The False Sycamore or Norway Maple (A. platanoides) is the species shown in our figure. It is a native of Europe, introduced to England in 1683. It is a considerable-sized tree, attaining a height of about sixty feet. Its leaves are heart-shaped in outline, five-lobed, sharply pointed, with a few large sharp teeth. The flowers appear in April and May; bright yellow. The samaras are brown, the wings widely diverging.

Acer is the old Roman name for the Maple.

The False Acacia (Robina pseudacacia).

The False Acacia, Common Acacia, Robinia, or Locust-tree, as it is variously styled, is a native of mountain forests in North America, attaining its greatest perfection in Kentucky and Tennessee, where it attains the height of ninety feet and a diameter of four feet. It has been grown in this country for two hundred and fifty years, it being one of the earliest trees introduced from the New World, its graceful habit and light pinnate leaves commending it as an ornamental tree for the plantation. In the United States it is in great repute as an ornament, a shade or a timber-tree; it grows with great rapidity, and its timber is of great durability, so that our cousins use it largely for ship-building, railway sleepers, and fences. When William Cobbett visited the States he was greatly struck with the useful nature of this tree, and on his return to England spared no pains to make its virtues known to his countrymen, even starting a nursery for the purpose of supplying the young trees, and creating quite a rage for Locust-planting for several years.

The leaves are long, compound, the leaflets being arranged in a pinnate manner, with an odd leaflet. The stipules are in the form of prickles at the base of the leaf-stalk. It is a leguminous plant, and its flowers greatly resemble those of the pea. They are white, sweet-scented, and gathered into a long, pendulous raceme, like that of the laburnum: May and June. The tree is sensitive, and on a branch being touched the leaves will all incline towards the branch, whilst each leaflet advances half-way towards its opposite fellow. The same movements occur at sunset, the leaflets then remaining folded face to face until dawn. The fruit (shown in figure) is that form of pod called a lomentum, in which the valves are constricted between the seeds.

The genus is named in honour of Jean Robin, a French botanist, whose son cultivated the first specimens of R. pseudacacia in Europe.

The Ash (Fraxinus excelsior).

One of the most pleasing in growth of our forest trees is the Ash, its grey trunk rising to eighty or a hundred feet, and its sweeping branches, the lower ones bending upwards at the tips, clothed with the gracefully curving long pinnate leaves. The character of these compound leaves and their leaflets is well shown in our illustration, together with two clusters of the winged fruits.

The Ash is a native of Britain, although most of the specimens we meet in woods and plantations have been reared in a nursery and planted out. There are many cultivated varieties of F. excelsior; and a large number of species have been introduced during the present and last centuries, chiefly from S. Europe and N. America. Ash and Privet are the only native representatives of the order Oleaceæ, to which the Olive belongs. It cannot be said that Fraxinus excelsior is a typical representative of the order, since most species included in it bear flowers composed of all the floral organs, whereas excelsior has neither calyx nor corolla. Its flowers appear in April or May, and are of three kinds:—staminate, consisting of two dark purple stamens only; pistillate, consisting of an oblong ovary with short style and cleft stigma; hermaphrodite, consisting of ovary and two anthers with very short filaments. These flowers are individually small and inconspicuous, but associated as they are in dense panicles from the new wood formed in the previous season, and appearing before the black leaf-buds have burst; they are collectively very conspicuous. The leaves are very late in making their appearance, as they are among the first to fall after the early frosts of autumn. The “keys,” as the fruits are called, each contain two seeds, and the wing has a twist which causes the key to spin rapidly when the breeze separates it from the bunch and carries it far from the parent tree.

The Black Mulberry (Morus nigra).

It may surprise some of our readers to learn that the Mulberry-tree is not a native, though it is a familiar object in old gardens and parks. It is generally stated that the first Mulberry-trees were introduced in 1548 and planted at Syon House, Isleworth (then the Convent of St. Bridget of Zion), but the Duke of Northumberland is credited with saying early in the present century that he could then trace them back quite three hundred years. Several of this batch are still living, and one—probably the finest old Mulberry in England—is a hale and vigorous ornament to Mr. George Manville Fenn’s lawn at Syon Lodge. Mr. Leo Grindon is of opinion that the tree was originally introduced by the Romans, for he finds that the Saxons had a name for it, which would probably not have been the case had it not been growing in their midst.

