Part 2

As a shrub, being among the very first to bloom, it decorates the forest borders in spring, or stands conspicuously within the forest. It is found everywhere in the Appalachian region. In the coastal plain it is associated with the longleaf pine, or may be seen among broadleaf trees, or standing among red junipers, as tall as they and quite at home in their company.

Before turning to coniferous trees, the tulip tree deserves some attention on account of its usefulness, its extended habitat, and its beauty as a forest tree. It is closely related to the magnolias, to which belongs the big laurel of the Gulf region, an evergreen species that might be called the queen of all broadleaf trees. But the big laurel must here give place to the tulip tree, because it is not so distinctively a forest tree, and is much more restricted in its geographical distribution.

The first general impression of the tulip tree is, I venture to say, one of strangeness. There is a foreign look about the heavy, truncated leaves, and an oriental luxury in the large, greenish-yellow flowers. These appear in May or June, while the conelike fruit ripens in the fall. When the seeds have scattered, the open cones, upright in position, remain for a long time on the tree, where they are strikingly ornamental.

Esthetically the most important feature of the tulip tree is an expression of dignity and stateliness, which gives it a character of its own. Its extraordinary size renders it a conspicuous object in the forest, the more so because we usually find it associated with a variety of other trees of quite different aspect. Michaux, who has told us much about the forest flora of the eastern United States, could find no tree among the deciduous kinds, except the buttonwood, that would bear comparison with it in size, and he calls it “one of the most magnificent vegetables of the temperate zone.” Its columnar trunk continues with unusual straightness and regularity nearly to the summit of the tree. Its limbs and branches divide in harmonious proportions, reaching out as if conscious of their strength, and yet with sufficient gracefulness to lend dignity to the tree. The lower boughs, especially, are inclined to assume an elegant sweep, deflecting sidewise to the earth, and ending with an upward curve and a droop at the outer extremity. Often the crowded environment of the forest does not admit of such ample development; yet even under such conditions the tulip tree preserves much of its elegance and is generally well balanced.

When young it does not appear to much advantage, being rather too symmetrical. Nevertheless I have found it described as a tree of “great refinement of expression” at that age. As soon as it begins to put on a richer crown of foliage and to develop a sturdier stem and more elegant lines in the disposition of its branches, it becomes invested with its peculiar aspect of magnificence, increasing in gracefulness and grandeur from year to year. Its bark, at first smooth and gray, gradually becomes chiseled with sharp small cuts; then takes on a corrugated appearance, becomes brown, and finally turns into deeply furrowed ridges in the old tree. Now the foliage, too, seems to clothe the massive boughs more fitly, being denser and in size of leaves more in accordance with the increased dimensions of the tree.

The foliage of the tulip tree is, in truth, one of its principal points of beauty, and is inferior only to the stateliness of its form. The opening leaf-buds are conical, exquisitely modeled, and of the tenderest green. The leaves unfold from them much as do the petals in a flower, but quickly spread apart on the stem. As they grow larger they still preserve their light-green color, but take on a mild gloss. They are ready to shift and tremble on their long leaf-stalks in every breath of wind, which gives them a decided air of cheerfulness. We may see the same thing in the aspen and in some of the poplars. Under the tulip tree, however, the light that descends and spreads out on the ground is far superior. It is softer and purer. We need not look up to appreciate it, but may watch it on the soil, over which it moves in flecks of light and dark.

“The chequer’d earth seems restless as a flood Brushed by the winds, so sportive is the light Shot through the boughs; it dances, as they dance, Shadow and sunshine intermingling quick, And dark’ning, and enlight’ning (as the leaves Play wanton) every part.”

THE CONE-BEARERS

The cone-bearing trees are usually provided with needle-shaped or awl-shaped leaves, in contradistinction to the broad and flat ones that belong to the group described in the preceding section of this chapter. Most of them preserve their foliage through the winter, and are commonly recognized by this evergreen habit. They are much more important to the forester than the other class. The conifers grow on the true forest soils. They range along mountain crests or are scattered over dry and semi-arid regions or along the sandy seashore, while the broadleaf species usually require a better soil and a more congenial climate. This circumstance causes many deciduous forests to be cut down, in order that the better land on which they grow may be utilized for agricultural purposes. Moreover, the wood of the conifers is generally more useful, being in several of the species of great economic importance. Lastly, in their habit of denser growth, and from the fact that these trees are ordinarily found in the form of “pure” forests (in contradistinction to those forests in which a number of species grow intermingled), they furnish certain very important conditions for practical and successful forestry.

