Chapter V: Part I: Native Trees and Shrubs (3)

Along the chalk range of which the celebrated Box Hill forms part will be found many fine examples of the Yew, as at Cherkley Court, near Leatherhead, where there is an actual Yew forest. There was a monstrous Yew at Brabourne in Kent, in Evelyn's time, for he tells us he measured it, and found its girth to be only one inch short of fifty-nine feet. There are numerous giants of the species still living in quiet country churchyards, where they have probably served--as tradition states of those at Fountains Abbey--as a shelter for the builders of the ancient church during its erection. It is reputed to be the longest-lived of all trees, and it is to be hoped that no hindrance will be put in the way of these connections of the present with the far past living to their full natural limit, whatever it may be. It is naturally a tree of the uplands and lower hills, and shows a distinct preference for soils that contain plenty of lime.

The Irish Yew (var. _fastigiata_), to which passing reference was made, differs from the type in having all its branches growing erectly, after the manner of a Lombardy Poplar, and in the leaves being scattered promiscuously over the branchlets instead of being in two regular rows. It attains a height of twenty to twenty-five feet.

The Juniper (_Juniperus communis_) is seldom more than a shrub a few feet in height, though it occasionally develops into a small tree from ten to twenty feet high, and with a girth of five feet. It has a fibrous red bark, which flakes off like that of the Yew. The leaves are shaped like a cobbler's awl, rigid, and end in sharp points. They have thickened margins, the concave upper sides are glaucous, and they are arranged round the branches in whorls of three. The male and female flowers are on separate trees. The male catkin may be known in May by its numerous anthers and pale yellow pollen. The female catkins will be found in the axils of the leaves, and resemble buds. The scales are fleshy, and after fertilization the upper ones slowly develop into the form of a berry, which has a few undeveloped scales at its base. They do not ripen until the following year, when they are blue-black, covered with a fine glaucous bloom. They have a pungent flavour, which is utilized in concocting gin, which indeed owes its name to this fact--the word being merely a contraction of _gen['e]vrier_, the French form of Juniper. The "berries" have long been known as a kidney stimulant--a fact which has been fully utilized as the justification of every gin-drinker. A beautiful little moth--_Hypsilophus marginellus_--may often be taken about the Juniper, upon which its caterpillar feeds.

To appreciate the variety of forms assumed by the Juniper according to the elevation at which it grows, it should be seen on slopes like those of the North Downs in Surrey--one portion of the range at Mickleham is named Juniper Hill. In the valleys it may be found as a small shapely tree, higher up the slopes as a pyramidal shrub, and as we reach higher and more exposed positions, the Juniper gradually dwindles to a low, shapeless bush. This, however, must not be confounded with a distinct variety to which the name _nana_ has been applied; it differs from the type in having shorter and broader overlapping leaves, with curved tips. Var. _nana_ is confined to the mountains of the north of our islands, and ascends to 2700 feet, which is 300 feet higher than is recorded of the type.

The Virginian Juniper (_Juniperus virginiana_), or "Red Cedar," as it is called on the American continent, is a much larger plant, which is frequently planted in our parks and gardens. It varies in habit, and may be low and spreading, bush-like, or tall and tapering, thirty to forty feet high. Its leaves are in threes, like those of our native species, but the three are united by their bases. It is with the red heart-wood of this tree that our "cedar" pencils are covered, large quantities of the timber of _J. virginiana_, and formerly of _J. bermudiana_, being imported for the purpose. The Virginian Juniper has been with us for many years. It is mentioned by Evelyn in his "Sylva" (1664), and is believed to have been introduced by him from North America.

The Scots Pine (_Pinus sylvestris_), commonly but incorrectly styled Scotch Fir, is the typical Pine-tree of Northern Europe, where (especially in Russia and Northern Germany) it constitutes huge forests. It is even said to cover far wider tracts of country than any other forest tree. Although there is evidence that in ancient days it was pretty widely distributed over Britain, to-day all those Pine-woods of Southern England are the results of planting, and it is only in a few places between Yorkshire and Sutherland, and in Ireland, that it can be regarded as truly wild and indigenous. Mr. John Nisbet points out that the term "pine-forest" is a bit of tautology, for the old German word _forst_ was derived from _foraha_--now represented by _f[:o]hre_, a fire or pine--so that "pine-forest" is equivalent to "pine-pine." However, the etymologists will probably allow us to speak of Pine-woods, and we will try to remember that when we use the word forest it must always indicate an assemblage of Pine-trees.

In favourable soil, at a moderate elevation, the Scots Pine is a fine tree a hundred feet high, with a rough-barked trunk, whose girth is twelve feet. Under such conditions it develops a strong tap-root, which goes deep; but where the soil is shallow or otherwise unfavourable the tap-root is not developed. At great elevations the upward growth is checked early, and it becomes a mere evergreen bush. The branches are short and spreading, those on the lower portions of the trunk dying early, so that the tree soon gets that gaunt weather-beaten look that is so characteristic of it. Then, after the growth of the leading shoot has become feeble, the upper branches continue to lengthen, and so bring about that flat-topped condition. Its growth is rapid, and in twenty years it will attain a height of forty or fifty feet.

