Part 25

THE SPRUCE.

The Spruce, which is indigenous in New England, comprehends the White and the Black Spruce and the Hemlock. The etymology of this word is worthy of notice. Evelyn says, “For masts (speaking of firs), those from Prussia, which we call Spruce, and Norway are the best.” The word seems to be a corruption of “Pruse,” meaning Prussian. I have formerly thought that the name was applied to this tree to distinguish it from others of the same family which display less of this formal symmetry; but the fir proper is certainly more spruce in its shape than the more flowing Spruce Fir.

THE WHITE SPRUCE.

The White Spruce is less common as an ornamental tree than the Norway spruce, which is preferred as more rapid growing and stately. But the points of difference seem to me very much in favor of the White Spruce. We may distinguish them by the following marks. The White Spruce is not so tall as the European tree, and its cones are very much smaller, though both are pendent. But what is most remarkable is their different mode of branching. The principal branches of each are given out at right angles, with this apparent difference only, that the whorls are more widely separated in the Norway spruce, the distance seeming to be proportional to the comparative length or height of the trees. The leaves of the Norway spruce grow only on the top and two sides of the branch, those of the American spruce cover its whole circumference, being almost cylindrical.

But the most remarkable difference is observed in the disposition of the secondary branches. The Norway spruce suspends them almost perpendicularly from its horizontal boughs. Those of the American tree are tufted, not pendulous, but merely drooping a little at their extremities. This gives the whole mass a more sturdy appearance, and takes away some of that formality which is so tiresome in the Norway spruce. For we should bear in mind, that, although hanging foliage is supposed to be less formal than the opposite, it is not invariably so. The drooping foliage of the elm and the hemlock is graceful, but that of the Norway spruce resembles an artificial arrangement, and reminds me of garments hanging upon a patent clothes-line. I think the tufted mode of growth of the American spruces would be generally preferred to the formal drooping foliage of the Norway spruce and European larch.

THE BLACK SPRUCE.

The Black Spruce is a taller and larger tree in its native forest than the white spruce; but the latter, when planted in pleasure-grounds, makes a more beautiful standard than the other, which is apt to grow scraggy and defective, like the balsam fir. There is some difficulty in distinguishing the two American species, until they have been repeatedly examined and compared, though they do not differ from each other so obviously as they both differ from the Norway spruce. In the white spruce the trunk tapers more rapidly, the bark of the recent branches is lighter colored, the cones are smaller and more elongated, the leaves have more of a glaucous hue, they are also longer and less numerous, and do not form so perfect a cylinder by closely surrounding the branch, as in the Black Spruce.

Notwithstanding their similarity, it is the Black Spruce alone that produces the essential oil for the manufacture of beer. This species is also much more valuable for its timber. Emerson remarks that the leaves and scales of all the pine family, in which are included the spruce and the fir, are so disposed as to form spirals in two directions.

THE NORWAY SPRUCE.

The Norway Spruce is very favorably known in this part of the country as an ornamental tree. It is described by European writers as the tallest tree of the European forest, except the silver fir. In this country no trees of this species have attained any great altitude, having been all planted within a space of fifty years. Occasionally we behold a solitary individual that may have attained about half of its possible height, but the most do not exceed twenty or thirty feet. In certain situations no man could help admiring the beauty and majesty of these trees, when, for example, they border an extensive field, dividing it, as it were, from the roadside, as may be seen on the southern borders of the Observatory ground in Cambridge. But as a boundary for a garden or enclosure the trees of all this family are too gloomy. The Norway Spruce would be more valuable to plant for its timber than our native species, because it is more rapid in its growth and would produce a greater length of shaft in a given number of years. But the two American spruces are more beautiful trees, as would be apparent to any one who should compare them when growing together.

THE NORTHERN CYPRESS.

The Northern Cypress, or White Cedar, is a more stately tree than the juniper, but it is never seen by our waysides; it will thrive only in swampy soils. This is the tree that covers those extensive morasses known as cedar swamps, which are, perhaps, the best examples extant of the primitive forest. The White Cedar is not often called the Cypress in New England, and in general appearance, and especially in the style of its foliage, bears but little resemblance to the Southern Cypress; but its similarity to the juniper is very striking. It is a taller tree than the European Cypress. By some botanists it is classed with the arbor-vitæ.

