Part 8

The cones of the bald cypress are globular, and about the size of an olive. By them the tree declares its relationship to the needle-leaved evergreens. The wood is light and easy to work, but not noticeably resinous. It is used for buildings, and for special parts, such as doors, shingles. It is beautiful when stained, and would be more valuable for interior finish of houses did it not keep the record of each bump and dent, as all soft woods do. Buckets and barrels to contain liquids are largely made of this wood. In railroad ties it proves very durable.

The best and strangest fact about this tree is that though it belongs to the South, and is a swamp tree by preference, it grows large and beautiful in the North, and in soil that is only moderately moist. The parks of Brooklyn have some noble specimens of this bald cypress of the South. They stand, tall, handsome shafts, feathered lightly with their short, drooping side branches, clothed with pale green leaves. There is no peculiarity of spreading trunk or knees to disturb the sod that comes up around the base of the tree. In the autumn the foliage turns yellow, and drops with the larch leaves. Through the winter the globular cones are present to prove this bald cypress a relative of the evergreens, which are its neighbours.

THE HOLLIES

No Christmas is Christmas truly without at least a few branches of the evergreen holly of the South, whose leathery, spiny-pointed leaves are brightened by clusters of red berries. Every year, hundreds of crates and boxes of these holly branches are shipped north from the woods of Alabama, and other Southern states. Many people make their living by cutting loads of these branches, and hauling them to the shipping sheds where they are packed and put onto the railroad. The business has grown so rapidly within the past twenty-five years that holly trees are becoming very scarce. It has never occurred to those who cut down and strip the trees that it takes years to grow new ones, and that nobody is planting for the future.

Holly wood is white, and very close-grained. It is admirable for tool handles, whipstocks, walking sticks, and for the blocks on which wood engravings are made. The living trees are planted for hedges, and for ornament. The leaves are evergreen, and the berries add brightness and warmth to the shrubbery border when snow covers the ground.

Although it reaches its greatest size, and is most commonly found in Southern woods, this little tree follows the coast as far north as Long Island. I have found it much higher than my head, growing wild on the sand bar that separates Great South Bay from the ocean, east of New York Harbour. Further north, it is occasionally found, but in stunted sizes, and it is easily winter-killed.

The holly of Europe, which has brightened the English Christmas for centuries, has a far more deeply cleft and spiny leaf than ours. Beside it, our holly leaves and berries are dull, and dark-coloured. The whole tree lacks the brightness of the European species. Hedges of this lustrous-leaved holly shut in many an English garden, and their bright berries glow cheerfully through the grey, sunless, winter days. No wonder the gardeners frown upon the little thrushes that feed upon these berries, thus robbing the garden of one of its chief winter charms.

Three other American hollies are found as shrubby trees in our Eastern woods, but none of them is evergreen, and the trees are not numerous in any locality. We shall oftenest see the species known as the winterberry, whose abundant red berries remain untouched by the birds, until late in the spring. Many of these fruit-laden branches are gathered in the wild, and sold in cities for Christmas decorations. Sprays of these berries are often added to the evergreen holly branches when their own berries are scarce.

Christmas holly is something we cannot do without. As the supply grows less, the price will mount higher. Then will come a time when it is profitable to raise these trees in quantities, and holly farming will be practised in favourable localities in the Southern states. But that time has not yet come.

THE BURNING BUSH

A little tree, not at all related to the holly, but truly a cousin of the bitter-sweet, has a rather surprising name. In summer it looks like a wild plum tree, except for its fluted, ash-grey bark. The flowers have purple petals, and look somewhat like potato blossoms. They would never attract your attention as you pass the tree.

In the autumn the leaves turn yellow, and gradually the purple husks that cover the scarlet berries split open, and curl back. Watch the gradual opening of these husks, and notice, from some little distance, the gradual reddening of the tree top, as the yellow leaves fall, and more and more of the scarlet berries are revealed, as the husks curl and shrink away from them. It is in this seed and its husk that the resemblance and relationship of the burning bush and the bitter-sweet vine is revealed.

The European spindle tree, and a number of Japanese and Chinese species, are now planted in American gardens, and called by their genus name, Evonymus. The red-fruited sorts all come under the common name, burning bush, and they do burn with a steady flame when winter has robbed the gardens of colour. Evergreens form a beautiful background for these ruddy little trees.

TREE STUDIES IN THE SPRING

THE AWAKENING OF THE TREES

All winter the grey beech trunks look almost white among the dark trunks of neighbouring trees. Their branches are dark at the tips, and the buds are long, slim, and sharp-pointed. Silky, brown bud scales, in many layers, protect the young shoots hidden in these buds. In April these shoots impatiently push aside their wrappings. The outer scales fall, the inner ones grow longer, but the growing tip leaves them behind, and they fall, while the silky-coated, fan-plaited baby leaves hang limp and helpless on the lengthening stem.