The leaves, which are in bundles of two, are from two to three inches long, very slender, grooved above and convex beneath. They remain on the tree for over two years, and in their first season are of a glaucous hue, but in the second year this changes to dark deep-green. Both male and female flowers are borne by the same tree. The male catkins are individually small (1/4 inch), but are combined in spikes; this and the abundant pale yellow pollen makes them conspicuous. The female cones are somewhat egg-shaped, tapering to a point, which is often curved. They are usually in clusters of three, and grow to a length of two or three inches. The scales are comparatively few, and their ends are thickened into an irregular four-sided boss, at first ending in a little point. The seeds are winged, and contained beneath the scales. They take about eighteen months to ripen, when the scales separate in dry windy weather, and allow the breeze to pick out the seeds and send them flying through the air to a great distance. The pollen, too, it should be noted, is of a form specially fitted for aerial transport, each particle of pollen forming two connected spheres. It is quite a common experience in May to find little heaps of this pollen collected in hollows and at the margins of ponds in the neighbourhood of Pine-woods; but, so difficult is it to get people to understand the common facts of nature, that it is generally regarded as evidence of a shower of brimstone having fallen. It is not only the ignorant rustic who falls into this error; judging from letters sent to the press by country parsons, even the universities fail to prepare their alumni to deal with such phenomena. After the eruptions of La Soufriere, several wrote to say that quantities of powdered sulphur from St. Vincent had descended in their Surrey and Hampshire parishes! their notion being that the commercial "flowers of sulphur" are the direct produce of volcanoes.

Although the wood produced by the Scots Pine in this country is not considered of the highest quality, the species is certainly of equal value as a timber-producer with any other tree. Owing to our mild winters and long periods of seasonal growth, the Pine-wood produced in Britain is coarse-grained and not very durable. In the colder parts of Northern Europe, where summers are short and the long winters are severe, the texture of the timber is more solid and the grain closer. And so enormous quantities of Pine-wood come to us from the Baltic ports every year. In addition to the timber, other valuable substances known to commerce are products of the Scots Pine--pitch and tar, resin and turpentine, for example. The Pine is an accommodating tree, for though it likes a deep soil in which to strike its tap-root, it will grow upon rocky ground, where the roots have to become horizontal and near the surface; or it will form forests on poor sandy soils, even on the loose hot sands near the seashore. This is a valuable power, because the fall of its needles gradually forms a humus, and so provides food for other plants which could not exist on raw sand.

Other coniferous trees that have become more or less familiar in our plantations and parks will be found in the second division of this book.

The Holly (_Ilex aquifolium_).

The Holly must be regarded as one of our small trees, although many specimens attain a height of forty or fifty feet, with a girth of ten or twelve feet. It is well distributed throughout our islands, ascending to a thousand feet, and it is probable that no other tree is so well known, by its foliage at least, as the Holly, or Holm, to give it its ancient name. The word Holm was incorporated by some of our ancestors far back in the name Holmsdale, which still attaches to the stretch of country at the southern foot of the chalk hills in Surrey, and whose proud motto is, "Never wonne, ne never shall." At the western end of the Holmsdale is Holmwood, and still a little further west Holmbury. In these places the Holly still grows bravely, not far from the old home of John Evelyn, who must be thought of whenever we talk of Hollies, though the recollection has to do with Sayes Court, his Thames-side house, where the barbarian Peter wrought such havoc with his cherished Holly-hedge. How Evelyn must have lamented that outrage is indicated in this extract from the "Sylva":--

"Is there under heaven a more glorious and refreshing object of the kind, than an impregnable hedge of about four hundred feet in length, nine feet high, and five in diameter, which I can show in my now ruined gardens at Say's Court (thanks to the Czar of Moscovy) at any time of the year, glittering with its armed and varnished leaves? The taller standards at orderly distance, blushing with their natural coral. It mocks the rudest assaults of the weather, beasts, or hedge-breakers, _et illum nemo impun[e'] lacessit_."

The bark of the Holly is smooth and pale-grey in colour. Time out of mind it has been used in the preparation of a viscid substance known as birdlime, which, spread on twigs, holds the feet of small birds. Respecting the foliage of the Holly, there is little need to say anything, but for uniformity's sake we may note that the leaves are oval in shape, of a leathery consistence, with a firmer margin, running out into long sharp spines. It is a fact worthy of note that when the Holly has attained to a height of ten feet or so, it frequently clothes its upper branches in leaves that have no spines--a circumstance that Robert Southey sought to explain in his poem "The Holly-tree," on teleological grounds. His second verse, however, contains sufficient explanation of the fact it describes:--

"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 unarm'd the pointless leaves appear."

In some places the young shoots are gathered by the peasants, dried, bruised, and used as a winter cattle-food. No doubt, in the early history of the Holly, cattle found out its good qualities for themselves, and browsed upon the then-unarmed foliage. In self-defence the tree developed spines upon its leaves, and so kept its enemies at a respectful distance. Above the reach of these marauders the production of spines would be a useless waste of material.

The flowers of the Holly, though small, are conspicuous by their great number and white colour. They are about a quarter of an inch across, with four petals and four stamens or stigmas. Sometimes flowers with stamens are produced by the same tree that bears flowers with stigmas; but often the male and the female flowers are borne by separate trees, so that the possessor of a Holly that is solely male is sometimes puzzled by the fact that his tree, though covered with blossom, never produces a berry. The fruit is analogous in structure to that of the Plum and Cherry, and is technically termed a _drupe_; but instead of the single stone of these fruits, in the Holly-berry there are four bony little stones, each with its contained seed. The berries ripen about September, and are then scarlet and glossy, though here and there one finds a tree whose fruit never gets beyond the yellow stage of coloration.

