Part 2
Beech wood is used in various ways. In France the peasants make it into shoes--wooden shoes called sabots, which keep out the damp better than those made of any other wood. It is also used in ship-building and for making cheap furniture; but Beech wood is not nearly so valuable as that of the Oak, or Ash, or Elm.
PLATE III
THE BIRCH
“Sweet bird of the meadow, soft be thy nest, Thy mother will wake thee at morn from thy rest: She has made a soft nest, little redbreast, for thee, Of the leaves of the birch, and the moss of the tree.”
--Leyden.
The Birch tree is the daintiest and most fairy-like of all our forest trees, and, strange to say, it is one of the hardiest. Who would believe that the delicate tracery of purple twigs and branches, which looks like fairy fretwork against the grey wintry sky, could thrive in places where the sturdy Oak tree dies?
In the far, far north, in Lapland, where the ground is snow-covered all the year, the Birch tree flourishes, and many are the uses to which it is put in that dreary land.
Look at the Birch tree (1) early in the year before the sun has awakened the trees, and flowers, and seeds from their long winter sleep. It is easy to recognise, because no other tree has such delicate twigs and branches, and the colour of the trunk is peculiarly its own. Most tree trunks are grey, or grey-green, or brown, but the trunk of the Birch is covered with a silvery white bark that glistens like satin. In many places this bark is marked with dark bands which crack across the tree trunk on the silvery surface.
This silver bark is a wonderful thing. It peels off readily in large flakes which resemble tissue paper, and which look very easy to destroy, but are wonderfully tough and lasting. It burns readily, but in almost no other way can it be destroyed. If a Birch tree is blown down and left lying on the damp ground for many years, all the wood inside the silvery bark will decay, but the outside of the trunk remains unchanged. Stand on it, and you find that what you took to be a solid tree is nothing but a hollow tube of bark.
In North America the Indians cover their canoes with Birch bark, and in some snow-covered countries the people use it for tiles with which to roof their houses. Some time ago, when men were digging in the peat-bogs of Lancashire, they found the remains of Birch trees which must have been there for a thousand years. The wood had turned into stone, but the bark was still the same as when it grew on the tree.
In April the young leaves (2) cover the tree like a green mist. They are very tiny, the smallest and most fairy-like of all our tree leaves. Each leaf is oval in shape, with a glossy surface, and has a double row of teeth, first a large tooth, then a smaller one, cut unequally all round the edge. The leaf stalk is very slender and wiry, and the twig to which it is attached is very little stouter, so that the leaves dance and rustle in the slightest breath of wind. Sometimes the back of a Birch leaf is covered with fine yellow powder. This powder is really a tiny plant which has made its home on the Birch tree leaf and feeds on it, just as the ivy and mistletoe do on larger trees. In autumn these leaves turn pale yellow, and the moss and heather are strewn with their flakes of gold.
There is another stranger makes its home on some of the Birch trees. In spring, before the leaves come, you may often notice curious bunches of twigs that look like crows’ nests high up among the branches. These are caused by a tiny insect which has come to stay on the Birch tree, and, in some way which we do not understand, it makes all the twigs crowd together in that curious manner. “Witches’ Knots” they are called in Scotland.
In May the Birch tree is in flower. You know that tree flowers are not so easy to see as meadow flowers: they require to be sought for and looked at carefully if you wish to know about them. The Birch tree has two kinds of flowers, and both are needed if the seed from which new trees may grow is to be made ready. It takes the tree a whole year to prepare one kind of flower. During summer look at the foot of a leaf stalk, where it joins the twig, and you will find two tiny green stamen catkins (4) with all their soft scales tightly closed together. In autumn these little catkins become dark purple, and they hang on the tree all winter. Early in the following spring they change entirely. The scales unclose and the catkins grow longer till they look like a pair of caterpillars loosely shaking in the wind. Behind the scales in these reddy-brown caterpillars you find a mass of flowers, each made up of one tiny sepal, also two slender stamens with small yellow heads.
Now look at the other kind of flower, the seed catkin (3). These also are small and green, but they grow singly and are fatter and rounder than the stamen catkins. Their scales never open very wide, but if you look closely you will see behind each scale three little pear-shaped seed-vessels with two slender horns standing up from the top of each.
When the seeds in this catkin are ripe they resemble tiny nuts with wings on each side (5): and on windy days you can see clouds of these little winged seeds (5_a_) fluttering to the ground like small flies. Birds are very fond of Birch tree seeds, and one kind of finch, the siskin, is usually found hovering among the Birch trees.
The Birch tree lives till it is about a hundred years old. It is not grown up till it is twenty-five, so you will find no seeds on the young birches. It is a tree with many useful qualities. The bark is sometimes twisted into torches, as it contains a good deal of oil, and it is also used in tanning leather. The delicious scent of Russian leather is due to Birch bark oil. And there is sugar in the sap which may be made into wine. Furniture is largely made from the prettily grained Birch wood.