The common white pine well deserves to stand at the head of all the conifers or evergreens east of the Mississippi. Though it once covered vast areas in more or less “pure” forests it has been largely cut away, and recurring fires have generally prevented its return; but in certain places it could even now be restored by careful treatment. At present the last remnants of these pineries are disappearing swiftly, and before the methods of the forester can be applied to such extensive areas, this valuable heritage will probably have vanished. Heretofore it has been to us Americans in the supply of wood what bread and water are in daily life. It has been hardly less valued by other nations, having been planted as a forest tree in Germany a full century ago.

I cannot say what I admire most in the white pine; whether it be the luxuriance and purity of its foliage, or the very graceful spread of its boughs. There is hardly a tree that can equal it for softness and rich color. The tufts of needlelike leaves densely cover the upper surfaces of the spreading branches, and are of a mild, uniformly pure olive-green. Seen from beneath they appear tangled in the beautifully interwoven twigs and stems. It is here that we first begin to notice the exquisite manner of the white pine. The boughs reach out horizontally, with here and there one that ascends or turns aside to assume a position exceptionally graceful and to fill out a space that seems specially to have been vacated for it. I speak of the white pine at the age preceding maturity, when it is in its full strength, but before it has attained the picturesqueness of old age. Following an easy curve, the branch divides at right and left into dozens of finer branchlets, all extending forward and straining, as it were, to reach the light; and these in turn lift up hundreds of twigs and little stems to enrich the upper surfaces with bushy tufts of lithe green needles. The elegance of this habit in the white pine appears to advantage when we stand a little above it on a gentle slope and see the branches clearly defined against the surface of a lake below or some far-away gray cloud.

Both in middle age and when it is old the white pine is a distinguished-looking tree. When young it is sometimes elegantly symmetrical; but more often, owing to a crowded position, it lacks the air of neatness that belongs to a few of the other pines and to most of the firs. At maturity it is a very impressive tree, especially in the dense forest, where it develops a tall, dark, stately stem. In its declining years the branches begin to break and fall away, no longer able to bear the weight of heavy snows. This is often the time when it is most picturesque.

The representatives of the white pine in the West are the silver pine and the sugar pine. Though both may be easily recognized as near relatives of the eastern species, either by the typical form of the cones or by the plan and structure of the foliage, each of the western trees possesses a majesty and beauty of its own. The silver pine is more compact in its branches than the white pine, and has somewhat denser and more rigid foliage. Its dark aspect is well suited to the mountains and ridges of the Northwest, where it commonly abounds. The sugar pine, which is the tallest of all pines, impresses us by its picturesque individuality. Its great perpendicular trunk not infrequently rises, clear of limbs, to the height of a hundred and fifty feet, and is surmounted by an open pyramidal crown of half that length, composed of long and slender branches that are full of motion. While the texture of the foliage is not as delicate as in the white pine, it is smooth and elastic, and has an even bluish tinge that shows to great advantage when the needles are stirred by the wind. Its cones, which are of enormous size, hang in clusters from the extremities of the distant boughs, which droop beneath the unusual weight. Two of these cones, which I have lying before me, measure each nineteen inches in length. Well might Douglas, the botanist who named this tree, call it “the most princely of the genus.”

The longleaf pines of the Southern States should be noticed for their picturesqueness. The Cuban pine is restricted to isolated tracts in the region of the Gulf and eastern Georgia. The loblolly pine and the longleaf pine, near relatives of the Cuban pine, cover extensive tracts in low, level regions of the Southern States, and are most interesting in old age. Standing, it may be, on a sandy plain not far from the sea, among straggling palmettos, they lift their ample crowns well up on their tall, straight stems, and contort their branches into surprising forms; so that, looking through their crowns at a distance in the dry, hazy air of the South, with possibly a red sunset sky for a background, they are extremely fantastic and entertaining.

There are two other pines that have a similar tortuous habit in the growth of their branches: the pitch pine of our eastern coast States and the lodgepole pine of the Rocky Mountains. These, however, have an esthetic value for quite a different reason. In the case of the pitch pine it is due to a natural peculiarity otherwise rare among conifers; for, this tree has the power of sprouting afresh from the stump that has been left after cutting or forest fires, thus healing in time the raggedness and devastation resulting from necessity, neglect, or indifference. The lodgepole pine of the West performs the same patient work over burned areas through the remarkable power of germination belonging to its seeds, even after being scorched by fire. Thus both of these trees not only furnish useful material, but restore health and calmness to the forest.

