They are very lovely, these waxy pink berries on the dark green spray, but they are said to be poisonous.

Sometimes at the end of a Yew spray there grows a curious-looking cone like a small artichoke, made of soft green leaves. This is caused by a tiny gnat which lays its eggs in a Yew tree bud, and in some strange way that we do not understand causes it to develop this tuft of strange leaves. You will remember that in the Oak a similar growth is found.

The wood of the Yew tree is very hard and durable, as are all woods which grow slowly. “A Yew tree post will outlast a post of iron” is a saying often repeated by farmers; but the Yew wood is not much in demand for manufacturing purposes.

PLATE XIX

THE JUNIPER

In the Bible we read that when Elijah fled from the cruel persecution of King Ahab and the wicked Queen Jezebel, he sat down under a Juniper tree to rest. When we look at the Juniper as it grows in this country, we wonder how the prophet could have found rest beside such a prickly tree, or shade beneath such a small one. But in other lands the Juniper grows much taller; and as all books about trees give it a place beside its relations the Yew and the Scotch Pine, it must be included among the common trees you should learn to know.

THE JUNIPER

1. Juniper Bushes
2. Leaf Spray with Flowers
3. Stamen Flower (much enlarged)
4. Seed Flower (much enlarged)
5. Spray with Fruit]

In Britain the Juniper (1) is found on heathy commons or high on the upland plains, where it flourishes as a large, thick, bushy shrub, and occasionally shoots up into a small tree. It is rather a gloomy-looking tree: in spring time, when most of our trees look fresh and bright in their young green leaves, the Juniper shows little change. Its leaves are evergreen, and the new leaves grow in small tufts at the tips of the branches, so that you scarcely notice them.

The Juniper bark is dark reddish brown, and it flakes off in small pieces in the same way as the Yew tree bark. The branches are small and thin, and they clothe the trunk close to the very ground; it would be difficult to sit comfortably under a Juniper tree in this country. Like the Yew, it is a very slow-growing tree.

Juniper leaves (2) are not in the least like ordinary leaves: they are more like thorns than leaves, and they are not easy to gather. But if you examine a spray carefully you will find that each leaf is like a narrow flat spear with a sharp point at the end. Each leaf has a slight groove cut from end to end in the upper side, which is dark green, very smooth and glossy. Notice how curiously the leaves are grouped on the spray. They are placed in incomplete circles of three, and there is always a short space between each of the circles.

Juniper flowers are of two kinds, and they usually grow on separate trees, though sometimes you may find both kinds on separate branches of the same tree. The stamen flowers (3) are in full bloom in May, and you will find them growing in small scaly catkins close to the foot of the leaf where it joins the stem. The heads of the stamens stand like a row of small yellow beads along the edge of each scale, and when they are ripe the beads burst and the leaves around are covered with their fine yellow powder.

The seed flowers (4) also grow at the foot of the leaves, and at first you might mistake them for young buds. They have thicker and more fleshy scales than those of the stamen catkins, and after the yellow stamen dust is blown by the wind on to their seed-vessels the upper scales grow into a green berry (5). These green berries remain in the tree all through the winter, and the following summer they change into a deep purplish black. Each berry has a soft grey bloom all over it, like the bloom on a grape.

These berries are very bitter to taste, but are not poisonous; in some illnesses country people use them successfully as a medicine.

Many are the uses of the Juniper, and in olden days it was highly valued.

THE LARCH

1. Larch Tree
2. Leaf Tufts
3. Stamen Catkins
4. Seed Catkins
5. Young Cone
6. Ripe Cone]

In Sweden the berries are eaten to breakfast; sometimes they are roasted and ground into coffee.

The wood and its berries may be burnt in sick-rooms to purify the air and refresh the patient. Country people believed that burning sprays of Juniper kept away witches, and the smoke was supposed to drive away serpents, as well as to destroy any germs of plague or other infectious disease.

In Scotland the smoke from a Juniper fire is used for curing hams.

In Lapland the peasants make ropes from the Juniper bark, and they tell you that if a bit of Juniper wood is lighted and then carefully covered with ashes it will keep alight for a whole year.