In this country the Black Mulberry does not reach a greater height than about thirty feet, its branches spreading out near the ground and attaining considerable thickness. The leaves are large and rough, heart-shaped, and very plentiful, so that the tree affords good shade. The flowers are small and inconspicuous, of a greenish-white colour, the sexes separate, though sometimes on the same tree. The male or staminate flowers consist of a four-leaved perianth, enclosing four stamens, a large number of the blossoms being combined in a catkinlike spike, depending from the axils of the leaves. The female spike is shorter, and the individual flower consists of a four-parted perianth, enclosing the ovary and its two branched stigma. After fertilization the perianth becomes plump and succulent, and all on the one spike become so pressed together by their great increase in size that they form a multiple fruit, having a slight resemblance to the fruit of the Bramble (the produce of one flower), but really differing from it greatly. Mulberries are ripe in August or September.

The leaves do not unfold from the bud until the cold weather is well over, usually in May. It is said that its Latin name Morus is derived from mora, delay, in consequence of this caution on the part of the tree. The leaves generally used in the silk-culture for feeding the “worms” are those of the White Mulberry (Morus alba).

The Small-leaved Elm (Ulmus campestris).

The Elm is one of our commonest trees, yet a great amount of uncertainty appears to prevail in the popular mind in identifying the Common or Small-leaved from our second British species, the variously-named Scotch Elm, Wych Elm, Witch Hazel, or Mountain Elm (Ulmus montana). There is something more than a suspicion that campestris is not strictly indigenous, but it settled in the country so many hundreds of years ago (brought hither, some say, by returning Crusaders) that it would appear ungenerous at this date to question its claims to be called British, especially as it is more widely diffused than montana. The Elms are both tall trees, but campestris usually attains a slightly greater height than montana, though the latter has a much stouter trunk. Their flowers appear before the leaves, and, although they are individually minute and inconspicuous, they are united in bundles, and the colour of the perianth and stamens renders them conspicuous. The perianth is bell-shaped, cleft into five or more lobes, reddish; the purple anthers are equal in number with the divisions of the perianth, to which their filaments are attached. The two styles are awl-shaped, their inner surfaces stigmatic. The flower-cluster is succeeded by a bunch of one-seeded samaras, winged all round. In montana the seed is placed in the centre of the samaras; in campestris it is distinctly above the centre. The leaves of montana are as large again as those of campestris, broader at the base, more inclined to be unequally heart-shaped. There are, however, many varieties of each, which make the identification of the species often very difficult.

The flowers appear in March and April, those of campestris a little earlier than the others. The name is the Latin word for the tree but probably derived from the Hebrew ul, to be strong or vigorous.

The Beech (Fagus sylvatica).

A Beech-tree growing on a chalky hill is one of the most beautiful of forest trees. It is, moreover, a tree that has left its marks upon our topography and literature, for many place-names (such as Buckingham, Buckland, Bookham) record the fact that in early times Beeches grew plentifully in the neighbourhood, and book is a survival of the period when the Runic poems were written upon slabs of Buk.

Without being at all glossy, like portions of the Birch and Cherry, the bark of the Beech is smooth, and remarkably even. If allowed to grow naturally, without the pollarding which has produced such picturesque monsters as those at Burnham, the Beech-trunk grows clean and straight to a great height, sending off slender, more or less downward-bending, branches with shiny red skins. The twigs bear long, slender, fine-pointed brown buds that are closely mimicked by the snail Clausilia laminata, that loves to haunt the mossy angles between its large spreading roots, and to climb at even up its trunk, which from its smoothness and grey colour is far more suggestive of the gothic column than is the ruddy pine-stem. In spring these buds expand and drop off as the rising sap swells the rolled-up leaves within, which emerge bright silky things, plaited, and edged with the most delicate fringe of gossamer, that gleams in the April sunshine. Then the Beech is indeed a thing of beauty, fair and majestic. The Birch has well been styled by Coleridge “The Lady of the Woods,” but the Beech is surely entitled to take higher rank as the Queen of the Forest, especially in the spring, when covered with this bright and tender foliage, amidst which the flowers are lost.