Most parts of the tree have had their uses in medicine; the leaves, for example, being said to have value as a febrifuge, and the berries as a purgative, or in large doses (6 to 8) as an emetic. The smooth bark of large Hollies is often attacked by one of the most striking of our native lichens--_Graphis elegans_--whose black fruiting portions look like a raised cuneiform inscription. The Holly is not greatly subject to the attacks of insects, but many of its leaves will be found to have been tunnelled between the upper and lower skins by the larva of a minute moth, one of the Leaf-miners. It also provides the pabulum for the caterpillar of the Holly-blue butterfly (_Lycaena argiolus_). The dead leaves may be examined for the minute Prickly Snail (_Helix aculeata_).

The wood of the Holly has an exceedingly fine grain, due to its slow growth, and it is very hard and white. These qualities make it valuable for many purposes, often as a substitute for Box-wood, and, when dyed black, in lieu of Ebony.

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The Spindle-tree (_Euonymus europaeus_).

The Spindle is right on the borderland between trees and shrubs, for though it will grow into a tree twenty feet high, yet our hedgerow specimens are usually bushlike, and only ten or twelve feet high. Until the autumn the Spindle, we fear, is rarely recognized as such, but gets confused with Buckthorn and Dogwood. In October, however, its quaint fruits have changed to a pale crimson hue, which renders them the most conspicuous feature of a hedgerow--even of one plentifully decorated with scarlet hips and haws and bryony-berries. The unusual tint of the Spindle, and the fact that it swings on a slender stalk, at once mark it out from the rigid-stalked hips and haws.

The trunk of the Spindle is clothed in smooth grey bark. The twigs, which are in pairs, starting from opposite sides of a branch, are four-angled. The shining leaves vary from egg-shaped to lance-shaped, with finely-toothed edges. They are arranged in pairs, and in autumn they change to yellow and red. When bruised they give off a f[oe]tid odour, the juice is acrid, and said to be poisonous--a charge which is laid against the bark, flowers, and seed as well. The small greenish-white flowers are borne in loose clusters, of the type known as cymes, from the axils of the leaves, and appear in May and June. Some contain both stamens and pistil, but others are either stamenate _or_ pistillate. The calyx is cut into four or six parts, the petals and stamens agree with these parts in number, but the lobes of the stigma only range from three to five, corresponding with the cells of the ovary. The fruit is deeply lobed, and marked with grooves, indicating the lines of future division, when the lobes open and disclose the seeds, at first covered with their orange jackets, or _arils_, after the manner of the mace that encloses the nutmeg.

The hardness and toughness of Spindle-wood has long been esteemed in the fashioning of small wares where these qualities are essential, and the common name is a survival of the days when spinning was the occupation of every woman. Then spindles were in demand for winding the spun thread upon, and no wood was more suitable than that of Euonymus for making them. It shares with the Cornel (_Cornus sanguinea_) the name Dogwood; it is also Skewerwood, Prickwood, and Pegwood, all suggestive of uses to which it is or was applied. The young shoots make a very fine charcoal for artists' use.

The Spindle is indigenous throughout our islands, but cannot be said to be generally common; it is rarer in Scotland and Ireland than in England.

Among the exotic species cultivated in our parks and gardens are the handsome variegated forms of the Evergreen Spindle (_Euonymus japonicus_) of China and Japan, and the Broad-leaved Spindle (_E. latifolius_) from Europe.

The Buckthorns (_Rhamnus_).

Our two native species of Buckthorn are shrubs of from five to ten feet in height. In this one respect they agree; in almost all others they differ. Both are Buckthorns in name, but the Breaking Buckthorn (_Rhamnus frangula_) is quite unarmed, whilst many of the branchlets of the Purging Buckthorn (_Rhamnus catharticus_) are hardened into spines.

The Purging Buckthorn is distinguished by its stiff habit, and by some of the leaves being gathered into bundles at the ends of the shoots. The leaves are egg-shaped, with toothed edges, and of a yellowish-green tint, with short leaf-stalks. The yellowish-green flowers are very small, and will be found both singly and in clusters from the leaf-axils. There are a four-cleft calyx, four petals, four stamens, or four stigmas, for the sexes are usually on separate plants. The fruit is black, round, and about a quarter of an inch across, containing four stones. These so-called "berries" are ripe in September. Formerly they were much used as a purging medicine, but of so violent a character that their use has come to be discouraged, and the safer syrup of Buckthorn is prescribed instead. The juice of these berries is the raw material from which the artist's sap-green is prepared. It may be found in woods, thick hedgerows, and bushy places on commons southward of Westmoreland, showing a decided preference for chalky soils. In Ireland it only occurs rarely.

The Breaking Buckthorn (_Rhamnus frangula_) is also known as the Berry-bearing Alder, its leaves, with their lateral veins, presenting something of the appearance of the Alder. Its more slender stems are purplish-brown in hue, and _all_ the leaves are arranged alternately up the stems. The leaves further differ from those of _R. catharticus_ in having plain, un-toothed edges, and their veins parallel one to another. The flowers are similar in size to those of the other species, but are whiter, less yellow, fewer in number, and on longer stalks. The parts of the flower, too, are in fives instead of fours; and the "berry," though similar to the previous species, is much larger (half-inch diameter). In an unripe condition these fruits yield a good green dye, much used by calico printers and others. The wood made into charcoal is said to be the best for the purposes of the gunpowder makers, who know it by the name of Black Dogwood. The straight shoots of both species are used for forming walking and umbrella sticks, and those of longer growth for pea and bean sticks.