The trunk of the Juniper tree is too small and slight to be very useful as timber; but good walking-sticks are often made from the branches and young stems.

PLATE XX

THE LARCH

“When rosy plumelets tuft the larch.”

--Tennyson.

The Larch (1) was brought to Britain in the seventeenth century from its home on the high mountains of Germany, Austria, and Italy. It has taken kindly to our cheerless climate, and now covers acres of what was once barren moorland.

A few years after Larches are planted the long flexible branches of the young trees meet and form a thicket into which little light or air can enter, and the weeds and heather growing round the tree roots are stifled. Each winter the Larch sheds on the bare ground millions of its tiny needle-leaves, which enrich the soil.

After the young trees have grown to a certain height the forester thins the plantation; he cuts down a number of the young trees, so that those which remain may have more room to grow, and he removes all the withered branches near the ground. This allows the sunshine to reach the soil, and soon after a crop of soft, fine grass is seen carpeting the ground. Sheep and cattle can now be pastured where a short time before there grew nothing but heather and weeds.

Look at a Larch plantation in winter time, and you will think that all the trees are dead. The Pines and the Firs are resting, and the Oaks and Beeches seem asleep, but their branches do not have the dead, withered look of the Larch trees. Come again early in spring, and you will see a wonderful change. These dead twigs are now a pale glossy brown, so glossy that they might have been varnished. Try to pull one, and you will find how tough and sound it is; only where the twig joins the branch can you separate it from the tree; and what a delightful smell of turpentine remains on your fingers after gathering the Larch twigs!

In the trunk of this tree there are stores of turpentine, tiny lakes of it, which are of considerable value. In Italy, where the Larch trees grow to great size, small holes are bored through the trunk to the very heart of the tree, and a thin pipe is put in. Then a can is hung on the end of the pipe, and the pure turpentine juice drops steadily into the can. It is then strained, and is sold just as it comes from the tree.

Early in April the Larch tree begins to get ready for summer; it is always one of the first trees to awaken at the call of spring. On each flexible twig there appear little brown scaly knobs like small beads, placed either singly or in pairs with a short space between each bead. In a few days these scaly beads burst open, and a tuft of vivid green leaves (2), like the fringes round the mouth of a sea-anemone, peeps out. These leaves are soft and flat and slender, very different from the hard needles of the Pine and the harsh swords of the Fir trees, and they grow in tufts, thirty or forty together, rising from the centre of the scaly brown bead. Each tuft is of the brightest green. So the Larch tree is a very vision of spring in the dark Fir plantations, while the leaf buds of many other trees are only awakening from their winter sleep.

In the hedgerows the Hawthorns are in full leaf, the stamen flowers cluster on the boughs of the Elm, and the Hazel and Willow catkins dangle their tails in the wind; but the forest trees remain sombre and gloomy, and the young Larch seems gay as the sunlight among them. As the season advances the Larch tree leaves become darker, and they fall early in winter. We have only one other cone-bearing tree which is not evergreen, and that is the Cypress.

After the leafy tufts appear you will notice that some of the scaly brown beads have not produced any leaves; instead they have become tiny oval catkins (3), which are made up of a crowd of small yellow grains. These catkins are the stamen flowers, and in the yellow grains, which are the heads of the stamens, is prepared the dust powder which the seed flowers require to assist them in getting ready the new seed.

On the same twig, and not far from the stamen catkins, you see a beautiful deep rose-red seed catkin (4). This tiny rose-red catkin is very lovely among the brilliant green tufts of leaves; no other cone-bearing tree has anything so attractive to show us. At first the catkin scales are soft and fleshy; they overlap each other very loosely, and from the base of each scale there rises a bright green point like a single needle-leaf.

In a few weeks the catkin has become a young cone (5), which looks like a small rosy egg sitting erect on a bent footstalk, then the rose-pink colour fades from the cone, and the scales become hard and woody. Behind each scale lie two tiny white seeds with wings, and there is a coating of sticky resin over these seeds to keep them dry. The ripe cones (6) remain on the tree for years, long after the seeds have been blown away on their transparent wings by the wind.