As summer comes the silken fringe of the leaves is cast off as they become firmer in texture, thicker, and more opaque of tint; yet smooth, and with a character peculiarly their own. With the advent of autumn the leaves become crisp, and turn to red-gold, or crimson, or warm ruddy brown. Then, when the afternoon sunbeams fall upon the Beech-wood, it seems all on fire, and the autumnal glories of every other tree are eclipsed.

In April or May the Beech flowers. The blossoms are of two kinds, male and female, produced on stalks from the axils. The male flowers are combined in threes or fours within an involucre, forming a silky tassel as it hangs downwards with its yellow anthers waving. The individual flower has a bell-shaped, five or six-lobed perianth, with a varying number of stamens. Nearer the growing end of the twig rise the female flowers on shorter stalks. They are usually two or four together, in a silky-haired, four-parted involucre, known as a cupule. Individually these female flowers possess a perianth whose mouth is minutely toothed, within which is a three-sided, three-celled ovary surmounted by three slender spreading styles and stigmas. As the three-cornered fruits grow and ripen the cupule becomes hard and its outer scales spiny; the four valves part and turn back to disclose and set free the smooth brown nuts or “mast,” beloved of swine. In France an oil is expressed from the mast, and the latter is also used as a food for poultry, like its namesake, the Buckwheat (see page 118). It is from these edible qualities that the genus gets its name, derived from the Greek, phago—to eat.

There are many varieties of the Common Beech to be met in plantations, such as the Copper Beech, the Purple Beech, the Variegated Beech, the Cut-leaved Beech, the Crested Beech, the Weeping Beech, the White Beech, etc.

Sweet Chestnut (Castanea vulgaris).

On light sandy soils, where little else but fir and heath will grow, one may meet with considerable plantations of the Sweet or Spanish Chestnut. For centuries, and until quite recently, it was considered to be a native; but it is never found here forming natural forests, and only in the South in favourable situations does it ripen its fruit—usually small. Great plausibility was given to the supposition that Castanea was a native by the oft-repeated statement that its timber was to be seen in the roof of Westminster Abbey and in other old buildings. An examination of this timber years ago by Dr. Lindley—the eminent botanist—proved it to be oak, which it closely resembles. Again it was claimed as British on account of the great antiquity of certain living trees, such as “the great Chestnut of Tortworth,” a name it bore in the reign of Stephen, when it must have been an ancient tree. It is now generally understood that the Chestnut was brought hither by the Romans, and that it got a more permanent footing on our land than its importers. It is grown chiefly for the sake of its young wood as hop-poles, fence-posts, and hoops. Unlike the oak, its timber deteriorates with age.

It is distinctly an acquisition to our woods and plantations, its long, toothed, shining leaves being fine both in shape and colour. Its male flowers are produced in long, yellow catkins, consisting of a great number of six-parted perianths; from these depend from ten to fifteen stamens, which discharge great quantities of pollen. The female flowers are borne in threes within an involucre (cupule), and each has its perianth adhering to the ovary; there are from five to eight cells in the ovary, and a similar number of stigmas, but, as a rule, only one cell matures one of its two ovules.

The name is said to be derived from Castanum, the name of a town in Thessaly whence the Romans first obtained the fruit.

The Oak (Quercus robur).