This tree is not confined to inland moors, but is often found upon marshes which are overflowed by the tide of the ocean. Cedar swamps are common in all the maritime parts of the country. In many of them in New England the trees are so closely set that it is difficult to traverse them. Their wetness presents another obstacle to the traveller, except in winter, when the water is frozen, or in the driest part of summer. In these swamps there is a covering, in some parts, of bog-moss, from six inches to a foot deep, always charged with moisture, in which are embedded several half-parasitic plants, such as the white orchis. The White Cedar constitutes with the southern cypress the principal timber of the Great Dismal Swamp, and is the last tree, except the red maple, which is discovered when travelling through an extensive morass.

Michaux remarks that in the Southern swamps which are occupied by the Northern and Southern Cypress, the former “are observed to choose the centre of the swamps, and the southern cypresses the circumference.” In the region of the southern cypress the cedar swamps are skirted by the tupelo and the red maple. There is but little superficial resemblance between the two cypresses. The foliage of the Northern tree is evergreen. “Each leaf,” says Michaux, “is a little branch numerously subdivided, and composed of small, acute, imbricated scales, on the back of which a minute gland is discovered with the lens. In the angle of these ramifications grow the flowers, which are scarcely visible, and which produce very small rugged cones of a greenish tint, that change to bluish towards the fall, when they open to release the fine seeds.”

THE SOUTHERN CYPRESS.

We have read more perhaps of the Southern Cypress than of any other American tree; but what we have read relates to some of its peculiarities, such as the stumps that grow up among the perfect trees, and of which, in the economy of nature, it is difficult to discover the advantages. We have read also of the immense gloomy swamps that are shaded by trees of this species; of the long mosses, called the “garlands of death,” that hang from their branches, rendering the scene still more gloomy. But from all our reading we should not discover what is immediately apparent to our observation, when we see this tree, that it is one of the most beautiful of the forest.

The Southern Cypress is beginning to be prized here as an ornamental tree, and the few standards in the enclosures of suburban estates will convince any one that no species has been brought from the South that surpasses it in elegance and beauty. The larch, which is a favorite ornamental tree, will not compare with it, though there is some superficial resemblance between it and the American larch. They are both deciduous; and their foliage is brighter in the summer than that of other conifers. The leaves of the deciduous Cypress are of the most delicate texture, of a light green, and arranged in neat opposite rows, like those of the hemlock, on the slender terminal branches.

Michaux remarks that the banks of the Indian River, a small stream in Delaware, are the northern boundary of the deciduous Cypress. He says it occupies an area of more than fifteen hundred miles. The largest trees are found in the swamps that contain a deep, miry soil, with a surface of vegetable mould, renewed every year by floods. Some of these trees are “one hundred and twenty feet in height, and from twenty-five to forty feet in circumference at the conical base, which, at the surface of the earth, is always three or four times as large as the continued diameter of the trunk. In felling them the negroes are obliged to raise themselves upon scaffolds five or six feet from the ground. The base is usually hollow for three quarters of its bulk.” The conical protuberances for which this tree is remarkable come from the roots of the largest trees, particularly of those in very wet soils. “They are,” says Michaux, “commonly from eighteen to twenty-four inches in height, and sometimes from four to five feet in thickness. They are always hollow, smooth on the surface, and covered with a reddish bark like the roots, which they resemble also in the softness of their wood. They exhibit no signs of vegetation, and I have never succeeded in obtaining shoots by wounding their surface and covering them with earth. No cause can be assigned for their existence. They are peculiar to the Cypress, and begin to appear when it is twenty or twenty-five feet in height. They are made use of only by the negroes for beehives.”