The Brimstone butterfly (_Gonepteryx rhamni_) lays its eggs on the leaves of _R. frangula_, upon which the larva feeds. The name Buckthorn appears to be due to an ancient misunderstanding of the German name Buxdorn, which should have been translated Box-thorn.

Wild Plums (_Prunus communis_).

With the single exception of the Hazel, all our native fruit-trees are members of the extensive and beautiful Rose family. Before Roman invasions brought improved and cultivated varieties, our "rude forefathers" must have been glad to eat the Sloes, Crabs, and Wild Cherries that are now regarded as too terribly crude and austere, in an uncooked condition, for any stomach but that of the natural boy, which appears capable of surviving any ill-treatment. Some authors have regarded the Wild Plum and the Bullace as being specifically distinct from the Sloe and from each other; but the modern view is that their differences only entitle them to rank as sub-species of the Sloe, and as such they will be regarded here.

The Sloe or Blackthorn (_Prunus communis_) is the rigid many-branched shrub, with stiletto-like tips, that luxuriates on some of our commons and in our hedgerows. The blackish bark that gives its name to the shrub forms a fine foil in March or April for the pure white starry blossoms that brave the cold blasts before the leaf-buds dare unfurl their coverings. In some places--as in Cornwall, where it is the principal hedge plant, and where cliffs, creeks, and river banks are bordered by it--these bare black or purple stems are almost hidden by the abundant growth of the Grey Lichen (_Evernia prunastri_). In this, the typical form, the branches and twigs turn in every direction, so that it is impossible to thrust one's hand into a Blackthorn bush without getting considerably scratched. The well-known flower consists of a five-lobed calyx, five white petals, and from fifteen to twenty stamens round the single carpel. The stigma matures in advance of the stamens, so that it has usually been fertilized by bee-borne pollen from another Sloe before its own anthers have disclosed their pollen. The fruit is about half an inch across, globose in form, and held erect upon its short stalk; black, but its blackness hidden by a delicate "bloom" that gives it a purplish glaucous hue. Terribly harsh are these fruits to the palate, and a mere bite at an unripe one is sufficient to set teeth on edge and contract the muscles of mouth and face. And yet, when the tight jacket of the Sloe begins to relax and pucker, the juice condenses into more mealy flesh, and the acridity passes, one may _eat_ not one but a dozen, slowly, enjoying the piquancy of each before swallowing. Country people make them into wine, and it used to be said that much that is sold as port had its origin in the skins of British sloes instead of Portuguese grapes. And for special use "for the stomach's sake" old-wife followers of St. Paul pin their faith to gin in which Sloes have soaked for months.

In the days of our youth it was a stock jibe against the grocer that most of his China tea had been grown on Blackthorn bushes not far from home, and with tea at five or six shillings a pound there may have been some basis of truth for the belief; but with the prices of to-day it may be presumed that Blackthorn leaves would cost the dealer at least as much as real tea-leaves from Assam and Darjeeling.

The Bullace (_Prunus communis_, sub-sp. _insititia_) differs from the Sloe in having _brown_ bark, the branches _straight_ and only a few of them ending in spines, the leaves larger, broader, more coarsely toothed, and downy on the underside. The flowers, too, have broader petals, and the fruit--which may be black or yellow--droops, and is between three-quarters and one inch in diameter. In many places where this grows it can only be regarded as an escape from cultivation.

The Wild Plum (_Prunus communis_, sub-sp. _domestica_) has also brown bark, its branches straight, and not ending in spines. The downiness noticed on the underside of the Bullace leaves is here restricted to the ribs of the leaf. The fruit attains a diameter of an inch or an inch and a half. Although found occasionally in hedgerows, this sub-species is not indigenous in any part of our islands. Hooker says the only country in which it is really indigenous is Western Asia; but its numerous cultivated forms are widely distributed.

It should be noted that the fruits of the Blackthorn and its sub-species are formed within the flower; so are those of the Cherries, to be next described, the ovary being botanically termed "superior," that is, above the base of the calyx and corolla, when the flower is in an erect position. This is a point of some importance when one seeks to understand the different formation of the fruit in so closely related a species as the Apple, in which the ovary is "inferior," or below the flower.

Wild Cherries (_Prunus avium_).

Nature has been comparatively lavish in the matter of Cherries, for she has bestowed three species upon the British Islands. For the cultivated Cherry it is said that we ought to thank the Romans, as for many other good things in the way of food. Pliny states that we had the Cherry in Britain by the middle of the first century A.D. Evelyn tells us that the Cherry orchards of Kent owe their origin to "the plain industry of one Richard Haines, a printer to Henry VIII.," by whom "the fields and environs of about thirty towns, in Kent only, were planted with fruit trees from Flanders, to the unusual benefit and general improvement of the county to this day." It is probable, however, that our own countrymen had already effected some improvement on the wild sorts by cultivation, for even in the woods some trees are found bearing fruit much larger and of better flavour than usual, and such would be selected for cultivation.