No tree of the woods is more beautiful than the beech as its twigs cover themselves with the tender green of spring. Beech leaves are _handsome_ when full grown. In the short hours of their babyhood they are _lovely_.

The sturdy shagbark hickory is late in waking. Poplars and beeches are in full leaf when the big buds of this familiar tree with the shaggy bark begin to swell, and show the pale, silky inner scales under the black outer pairs, which soon fall off.

The branches are stiff and angular, but the twigs hold up their big buds, and the trees look like great candelabra, each holding up a thousand lighted candles. As the pointed buds push upward, the protecting scales grow rapidly larger, and the outer ones turn back like the sepals of an iris. Wonderful tints of olive and yellow, violet and rose, blend in their silky covering. Out of this petal-like frill rises the cluster of young leaves, small but perfectly formed, and just as varied and delicate in colouring under their velvet covering. These complete the flower-like appearance of the young shoots. The illusion lasts only until the leaves spread out, and take on their natural, colour and size. The scales fall, their duty done, and the flower catkins come out, under the broad umbrellas of the fresh, new leaves. The tree is thoroughly awake, and has begun its long summer’s work.

The poplar likes to grow in moist ground, and in companies of its own kind. Copses of these trees, especially if they be young ones, are sure heralds of the coming spring. Their stems and branches are smooth, and almost as pale as white birches. They become greenish, especially the smaller branches and twigs, as the sap rises. They are alive from root tips to shining buds.

The brown scales loosen in March on the plumpest buds. The fuzzy grey pussies push out, and lengthen into soft chenille fringes that wave gracefully from every twig. They are grey, with a flush of pink, an exquisite colour harmony, too lovely to last. Their catkins fall as soon as their golden pollen dust is ripened and scattered by the wind. The plain, green fertile ones on other trees catch the pollen, and set seed which ripens, in green, berry-like capsules, in May. The seeds are almost too small to be seen. Each floats away with the small wisp of down in which it hides.

The slim buds on the same twigs open while the trees are still in blossom. The young shoots come out, and unroll their baby leaves, soft and white, covered with a silky down, and tinted pink under the protective hairs. For a short time only they look like white velvet, and are limp and helpless. Then the hairy coat is shed; the leaves become shiny and bright green, and twinkle in the sunshine. The stems are flexible and long and flattened. This makes them catch the breeze, if the blades do not, so the foliage trembles whenever a breeze goes through the tree top.

Quaking aspen, trembling aspen, and “quakenasp” are popular names given this tree, whose foliage has the appearance and the sound of rippling water. Tradition says the tree is forever accursed, and trembles as from fear, because the traitor, Judas, hanged himself on an aspen. This is a foolish notion. Only gaiety is expressed by the continual fluttering of the aspen’s leaves.

The buds of cottonwood and Balm of Gilead trees are sealed with a fragrant wax which softens as spring loosens the scales and growth begins.

Bees throng these trees, and gather the soft wax to carry to their hives. They use it to stop up cracks that would let in the rain. What is not needed at once they store for future use. Bee-keepers call it “propolis.” They have offered the bees something “just as good,” but they will take no substitute for the genuine. That is produced only on the buds of trees of the poplar family, and for a brief season it is ready for them in spring.

TREES THAT BLOOM IN EARLY SPRING

In late March, or early in April, before the leaves have come out on any of the trees along your street, you may look out of an upper window and notice that strange-looking tassels are hanging on the twigs of a poplar or cottonwood tree. Its buds are large and they shine in the sun, as if they were wet. A day or two later you may be walking with your mother or sister, and she will be startled to see the sidewalk covered with what look to her like great red caterpillars! Then you may remember the tree with the tassels on it, and recognise them, and explain where they came from.

A single look shows that this worm-like object is a catkin, and the lovely red is the colour of the many stamens that contain the pollen dust. When this is ripe the stamens burst and let it fly away. Then the tree lets its catkins fall, for they have done their part.

Green catkins hang on other trees of the same kind in the neighbourhood. The flowers are waiting for pollen that will enable them to set seed. If the wind blows in the right direction when the pollen is flying about, the green, fertile flowers will get all they need. These catkins are not shed as the red ones are. They make little show among the opening leaves, but little seed balls take the place of the flowers. By the end of May the green balls the size of peas turn yellow, and open. Out of each pod floats tufts of white down, each bearing away a tiny white seed. This is the end of the story. Before the chestnut trees have begun to blossom, the poplars have scattered their seeds, and have all the summer to spend in growing long, supple shoots covered with their dancing, shining leaves. They look as if they enjoy life!

The pussy willows push their fuzzy noses out in winter. Some are even showing in autumn. But the yellow pollen is not seen on these flowers until the catkins are full grown, and they wait till winter is past. They dare not risk a frost.