The crossbill often builds his nest in a Larch tree. He is particularly fond of Larch tree seeds, and is very clever at picking them out of the ripe cones.

The trunk of a full-grown Larch is reddish brown in colour, and it is covered with a rough, scaly bark, which is often hung with hoary tufts of pale grey lichen.

Larch wood is very valuable, and is used for many purposes. It is very tough, and does not rot in water. Joiners tell us there are fewer knots in planks of Larch than in those of either Silver Fir or Spruce. Wood knots are scars which occur where a dead branch has fallen from the tree, and builders complain that when the tree is sawn into planks, the knots shrink and fall out, leaving a round hole. This reduces the value of the wood; but in the Larch planks the knots are said not to come away from the surrounding wood.

PLATE XXI

THE SPRUCE FIR

Although the Scotch Pine is sometimes called the Scotch Fir, the latter name is generally admitted to be a mistake. It was given long ago by people who had not seen the real Fir trees, and who did not know how different they are from the Pines. It is several hundred years since the Spruce Fir was brought to this country, but it is not one of our native trees, like the Scotch Pine, the Yew, and the Juniper.

The Spruce (1) is one of our tallest trees; it loves to grow on ground many thousand feet above the level of the sea; and in Switzerland and Norway there are great forests of these slender, soldier-like trees, clothing the sides of the giant snow mountains. With us it does not grow so abundantly, but you will find many Spruce Firs mingling with the Scotch Pine in the large woods of our Scotch Highlands.

The Spruce Fir has a very straggling root which does not penetrate far into the ground; it creeps along close under the surface, and intertwines itself with any other tree roots in the neighbourhood. This does not give it a very firm hold, and after great gales you sometimes find a broad path opened in the Fir woods, which has been made by the Spruce trees falling in the track of the storm.

THE SPRUCE FIR

1. Spruce Fir Tree
2. Leaf Spray
3. Stamen Flowers
4. Seed Flower
5. Cone
6. Seed Scale
7. Growth caused by an Insect]

It is a very straight tree, with a smooth scaly bark of a reddish brown colour; from each side of the trunk slender branches grow straight out like the spokes of a wheel; but each branch rises a little way above the last as the steps rise in a ladder. These branches are very slender, and at first they sweep downwards in graceful curves; but at the tips they all turn upward, so that the points look toward the sky.

The branches get smaller and smaller as the tree grows higher, which gives it the appearance of a pyramid, and at the very top there stands a single upright branch like a spear. This spear-like tip is one of the distinctive features of the Spruce Fir.

The leaves (2) are short and flat and hard, and they are rather prickly to touch. They do not grow in pairs or bundles, as in the Scotch Pine or the Larch; they are placed singly and very close together all round the twig. The twigs grow almost opposite each other on the young sprays, and each spray hangs straight down from the main branch, which looks as if a parting had been made along its centre and the sprays combed evenly to either side. From a distance the Spruce tree branches resemble drooping feathers which curve skyward at the tips.

The Spruce Fir has two kinds of flowers. In May or June, if you look at the tips of the drooping sprays which grew last year, you will see two or three little oval catkins of a pretty yellowish pink colour nestling among the hard, flat leaves. These are the stamen flowers (3), and when ripe they will burst open and scatter a great deal of yellow pollen dust.

The seed flowers (4) grow in cones, and are found at the end of this year’s shoots. It is by these cones you will most readily recognise the Spruce Fir. You remember that in the Scotch Pine the full-grown cones were grey and woody, with tightly-pressed lips, and that these lips were very thick and curled upwards when the cone opened?

In the Fir trees the scales of the ripe cones (5) are like thin glossy brown paper. Each scale ends in two sharp little teeth, and the scales are not tightly pressed together, but overlap each other loosely, so that you could put the blade of a knife under each. The woody cones are always found in Pine trees, and the papery cones are characteristic of the Firs.