Our three natives are the Wild or Dwarf Cherry (_Prunus cerasus_), the Gean (_P. avium_), and the Bird Cherry (_P. padus_). Of these the Gean is the species most widely distributed throughout our country, and we therefore give it precedence.

The Gean (_Prunus avium_) is a tree that in suitable soils attains a height of thirty or forty feet, with short, stout branches, that take an upward direction. The leaves are large, broadly oval, with sharp-toothed edges, and downy on the underside. They always droop from the branches, and in spring they are of a bronzy-brown tint, which afterwards changes to pale green. Soon after the leaves have unfolded they are almost hidden by the umbels of wide-open white flowers, which have soft, heart-shaped petals, and whose anthers and stigmas mature simultaneously. The firm-fleshed drupe is heart-shaped, black or red, sweet or bitter, with scanty juice which stains the fingers. This is believed to be the original wild stock from which our modern Black Hearts and Bigarreau Cherries have been evolved by the cultivator.

The Dwarf or Wild Cherry (_Prunus cerasus_) is more bush-like than tree-like, for it sends up a great number of suckers around the main stem. The branches are slender and drooping. The leaves, which are of similar shape to those of _P. avium_, are smooth and deep blue-green in tint, with round-toothed edges. The flowers are not so widely open as in the previous species, but retain more of the cup-shape, whilst the notched petals are firmer in consistence and oval in shape. The drupe is in this species round, with red skin and juicy flesh of a distinctly acid character. The juice does not stain as does that of _P. avium_. The Morello or Brandy Cherry, the May Duke, and the Kentish Cherries are considered to be derived from this species. This does not extend further north than Yorkshire; in Ireland it is rare.

The Bird Cherry (_Prunus padus_) forms a tree from ten to twenty feet in height, with more elliptic leaves, which have their edges doubly cut into fine teeth. The flowers are not clustered in umbels, as in both the foregoing, but in a loose raceme from lateral spurs of new growth. The flowers are erect when they open, and the stigmas mature before the anthers, so that cross-fertilization is favoured in this species. After fertilization the flower droops, to be out of the way of the bees in their visits to the unfertilized blossoms. The petals in this species look as if their edges had been gnawed. The drupes are small, black, and very bitter, with a wrinkled stone. This is a northern species, coming not further south than Leicestershire and South Wales. All three species flower in late April or early May.

Cherry wood is strong, fine-grained, and of a red colour. It is easily worked, and susceptible of a high polish, so that it is in request by cabinet-makers, turners, and musical instrument makers.

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The Wild Pear (_Pyrus communis_).

The Wild Pear is only to be found growing in the southern half of Britain, its northward range not extending beyond Yorkshire, and even in the south its claim to be regarded as a true native has been contested. Mr. Hewett C. Watson regards it as more probably a denizen, that is, a species originally introduced by man, which has maintained its hold upon the new land. Upon this assumption it is probable that the introduced specimens were already somewhat cultivated, but when they (or their descendants) became wild they reverted to the original condition of the species.

The Wild Pear, or Choke-pear, is a small tree, from twenty to sixty feet in height, of somewhat pyramidal form. The twigs, which are usually of a drooping tendency, are also much given to ending in spines--a character scarcely apparent in the cultivated tree. The leaves, too, of the wild tree are more distinctly toothed than those of the Garden Pear. They are oval in shape, with blunt-toothed edges, and downy on the lower surface. Along the new shoots the leaves are arranged alternately on opposite sides, but on shoots a year old they are produced in clusters. The flowers, which measure more than an inch across, are pure white in colour, and are clustered in cymes of five to nine. They appear in April and May, and are of the Wild Rose type, there being numerous stamens, from three to five styles, which ripen before the stamens, five petals, and the calyx, taking the form of a pitcher with a five-lobed mouth, represents the five sepals.

In speaking of the Wild Plums we directed attention to the fact that the ovary was within the flower; in the Pear (and the other members of the genus _Pyrus_) it is below the flower, hidden away in fact within the calyx-tube. When the flower opens it is ready for fertilization, but as the stamens of that flower are not yet mature this can only be accomplished by pollen brought by the bees from other flowers as they rifle the honey-glands. The effect of pollination is to cause special vegetative activity in the neighbourhood of the ovary, resulting in the thickening of the flesh of the calyx-tube around it, until it has become of the characteristic pear-shape, and an inch or two in length. A section of a pear or apple, taken lengthwise, will show a faint green outline of the ovary, and will demonstrate how much of the flesh is really belonging to the calyx-tube. The fruit of the Wild Pear is green until about November, when it turns yellow. It is of too harsh a character to be fit for eating.

A Pear formerly known as a variety (_briggsii_) of _Pyrus communis_ is now regarded as a distinct species under the name of _Pyrus cordata_. It is found in Cornwall, and is distinguished by its more oval leaves being rounded at the base, and by its much smaller fruits being often globular.

The Pear is a long-lived tree, that grows singly or in small groups on dry plains. It attains a height of about fifty feet in thirty years, and its girth may then be three or four feet. The timber is fine-grained, strong and heavy, with a reddish tinge. Stained with black, it is used to counterfeit ebony.

The Wild Apple (_Pyrus malus_).