In connection with the longleaf pines of the Southern States, the bull pine of the West deserves to be noticed on account of its near botanical relationship and the somewhat similar economic position which it occupies. It is the most widely distributed of western trees, being found in almost every kind of soil and climate along the Pacific coast and throughout the Rockies. Over so wide a range, growing under very different conditions of soil, temperature, light, and moisture, it varies greatly in form and appearance. We encounter it on dry, sterile slopes or elevated plateaux in the interior, and walk for miles through the monotony of these dark bull pine forests, in which the trees are of small stature and seem to be struggling for their life. Again we meet it on the humid western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, associated with the sugar pine and other lofty trees. Here we scarcely recognize it. It holds its own among the company of giants, and is full of vitality, freedom, and strength; with brighter, redder bark and stout, sinuous branches; with longer needles and larger cones. The sunlight fills its ample crown spaces, and the wind murmurs in the foliage overhead; for the pines are the master musicians of the woods.

The Southern States and the Gulf region furnish us with a conifer of striking originality and great usefulness. This is the bald cypress, which may have caught the reader’s eye in some northern park by the elegant forms of its spirelike growth. It rises high and erect, a narrow pyramid clothed in the lightest green foliage. The latter is composed of delicate feathers of little elliptical leaves that hang drooping among the finely interwoven short branches. This is in its cultivated northern home, where it seems to thrive well on the carefully kept greensward. But in reality it is a tree of deep swamps, seeking the dank, flooded shores of southern rivers, or impenetrable morasses, where few other trees can live. Here we may paddle our boat through the strange-looking cypress knees that it sends up above the water from the roots in the muddy soil beneath, and may admire the straight, firm trunks that are ridged and buttressed below to form wide, spreading bases. In this, its native home, when it has grown to maturity, it looks far different from the trim, tall pyramid that we see in the park. In place of the lofty spire it bears a broad, flat crown, that is poised upon the tall, fibrous, reddish-gray trunk. Such crowns, if the tree has had room to spread, may measure as much as a hundred feet across; but where closely pressed at the sides by other trees, they are contracted to much narrower dimensions. The foliage is soft in texture as ever, and interspersed with little globular cones. With the coming of winter, however, the sprays of foliage turn brown and fall from the tree, the bald cypress being one of the very few cone-bearers that shed their leaves.

In the South, especially in Florida and along the Gulf, the cypress trees are likely to be overloaded with streamers of gray, mosslike tillandsia. This epiphytic plant, commonly known as “Florida moss” or “hanging moss,” sometimes hides the entire mass of foliage, and lends a funereal aspect to whole groves and forests of these trees, detracting much from their beauty.

One of the prettiest coniferous trees in the East is the hemlock. Whatever may be the prejudice against the commercial qualities of this tree,—for the value of its wood is not now appreciated as it should be,—its appearance is admired by all who know it. I call it “pretty” because it is fine and neat when young and grows to be comely and graceful in middle age, rather than beautiful in the ordinary meaning of that word. It is an easy, airy tree. And yet the time comes when it loses its ease and grace, when its trunk grows darker and its boughs become straggly and rough, when it puts on the strength of age without its decrepitude and bears unflinchingly the weight of winter snows. Is it now less interesting than in its youth? I think not. It makes the woods rough and natural, and we admire its simplicity, self-sufficiency, and endurance.

When young there is no tree with such elegant and yet loose and pretty effects in the foliage, unless it should be one of its western cousins. The spray hangs delicately from the sides of the tree and the top is gracefully pendent. The little shoots, as they peep out from hundreds of recesses, buoyant and lifelike, and the pendent top, are in some way suggestive of a playing fountain, especially in quite young trees. In the forest the symmetry of the hemlock is not always preserved; yet it fits into the scene gracefully, whether fringing the mountain stream or grouping itself among the other trees of the forest.

The two western hemlocks also have exceedingly graceful sprays and majestic forms, but they are less familiar to most of us and are not as widely distributed as the smaller eastern species.

One of the trees of widest geographical range in America is the red cedar, or red jumper, as it should more properly be called. This statement remains true notwithstanding the recent discovery that the form of red juniper common to certain parts of the Rockies is distinct from the eastern tree. Though of small size, except in the bottom lands of Arkansas and Texas, it possesses some excellent qualities and is useful in many ways. It is sometimes used in cabinet work, and is one of the best materials for fence posts. The variety that grows along the Florida coast furnishes the wood for the indispensable lead pencil.

