Part 20
The full beauty of the Hemlock is displayed on the edge of a wood, or on a plain where it has grown without impediment, feathering down to the ground. Here we observe how much less formal it is in shape than other conifers. When there are no gaps in its ramification, the numerous branches are mostly in close contact at their extremities, so that, when viewed from the outside of the wood, it seems nearly one uninterrupted mass of foliage, hiding the interior of the tree almost entirely from sight. In its perfection, when it has enjoyed an isolated growth, without any mechanical accident to mar its symmetry, it presents a fine tapering form without stiffness, and a mass of glittering foliage with which that of but few other trees is comparable.
The branches of the Hemlock are very numerous, perfectly horizontal, and remarkable for the absence of those regular whorls that distinguish other trees of this genus. They are put forth irregularly from all parts of the trunk, turning from their horizontal position gracefully upward, drooping a little at their termination, and endowed with great flexibility. The branches are minutely subdivided, forming with their leaves a flat surface, somewhat like the compound pinnate leaves of the cicuta, or poison hemlock. From this resemblance it undoubtedly obtained its name. These branches lie one above another, each bending over at its extremities upon the surface of those below, like the feathers upon the wings of a bird.
The bark of the Hemlock is of a reddish brown, divided by furrows that separate it into scales. The young trees have a smooth bark, like that of the balsam fir. The cones are very small, numerous, and pendent, of a fine crimson color when they first appear, attached to the ends of the branches, and arriving at maturity in the autumn. The Hemlock occupies all kinds of soil, though trees of a large size are found only where it is deep and fertile. It is fond of moisture, often extending its graceful boughs from the summits of granitic rocks and declivities wet with perpetual springs. “The Hemlock is natural to the coldest regions of America, and begins to appear about Hudson’s Bay, near Lake St. John; in the neighborhood of Quebec it fills the forests, and in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, the States of Maine and Vermont, and a considerable part of New Hampshire, it constitutes three fourths of the evergreen woods. Further south it is less common, and in the Middle and Southern States it is seldom seen, except on the Alleghanies.”
PINE WOODS.
I have often thought of the pleasure I should feel on entering a forest of tree-ferns, and observing their elegant fronds spread out above my head, displaying a form of vegetation never witnessed except in a tropical country. Yet I doubt whether an assemblage of tree-ferns, a grove of magnolias, or an island of palms could equal a forest of pines in the expression of grandeur and solemnity. A pine wood possesses characters entirely unique, and affects us with sensations which nothing else in nature seems capable of inspiring. Whether this arises from the contrast between the light outside and the darkness within,—a certain harmonious blending of cheerfulness and gloom,—or from the novelty of the whole scene, there comes up from every deep recess and shadowy arbor, every dripping dell, every mossy fountain, and every open glen throughout the wood, an indescribable charm. Notwithstanding the darkness of its interior, and the sombre character of its dense masses of evergreen foliage, as seen from without,—whence the name of _black timber_, which has been applied to it,—yet the shade and shelter it affords, and the sentiment of grandeur it inspires, cause it to be allied with the most profound and agreeable sensations.
In a pine wood Nature presents one of her most remarkable features; and there is so much that is healthful and delightful in its emanations, and in the atmosphere that is diffused around it, that she has not denied its benefits to any clime. Pines are found in every latitude save the equatorial region, where the broad-leaved palms supply the same enduring shade. Even there pines are distributed over the mountains at a height corresponding with the northern temperate zone. Nature has spread these trees widely over the earth, that the inhabitants of the sunny South and the inhospitable North may equally derive benefit from their protection and their products. There is not a region this side of the equator, where a man may not kneel down under the fragrant shade of a pine wood, and thank the Author of nature for this beneficent gift.
In New England the white pine usually predominates in our evergreen woods, mixed in greater or less degree with pitch-pine and fir. In the gracefulness of its foliage, in its lofty stature and the beautiful symmetry of its wide-spread branches, the white pine exceeds all other species. But the balsamic fragrance that is so agreeable to travellers when journeying over the sandy tracts of some parts of New England comes from the more homely pitch-pine. These odors greet our senses at all seasons, but chiefly during the prevalence of a still south-wind, and are in a different manner almost as charming as a beautiful prospect.
In a dense pine wood we observe certain peculiarities of light and shade seldom seen in a deciduous wood. The foliage that forms the canopy over our heads is so closely woven, that, wherever an opening occurs, the light pours into it with distinct outlines of shadow, very much as it shines into a dark room through a half-opened shutter. These sudden gleams of light, blending with the all-pervading shadow in which we are involved, deepen all our sensations, and cause us to feel a little of that religious awe which is inspired when passing under the interior arches of a cathedral. The presence of a group of deciduous trees always becomes apparent at some distance before we reach it, by the flickering lights among their loose foliage, and a general brightness and cheerfulness in the space occupied by the group.