PLATE IV
THE ALDER
The Alder tree (1) is a cousin of the Birch and the Hazel, and like them its flowers and seeds are borne in catkins. It is usually to be found growing by the side of a slow-running stream, over which its slender branches bend gracefully, while its spreading roots cling to the boggy soil at the water’s edge. For the Alder does not thrive in dry ground: it is a water-loving tree, and its many tiny roots attract moisture, and suck it up greedily; so that the ground where the Alder grows is often a marshy swamp.
Sometimes you will find an Alder which has grown into a lofty tree with a rough brown-black bark, and with many large branches; but it is much more frequently found as a low-growing and rather gloomy bush, about the same size as the Hazel.
The wood of the Alder is much sought after for buildings which stand in water. In Venice one of the most famous bridges, the Rialto, is built on piles, or great posts of Alder driven deep into the bed of the canal: and one reads in old history books that boats were first made of the trunks of the Alder tree. But it is of no use for fences or gate posts, as it decays quickly in dry soil.
If you watch a woodman cutting down an Alder tree you will notice that the chips which fall under his axe are very white; but soon they change colour and become a reddish pink. The hard wood knots which are found in the tree trunk are beautifully streaked and veined and are much prized by furniture makers.
In early spring you should walk to the banks of a stream and look for an Alder tree. Like the Hazel, you will easily know it by its winter catkins, though these are very different from Hazel catkins. Clinging to the boughs you see groups of small brown oval cones, which are quite hard and woody and which snap off easily. These woody cones are the withered seed catkins (5) of last year. As well as these you find bunches of long drooping caterpillars with tightly-shut purple-green scales, which will not unclose till the spring days come. These are the young stamen catkins, and they have taken six months to grow so far. By these you will always know the Alder tree; and it is most interesting to watch day by day how its catkins grow and change.
In spring the tree produces many groups of tiny seed catkins (4), which are hard and oval and covered with closely-shut green scales. As the days get warmer these cones grow larger and larger, and one day you will find the scales opening as a fir cone does when it is ripe. Underneath each scale are hidden two seeds, and from the top of each seed rise two slender horns. There are no wings to the seed, as in the Birch tree. These seed cones grow fatter and larger all summer, and by autumn their scales, instead of remaining green and soft, have become a dark reddish brown colour and are hard and woody. In October or November the seed is quite ripe, and is shaken on to the boggy ground below. Then the empty seed catkins become dry and shrivelled, and they remain in groups clinging to the twigs all winter.
But the drooping caterpillars have been growing and changing too. Soon after the seed catkins have unclosed their hard oval balls, so that the sun and light may reach their tiny seeds, these drooping stamen catkins (3) unclose, and their scales take on a deeper shade of reddish purple. Each scale is edged with three points, and each point covers four tiny stamens and four tiny petals. When the fine powder in the yellow stamen heads is ripe, the wind blows it from the dangling tails on to the seed cones which are waiting for it, as without the stamen powder the seeds would never ripen: and soon after this happens the dangling tails fall to the ground.
If you look at an Alder tree in late autumn you will find three kinds of catkins. First, the empty seed catkins with dry woody scales; second, the dangling stamen catkins with the fine stamen dust all blown away; and third, there are tiny little caterpillar catkins with their scales still tightly closed together--these are next year’s stamen catkins (6) just begun to form.
The leaves (2) of the Alder are heavy and leathery. They are usually rounded at the tips, but sometimes they are square, as if a piece had been cut off. Each leaf is prettily toothed all round the edge, and the veins, which run from the centre rib to the margin, are very much raised. When the leaves are newly opened, the under-side is covered with tufts of soft down, and they are slightly sticky. Sometimes they are tinged with dull purple. These leaves are placed alternately on the stem, and while still in bud each leaf is enclosed in a pair of oval sheaths like small yellow ears. These ears do not fall off when the leaf unfolds, as do the leaf coverings of the Birch and the Beech; you will often find them at the bottom of the leaf stalk when the leaf is fully grown.
PLATE V
THE HORNBEAM
This is a tree that many people tell you they have never noticed; even people who know the names of most of our forest trees look surprised if you ask them which is the Hornbeam (1); they have never heard of it. And yet it grows freely in England in the woods and hedgerows, and like the Beech it is invaluable for sheltering with its close bushy branches younger trees that are struggling to live. If left to grow in good soil the Hornbeam will become a tall tree over seventy feet high, but it is not usual to find such well-grown Hornbeams, because the tree is generally planted to form hedges, and as these require thickness and bushiness rather than height, the top of the tree is often cut off, so that all its strength may go to producing side-branches.