First and foremost in any list of British trees should come the Oak, in utter disregard of all botanical classification, for not only was our supremacy of the sea and our existence as a nation gained by aid of our oaken walls, but a grand old Oak is finely typical of British solidity, strength and endurance. Fifteen years may be regarded as the average age at which the oak first produces its fruit, the acorn, and it continues to ripen its annual crop for centuries. Dryden has certainly not exaggerated in his lines that tell how—

According to the records and traditions relating to many hollow ruins of enormous girth still living at their circumference though long since dead at heart, Dryden’s nine-century tree is only middle-aged. Well-nigh every district in this country, not too high above sea-level, can show its monster Oak; but it is where the soil is close and heavy that it is seen at its best. There is no doubt about the Oak being a true native. Some of our Oak-forests are older than history: such was the forest of the Weald—Anderides-leag—in which the aboriginal Britons so long withstood the attempts of Romans and English to conquer them, and which at a much later date supplied alike much iron from its quarries and the oak charcoal wherewith to smelt it; and of which to-day the pedestrian-tourist from London to the South Coast will cross many considerable fragments. How widely it was grown is evident from the vast number of place-names of which it forms part, such as Okham, Ockshott, Ockley, Acton, Acworth, Acrington, Okehampton, Oxted, etc.

Our British Oak is Quercus robur, of which there are several varieties to which some authorities give specific rank, but their characters are too inconstant to be so regarded. However, as they are frequently called by their distinctive names, it were well to mention them and their chief differences.

White Oak (Q. robur, var. pedunculata) has the leaves slightly stalked or stalkless, and the acorns with long, slender stalks.

Red Oak (Q. robur, var. sessiliflora) has the leaves borne on long yellow stalks, and the acorns supported on very short stalks, or quite stalkless (sessile).

Durmast (Q. robur, var. intermedia), with acorns and leaves on short stalks, and the underside of the leaves downy. Spiders are said to object to the wood of this tree, and will not spin their webs where it has been used for building purposes.

The flowers of the Oak are of two distinct sexes. Those bearing stamens are grouped on a long, slender and pendulous catkin; each consisting of a four- to seven-lobed calyx, within which are ten stamens. The females are solitary and erect, consisting of a cupule, within which is a three- to eight-lobed calyx, a three-celled ovary with three styles. The cupule becomes the familiar “cup” of the acorn, which again is the enlarged ovary, two cells of which have aborted. Flowers April and May.

The Oak forms the world of a great number of insects, many of which are either parasites (gall-flies which produce Oak-apples, bullet-galls, spangles, and other forms of gall) or their lodgers. Several fungi, too, specially select old Oaks upon which to live freely. Chief among these is the remarkable Beef-steak fungus (Fistulina hepatica), of which in October a hundred-weight might be quickly gathered in an oakwood.

Hazel (Corylus avellana).

The Hazel is one of the most look-ahead kind of trees, for almost before this year’s nuts have all dropped off, or been picked off, she puts out the tiny, cylindric grey bodies that continue to lengthen all the winter and by February have become loose and open. Then it can be seen that these catkins consist of male flowers, for the yellow stamens are evident, and soon every breeze shakes out a little cloud of yellow pollen. Looked at analytically, the catkin is seen to be made up of a large number of scaly bracts, of which one large and two small go to a flower, and these are so arranged as to form a pent-house roof over the eight stamens. The female flowers are altogether different. They each consist of a two-celled ovary, with two slender, crimson styles, and enclosed in a kind of calyx, three-parted. Two of these flowers are then associated in a bud-like involucre, situated at the end of a twig. In spring, before the leaves appear, these open and the crimson stigmas are put forth to catch a little of the flying pollen. By September one cell of the ovary has developed into a hard shell containing one large seed (kernel) and clasped by a large raggedly-cut hood—the developed involucre.

When the tips of the nutshells become brown-tinged, then appear boys, squirrels, dormice and nuthatches, and by their combined industry the tree or bush is soon despoiled of its load.

All the many varieties of Filberts, Kentish-Cobs, Spanish-nuts, and Barcelona-nuts are but varieties of Corylus avellana.

The name is from the Greek, Korus, a helmet, from the form of the involucre.

The Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus).

It is in our experience that though many townsmen think they know the Beech there are comparatively few of them that cannot be deceived into accepting the Hornbeam as Fagus sylvatica. It must be admitted that there is a strong superficial resemblance to a small Beech; but on closer examination it will be found that the differences are greater than the likeness. The Hornbeam has a light-grey smooth bark, but instead of the very round trunk of the Beech, that of the Hornbeam appears to have been laterally squeezed, for the diameter taken one way is longer or shorter than if taken at right angles to the first measurement. Then again the leaf of Carpinus if placed upon that of Fagus will be found to be much less rotund in proportion to its length; the surface is rough, and instead of the cleanly cut margins of Fagus we have a coarse double-toothing.