It is by no means an easy matter to decide whether the Crab-trees that grow along the hedgerows are truly wild or the offspring of orchard apples. In woods, away from gardens and orchards, there is less difficulty. Like the Pear, the Apple appears to have been the subject of cultural attention from very early times. This is proved by the philologists from the similarity of the equivalents for our word Apple in all the Celtic and Sclavonian languages, showing by their common origin that the fruit was of sufficient importance to have a distinctive name long before the separation of the peoples of Northern Europe. The name of Crab is of comparatively recent origin. Prior regards it as a form of the Lowland Scotch _scrab_, derived from Anglo-Saxon _scrobb_, a shrub, indicating that it is an Apple-bush rather than an Apple-tree.

The Wild Apple has not the pyramidal form of the Wild Pear, the branches spreading more widely when young and drooping when older, so that the head is rounded. In height it varies as a tree from twenty to thirty feet, though many examples of good age still retain the dimensions of a bush. Owing to the spreading character of the branches, the diameter of the head often exceeds the height of the tree. The bole has seldom any pretensions to symmetry, and is usually more or less crooked like the older branches. The brown bark is not very rough, though its numerous fissures and cracks give it a rugged appearance. Its wood, like that of the Pear, is hard and fine-grained, but, instead of having a reddish tinge, there is a tendency to brownness. The leaves vary in shape, but are more or less oblong, smooth above, sometimes downy on the lower surface when young, and with toothed edges.

The flowers are about the same size as those of the Wild Pear, but their white petals are beautifully tinted and streaked with pink. The small clusters are umbels--that is to say, the footstalks of similar length start from a common base. The fruit is almost spherical, and instead of the foot-stalk gradually merging into the apple, the attachment is always in a depression of the latter. In the typical form of the Wild Apple the yellow and red fruit hang by their slender stalks, but there is a variety (_mitis_) in which the fruit is borne _above_ the stouter stalks. The variety may also be known by the downiness of the young leaves, the calyx-tube, and the stalks. The fruit is about an inch across, and so rich in malic acid as to be unfit for food in its natural state, though children punish their digestive organs with it. Pigs are partial to Crab-apples, a taste they have evidently inherited from the wild boar. A delicious preserve, called Crab-jelly, is made by stewing the whole fruit, then pressing the soft flesh through a hair sieve, and boiling the pulp with sugar. Cyder is made from the rotting Crabs; also a kind of vinegar called verjuice, or vargis.

The Wild Apple is found all over the United Kingdom as far north as the Clyde, and wherever it is known to occur it is worth a special visit in May, when all its crooked branches and straggling shoots are rendered beautiful by the abundance of delicately tinted and fragrant flowers. It is also far from being unattractive in the autumn, when the miniature apples hang from the boughs.

White Beam (_Pyrus aria_).

Owing to its very local occurrence, the White Beam, though widely distributed, is one of the less known of our trees and shrubs. It comes into both these categories according to the situation of its growth, for whilst in exposed mountainous localities a specimen of mature age may be no more than four or five feet high, and of bush-like growth, under the lee of a wood, and on a calcareous soil, it will be an erect and graceful tree of pyramidal form, whose apex is forty feet from the ground. In its early years growth is tolerably rapid, but at the age of ten it slackens pace, and after it has attained its majority its progress is very slow. Its wood is fine-grained, very hard, white, but inclining to yellow. The bark is smooth, and little subject to the cracks and fissures that mark the Apple-bark. The branches, except a few of the lowest, all have an upward tendency.

The leaves vary considerably in the several forms or sub-species, but in the typical form they are a broad oval, with the edges coarsely toothed or cut into lobes, the upper side smooth, and the lower side clothed with white cottony down, the almost straight nerves strongly marked. The white flowers, which appear in May or June, are only half an inch across, and gathered into loose clusters. They are succeeded by nearly round scarlet fruits, half an inch in diameter, known in Lancashire and Westmoreland as Chess-apples. The tree is also known in the same districts as Sea Owler, the latter word, according to Prior, being a corruption of Aller or Alder, probably from the resemblance of the plaited leaves to those of _Alnus glutinosa_. These Chess-apples are very sharp and rough to the taste, but when kept like Medlars, till they "blet" or begin to decay, are far from unpleasant. Birds and squirrels eagerly seek for them on the tree, and those that fall are as welcome to hedgehogs and other mammals. This form is only found from the Midlands to the South of England as far west as Devon, and in Ireland.

The sub-species _latifolia_ (_Pyrus rotundifolia_ of some botanists) has broader leaves, varying from oval-oblong to almost round, divided into wedge-shaped lobes, the cottony down beneath being grey rather than white, and the nerves less prominent on the underside. This form is found in Cornwall.

The sub-species _scandica_ (also known as _Pyrus intermedia_) has the leaves less tough, more deeply divided into rounded or oblong lobes, and the grey cotton beneath of a looser character. This form is found in Scotland.

It should be noted that this species must not be called the White Beam-_tree_, for the word _beam_ is the Saxon equivalent for tree. Other names for it include Hen-apple, Cumberland Hawthorn, Hoar Withy, Quick Beam, and Whipcrop.

THE WILD SERVICE (_Pyrus torminalis_) is a small tree of local occurrence, which does not extend further north than Lancashire. In general appearance it may be taken for the White Beam, but closer inspection will reveal the following differences. The leaves, which are cut into tapering lobes and coarsely toothed, are heart-shaped at the base; when young they are slightly downy beneath, but when mature they are smooth on both sides. Though the flowers are similar in size and colour to those of the White Beam, the fruit is smaller (one-third inch in diameter), less globular, and more like a large haw, though the colour is greenish-brown. The flowers appear in April and May, and the fruit, which is of a very dry, juiceless character, is ripe in November. In some localities these fruits are marketed, but they require to be kept like Medlars, until decay sets in, before they are fit to be eaten.