In the Spruce Fir these cones are about six inches long, with blunt tips, and when full grown they hang from the sprays. Do not forget to notice this, as in some Fir trees the full-grown cones are seated upright on the branches. Under each scale there lie two little seeds (6), with large pale brown wings; these seeds require over a year to ripen, then the wind blows them from the loosened cone scales to many a strange resting-place, where they take root, and a new tree begins to grow.

Sometimes you may see strange leafy-looking bunches (7) like soft, badly-made cones on the young sprays. These are caused by an insect which lays its eggs in the young leaf bud and destroys its graceful shape.

The Spruce Fir has two enemies that do it great harm. These are the crossbill and the squirrel. They break off the young shoots close to the end, and so stop the growth of the branches. You will often find the ground strewn with these fresh green twigs; but you require to sit very still for a long time if you wish to see the enemies at work.

The wood of the Spruce Fir is valuable for many purposes. The tall, smooth tree trunks are used for the masts of ships, for scaffolding poles, and telegraph posts; and many boat-loads of Fir planks are brought from Norway and from the shores of the Baltic Sea, to be manufactured into flooring boards for our houses. In some places the fibre of the Spruce Fir is reduced to pulp, and from this a common kind of paper is produced which is used for newspapers or cheap magazines.

From the sap we get resin and turpentine, and the bark is used in the tanning of leather.

Some people say that the name Fir wood is just a mistake for fire-wood, because in the old days torches were made of the young fir branches, whose gummy twigs burnt easily with a clear, strong light.

PLATE XXII

THE SILVER FIR

Many people find it difficult to distinguish between the Spruce Fir and the Silver Fir, and they are often called by each other’s names; yet they are unlike in many points, and a little trouble would prevent such mistakes.

The Silver Fir (1) is not one of our native trees; it was brought from Central or Southern Europe to this country in 1603, and has taken kindly to our moist climate. It does not grow on such lofty mountains as the Spruce, but it will thrive at a level of six thousand feet above the sea, higher than the highest mountain in Great Britain.

It is a tall, stately tree, but it is bushier and less regular than the Spruce Fir. The trunk is covered with greyish brown bark, which is smooth when the tree is young; but as the tree grows old--and the Silver Fir will live for four hundred years--this bark cracks into many rugged fissures. You remember that the Spruce tree has a sharp spear-like point rising from the very top of the trunk. In the Silver Fir the tree is only pointed when very young, and by the time it is full grown the top is bushy, with many small unequal branches standing out from the main stem.

THE SILVER FIR

1. Silver Fir Tree
2. Leaf Spray
3. Stamen Flowers
4. Cone Flower
5. Ripe Cone
6. Seed Scale]

These branches do not grow in whorls or circles, like the spokes of a wheel; they are often irregular, and there may be gaps in the tree where a branch has fallen off, and only a scar is left to show where the branch should have been. The Silver Fir is a firmly-rooted tree; it sends a long tap-shaped root, ending in two forks, deep into the soil, so that there is little danger of the wind uprooting it during the wintry gales.

Now look at the leaves (2) which grow on the Silver Fir. Like those of the Spruce, and unlike those of the Pine, they grow singly, each little leaf standing by itself on the rough twig. Although they are placed all round this twig, these leaves have a tendency to grow to right or left of the twig, and look as if they had been parted down the centre and carefully combed to each side.

Each leaf is flat and slender, and on the upper side it is a dark glossy green; the edges are rolled back on to the under-side of the leaf, which is much paler in colour. The centre rib of the leaf is much raised, and looks like a slender cord, and on each side of this cord, between it and the curled-back leaf edge, there runs a silvery white line; it is from this silvery line that the tree gets its name.

Notice that the leaf twigs of the Silver Fir do not droop in the feathery way they do in the Spruce; they are much stiffer, and stand out all round the branch; also, there is not nearly such a marked upward curve at the tip of the branch as you find in the Spruce Fir. The leaves of the Silver Fir remain on the tree eight or nine years, but each year the tree lengthens its sprays, and the young leaves are a beautiful pale yellowish green colour, almost as pale as the young leaves of the primrose.