The Hornbeam when full-grown is a much smaller tree than the Beech, rarely exceeding seventy feet in height, with a trunk circumference of ten feet; whereas the Beech reaches a height of considerably over a hundred feet, with a girth of nearly thirty feet. When naturally grown, too, it is by no means so picturesque as the Beech, but in places where it is most plentiful, as in Essex, especially Epping Forest, it is generally pollarded, and seldom allowed to exhibit its true form.

The male flowers form a pendulous catkin, originating in the axils, and each consisting of an egg-shaped bract, holding about a dozen stamens at its base. The female flowers form an erect flower-head, shaped like an artichoke at the end of a twig, the three-lobed bracts each containing two flowers. After fertilization these lobes enlarge considerably, and the flower-head lengthens into the pendulous string of fruits shown in our illustration. The flowers appear in May.

The Osier (Salix viminalis).

The Willow family, to which the Osier belongs, is, like the Brambles, a difficult group even for the botanist, and he is a bold man or a very clever one who undertakes to identify specimens off-hand. They have suffered much at the hands of the “splitter.” Hooker gives the number of British species as eighteen, with a considerable number of varieties; but by Babington many of these varieties are given specific rank, and his list of species runs to fifty-eight. It would, of course, be absurd for us to attempt in this restricted space to give a key even to Hooker’s list; but our details of the flower structure, etc., will be found to apply in the main to all willows, and for a knowledge of the other species our readers must refer to Hooker. It should be added that, to increase the difficulties of the botanist, the plants that bear male flowers as a rule differ considerably from those that produce female flowers; for with scarcely an exception each plant is of one sex only.

The Osier (S. viminalis) is one of our most common species, and is the one most generally used for basket-weaving. It is a large shrub or low bushy tree, growing in wet places beside rivers and pools, or more frequently in Osier-beds. When allowed to grow uncut it attains a height of twenty or thirty feet; its long, smooth, and straight branches well furnished with very narrow leaves, tapering to a fine point, and sometimes nearly a foot in length. The margins of the leaf are quite free from teeth or lobes, and are curled back on the shining white silky underside. Both male and female flowers form catkins: the males each consisting of a hairy scale, to which are attached two stamens; the females of a similar scale bearing the ovary. The catkins appear before the leaves, in March or April. Salix is the old Latin name for Willows and Osiers.

The Lombardy Poplar (Populus fastigiata).

It is an easy step from the Willows to the Poplars, for the Genus Salix and the Genus Populus together form the Order Salicineæ. We have only two indigenous species in Britain—the White Poplar or Abele (P. alba), and the Aspen (P. tremula). In spite of the fact that it was not introduced until 1758 it may safely be said that the Lombardy Poplar is now a better known tree than either of our native species. It is the tree that is so frequently planted as a live screen, to break the force of the wind or to hide some undesirable prospect. Its growth is most rapid, and the story is told of a man who planted this tree in his garden at Great Tew, in Oxfordshire, and was living fifty years after, by which time his tree had beaten him considerably in the matter of growth, being then a hundred and twenty-five feet high! But like most other trees of rapid growth it attains no great age—for a tree, that is—and it is doubtful if it exceeds a century of life. The whole of its branches and shoots take an upward direction, which gives the tree the fastigiate or sharp-pointed outline which has suggested its specific name.

In our native Poplars the shoots are downy; in fastigiata they are smooth. The leaves are borne on long compressed stalks, which give them the ever-tremulous movement so well known in connection with the Aspen. As in the Willows, the sexes are on separate trees, and the flowers all in catkins. There is no perianth, a single bract-like scale serving instead, though there is a cup-shaped organ, within which is found, in one plant, a one-celled ovary, and in the other sex from twelve to twenty stamens with red anthers are attached to the under-side of the cup.

The name of the genus Populus is the old Latin for Poplar and Aspen.