There are many other agreeable circumstances connected with a pine wood. The foliage that drops from the trees, after the new growth of leaves has been put forth, covers the ground with a smooth brown matting, as comfortable to the footsteps as a gravel walk, while it savors only of nature. The acicular foliage of the pine is so hard and durable, that in summer we always find the last year’s crop lying upon the ground in a state of perfect soundness, and under it that of the preceding year only partially decayed. This bed of foliage is so compact as to prevent the growth of underbrush; and it keeps the space open under the trees, whose tall shafts resemble pillars rising out of the floor of a magnificent temple. Hence a pine wood is pleasantly accessible to the rambler and the student of nature; and the absence of a woody undergrowth permits many plants of a peculiar character to thrive upon this carpeted ground. The purple cypripedia is common here, pushing up its leaves through this mass of decayed foliage, and displaying its beautiful inflated blossoms like some bright flower of a fairer clime. Mushrooms of various species and of divers fantastic shapes are frequent as we pass, some spreading out their hoods like a parasol, some with a dragon-like aspect, others perfectly globular, all having a great diversity of hues. In the deeper wood, where there is no sunshine to green the sprouting herbs, appears that rare genus of plants resembling the pale and sickly slaves of the mine,—the grotesque and singular monotropa.
In an old pine wood our attention is diverted by the great variety of lichens that incrust the bark of the trees and hang from their boughs. Many rare species decorate the trees with their tufts, circles, and protuberances, and their curiously painted dots and patches. All green herbs, however, are checked in their growth by the darkness of the wood. The verdure of a pine wood is chiefly over our heads; there is but little under our feet. But the few plants whose habits permit them to grow here are the more conspicuous because they are not mingled with a crowded assemblage of different species. Hence the little creeping michella, with its checkered green leaves, its twin flowers resembling heath-blossoms, and its scarlet fruit, is very beautiful, clustering at the roots of some tall pine, or garlanding some prostrate tree covered with mosses that mark its decay.
In the Southern States, extensive regions called “pine barrens” form a very conspicuous part of the scenery. Their growth at the present time is seldom so dense as that of a Northern pine wood. Whole forests are so thinly set that you may drive some miles through them on horseback. Still in these pine barrens there is the same breathing of solemnity that makes a Northern pine wood so impressive. The tall, gaunt, and grotesque forms of the trees, the flat, interminable plains which they occupy, the dark drapery of moss that hangs from their boughs, their silence and solitude and their primitive wildness, yield the scene an expression of melancholy grandeur that cannot be described. Occasionally a log-hut varies the prospect, as primitive in its appearance as the wood.
The pine barrens of the Southern States are celebrated as healthful retreats for the inhabitants of the seaports, whither they resort in summer to escape the prevailing fevers. They are generally of a mixed character, consisting of the Northern pitch-pine, the long-leaved pine, and a few other species, intermixed with the Southern cypress, occasional red maples, and a few other deciduous trees. Pines, however, constitute the dominant growth; but the trees are, for the most part, widely separated, so that the surface is green with herbs and grasses, and often covered with flowers. The thinness of these woods may be attributed to the practice, for two centuries past, of tapping the trees for turpentine, causing their gradual decay. Their tall forms and branchless trunks show that they obtained their principal growth in a dense wood.
The first visit I made to the pine barrens was after a long ride by railroad through the plains of North Carolina. It was night; and I often looked from the car windows into the darkness, made still more affecting by the sight of the tall pines that raised their heads almost into the clouds, like monsters watching the progress of our journey. The prospect was rendered almost invisible by the darkness that gave prominence to the dusky forms of the trees as they were pictured against the half-luminous sky. At length the day began to break, and the morning beams revealed to my sight an immense wilderness of giant spectres. The cars made a pause at this hour, allowing the passengers to step outside; and while absorbed in the contemplation of this desolate region, suddenly the loud and mellow tones of the mocking-bird came to my ears, and, as if by enchantment, reversed the character of my thoughts. The desert, no longer a solitude, inspired me with emotions of unspeakable delight. Morning never seemed so lovely as when the rising sun, with his golden beams and lengthened shadows, was greeted by this warbling salutation, as from some messenger of light who seemed to announce that Nature over all scenes has extended her beneficence, and to all regions of the earth dispenses her favors and her smiles.