The red juniper is at its best along the border of the forest or where it strays a short distance away. Its foliage is dark and bushy, and infinitely tender and soft in appearance. In the lower Appalachian region it forms a fine setting for the gorgeous drifts of dogwood and redbud that skirt the forest edges. It forms changeful and interesting groups on the rocky knolls and ledges. On our Jersey shores it has a tasteful way of gathering into little companies, just near enough to the forest to belong to it, composing scenes that are pleasant to remember. Singly, on the yellow sands, the young conical red juniper edges off well against the sky. In its old age the same tree looks gnarled and picturesque, but still beautiful, with its masses of small blue-gray berries.[3] Many of us remember it so by the edge of the ocean, and perhaps others, like myself, have allowed their imagination to drift and have fancied that it looked solemn and thoughtful, outlined against the pale-blue sky, listening to the swish and whisper of the sea.

Several cone-bearing trees of the Western States remain to be considered. These are the firs and spruces, which belong to the same class as the pines; and the big tree and redwood, relatives of the bald cypress.

The Douglas spruce, or red fir, is in reality neither a true spruce nor a fir, though it has some of the characteristics of each. It was discovered as long ago as 1795 by the famous explorer, Archibald Menzies. This species and a smaller one that grows on the arid mountains of southern California, with possibly a third that is found in Japan, constitute together the whole genus _Pseudotsuga_. But whatever its botanical peculiarities, the red fir is an important and exceedingly useful tree, especially for the purposes of practical and scientific forestry. Like the white pine it was planted long ago by those pioneers in forestry, the Germans, and has proved itself among them to be one of the few trees of foreign extraction that can be called successful.

When young, the red fir grows rapidly and symmetrically, and has a fresh, vigorous, healthy look. It then already possesses the bluish depth to its foliage that it preserves throughout life, a color that is comparable in its purity only to that of the white pine. In several of its other features, however, it changes with the lapse of years. It gradually loses the graceful lower boughs that feather to the ground in the young tree; its bark becomes rough and very thick; and its trunk develops into a tall, straight shaft that bears a long, spiry crown of striking symmetry, in which tier after tier of branches rises to the narrowing summit, ending some two or three hundred feet in air. This is its aspect in the favored regions of its growth, near the shores of Puget Sound and in the moist mountains of Washington and Oregon, where it once formed forests of extraordinary density and dark grandeur, portions of which are still preserved over this extensive territory.

Another important conifer is the lowland fir of the Pacific coast. All the silver firs, to which class this tree belongs, have distinct features in their foliage and a characteristic habit of growth, a description of which may enable the reader to picture to himself not only the lowland fir itself, but to form some conception of the esthetic value of the entire genus.

The leaves are narrow, flat, and linear, usually about as long as a pin or a needle, glossy green on the upper side, and streaked with a longitudinal whitish line underneath. They are crowded horizontally at the right and left sides of the shoot or twig, like the hairs on the quill of a feather. The twigs themselves, and, in turn, the boughs and branches, have a similar tendency to assume a horizontal position; and thus the tree is built up in neat symmetrical stages, dwindling in size to the summit, and presenting the typical conical form of the cone-bearers.

Let it not be presumed, however, that there is anything awkward or stiff in the appearance of the firs. Young firs are among the neatest and most elegant objects in a park. The smooth gray bark, the lifelike air in the distribution of the boughs and smaller branches, the glossy green as seen from the side or above, varied to a blue or gray when we stand beneath, redeem them from every charge of conventionality.[4]

The lowland fir as a young tree, and where it is afforded sufficient room, has more of the drooping, plume-like, graceful air than is usual with the members of this genus. The leaves are somewhat curled and scattered about the stem. Like most trees it becomes more expressive as it grows older and little by little rejects the features and traces of its earlier years. Its arms gradually bend inward, and the whole tree becomes more cylindrical, till in its maturity it speaks freely through its broken and twisted boughs of storms and battles and insect ravages of long ago; yet it strives to cover its scars with luxuriant masses of verdure and numberless purplish cones—a truly magnificent spectacle of a hoary veteran of crisp and sturdy aspect.

The Engelmann spruce, though a smaller tree than either the red fir or the lowland fir, is one of the most important of the spruces. Its home is in the elevated regions of Colorado, whence it spreads westward and northward throughout the Rocky Mountains. Its well rounded hole is scaly with small cinnamon-red plates, and its foliage is composed of sharp, short, needlelike leaves, that bristle around the stem and are bluish-green in color. Its small brown cones droop from the extremities of the boughs and mass themselves in the top of the tree. Like most of the spruces, this one climbs to high elevations. Many a wild mountain slope in the West is covered by the dense ranks of these straight, slender trees, with tapering spires that are green in summer and frosted with snow and rime in winter.