The Oriental Plane (Platanus orientalis).

One need not go far into the country in order to see the Plane. Its virtue as a smoke-proof tree has now been well tested by the governing authorities in large towns, and it is freely planted in recreation grounds and by the sides of broad thoroughfares. In London it must now be about the commonest tree; and some of the specimens grown in the west-end squares are very fine. Several of the London Planes have become quite “lions,” to be seen by all visitors who “do” the Metropolis; such is the individual that overtops the old-fashioned houses at the corner of Wood Street, Cheapside. More celebrated, perhaps, is the Stationers’ Hall Court tree, which, though only about sixty-five years old, is so important a feature of that corner of the City that, on the rumour that it was to be cut down a few years since to allow of certain improvements in the court, the denizens of Paternoster Row and the precincts were up in arms, and evinced such indignation that the building plans of the Stationers’ Company were modified, and the tree spared to delight the sparrows of the vicinity, and to bring thoughts of the country into the hearts of the publishing and bookselling fraternity who daily pour through the court.

In spite of its apparent enjoyment of London smoke and fog the plane-tree is not even a Britisher. Its introduction to England has been credited to Francis Bacon, but Loudon declares it was in our gardens prior to 1548—thirteen years before the birth of the Lord Keeper.

The leaves of the Plane are very similar to those of the Sycamore and False-Sycamore (see page 134), but one feature will serve to identify it at any season—the pale yellow patches on the trunk of the Plane caused by its constant shedding of flakes of bark. In the autumn, too, there is a striking contrast between the winged samaras of Acer and the ball-fruits of Platanus. Acer, again, has the leaves opposite, whilst in Platanus they are alternate.

The Planes are lofty trees (sixty to eighty feet), with thick cylindrical trunks, wide-spreading branches and abundant foliage. The leaves are five-lobed, with a few coarse teeth, and smooth surface. The flowers of both sexes are in globular clusters and borne on the same tree, but on separate branches. The male flowers have a perianth of four narrow leaves alternating with the stamens. The female flowers consist of a one-seeded ovary with a curved style, one side of which is stigmatic. Flowers April and May.

P. occidentalis, the Western Plane, is very similar, but its leaves have red stalks, and are less deeply lobed and toothed; its bark scales less.

Platanus is the old Greek name for the Plane-tree, and is probably derived from Platos, breadth, in allusion to the broad leaves or the ample shade afforded by its branches.

The Birch (Betula alba).

The most graceful of our native trees is the White or Silver Birch. It is the very antipodes among trees of the solid unbending oak. The slim stem, scarcely ever a foot in diameter, tapers away almost to nothing at a height of fifty or sixty feet. This is at full maturity at forty or fifty years; thereafter it makes little progress, and it is believed not to reach far beyond its hundredth year. It has the singular reputation for producing a bark that is more enduring than its timber. In spite of its effeminate grace it is a most hardy tree, and stands alone on the bleakest hillsides, and is the only tree that endures the rigorous climate of Greenland, though there, of course, it is greatly diminished in stature.

The leaf varies slightly in outline from oval with a point to a rhombic form, with a long slender stalk, and the edges are doubly toothed. The silvery-white bark is continually discarding its outermost layer, which peels off in ragged, tissue-paper-like strips, revealing the newer, whiter bark beneath. In this country it is used in tanning, but in the far Northern parts of Europe it is put to a variety of uses. The inflorescence is a catkin, the sexes separate, but borne by the same tree. The flowers of the pendulous male catkin consist each of a single sepal with two stamens, the filaments of which are forked, each branch bearing one anther cell, so that each stamen looks like two. The female spike, which is more erect, and shorter, is composed of three-lobed bracts, each containing two or three flowers. These are simply two-celled ovaries, with two styles and stigmas. The fruit is round, flattened, with a notched broad wing. It flowers in April and May.

There is one other Native species, the Dwarf Birch (B. nana), a bush of no more than three feet in height, which occurs locally in the mountain districts of Scotland and Northumberland. The leaves are very small, round with rounded teeth; smooth, dark green, and with a short stalk. The seeds have very narrow wings. Flowers in May.