At the end of my journey I took a stroll into the wood. It was in the month of June, when vegetation was in its prime, before it was seared by the summer drought. Many beautiful shrubs were conspicuous with their flowers, though the wood contained but a small proportion of shrubby undergrowth. During my botanical rambles in this wood, I was struck with the multitude of flowers in its shady arbors, seeming the more numerous to me as I had previously confined my observations to Northern woods. The phlox grew here in all its native delicacy, where it had never known the fostering hand of man. Crimson rhexias—called by the inhabitants deerweed—were distributed among the grassy knolls, like clusters of picotees. Variegated passion-flowers were conspicuous on the bare white sand that checkered the green surface, displaying their emblematic forms on their low repent vines, and reminding the wanderer in these solitudes of that faith which was founded on humility and crowned with martyrdom. Here too the spiderwort of our gardens, in a meeker form of beauty and a paler radiance, luxuriated under the protection of the wood. I observed also the predominance of luxuriant vines, indicating our near approach to the tropics, rearing themselves upon the tall and naked shafts of the trees, some, like the bignonia, in a full blaze of crimson, others, like the climbing fern, draping the trees in perennial verdure.
THE FIR.
The Fir and the spruce are readily distinguished from the pine by their botanical characters and by those general marks which are apparent to common observers. They have shorter leaves than the pine, not arranged in fascicles, but singly and in rows along the branch. The cones of the American species are smaller than those of the pine, and they ripen their seeds every year; their lateral branches are smaller and more numerous, and are given out more horizontally. They are taller in proportion to their spread, and more regularly pyramidal in their outlines. The principal generic distinction between the Fir and the spruce is the manner in which they bear their cones; those of the Fir stand erect upon their branch, while those of the spruce are suspended from it. Botanists have lately separated the spruce from the Fir, which they describe under the generic name of Picea. As my descriptions of trees are physiognomical rather than botanical, I shall have no occasion to adopt or to reject this innovation. The spruces, however, are always described by travellers as firs. Whenever they speak of Fir woods, they include in them both the Fir and the spruce.
THE BALSAM FIR.
This tree is the American representative of the silver fir of Europe, but is inferior to it in all respects. The silver fir is one of the tallest trees on the continent of Europe, remarkable for the beauty of its form and foliage, and for the value of its timber. The American tree is inferior to it in height, in density of foliage, in longevity, and in the durability of its wood. Both trees, however, display the same general characters to observation, having a bluish-green foliage, with a silvery under surface, closely arranged upon the branches, that curve gracefully upward at the extremities. The secondary branches have the same upward curvature, never hanging down in the formal manner of the Norway spruce. There is an airiness in its appearance that is quite charming, and to a certain extent makes amends for its evident imperfections. When the Balsam Fir is young, it is very neat and pretty; but as it advances in years it becomes bald, and displays but little foliage except on the extremities of the branches. This is a remarkable defect in many of this family of trees. European writers complain of it in the silver fir. It is observed in the hemlock, except in favorable situations, and in the black spruce, but in a less degree in the white and Norway spruces.
THE SPRUCE.
The Spruce, which is indigenous in New England, comprehends the White and the Black Spruce and the Hemlock. The etymology of this word is worthy of notice. Evelyn says, “For masts (speaking of firs), those from Prussia, which we call Spruce, and Norway are the best.” The word seems to be a corruption of “Pruse,” meaning Prussian. I have formerly thought that the name was applied to this tree to distinguish it from others of the same family which display less of this formal symmetry; but the fir proper is certainly more _spruce_ in its shape than the more flowing Spruce Fir.
THE WHITE SPRUCE.
The White Spruce is less common as an ornamental tree than the Norway spruce, which is preferred as more rapid growing and stately. But the points of difference seem to me very much in favor of the White Spruce. We may distinguish them by the following marks. The White Spruce is not so tall as the European tree, and its cones are very much smaller, though both are pendent. But what is most remarkable is their different mode of branching. The principal branches of each are given out at right angles, with this apparent difference only, that the whorls are more widely separated in the Norway spruce, the distance seeming to be proportional to the comparative length or height of the trees. The leaves of the Norway spruce grow only on the top and two sides of the branch, those of the American spruce cover its whole circumference, being almost cylindrical.
But the most remarkable difference is observed in the disposition of the secondary branches. The Norway spruce suspends them almost perpendicularly from its horizontal boughs. Those of the American tree are tufted, not pendulous, but merely drooping a little at their extremities. This gives the whole mass a more sturdy appearance, and takes away some of that formality which is so tiresome in the Norway spruce. For we should bear in mind, that, although hanging foliage is supposed to be less formal than the opposite, it is not invariably so. The drooping foliage of the elm and the hemlock is graceful, but that of the Norway spruce resembles an artificial arrangement, and reminds me of garments hanging upon a patent clothes-line. I think the tufted mode of growth of the American spruces would be generally preferred to the formal drooping foliage of the Norway spruce and European larch.
THE BLACK SPRUCE.