Among pussy willow trees there is a difference in the catkins. On one tree they turn yellow when mature; the golden pollen dust rises in a cloud when the twig is disturbed. These catkins soon fall off.

On other trees the catkins are greenish, and they stay on after reaching full size. They are the fertile flowers, which develop into seed pods. Pollen brought to them by the wind or by visiting insects in search of nectar, insures the setting of seed in these flowers. Though the gayer flowers fall, they are quite as necessary to the making of seeds as the fertile ones. In all the willows and poplars, it requires two trees, bearing the two kind of flowers, to make the seed. And the wind and nectar-seeking insects are necessary as pollen-carriers.

In marshy land, or by a brook or river, or even just outside the window at home, there is a tree that turns rosy in March with a multitude of small red flowers clustered on the sides of its twigs. It is the swamp maple, the red maple, the river maple, the scarlet maple. Two of these names tell of the tree’s thirst; two name its colour when in blossom, and also when the leaves change colour in autumn.

Each flower is a red bell, for the petals are red. One has a red forked pistil thrust out; another lacks a pistil, but has a cluster of yellow stamens. One tree may be deep red throughout, having only pistillate flowers. Another may have only staminate flowers; it will be orange coloured, by the blending of the colours of the yellow stamens, and the red petals. Another tree may have flowers of both kinds. Occasionally flowers will be found that have both stamens and pistils.

The bees are in the scarlet maples at the first loosening of the bud scales. There is nectar in those flower bells. The colour and a faint fragrance tell this secret. From pollen flowers the busy insects carry the golden dust to the forked pistils that set seeds.

The wind helps by scattering pollen in the tree tops, and very soon the flowers are gone. The staminate trees turn green when the opening leaves lose their vivid red. The pistillate trees hang out red clusters of winged seeds below the opening leaf clusters. These red trees keep their name written plainly as long as the seed clusters swing.

Early in March, the side buds on the elm twigs begin to swell, and soon clusters of purplish flowers, small but very pretty, come out of the largest buds, and the tree top has a purplish haze upon it, that means that spring is coming. The bees come to get nectar from these early blossoms, but few people speak of the blossoming elms. They do not notice that elms ever blossom; and are rather incredulous when a spray is shown them covered with the graceful little tassels. “Who ever _heard_ of elms having flowers?”

The truth is that every tree, when it is large enough, bears flowers. Not every one bears fruit, for some have pollen flowers only, the seeds being borne on the fertile trees. Elms have perfect flowers, and soon after the leaves open, the green fruits are seen in clusters, and before May passes, the seeds, each surrounded by an oval wing, flutter off in the wind.

THE AMERICAN ELM AND ITS KIN

Beautiful and stately, yet full of grace is the form of a big elm tree against the grey sky of a cloudy winter day. The tall trunk is crowned with many main branches, which spread into a widening funnel shape, subdividing into numberless smaller branches, whose direction is outward and downward. The numerous twigs have the droop of a weeping willow. The tree top is wonderful when every limb is bare.

In summer the same tree is a great fountain of green leaves. The long, leafy twigs of new wood are flung out to the wind, and the twinkling blades dazzle the eyes like spray. This is the time that we love the elm for its shade, and as an ornament to home grounds and parks. Roadside elms are the favourite nesting trees of the Baltimore oriole, whose hanging pocket of grasses and yarns swings at the end of a high outer branch.

When winter is still in the air, and snow on the landscape, the dark twigs of these bare elm trees change colour. It is the purple flower clusters that are flung out from opening buds in late March. It takes sharp eyes to see the cause of the wine-coloured flush in the tree top. With the opening of the leafy shoots in April, the trees get an added colour from the pale green seed discs that replace the flowers. These are winged, and they soon turn brown, and fly away on the first breeze. This is the elm’s way of sowing seeds. A crop of young elms grows each summer in fields and gardens near these seed trees. The leaf of the seedling is exactly after the pattern of the parental tree, but smaller.

The English elm is less graceful than our American tree. It has more the stature of the white oak. The head is compact, and the foliage mass thicker, and longer-lived. The robin red-breast nests close to the sturdy trunk, shielded by the earliest leaves.

An old couplet guides the farmer in the old country:

“When the elm leaf is as big as a mouse’s ear, Then to sow barley never fear.”

The toughness of elm is remembered by all who have “read of the wonderful one-hoss shay.” Nothing but “ellum” was proper stuff for the hubs, you know. As it is durable in soil, elm is good timber for posts and railroad ties. By its toughness and flexibility, it is fit for waggon tongues, and all kinds of agricultural implements. The ancient warrior of England was likely to carry a longbow made of the tough British elm.

Slippery elms grow more irregular in form than the American, and are usually smaller trees. Both kinds grow together in the wooded regions east of the Rocky Mountains. The difference between them can be easily detected by a blind person. Twigs, buds, and leaves of slippery elms are made rough and harsh to the touch by coarse, reddish hairs.