Mountain Ash, or Rowan (_Pyrus aucuparia_).

Little description of the Mountain Ash is needed, for in recent years it has come so much into favour that it is now one of the commonest of the trees planted in little suburban gardens and fore-courts. Its hardiness, its indifference to the character of the soil, the fact that other plants will grow beneath it, and the absence of need for pruning--all these points unite to make it suitable and popular for growth in restricted spaces. But the wood on the hillside is the natural home of the Mountain Ash, and in the Highlands its vertical range extends to 2600 feet above sea-level.

The Mountain Ash attains a height of from thirty to fifty feet, and has a straight clean bole, clothed in smooth grey bark, scarred horizontally as though it had been scored with a knife. All the branches have an upward tendency, and the shoots bear the long feathery leaves, whose division into six or eight pairs of slender leaflets suggests _the_ Ash, from which part of its name has been borrowed. Gazing on this tree either in flower or fruit, it would be quite unnecessary to explain that it is not even remotely allied to _Fraxinus excelsior_, and that the similarity of leaf-division is the only point of resemblance between them. These leaflets have toothed edges, are paler on the underside, and in a young condition the midrib and nerves are hairy. The creamy-white fragrant flowers are like little Hawthorn blossoms, though only half the size, and they appear in dense clusters (_cymes_) in May or June. The fruit are miniature apples, of the size of holly-berries, bright scarlet without and yellow within. They ripen in September, and are then a great attraction to thrushes, blackbirds, and their kind, who rapidly strip the tree of them. Though this at first sight may appear like frustrating the tree's object in producing fruit, it is not really so, the attractive flesh being a mere bait to induce the birds to pass the seeds through their intestines, and thus get them sown far and wide. By this method the process of germination is considerably hastened, whereas by hand-sowing the seeds lie in the earth for eighteen months before shooting. All the species of _Pyrus_ produce their fruits with this object, the larger more or less brownish ones being intended to attract mammals, the smaller and red-coloured to tempt birds. The seeds have leathery jackets to protect them from the action of the digestive fluids, and are further wrapped in a parchmenty, bony, or wooden "core" (_endocarp_) with a similar object. In the case of the Rowan this is very like wood.

In the south of Britain the Mountain Ash is chiefly grown as underwood and used as a nurse for oaks and other timber trees, which soon outgrow it and kill it; so that in the woods it is seldom allowed to grow into a fully developed tree, but, thanks to the birds, it comes up on the common and the hillside, and has a chance of producing its masses of ruby fruit. Its wood is tough and elastic, but, owing to the smallness of its girth, it does not produce timber of any size. Still, it makes admirable poles and hoops.

The word Rowan is one of the most interesting of tree-names, and connects the still-existing superstitious practices of our northern counties, not only with the old Norsemen, but with the ancient Hindus who spoke the Sanskrit tongue. The word is spelled in many ways which connect it with the Old Norse _runa_, a charm, it being supposed to have power to ward off the effects of the evil eye. In earlier times _runa_ was the Sanskrit appellation for a magician; _r[^u]n-stafas_ were staves cut from the Rowan-tree upon which runes were inscribed. Until quite recently the respect for its magical properties was shown in the north by fixing a branch of Rowan to the cattle-byre as a charm against the evil designs of witches, warlocks, and others of that kidney. In this connection we may quote also from Evelyn's "Sylva." He says: "Ale and beer brewed with these berries, being ripe, is an incomparable drink, familiar in Wales, where this tree is reputed so sacred that there is not a churchyard without one of them planted in it (as among us the Yew); so, on a certain day in the year, everybody religiously wears a cross made of the wood; and the tree is by some authors called Fraxinus Cambro-Britannica, reputed to be a preservative against fascinations and evil spirits; whence, perhaps, we call it witchen, the boughs being stuck about the house or the wood used for walking-staves."

Among the numerous names of the Mountain Ash are Fowler's Service (or Servise, from _Cerevisia_, a fermented drink), Cock-drunks, Hen-drunks (from the belief that fowls were intoxicated by eating the "berries"), Quickbeam, White Ash (from the colour of the flowers), Witch-wood, and Witchen. Quickbeam is in allusion to the constant movement of foliage, quick being the Anglo-Saxon _cwic_, alive. Witch-wood and Witchen are also forms of _cwic_.

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The True Service (_Pyrus sorbus_) closely resembles the Mountain Ash in habit and foliage, but it is not a native of Britain, though it used to be claimed as such, on account of its growing in the more mountainous parts of Cornwall and in Wyre Forest, Worcestershire. The latter, however, is the only Service tree that could put in such a claim, for it grows--or grew?--far from habitations or cultivated land, and the presumption is that it has not owed its introduction to man. Still, "one swallow does not make a summer," and a solitary wild tree does not give the species a title to be reckoned as British. It is occasionally cultivated here, and its portrait, with a brief account of its points of difference from the Mountain Ash, may be useful. A comparison of the photographs from the boles of the two species will show a great difference: that of the Mountain Ash being smooth, whilst that of the Service is rugged. The leaf is similarly broken up into paired leaflets, but these are broader, and are downy on both upper and lower sides. The white flowers are as large as May-blossoms, and the fruits, which may be either apple-shaped or pear-shaped, are greenish-brown, with rusty specks, and four times the size of Rowan-berries. In winter, when there are neither leaves, flowers, nor fruits to help in the distinction, the bark may be taken in conjunction with the leaf-buds, which are green and smooth in this species, whilst those of the Mountain Ash are black and downy. The fruit may be eaten after it has begun to decay, as in the case of the Medlar.

