C. E. Smith

“ Even when very old-about two hundred and fifty years some are said to live—the Hawthorn is always a small tree.
In April the young leaf buds appear; pale green knobs, or little bundles, bursting from every branch. Each leaf (2) is cut up into blunt fingers, and soon it loses its paleness and becomes dark green and glossy. In autumn these leaves change to gold and dark red and brown; but the frosty nights and cold winds soon strip them from the branches.
May is the month when the flowers (2) begin to bloom—clusters of tiny snow-white balls, each at the end of a slender green stalk. ”

“ The edge of the leaf is cut into sharp teeth, and all over it a network of fine veins is spread. When the leaf is still young you find tufts of soft, downy hairs on the under-side, and at first each leaf hangs straight down from its stalk as if it had not strength to rise and face the sunlight. But they soon raise themselves, and gradually their pale green colour darkens, though the Lime tree leaf never becomes so dark, nor is it as glossy, as the leaf of the Beech tree. ”

“ As the spring advances those pretty crimson leaves become dark green above and a light green on the under-side, and they lose the soft down which covered them, but even when fully out they are never so large as those of the Sycamore. When autumn draws near, with its cold winds and frosty nights, the Field Maple leaves change colour once more and become brilliant yellow; you will see them shining in the hedgerows like a bush of gold. ”

“ The berries (3) become crimson when the frost comes, and birds eat them greedily.
We have few trees which flower so beautifully as the Hawthorn. In May and June the hedgerows are laden with its masses of snowy blossoms. Sometimes you will find Hawthorns on which the flowers are a vivid crimson, and these are so transparently beautiful they look as if the light shone through them. And in autumn no tree is more attractive than the Hawthorn, with its gleaming berries and many-coloured leaves. ”

“ Each seed is like a small pea, and is snugly packed in a horny case lined with the softest and silkiest down. When it is ripe the wind blows the winged seeds from the tree and carries them a long way. They fall into the ground, where the horny case prevents the young seed from rotting during the cold winter months before it is time for it to begin to sprout. Then when spring comes the baby seed bursts its covering and sends up two tiny green ribbon leaves which are the beginning of a new Sycamore tree. The wings of the Sycamore seed are beautifully tinged with pink. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No other tree gives such shade as the Beech, and in a hot summer day how tempting it is to lie underneath the branches and watch the squirrels glancing in and out among the rustling leaves and tearing the young bark. ”

“ One is the Lombardy Poplar, which grows tall and slender like a church spire; its branches rise upward like the flame of a torch, and the tree trunk is clothed to the very ground with withered branches, which never spread outwards, but grow close to the main stem. ”

“ It is a broad, sturdy tree, and it grows very slowly, so slowly that after it is grown up it rarely increases more than an inch in a year, and sometimes not even that. But just because the Oak tree lives so leisurely, it outlasts all its companions in the forest except, perhaps, the yew tree, and its beautiful hard, close-grained wood is the most prized of all our timber. ”

“ You must never forget that both kinds of flowers are required if the tree is to produce new seed, and many books have been written to point out the wonderful ways in which the wind and the birds and the bees carry the stamen dust to the seed-vessels, which are waiting to receive it.
Each summer the tree adds a layer of new wood in a circle round the tree trunk; a broad circle when there has been sunshine and the tree has thriven well, and a narrow circle when [x] the season has been wet and sunless. This new layer of wood is always found just under the bark or coarse, outer skin of the tree. ”

“ Sometimes it is called the Holy tree, because from the oldest time of which we have any record its boughs have been used to deck our shrines and churches, and in some parts of England the country people in December speak of gathering Christmas, which is the name they give to the Holly, or Holy tree. It is this evergreen which we oftenest use at Christmas-tide to decorate our churches, and very lovely the dark green sprays, with their coral berries, look when twined round the grey stone pillars. ”

“ Cattle love the Elm tree leaves when they are green and young, and in some places they are stripped from the trees in sackfuls to feed the cows.
Many insects make their home on the Elm tree. The caterpillar of the large tortoise-shell butterfly feeds on the leaves, and there is an insect beetle that burrows little tunnels in the wood and loosens the bark from the tree. If you pick up some pieces of Elm tree wood where a woodman has been sawing, you will see curious markings like the veins of a skeleton leaf, tunnelled in the wood. ”

“ Those vast forests were not planted by man. The young trees sprang from seeds which had fallen from the woody fruit cones, and were carried by rooks or other birds to places where human beings rarely trod. There the young seeds grew and sent out their greedy roots. If the soil was good and plentiful they produced a strong carrot-shaped root, which bored deep into the ground and gave the tree such a firm hold that no storm could tear it up. ”