Boys and many other people like the taste of the glutinous inner bark of this tree when the sap is running, and the limbs and trunks peel easily. Many a tree is sacrificed to this appetite. The same delectable mucilaginous substance quenches the thirst and allays hunger,—so hunters say, who have eaten it when lost in the woods, and threatened with starvation. Poultices of it relieve throat troubles, when there is congestion. It is a home remedy for inflammations and fevers. Dried and ground, the rich cambium is mixed with milk, and forms a nutritious and tasty food for invalids. It is a staple on the shelves of apothecary shops.

The rock elm might be mistaken for a bur oak were the leaves not decided proof that it is an elm. The limbs are shaggy, and the twigs winged by the corky bark. Indeed, another name for the tree is the cork elm. The framework of this tree is stiff and irregular, a decided contrast to the graceful drooping top of the American elm, whose symmetry is one of its best points.

The wood has its fibres so interlaced that no wood excels it in toughness and springiness. It is the wheelwright’s choice. It makes the finest bridge timbers, and the best axe handles, and wheel hubs.

The winged elm is the smallest and daintiest of the elms. The twigs are broadened by a corky ridge on each side. This gives the tree its name. The Indian name, Wahoo, is also heard in the South. The leaves are of the elm type, but unusually small.

It is seen as a street and lawn tree in cities and towns south of Virginia, and west to Illinois and Texas.

THE MAPLE FAMILY

If you meet a tree of good size, with slender branches, and small buds set opposite upon the twigs, you may suspect it of being a maple. The leaves are needed to assure you. If it is winter time, and the tree stands on the street, the leaves may all have been raked away. If the tree grows in the woods, the chances are that there is a leaf carpet over its roots, and that most of these leaves have fallen from its branches. You can make sure of this point by picking up a dead leaf, examining the base of its stalk to see if it fits the leaf scars on the twigs. If the leaves are simple, that is, if they have a single blade, the evidence that this is a maple is very strong. There are a few small trees with simple leaves set opposite on the twigs, but they do not grow as large as maples.

Does the leaf have three main divisions, each with a vein which is one of three large branches of the leaf stalk? Then you may be sure that the tree is one of the maple family.

Simple leaves, of three main lobes, set opposite on the twigs, and the twigs set opposite on the branches,—in these are the plain signature of the maples. They write their names in these characters, across every branch throughout the growing season, and on the leafless branches, and the dead leaves under the tree in winter. Another signature is the one-sided maple key, which hangs on the trees all summer, and even late into the winter on some kinds, but is shed in early summer by a few.

The two early-blooming maples are commonly planted as street and shade trees all over the Eastern half of the country. It is easy to recognise these, and to know them apart by the leaf alone.

The red maple is a spreading, symmetrical tree, of medium size with slender, erect branches. The leaves are red when they open in spring; so are the flowers which cluster on the bare twigs in early April, before the leaves are out. The clustered fruits that dangle in pairs all along the stems in May are red, and in the autumn the tree changes its green robe of foliage to scarlet before winter comes. The buds that cluster at the joints are red as rubies, and the slim twigs glow with the same warm colour, which is warmer by contrast with the snow.

All maple leaves are more or less cleft into three main divisions. The red maple has two shallow clefts, V-shaped, at the top, and the lobes are pointed and triangular. The margins are irregularly saw-toothed. These leaves are often downy beneath, and always white-lined when young. In summer they have pale green linings. As a rule, red maple leaves are small, averaging less than three inches in the length of their blades. They are larger on young trees.

The silver maple is much more easily grown from seed than the red maple, but it has a far more irregular tree top. The limbs branch low on the trunk, and these limbs grow very long, giving the tree a loose head of great height, and great horizontal spread. The small branches curve downward, and the twigs are held erect. The wind twists and breaks these great weak limbs, or wrenches them loose from the trunk. It is dangerous to have these trees near the house, for wind and ice storms are constantly snapping off branches large enough to break windows, or knock down chimneys as they fall.

The flowers of the silver maple show no red. They come out greenish-yellow on the twigs when the red maple’s flowers are glowing on their red twigs in March, and early April. The leaves are pale green, white beneath, and set on long flexible stems. They are larger than the leaves of the red maple, and cleft in a distinctly different way. A narrow, deep fissure divides the leaf in thirds, and two side clefts divide the lower lobes in two unequal halves. These fissures reach two-thirds of the way through the leaf blade, and each lobe is cleft along its sides, into many irregular bays and capes. These leaves are always silvery white beneath in summer, and they turn to yellow in the autumn.

In late May the pairs of winged keys hang on short stems. Each key is about two inches long, fuzzy green, until ripe, twice the length of the smooth keys of the red maple, which are ripening at the same time.