Last century it was the fashion to have curious puzzle-paths made in gardens. You entered at a gap in a leafy hedge and walked on and on, and in and out between growing hedges till you came to an open space in the centre. Then the puzzle was to find your way out again, and this was sometimes very difficult. This kind of puzzle-path was called a maze, and the hedges of these mazes were frequently made of Hornbeam, because this tree will allow itself to be clipped and cut into any shape, and if its tall spreading branches are taken away, it at once puts out many small side-shoots which form a thick hedge.
The Hornbeam branches have a curious habit of growing together where they cross each other. You may find two good-sized branches which are separate on the lower part of the tree, but higher up they cross and touch each other, and frequently they join together and become one branch.
In the town of Ghent in Belgium there is a winding walk arched with Hornbeam: the trees have been planted so close that they meet overhead, and they have then been clipped and cut till they form a green tunnel under which you can walk for three hundred yards.
The trunk of the Hornbeam is a dull grey colour, and it is marked with white spots. It is not round, as are most tree trunks, but looks as if it had been slightly flattened, and so made oval when it was young. The leaves are not unlike those of the Elm and the young Beech, and when the tree is young it is sometimes mistaken for one or other of these. But you will notice some differences if you look carefully.
The Hornbeam leaf (2) is oval and tapers to a sharp point. It has strongly-marked veins running from the centre to the edge of the leaf, and these veins stand up like cord on the under-side of the leaf. You remember that the Beech leaf was smooth and glossy, and that the Elm leaf was rough and hairy? The Hornbeam comes just between the two: it is too rough to be a Beech leaf, and is also too pointed, and it is too smooth to be an Elm leaf. Besides, the two sides of the Hornbeam leaf meet exactly opposite each other on the leaf stalk, and in the Elm the one side of the leaf very often joins the stalk farther down than the other: the leaf is lopsided.
The Hornbeam leaves have two rows of teeth round the edge, and in autumn they turn yellow, and this yellow colour changes into red-brown as the winter draws near. In sheltered places the leaves will hang on the branches all winter, till in spring they are pushed off by the young leaf buds.
The Hornbeam has two kinds of flowers, which grow in catkins, and both are found on the same tree. The stamen catkins (3) come with the young leaves early in April, and they grow on those twigs which were produced last year. It is not possible to mistake the Hornbeam for either the Beech or the Elm if you see the flowers, for neither of these has hanging catkins like the Hornbeam. Each catkin is made up of many green scales covering the catkin loosely. These scales are broad and oval, and they end in a sharp point. Hidden at the foot of each scale lies a thick bunch of yellow-headed stamens with no petals and no sepals around them. These yellow stamen heads end in tufts of fine hairs, and they are filled with pollen dust. As soon as this dust is ripe the yellow heads burst and scatter it over the seed flowers which have been making ready to receive it. After this the stamen catkins shrivel, and they soon fall from the tree.
But there are other Hornbeam flowers, also growing in catkins (4) which appear at the end of this year’s young twigs. Each catkin is covered with soft, silky spear leaves, and behind every three of these narrow leaves there nestles a tiny seed with two little horns standing up at the top. These silky leaves soon fall off and are replaced by others which are very different. These are called bracts, and they look like a small hand with one long finger and two much shorter fingers. They are covered with a network of fine veins, and inside the hand sits the fruit (5), a small three-sided nut. When you see a bushy, drooping cluster of these green leafy bracts, each with its nut at the foot, you wonder how any one could mistake the Hornbeam for either the Beech or the Elm.
You will often see a dainty little bird called the hawfinch sitting on the Hornbeam branches and eating the nuts.
The wood of this tree is said to be very hard. Joiners do not care to work on Hornbeam, as it quickly blunts their tools; and some people tell you that the name is really Hard-beam, and that we have got into a careless habit of calling the tree by a wrong name. But there is another tale which may be the true one. Long ago, when ploughing was done by bullocks in this country, as it is to-day in many lands, each pair of bullocks was fastened together with a wooden collar called a yoke. This yoke was made of Hornbeam because of its strength, and the tree might get its name because from it was made the beam of wood that goes over the horns.
Nowadays the wood is little used except for making small things, such as handles of knives, and spoons, and cog-wheels.
PLATE VI
THE HAZEL
There are few of us who think of the Hazel as one of our forest trees. We know it as a large, straggling bush, with a thicket of leaves and branches, among which are hidden delicious nuts. But in some places the Hazel has quite outgrown the bush stage: in Middlesex there is a Hazel tree sixty feet high, with a straight thick trunk and many large branches covered luxuriantly with leaves.
The Hazel (1) has been known in history for many centuries. The Romans wrote that its spreading roots did harm to the young vines, but they found its supple twigs invaluable for tying up the straggling vine shoots.
Scotland is said to have been called Caledonia from Cal Dun, which means the hill of Hazel. And in Surrey we have the name Haslemere, which tells its own story.