Loudon describes the wood of the Service as the hardest and heaviest of all the trees indigenous to Europe: fine-grained, red-tinted, susceptible of a high polish, and much in request in France for all purposes where strength and durability are needed. He further says that it takes two centuries to attain its full stature (fifty to sixty feet), "and lives to so great an age that some specimens of it are believed to be upwards of 1000 years old."

We have already made reference to the meaning of the name Service. Another name--Sorb (from Latin _sorbeo_)--shows closer affinity for the fermented liquor indicated by Servise, for it means "drink down." A third name is Chequer-tree, which Dr. Prior tells us is an antique pronunciation of the word _choker_, in allusion to the unpalatable fruit, fit to choke one. Choke-pear, it will be remembered, is a synonym of the Wild Pear. Britten and Holland regard the name Chequer-tree as having no connection with choking, but an indication of the chequered or spotted appearance of the fruit.

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The Medlar (_Pyrus germanica_) is a small tree, native of Persia, Asia Minor, and Greece, and which is generally held to occur wild in England and the Channel Islands only as an escape from cultivation. The theory is that the tree was introduced at some date prior to 1596--when we have record of its being in cultivation here--and that the Medlar-trees growing in the hedges of south and middle England are from seeds of these cultivated trees, which have been sown by birds, or more probably mammals who have eaten the fruit. The fact that it is not found in woods is taken as evidence that it is non-indigenous. Such evidence is not the most convincing, but it is the best available. It should be noted, however, that the agents credited with its distribution along our hedgerows have free access to woods, and that if these places were favourable to the growth of the Medlar, we should probably find it there, whether indigenous or exotic. Much more conclusive, we think, is its restricted distribution abroad, as already indicated. One would not expect to find a tree whose nearest home is Greece, leaping over the whole of Europe and appearing as an indigene in Britain.

In its wild condition the Medlar is a much-branched and spiny tree, from ten to twenty feet high, in these respects resembling the Hawthorn; but, like the Pear, it puts off its defences when cultivated. Its leaves are large and undivided, of an oblong-lance shape, downy beneath, and sometimes with the edges very finely toothed. The solitary white flowers are large--one and a half inches across--with a woolly calyx, whose five tips expand into leafy growths. They appear in May or June, and are succeeded by brown fruits, an inch or less across, which may be described as round, with a depressed top, which is ornamented with the remains of the calyx-lobes. They ripen in October or November.

Hawthorn (_Crataegus oxyacantha_).

Though distributed as a wild tree throughout the length and breadth of the British Islands, we are all more familiar with the Hawthorn as planted material in the construction of hedges, and this is a use to which it has been put ever since land was plotted out and enclosed. For the word is Anglo-Saxon (_haegthorn_), and signifies hedge-thorn. The man in the street would say without hesitation that Hawthorn means the thorn that produces Haws, but the philologist would tell him that it is only a modern and erroneous practice to apply the name of the hedge to the fruit of the hedge-thorn. It is also Whitethorn, to make the distinction between its light-grey bark and that of the Blackthorn; and May because of the period when it chiefly attracts attention.

Where the Hawthorn is allowed its natural growth, it attains a height of forty feet, with a circumference between three and ten feet. Such a tree is represented in our photograph. On our commons, where in their youth the Hawthorns have to submit to much mutilation from browsing animals, their growth is spoiled; but though some of these never become more than bushes tangled up with Blackthorn into small thickets, there are others that form a distinct bole and a round head of branches from ten to twenty feet high, which in late May or (more frequently) early June look like solid masses of snow. The characteristic of the tree which makes it so valuable as fencing material is found in its numerous branches, supporting a network of twigs so dense that even a hand may not be pushed among them without incurring serious scratches. That this character is not confined to it as a hedge shrub is clearly shown by the winter photograph of the leafless tree.

The well-known lobed leaves are very variable both in size and shape, and the degree to which they are cut. They are a favourite food with horses and oxen, who would demolish the hedges that confine them to the fields but for the spines which protect the older branches at least. The white flowers are about three-quarters of an inch across, borne in numerous corymbs. The pink anthers give relief to the uniform whiteness of the petals. The flowers, though usually sweet-scented, occasionally give forth a very unpleasant odour. The familiar fruits, too, instead of their usual crimson, are yellow occasionally, as in the Holly. In favourable years these are so plentiful that they quite kill the effect of the dark-green leaves, and when such a tree is seen in the October sunshine, it appears to be glowing with fire to its centre. Beneath the ripe mealy flesh there is a hard bony core, in whose cells the seeds are protected from digestion when the fruit has been swallowed by a bird.

The Hawthorn is said to live from a century to two centuries, growing very slowly after it has reached a height of about fifteen feet. Its wood is both hard and tough, and the name of the genus has reference to that fact, being derived from the Greek kratos, strength.

The Strawberry-tree (_Arbutus unedo_).