Arboreal

“ The retention of arboreal forms throughout long geological ages, may teach geologists that there must always have been extensive land areas covered by forests on the site of the tropical zone of America. ”

“ INSECTIVORA, an order of non-volant placental mammals of small size, with a dentition adapted to an insect-diet. In nearly all cases these creatures are nocturnal, and the majority are terrestrial, many burrowing in the ground, although a few are arboreal and others aquatic. They have plantigrade or partially plantigrade feet, that is to say, they apply the whole or the greater portion of the soles to the ground when walking; and there are generally five toes, each terminating in a claw, and the first never being opposable to the others in either the fore or hind limb. ”

“ All these woods there are for rambles, flushed in the spring with wood-anemones and wood-sorrel, set in the green moss and the greener heather of the bilberry. Nowhere, too, in the Forest, than in these woods, have I seen more lovely sunsets. Through some deep-cut oriel of the trees have I watched the sun begin to sink, each moment burning brighter, and then suddenly its great brand of fire would fall, reddening each tree trunk, and crimson billows of clouds come rolling eastward. ”

“ And, lastly, we get a spreading forest tree equalling the red pine in height. At certain times of the year the bark peels off, and then the Temple columns are splashed with crimson and scarlet—wonderfully beautiful.
Surely it is this continual finding of surprises that make one’s progress through the bush so fascinating? Everywhere one sees those strange black ropes, jointed and polished, hanging from the roof in straight lines, or tying tree to tree, twisting and coiling, with neither beginning nor end that one can find. ”

“ Some, under the influence of better soil or more light, have done better than others; but they are all sound and stately trees, and together represent the best product of the forest. Long ago other trees that grew in their midst, but were less promising, were removed for the sake of these. Under their continuous roof of foliage [Pg 160] there is a cool, deep shade. The ground is scattered with fern, or covered with deep beds of leaves, or with the glossy needles of the conifers. ”

“ The trees of all the species stand more or less apart in groves, or in small, irregular groups, enabling one to find a way nearly everywhere, along sunny colonnades and through openings that have a smooth, park-like surface, strewn with brown needles and burs. Now you cross a wild garden, now a meadow, now a ferny, willowy stream; and ever and anon you emerge from all the groves and flowers upon some granite pavement or high, bare ridge commanding superb views above the waving sea of evergreens far and near. ”

“ As the seasons went on, the branches of the tall trees grew so very thick that they shut out the light down in the forest. Then the Little Tree could not see the sun at all, and one by one the ferns and flowers at her roots died from the dampness, and the Little Tree was all alone! Nothing broke the silence of the dark, still forest save the calls of the birds when they returned each year to build their nests, or the sound of the branches swaying in the breeze. ”

“ I like best a forest of mingled trees, ash, maple, oak, beech, hickory, and evergreens, with birches growing along the edges of the brook that carries itself through the roots and stones, toward the willows that grow in yonder meadow. ”

“ The aggregate effect produced by forest scenery is magnificent—the deep retiring woodland, the waving of innumerable branches, the majestic columns which uphold them, the mingled tints and hues, the dancing of the lights and shadows on the ground, the long, long vistas which extend far as the eye can reach, when the view of external nature is shut out, when there is neither a green meadow nor distant hill to be seen, nor even a fence nor railing, nothing which betokens the hand of man; but noble trees around, and a magnificent canopy of mingled boughs ”

“ The greater part of the breadth is occupied by the zone of the forest, the willow brakes, and the shrubbery of the bank—I find myself hunting for a word which will more perfectly fix and define this wonderful terrain than the word wood, and yet I am unable to find one. There can be no talk of a wood in the usual sense of the term—a kind of great pillared grove with moss and strewn leafage and tree-trunks of fairly uniform girth. The trees in our hunting-grounds are of different ages and circumference. ”

“ From these frosty Arctic sky gardens you may descend in one straight swoop to the abronia, mentzelia, and œnothera gardens of Mono, where the sunshine is warm enough for palms.
But the greatest of all the gardens is the belt of forest trees, profusely covered in the spring with blue and purple, red and yellow blossoms, each tree with a gigantic panicle of flowers fifty to a hundred feet long. Yet strange to say they are seldom noticed. Few travel through the woods when they are in bloom, the flowers of some of the showiest species opening before the snow is off the ground. ”

“ The oak is a majestic tree, the chesnut one of the most umbrageous of forest trees, the elm rises like a pyramid of verdure, the ash has its drooping branches, the maple is celebrated for its light and quivering foliage, but the beech is the poets’ tree, the lovers’ tree. Have you not heard that young men often haunt the forest, and disfigure the even and silvery bark of beech-trees, by making them the depositors of the names of their beloved ones? ”

“ Of the broadleaf forests there are many types. There are forests of oak and chestnut, of maple and beech; dry upland forests, and the tangled woods of the swamps. There are young thickets of birch and aspen, of willow and alder, and scrubby oak barrens. There are second-growth forests, and now and then even a patch of fine old virgin timber. In size, also, there is a great difference, from the grove that covers the hilltop to the unbroken forest that stretches over an entire mountain range. ”

“ Down rushed the steep slopes to the plain, clad in the decaying leaf and mast of former years, and at the edges of these precipitous glades, or scattered at long intervals across them, great single trees emerged, the types and masters of the forest, their trunks, incomparably tall, and all their noble limbs, now thinly veiled by a departing leafage, drawn sharp, in black and silver, on the pale background of the chalk plain. ”

“ Though meadow, arable, and hop-fields hold now the place of the forest, a goodly remnant remains, for every hedge is full of oak and elm and ash; maple too, and the lesser bushes. At a little distance, so thick are the trees, the whole country appears a wood, and it is easy to see what a forest it must have been centuries ago. ”