The Black Spruce is a taller and larger tree in its native forest than the white spruce; but the latter, when planted in pleasure-grounds, makes a more beautiful standard than the other, which is apt to grow scraggy and defective, like the balsam fir. There is some difficulty in distinguishing the two American species, until they have been repeatedly examined and compared, though they do not differ from each other so obviously as they both differ from the Norway spruce. In the white spruce the trunk tapers more rapidly, the bark of the recent branches is lighter colored, the cones are smaller and more elongated, the leaves have more of a glaucous hue, they are also longer and less numerous, and do not form so perfect a cylinder by closely surrounding the branch, as in the Black Spruce.
Notwithstanding their similarity, it is the Black Spruce alone that produces the essential oil for the manufacture of beer. This species is also much more valuable for its timber. Emerson remarks that the leaves and scales of all the pine family, in which are included the spruce and the fir, are so disposed as to form spirals in two directions.
THE NORWAY SPRUCE.
The Norway Spruce is very favorably known in this part of the country as an ornamental tree. It is described by European writers as the tallest tree of the European forest, except the silver fir. In this country no trees of this species have attained any great altitude, having been all planted within a space of fifty years. Occasionally we behold a solitary individual that may have attained about half of its possible height, but the most do not exceed twenty or thirty feet. In certain situations no man could help admiring the beauty and majesty of these trees, when, for example, they border an extensive field, dividing it, as it were, from the roadside, as may be seen on the southern borders of the Observatory ground in Cambridge. But as a boundary for a garden or enclosure the trees of all this family are too gloomy. The Norway Spruce would be more valuable to plant for its timber than our native species, because it is more rapid in its growth and would produce a greater length of shaft in a given number of years. But the two American spruces are more beautiful trees, as would be apparent to any one who should compare them when growing together.
THE NORTHERN CYPRESS.
The Northern Cypress, or White Cedar, is a more stately tree than the juniper, but it is never seen by our waysides; it will thrive only in swampy soils. This is the tree that covers those extensive morasses known as cedar swamps, which are, perhaps, the best examples extant of the primitive forest. The White Cedar is not often called the Cypress in New England, and in general appearance, and especially in the style of its foliage, bears but little resemblance to the Southern Cypress; but its similarity to the juniper is very striking. It is a taller tree than the European Cypress. By some botanists it is classed with the arbor-vitæ.
This tree is not confined to inland moors, but is often found upon marshes which are overflowed by the tide of the ocean. Cedar swamps are common in all the maritime parts of the country. In many of them in New England the trees are so closely set that it is difficult to traverse them. Their wetness presents another obstacle to the traveller, except in winter, when the water is frozen, or in the driest part of summer. In these swamps there is a covering, in some parts, of bog-moss, from six inches to a foot deep, always charged with moisture, in which are embedded several half-parasitic plants, such as the white orchis. The White Cedar constitutes with the southern cypress the principal timber of the Great Dismal Swamp, and is the last tree, except the red maple, which is discovered when travelling through an extensive morass.
Michaux remarks that in the Southern swamps which are occupied by the Northern and Southern Cypress, the former “are observed to choose the centre of the swamps, and the southern cypresses the circumference.” In the region of the southern cypress the cedar swamps are skirted by the tupelo and the red maple. There is but little superficial resemblance between the two cypresses. The foliage of the Northern tree is evergreen. “Each leaf,” says Michaux, “is a little branch numerously subdivided, and composed of small, acute, imbricated scales, on the back of which a minute gland is discovered with the lens. In the angle of these ramifications grow the flowers, which are scarcely visible, and which produce very small rugged cones of a greenish tint, that change to bluish towards the fall, when they open to release the fine seeds.”
THE SOUTHERN CYPRESS.
We have read more perhaps of the Southern Cypress than of any other American tree; but what we have read relates to some of its peculiarities, such as the stumps that grow up among the perfect trees, and of which, in the economy of nature, it is difficult to discover the advantages. We have read also of the immense gloomy swamps that are shaded by trees of this species; of the long mosses, called the “garlands of death,” that hang from their branches, rendering the scene still more gloomy. But from all our reading we should not discover what is immediately apparent to our observation, when we see this tree, that it is one of the most beautiful of the forest.
The Southern Cypress is beginning to be prized here as an ornamental tree, and the few standards in the enclosures of suburban estates will convince any one that no species has been brought from the South that surpasses it in elegance and beauty. The larch, which is a favorite ornamental tree, will not compare with it, though there is some superficial resemblance between it and the American larch. They are both deciduous; and their foliage is brighter in the summer than that of other conifers. The leaves of the deciduous Cypress are of the most delicate texture, of a light green, and arranged in neat opposite rows, like those of the hemlock, on the slender terminal branches.