The name Betula is the old Latin designation for this tree.

The Alder (Alnus glutinosa).

The Alder, of which we have but one species, is own cousin to the Birch, but we must not seek it in similar situations. The Birch loves the breezy hillside, the Alder prefers the swampy valley, the pond and river-side, its tastes being more thoroughly aquatic even than those of the Willows. Its bark has some resemblance to that of the Birch, especially when young, but in later life is more rugged, and very dark. The leaves are nearly round, doubly toothed, and with short stalks. When young they are sticky, as are the young shoots. The male catkins are long, produced, like those of the Hazel, late in autumn; the round red scales each holding three flowers, consisting of three, four or five sepals, and as many stamens. The female spikes are not produced till spring: they are more globular, and resemble minute cedar cones. The scales are reddish-brown and fleshy, afterwards becoming hard and woody; there are two or three flowers in each, consisting of two sepals, an ovary and two styles. When ripe (October) the thick scales separate and set free the pale-brown nuts, which are very slightly winged.

In suitable situations the Alder attains a stature of forty to sixty feet, and reaches maturity in about sixty years. The wood is soft and white, but turns orange by exposure after cutting. Under water it is very enduring, all but imperishable, and the Rialto at Venice is said to be built on Alder-piles. It is greatly used in the manufacture of gunpowder.

Alnus is the old Latin name for the tree, and for a boat.

Scotch-fir or Pine (Pinus sylvestris).

This, the Juniper, and the Yew are the only coniferous trees we have in Britain. Pinus sylvestris is therefore our only Pine, yet people persist in calling it a Fir, a name more especially belonging to the genus Abies. Time was when this beautiful tree grew wild in many parts of Britain; it is now found naturally in but a few places, from Yorkshire northwards; otherwhere it has been planted. We may easily tell whether a cone-bearing tree before us is a Pine or not by examining the leaf-cluster. If the leaves are in twos, threes, or fives, bound together at the base by thin, chaffy scales, it is a Pine. Should they be in twos, the leaves will be found to be half-rounded; if in threes or fives, they will be triangular in section. The cones, or fruits, of the Pines take two years to ripen. The scales of which the cones are made up are thicker at the free end, so that the outer surface of each scale is pyramidal.

The Scotch-pine, as with the reader’s permission we will call it, differs much according to the situation in which it is growing. In a favourable locality its trunk will grow to an altitude of one hundred feet, with a girth of twelve feet, whereas in very lofty, exposed situations it is a stunted shrub. Its bark is rugged, and of a ruddy-brown colour. Its needle-shaped leaves are in twos, and last for three years, after which they fall. The flowers are of two kinds. The males consist of many two-celled anthers spirally arranged on a spike, and the spikes are clustered round the new shoots. The female flowers consist each of a green scale, thickened and sticky at the apex and bearing on the inner side of its base two naked ovules. These scales are also associated in a spiral manner round a spike, the whole having a conical form. The male flowers produce an enormous quantity of pollen, which the wind blows in great sulphur-like clouds. Some of the pollen-grains stick to the edges of the scales on the young cones, and the pollen-shoots find their way down to the ovules and fertilize them. In the ripe cone we find, on the scales separating, there are two winged seeds under each scale. The timber of P. sylvestris is very valuable, and large quantities of it are annually imported from Norway and the shores of the Baltic; there are numerous varieties of it, known commercially as Red pine, Norway pine, Riga pine, Baltic pine, etc. The tree begins to bear cones between the age of fifteen and twenty years.

It is characteristic of Pines that the branches die off early, and this gives old trees the peculiar appearance of a tall, gaunt, red mast, with a somewhat flat, spreading head.

The Cluster Pine or Pinaster (P. pinaster).