“ Only the Beech tree has such a smooth trunk when it is fully grown, and in consequence, every boy with a new knife tries to cut his name on its bark. In summer the young bud (3) of next year’s leaf is formed where each leaf joins the stem. All winter time you can see slender-pointed buds (4) growing at the end of every twig, and when April comes each of these pointed buds has become a loose bunch of silky brown scales. Inside these protecting scales is hidden the young leaf bud, and soon the winter coverings unclose. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The trunk of a full-grown Larch is reddish brown in colour, and it is covered with a rough, scaly bark, which is often hung with hoary tufts of pale grey lichen.
Larch wood is very valuable, and is used for many purposes. It is very tough, and does not rot in water. Joiners tell us there are fewer knots in planks of Larch than in those of either Silver Fir or Spruce. Wood knots are scars which occur where a dead branch has fallen from the tree, and builders complain that when the tree is sawn into planks, the knots shrink and fall out, leaving a round hole. ”

“ Sometimes on a still day if you are sitting quietly in the woods, you will hear a gentle tap-tapping close beside you. This is the woodpecker, [37] a bird which is perched on the rough bark of the Elm tree, and with his bill he pecks at the tree in search of insects which form his favourite meal.
Birds love the Elm trees, as their shade is not too dense to shut out the sunshine, and you will often find rooks’ nests in the upper branches, tossed and swayed by the gales.
The Elm tree is useful for many purposes. Farmers plant it in their hedgerows, as grass will grow freely above its roots. ”

“ There are so many trees that grow all to one side if they are much exposed to a [49] cold wind. Look at the Beech, or the Hawthorn, or the Elm on the crest of a ridge, and you will at once know from which direction the wind blows strongest and coldest, by seeing how the tree puts out all its best branches on the sheltered side. But the Sycamore tree is indifferent to cold, or even to the salt sea winds; it sends out its branches equally on every side, and there is always a thick roof of leaves at the top.
The Sycamore tree prefers a dry soil, in which it grows very quickly ”

“ But if you wish to know what a Lime tree really looks like at its best, then you must find one growing in some country park where there is space, and fresh air, and plenty of sunshine; then you will see how beautiful a tree it can be. The Lime is a tall, stately tree. It has many slender branches closely covered with leaves, which have each a long stalk. In old trees the branches often bend down close to the ground, but the sunshine always succeeds in finding its way under the Lime tree branches, and it flickers on the grass as it never does beneath the Beech tree boughs. ”

“ But the Ash tree leaves are among the first to fall. Whenever the cold winds come they wither, and a single night of frost will strew them in hundreds on the ground. Where the leaf stalk joined the twig you will see a curious scar (5) shaped like a horse-shoe, and next year a black bud will appear inside this scar. The Ash tree will live for several hundred years. It is not fully grown up till it is forty or fifty years old, and till then you will not find any bunches of keys, with their seeds, growing on the tree. ”

“ In Italy, where the Larch trees grow to great size, small holes are bored through the trunk to the very heart of the tree, and a thin pipe is put in. Then a can is hung on the end of the pipe, and the pure turpentine juice drops steadily into the can. It is then strained, and is sold just as it comes from the tree.
Early in April the Larch tree begins to get ready for summer; it is always one of the first trees to awaken at the call of spring. On each flexible twig there appear little brown scaly knobs like small beads, placed either singly or in pairs with a short space between each bead. ”

“ In winter you will always know the Common Elm by its brushwood clothing, and in early spring, in March, after there have been a few sunny days, you will see tiny green leaf buds opening in this brushwood sheaf before the large upper branches show any signs of life.
The Common Elm is one of our tallest trees. It has a thick rough trunk, on which are many large gnarled bosses or knobs. The bark of the tree is very rugged and is covered with many deep furrows. ”

“ On the same twig, and not far from the stamen catkins, you see a beautiful deep rose-red seed catkin (4) . This tiny rose-red catkin is very lovely among the brilliant green tufts of leaves; no other cone-bearing tree has anything so attractive to show us. At first the catkin scales are soft and fleshy; they overlap each other very loosely, and from the base of each scale there rises a bright green point like a single needle-leaf. ”

“ Scattered over the surface of the leaves, and indeed over the skin of the tree, are many tiny mouths or openings called stomata. It is by these that the tree breathes. It now takes from the air some oxygen, which, you will remember, is the gas that the leaves do not need in making their share of the tree food. Now you can see why it is that a tree cannot thrive if it is planted in a dusty, sooty town. The tiny mouths with which it breathes get filled up, and the tree is half-choked for lack of air. ”

“ 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 [18] 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. ”

“ The bark of the young Holly shoots and boughs is pale green and quite smooth.
The tree requires little sunshine, and it seems to keep all it gets, as every leaf is highly polished and reflects the light like a mirror. These leaves grow closely on every branch; they are placed [98] alternately on each side of the twigs, and are oval, with the edges so much waved that the leaves will not lie flat, but curl on each side of the centre rib.
The prickly leaves (3) which grow low down on the tree have sharp spines along the waved edges, and a very sharp spine always grows at the point of the leaf. ”