The stamen flowers (3) grow at the ends of the young sprays. They consist of a few overlapping scales with a cluster of stamens inside. The seed flowers or cones (4) grow on the same tree, sometimes on the same branch, and they become cones in the same way as the seed flowers of the Pine and the Spruce. But you will at once notice a difference. The cones of the Silver Fir grow upright; they sit on the branches with their tops looking up to the sky, whereas the cones of the Spruce and the Scotch Pine when full grown hang down from the ends of the spray with their tips pointing to the ground. If there are any cones visible you will never mistake the Silver Fir for the Spruce.

The ripe cones (5) are made up of many thin, soft scales which overlap each other closely, and each scale ends in a sharp point which turns backward; this gives the cone a hairy appearance. At first the cones are green, like those of the Scotch Pine, but soon they turn purple, and when quite ripe they are a rich red-brown.

If the tree is old enough--that means if it is forty years of age--you will find small angular seeds (6), with a long filmy wing attached, nestling behind each scale. But if the tree is still young, the cones are seedless. It takes eighteen months for the cone to ripen, and when the seeds are ready and they and the red-brown scales fall from the cone, a bare brown stick is left standing upright on the branch.

The wood of the Silver Fir is very valuable, and it is used for many purposes; doors and window-frames and floors are constantly made of it, and for ship-building it is in great demand. In Switzerland there are great forests of Silver Fir, but they grow high on the mountain sides, where there are no roads and no means of getting the trees brought down after they are felled.

But at Lucerne, a town on the shores of a large lake, with great forests on the mountains above, the people invented an excellent way of overcoming this difficulty.

A narrow avenue was cut in the forest among the trees, and this was floored with trunks of Fir and Spruce. Snow and water were poured down this avenue, which the cold air quickly froze, and the avenue became a gigantic ice-slide eight miles long. The Fir trees were felled, and all their branches lopped off, the bare trunks were placed on this slide, and in six minutes they shot into the waters of the lake eight miles below. There they floated till the wood merchant was ready for them.

The Silver Fir tree is rich in gummy juice, which is made into turpentine and resin. Have you ever seen necklaces of pale cloudy beads, and of clear dark brown made of amber? People tell us this amber is found on the shores of the Baltic Sea, and that it is just the gummy juice which dropped long ago from some kind of Fir tree and has hardened in a mysterious way of which we know nothing.

PLATE XXIII

THE HOLLY

“Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen, wrinkled and keen.
No grazing cattle through their prickly round can reach to wound;
But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.”

--Southey.

The Holly (1) is our most important evergreen, and is so well known that it scarcely needs any description. It has flourished in this country as long as the Oak, and is often found growing under tall trees in the crowded forests, as well as in the open glades, where lawns of fine grass are to be found.

THE HOLLY

1. Holly Tree
2. Blunt Leaf
3. Prickly Leaf
4. Flower Cluster
5. Fruit]

People say that the Holly, or Holm tree, as it is often called, is the greenwood tree spoken of by Shakespeare, and that under its bushy shelter Robin Hood and his merry men held their meetings in the open glades of Sherwood Forest. Sometimes it is called the Holy tree, because from the oldest time of which we have any record its boughs have been used to deck our shrines and churches, and in some parts of England the country people in December speak of gathering Christmas, which is the name they give to the Holly, or Holy tree. It is this evergreen which we oftenest use at Christmas-tide to decorate our churches, and very lovely the dark green sprays, with their coral berries, look when twined round the grey stone pillars.

The Holly is looked upon as a second-rate forest tree. It is never very large, and it usually appears as a thick, tall bush, with many branches reaching almost to the ground. Sometimes you find it with a slender, bare trunk, clothed with pale grey bark, and if you look closely at this bark you will see that it is covered with curious black markings, as if some strange writing had been traced on it with a heavy black pen.

This writing is the work of a tiny plant which makes its home on the Holly stem and spreads in this strange way.

The bark of the young Holly shoots and boughs is pale green and quite smooth.