This is not a native of Britain, though it has been grown here for about three hundred years. Its home is in the countries bordering the Mediterranean, chiefly in low ground near the sea. It is a large tree growing to a height of sixty or seventy feet, but its timber is so soft that it has little value for the builder, though the carpenter finds many uses for it, and much of it is used in the preparation of resin, turpentine and tar. The tree may be readily identified by its long, dark leaves (in twos), forming large, brush-like clusters. These leaves vary from six to twelve inches in length. The cones are as large again as those of the Scotch-pine, and each scale bears in the centre of the raised portion a hard, sharp point of a grey colour. This is the tree which has proved of such great service in France in turning to use considerable areas of barren sea-sands. In the Departments of the Landes and Gironde troublesome rolling sands have been rendered fit for agriculture by making plantations of P. pinaster, which can thrive in such poor stuff, even so near the sea.

The Silver-fir (Abies pectinata).

Here we have a true fir, which will be seen on examination to differ in several points from the pines. It will at once be noted that the leaves are not gathered into bundles of two, three, or five, but grow solitarily in two rows, on opposite sides of a branch. They are flat, with blunt ends, whitish or silvery underneath, and evergreen. The cones, too, are very different from those of the pines, for whereas those were found to be conical, these are really cylindrical, and consist of a number of woody cones of pretty equal thickness throughout, not thickened at the tips as in Pinus. The firs are excellent timber trees, and are rich in turpentine.

The Silver-fir gets its popular name from the silvery undersides of its leaves. The cones stand erectly from the branches; at first they are green, then reddish, finally purplish-brown. They are six or eight inches in length. Each scale has a long, tapering bract attached to its outer surface, and turned over at the tip. It is a lofty tree, growing to eighty or a hundred feet, sometimes more. It is a native of Central Europe, Northern and Western Asia, but has been grown in England for nearly three hundred years. Its timber is reputed to be durable under water; and from its bark is obtained a resin called Strasburg turpentine, also white pitch. The flowers appear in May, and the cones are ripe eighteen months later. The tree often begins to produce cones at about twenty years of age, but until about its fortieth year these are barren.

The name Abies is Latin, signifying a fir-tree or a plank. A shipwright or carpenter was abietarius.

The Norway Spruce-fir (Abies excelsa).

The Spruce-fir is a handsome tree, often reaching from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet in height. The leaves are curiously square, sharp-pointed and scattered in their arrangement on the branch. The cylindrical cones hang down from the tip of a shoot, and are six or seven inches long, their scales with a few teeth at the apex. Its seeds are very small. The flowers appear in May, and the cones ripen in about twelve months. It is a native of Norway, Russia, and Northern Europe generally, and was introduced to Britain nearly three hundred and fifty years ago; but previous to the glacial period it appears to have been indigenous and prosperous here. Its timber (white deal) is very largely used for many purposes. Its resin is known as frankincense, from which is prepared Burgundy pitch; and from the boiled leaf-buds and shoots is obtained essence of spruce, which is used to flavour an intoxicant known as spruce-beer.

One of the most ornamental of this group is the Hemlock Spruce (Abies canadensis), a species that was introduced about a hundred and sixty years since. Its home is in all the forest regions of Canada and the United States as far west as Oregon, and in New England and the Dominion its shortened name of Hemlock is “familiar in the mouths” of the people. The leaves are short, flat, solitary, and endure for two seasons. The cones are but half an inch long, and afford a striking contrast to those of the Sugar-pine (Pinus lambertiana) whose cones are said sometimes to measure two feet long. The peculiar grace of the Hemlock is due to the symmetrically arranged branches, and to their drooping tips; but in later life it becomes rugged, and loses much of its charm. Its wood is not so highly esteemed as its bark, which is useful for tanning.

The Larch (Larix europæa).

So frequently do we come across huge plantations of Larch that we might be pardoned for supposing it to be a native tree; but though it was introduced to Britain as an ornamental tree about two hundred and fifty years ago its true home is in the South European Alps. It is singular in the fact of being a deciduous conifer, that is it sheds all its leaves in the autumn, and remains naked until the spring. A larch-wood in winter presents rather a weird and dreary aspect, the grey branches and trunks appearing as if dead and withered, an aspect that is intensified when, as frequently happens, the branches are thickly invested with the lichens Ramalina and Evernia. But in spring the Larch again becomes a thing of beauty, and, as Tennyson sings:—