“ But the average forest is a mixture of these scenes. There will probably be groups of fifty trees standing like columns of a cathedral, grey and solemn in the twilight, and in the midst there will be a naked and gaunt patriarch, bleached white, and around it will have grown a young community, each young tree clambering upward to become heir to the area of light and sunshine once occupied by the sire. ”

“ You see a thick forest of peculiarly straight trees, reaching to about one hundred and twenty feet in height, and without a branch for about seventy or eighty feet from the ground, with their round, straight stems perfectly black, while the branches at the top, and the underwood at the bottom, are of the most brilliant green, looking as if a forest of gigantic ebony rulers had taken to budding like Aaron's rod. ”

“ The sighing of the wind alone is heard among their sapless branches.
Thus much we know, that in all forest-trees the stages of vegetation are alike. But century after century must have rolled on, till the giant bulk of the noble trees were fully developed, till their stately columns, upheld an ample canopy of spreading boughs, beneath which the flocks that grazed in the open spaces of the forest might find a shelter from the storm. ”

“ Rows of evergreens set close together make a protecting wall of green against the cold winds. Low clipped hedges of many kinds of trees make living boundaries, much more beautiful than wooden or wire fences. On lawns and near houses trees are planted for their beauty and for their shade. Orchards of fruit trees are planted because they furnish food. Nut orchards are set out for the same reasons.
The trees cut down in the woods, and sawed at the mills give us lumber to build houses to live in, and furniture to make them comfortable, and the same forest furnishes the fuel that keeps us warm. ”

“ There nearly all the old trees are over two hundred feet high, and the heavy, leafy, much-divided branches sumptuously clothe the trunk almost to the ground. Such trees are easily climbed, and in going up the winding stairs of knotty limbs to the top you will gain a most telling and memorable idea of the height, the richness and intricacy of the branches, and the marvelous abundance and beauty of the long shining elastic foliage. In tranquil weather, you will see the firm outstanding needles in calm content, shimmering and throwing off keen minute rays of light like lances of ice ”

“ Then imagine yourself climbing in an hour or so up into a high ridge country of broad cup-like sweeps and bold outcropping ledges. Imagine a forest of pine-trees bigger than any pines you ever saw before,—pines eight and ten feet through, so huge that you can hardly look over one of their prostrate trunks even from the back of your pony. Imagine, further, singing little streams of ice-cold water, deep refreshing shadows, a soft carpet of pine-needles through which the faint furrow of the trail runs as over velvet. ”

“ On the edge of the spur the forest is more open. The ground is covered with grass and flowers and plants with many-coloured leaves. Rich orchids and tender ferns and pendant mosses clothe the trees. Graceful vines and creepers festoon themselves from bough to bough. The air is fragrant with the scent of flowers. Bright butterflies flutter noiselessly about. The soft purr of forest life drones around. ”

“ Presently I came to thicker wood, where the trees were much taller and in greater variety; and after this came another sterile strip, like that on the edge of the wood, where stone cropped out from the ground and nothing grew except the yellow-flowered thorn bushes. Passing this sterile ribbon, which seemed to extend to a considerable distance north and south, and was fifty to a hundred yards wide, the forest again became dense and the trees large, with much undergrowth in places obstructing the view and making progress difficult. ”

“ Other types of trees, including more than 175 species of commercial value, grace our contemporary forest. They add to the grandeur and glory of our land, immeasurable in their fullest meaning, though in a tangible sense furnishing food and protective cover to wildlife, shade and firewood to campers, and timber to us all. ”

“ Well-planted boulevards of plane-trees lead to what appears a bit of primeval forest—an assemblage of ancient trees, their knotted, hoary trunks each in girth huge as a windmill, in striking contrast to the bright foliage and abundant fruit. ”

“ Passed through the deer-park wood of old oaks, spread over the side of a bold hill, and of such an extent, that the scene is a truly forest one, without any other boundary in view than what the stems of trees offer from mere extent, retiring one behind another till they thicken so much to the eye, under the shade of their spreading tops, as to form a distant wall of wood. ”

“ As we skirted the forest, the charming variety of the blossoms, and their shades of colour, presented a still more enlivened appearance—the tops of the trees being covered with bloom, some standing erect towards the light of the sun, others bending down, with a profusion of fruit and seed. ”

“ Woods, lakes, pools, fountains, clumps of trees, single trees, masses of shrubs, all have to be duly arranged for, and, as it were, made to fall into their respective positions in the landscape; and no slight experience or imperfect knowledge of the harmonies of colours could lay out an upland undulating lawn of fifty or a hundred acres, so that the wood and water should be made to assume their most picturesque forms, and a million bright blossoms of every hue be gathered into their proper places. ”

“ Tropical vegetation hung in thick green masses to the water's edge, while the blacker mass of foliage of colossal trees whose huge trunks shot up a hundred feet or more without a branch, shut in the landscape on every hand. ”

“ The same general causes have led to the filling up of every place in nature with some specially adapted form. Thus we find a forest of smaller trees adapted to grow in the shade of greater trees. Thus we find every tree supporting numerous other forms of vegetation, and some so crowded with epiphytes of various kinds that their forks and horizontal branches are veritable gardens. Creeping ferns and arums run up the smoothest trunks; an immense variety of climbers hang in tangled masses from the branches and mount over [p. 67] the highest tree-tops. ”

“ Leaving the road behind, therefore, and heading still eastward, you cross a ridge where the hardwoods stand, as their ancestors stood, untouched by the tools of men. Immense trunks of beech or sugar-maple or yellow birch tower upward wide apart, the moss of centuries upon them; far overhead is a delicate tracery of leaves, a dance of light against the blue, and over all is the blessed silence. ”

“ 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 ”