The leaves of the Cypress seem like pinnate leaves, with two rows of leaflets. Their tint is of a light and very bright green, which gives the tree a liveliness, when in full foliage, that is displayed but by few other trees. But as the foliage is deciduous, and as the branches in its native swamps are covered by long tresses of black moss, when it has shed its leaves nothing in nature can present a more gloomy appearance. In a dense wood, the foliage is very thin, giving rise to the name of the Bald Cypress, so that it is only on the outside of the forest that the tree can be considered beautiful. Its spray is of as fine a texture as the leaves. When the tree is young it is pyramidal, but the old trees are invariably flattened at the top.

The wood of this tree, though soft, is very durable, fine grained, and of a reddish color, and is extensively used for the same purposes for which the wood of the white pine is employed.

THE JUNIPER.

The Juniper is an historical tree, and has been the subject of many interesting traditions,—supposed by the ancients to yield a shade that was injurious to human life; the emblem of faith, because its heart is always sound; the bearer of fruit regarded as a panacea for all diseases, and a magic charm which was thrown on the funeral pile to protect the spirit of the dead from evil, and bound with the leaves to propitiate the deities by their incense. It is not improbable that the superstitious notions respecting the power of its fruit to heal diseases gave origin to the use of it in the manufacture of certain alcoholic liquors; and it is a remarkable fact that universal belief in its virtues as a panacea should have attached to a plant which is now used for no important medical purpose whatever save the flavoring of gin!

The Juniper, very generally called the Red Cedar, and known in many places as the Savin, is well known to all our people, and is associated with the most rugged scenery of our coast. On all our rocky hills which have been stripped of their original growth the Juniper springs up as if it found there a soil congenial to its wants. On the contrary, the soil is very poorly adapted to it, for the tree never attains a good size in these situations. Its presence there may be attributed to the birds that feed in winter upon its fruit, and scatter its seeds while in quest of dormant insects among the sods. As we journey southward, we find this tree in perfection in New Jersey and Maryland; and in all the Atlantic States south of Long Island Sound the Junipers are large and thrifty trees.

On our barren hills, near the coast, where they are so common as to be the most conspicuous feature of certain regions, they display a great variety of shapes and grotesque peculiarities of outline. Yet the normal shape of this tree is a perfect spire. When it presents this form, it is, in the true sense of the word, a beautiful object. Even its rusty-green foliage gives variety to the hues of the landscape, and heightens by contrast the verdure of other trees. This effect is the more remarkable at midsummer, when the green of the different trees has become nearly uniform in its shades. At this time the mixture of the duller tints of the Juniper is very agreeable.

The Juniper is very full of branches, irregularly disposed at a small angle with the trunk, forming an exceedingly dense mass of foliage. A singular habit of this tree is that of producing tufts of branches with foliage resembling that of the prostrate Juniper, as if a branch of that shrub had been ingrafted upon it. The berries, which are abundant in the fertile trees, are of a light bluish color, and afford a winter repast to many species of birds, particularly the waxwing. The branches, when their extremities are brought into contact with the soil, readily take root. Hence we sometimes find a clump of small trees gathered like children around the parent tree.

The trunk of this tree diminishes so rapidly in size as to lose its value for many purposes to which the wood is adapted; but this rapid diminution in diameter is one of its picturesque properties, and the cause in part of that spiry form which is so much admired in this tree. The lateral branches, always inserted obliquely, diminish in size proportionally with the decrease of the trunk. The Juniper is first discovered on Cedar Island in Lake Champlain, and, south of this latitude, extends all along the coast to the Cape of Florida, and along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.

THE ARBOR-VITÆ.

The American Arbor-Vitæ is a small tree growing very much in the spiry form of the juniper, but narrower in the lower part. It is like the juniper also in its numerous and irregularly disposed branches. It is not seen in the woods near Boston; and it is rare even in cultivated grounds, where the Siberian Arbor-Vitæ, on account of its superior foliage, is preferred. The American tree grows abundantly in high northern latitudes. It is remarkable, with its kindred species, for the flattened shape of its leaves; and in its native woods it is hardly ever without a mixture of yellow and faded leaves interspersed with the green and healthy foliage. The terminal branch invested by the leaflets—resembling scales, and not a true leaf—constitutes this fan-like appendage, resembling the frond of a fern. The leaves have the flavor and odor of tansy.