The tree requires little sunshine, and it seems to keep all it gets, as every leaf is highly polished and reflects the light like a mirror. These leaves grow closely on every branch; they are placed alternately on each side of the twigs, and are oval, with the edges so much waved that the leaves will not lie flat, but curl on each side of the centre rib.

The prickly leaves (3) which grow low down on the tree have sharp spines along the waved edges, and a very sharp spine always grows at the point of the leaf. But the upper branches are clothed with blunt leaves (2) which have no spines along the edges; instead there is a pale yellow line round each leaf, and there is a single blunt spine at the point.

Sheep and deer are very fond of eating the tough, leathery leaves of the Holly, and it is believed that the tree clothes its lower branches in prickly leaves to protect itself from these greedy enemies.

Country people tell you that if branches of smooth Holly are the first to be brought into the house at Christmas-time, then the wife will be head of the house all the next year, but if the prickly boughs enter first, then the husband will be ruler.

The Holly leaves hang on the tree several years, and after they fall they lie a long time on the ground before the damp soaks through their leathery skin and makes them decay. You will find Holly leaves from which all the green part of the leaf has disappeared, leaving a beautiful skeleton leaf of grey fibre, which is still perfect in every vein and rib.

The flowers (4) of the Holly bloom in May. They appear in small crowded clusters between the leaf stalk and the twig, and each flower is a delicate pale pink on the outside, but is pure white within. There is a calyx cup edged with four green points, and inside this cup stands a long white tube, with four white petals at the top. There are four yellow-headed stamens, and a tiny seed-vessel is hidden inside the flower tube. Sometimes all these parts will be found complete in a single flower; sometimes there will be flowers on the same branch which have stamens and no seed-vessel, and others which have seed-vessels and no stamens. Perhaps you will find a whole tree on which not a single seed flower grows. This tree may be laden with lovely white flowers in spring, but it will bear no berries in winter. You must have both stamen flowers and seed flowers if the tree is to produce any fruit.

As summer passes, the seed-vessels, which have had stamen dust scattered over them, become small green berries (5), and these berries turn yellow and then change into a deep red, the colour of coral or sealing-wax. The berries cluster round the green stalk, and most beautiful they are among the glossy dark leaves. Inside each berry there are four little fruit stones containing seeds, and the birds love to eat these red berries, which are full of mealy pulp; but remember that children must never eat the Holly berries, as they are poisonous except for the birds.

You will find that if the Holly tree has a good crop of berries this winter there will not be many the following year; the tree seems to require a year’s rest before it can produce a second large crop.

There are some Holly trees with leaves which are shaded with pale yellow or white--variegated Hollies, we call them. These are greatly prized for planting in gardens, where the bushes with different-coloured leaves lend much beauty when all the trees are bare in winter.

The wood of the Holly is too small to be of much use. It is white and very hard, and when stained black it is largely used instead of ebony, which is scarce and expensive. The black handles of many of our silver teapots are made of stained Holly wood. A sticky lime, which is used for snaring birds, is made from the young green shoots and twigs, and the slender branches are good for making walking-sticks and coachmen’s whips.

PLATE XXIV

THE WILD CHERRY OR GEAN

There are now more than forty varieties of Cherry in Britain, and they all are descended from the Gean or Wild Cherry tree. This favourite tree belongs to the great Rose family, and is related to the Apple, and Pear, and Plum. It grows freely all over Britain except in the very north of Scotland; and we read that six hundred years ago the county of Kent was famous for its Cherry orchards.

THE WILD CHERRY

1. Wild Cherry or Gean in Autumn
2. Flower Cluster with Leaves
3. Fruit]

In Germany the Cherry is planted for many miles by the roadsides, so that all passers-by may eat the fruit and enjoy the shade cast by the tall trees. And if there should be any particular tree whose fruit the owner does not wish taken, he ties a wisp of straw round that tree, and the people understand the sign and do not touch these Cherries.

In France the Wild Cherry fruit, along with a little bread and butter, is often the only food of the poor charcoal-burners and wood-cutters, who stay in the forest during the cold winter months.