In damp places beside streams, or on light soil close to quarries, or among broken rocky ground, the Hazel thrives, and many are the happy afternoons spent by children of all ages gathering nuts in the Hazel coppice. This is the only tree we have which produces food good to eat in its wild state.
You will not find the Hazel difficult to recognise at any time of year. Before the month of January is over you will notice a pair of long brown caterpillars dangling in the wind from many of the Hazel twigs: lamb’s tails, the country children call them, but their correct name is Hazel catkins; and like those of the Birch tree, they have been hanging on the tree all winter, but were so small that you did not notice them.
In summer, if you look carefully, you find many tiny green stamen catkins growing between the foot of the leaf stalk and the branch. These green cones grow very, very slowly all autumn and winter, and when January is nearly over they change into these dangling tails or hanging catkins (3), and their tightly-folded scales begin to unclose. Behind these scales lie eight stamens, each of which has a bright yellow head. These yellow heads are filled with fine powder, and when ripe they burst, and the fine powder is shaken out by the wind. Soon after, the catkin turns brown and shrivelled, and before very long it falls off; its work for the year is over.
When the snowdrops bloom, in the end of January, the other Hazel flowers or seed catkins are ready. They are not easily seen, so you must look for them carefully. On each side of the stalk you will find a small scale-covered bud (4), and at the tip of this bud rises a tuft of crimson threads. Inside this scale-covered bud are the seeds, and from the top of each seed rise two crimson threads. On windy days the fine powder from the yellow stamen heads is shaken over these crimson threads, which carry it to the young seeds hidden beneath the scaly covering. As spring advances this crimson tuft disappears and the bud busies itself making the seed, which must be ready by autumn. The covering of the seed hardens like a nut: at first this nut is pale green, but in winter it becomes a glossy russet brown.
Inside this nut (5) lies the kernel of the seed, and it is this sweet kernel which is the fruit we eat. Meantime the scaly leaves, which formed the covering of the young bud, have grown much larger: they have become tough and leathery, and their ends are deeply divided, as if they were torn. In the Filbert Hazel, which is a cousin of the common Hazel and very like it, these leathery coverings conceal the nut. But in the common or Cobnut Hazel they form a cup in which the nut sits in the same way as the acorn does in its cup.
The leaves (2) of the Hazel appear in early spring. They are rounded leaves, sometimes slightly heart-shaped, and they have two rows of teeth cut round the edge. Each leaf is rough and hairy, and is covered with a network of veins which seems to pucker the leaf. At first the young leaf stalk and branches are covered with fine down, but this soon wears off. Notice how many long, straight shoots rise from the ground beside the Hazel roots. On these Hazel shoots the leaves are placed in two rows on each side of the shoot, with the leaves not opposite each other, but alternate. The shoots make good baskets, and hoops, and hurdles, because they can be so easily bent into many shapes without breaking. The branches of the Hazel bush have the same good qualities, and they are valuable for fishing rods and walking-sticks, and such purposes, where toughness and elasticity are needed.
The Hazel leaves hang longer on the tree than most other leaves. The frost changes their colour from a dull grey-green to a pale yellow, but still they cling to their stalks till the winter wind strips them from the branches.
It is said that Hazel shoots or twigs have the power of showing where water is concealed. In places where there are no lakes, or rivers, or streams near at hand, water is got by digging wells deep down into the ground, and so allowing the stores which are hidden there to rise to the surface. But it is not everywhere that these hidden supplies will be found, and as digging a well costs a great deal of money, people are unwilling to begin the work unless they are likely to succeed. So they send for a man who is called a diviner, because he divines or guesses where water will be found. He walks across the fields carrying a Hazel rod in his hand, and when he reaches a spot where water lies beneath, the Hazel rod changes position in his hand and the well is sunk at the spot which the diviner points out. So the story goes.
For many generations it was a custom in this country to burn Hazel nuts on the night of October 31, All-Hallow Eve. Friends would meet together late in the evening, and each person would place two nuts as near together as possible in a clear red fire. The nuts were supposed to represent the two friends, and if they burned quietly and evenly, then the future was sure to be happy; but if they flared angrily or sputtered hissingly, especially if they burst with a loud report, then misfortune was supposed to follow the friends.
Hazel nuts are eagerly devoured by squirrels and dormice, and there is one bird, the Nuthatch, that is very busy and grows sleek and fat when the Hazel fruit is ripe. This bird breaks off a nut branch and flies away with it to an old oak tree. There he strips off the covering of leaves and cleverly places the bare nut in a crevice of the rough oak trunk. Then with his strong bill he hammers at the shell till it breaks and he can get at the nut inside. On still October days in the quiet woods you will hear his bill tap-tapping from the trunk of the oak tree.
PLATE VII
THE LIME OR LINDEN
“The Lime, a summer home of murmurous wings.”
--Tennyson.