Getting Acquainted With the Trees

Part 1

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Getting Acquainted with the Trees

J. HORACE McFARLAND

Illustrated from Photographs by the Author

NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1914

Copyright, 1904

By The Outlook Company

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Published April, 1904

Reprinted April, 1904

New edition September, 1906

Reprinted August, 1913 March, 1914.

Foreword

These sketches are, I fear, very unscientific and unsystematic. They record the growth of my own interest and information, as I have recently observed and enjoyed the trees among which I had walked unseeing far too many years. To pass on, as well as I can, some of the benefit that has come into my own life from this wakened interest in the trees provided by the Creator for the resting of tired brains and the healing of ruffled spirits, as well as for utility, is the reason for gathering together and somewhat extending the papers that have brought me, as they have appeared in the pages of "The Outlook," so many letters of fellowship and appreciation from others who have often seen more clearly and deeply into the woods than I may hope to.

Driven out from my desk by weariness sometimes--and as often, I confess, by a rasped temper I would fain hide from display--I have never failed to find rest, and peace, and much to see and to love, among the common and familiar trees, to which I hope these mere hints of some of their features not always seen may send others who also need their silent and beneficent message.

J. H. McF.

March 17, 1904

Contents PAGE

A STORY OF SOME MAPLES 1

THE GROWTH OF THE OAK 25

PINES 49

APPLES 73

WILLOWS AND POPLARS 95

THE ELM AND THE TULIP 131

NUT-BEARING TREES 157

SOME OTHER TREES 185

INDEX 235

BOTANICAL NAMES 239

Part 2

List of Illustrations PAGE

Silver maple flowers 4

Young leaves of the red maple 7

"The Norway maple breaks into a wonderful bloom" 9

Samaras of the sugar maple 11

A mature sycamore maple 13

Sycamore maple blossoms 15

Flowers of the ash-leaved maple 17

Ash-leaved maples in bloom 19

Striped maple 21

The swamp white oak in winter 29

Flowers of the pin-oak 31

The swamp white oak in early spring 36

An old post-oak 39

A blooming twig of the swamp white oak 41

Acorns of the English oak 47

A lone pine on the Indian river 53

Hemlock Hill, Arnold Arboretum 56

The long-leaved pines of the South 61

Fountain-like effect of the young long-leaved pines 62

An avenue of white pines 67

Cones of the white spruce 71

An apple orchard in winter 78

When the apple trees blossom 81

The Spectabilis crab in bloom 84

Fruits of the wild crab 87

The beauty of a fruiting apple branch 91

Bloom of double-flowering apple 94

Part 3

A weeping willow in early spring 100

The weeping willow in a storm 103

A pussy-willow in a park 106

Blooms of the white willow 108, 109

A white willow in a characteristic position 112

Clump of young white willows 116

White poplars in spring-time 119

Carolina poplar as a street tree 123

Winter aspect of the cottonwood 126

Lombardy poplar 129

A mature American elm 136

The delicate tracery of the American elm in winter 139

The English elm in winter 143

Winter effect of tulip trees 148

A great liriodendron in bloom 150

Flowers of the liriodendron 153

The wide-spreading black walnut 162

The American sweet chestnut in winter 165

Sweet chestnut blooms 167

The chinquapin 170

A shagbark hickory in bloom 173

The true nut-eater 178

The American beech in winter 180

The witch-hazel 181

Sweet birch in spring 191

Yellow birches 192

Flowers of the spice-bush 194

Leaves and berries of the American holly 195

Part 4

American holly tree at Trenton 196

Floral bracts or involucres of the dogwood 199

The red-bud in bloom 201

Blooms of the shad-bush 206

Flowers of the American linden 207

The American linden 209

Flowers of the black locust 211

Young trees of the black locust 212

The sycamore, or button-ball 215

Button-balls--fruit of the sycamore 217

The liquidambar 220

The leaves and fruit of the liquidambar 222

The papaw in bloom 226

Flowers of the papaw 227

The persimmon tree in fruiting time 231

Berries of the spice-bush 234

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A Story of Some Maples

This is not a botanical disquisition; it is not a complete account of all the members of the important tree family of maples. I am not a botanist, nor a true scientific observer, but only a plain tree-lover, and I have been watching some trees bloom and bud and grow and fruit for a few years, using a camera now and then to record what I see--and much more than I see, usually!

In the sweet springtime, when the rising of the sap incites some to poetry, some to making maple sugar, and some to watching for the first flowers, it is well to look at a few tree-blooms, and to consider the possibilities and the pleasures of a peaceful hunt that can be made with profit in city street or park, as well as along country roadsides and in the meadows and the woods.

Who does not know of the maples that are all around us? Yet who has seen the commonest of them bloom in very early spring, or watched the course of the peculiar winged seed-pods or "keys" that follow the flowers? The white or "silver" maple of streets or roadsides, the soft maple of the woods, is one of the most familiar of American trees. Its rapid and vigorous growth endears it to the man who is in a hurry for shade, and its sturdy limbs are the joy of the tree-butcher who "trims" them short in later years.

Watch this maple in very early spring--even before spring is any more than a calendar probability--and a singular bloom will be found along the slender twigs. Like little loose-haired brushes these flowers are, coming often bravely in sleet and snow, and seemingly able to "set" and fertilize regardless of the weather. They hurry through the bloom-time, as they must do to carry out the life-round, for the graceful two-winged seeds that follow them are picked up and whirled about by April winds, and, if they lodge in the warming earth, are fully able to grow into fine little trees the same season. Examine these seed-pods, keys, or samaras (this last is a scientific name with such euphony to it that it might well become common!), and notice the delicate veining in the translucent wings. See the graceful lines of the whole thing, and realize what an abundant provision Dame Nature makes for reproduction,--for a moderate-sized tree completes many thousands of these finely formed, greenish yellow, winged samaras, and casts them loose for the wind to distribute during enough days to secure the best chances of the season.

This same silver maple is a bone of contention among tree-men, at times. Some will tell you it is "coarse"; and so it is when planted in an improper place upon a narrow street, allowed to flourish unrestrained for years, and then ruthlessly cropped off to a headless trunk! But set it on a broad lawn, or upon a roadside with generous room, and its noble stature and grace need yield nothing to the most artistic elm of New England. And in the deep woods it sometimes reaches a majesty and a dignity that compel admiration. The great maple at Eagles Mere is the king of the bit of primeval forest yet remaining to that mountain rest spot. It towers high over mature hemlocks and beeches, and seems well able to defy future centuries.

But there is another very early maple to watch for, and it is one widely distributed in the Eastern States. The red or scarlet maple is well named, for its flowers, not any more conspicuous in form than those of its close relation, the silver maple, are usually bright red or yellow, and they give a joyous color note in the very beginning of spring's overture. Not long are these flowers with us; they fade, only to be quickly succeeded by even more brilliant samaras, a little more delicate and refined than those of the silver maple, as well as of the richest and warmest hue. Particularly in New England does this maple provide a notable spring color showing.

The leaves of the red maple--it is also the swamp maple of some localities--as they open to the coaxing of April sun and April showers, have a special charm. They are properly red, but mingled with the characteristic color is a whole palette of tints of soft yellow, bronze and apricot. As the little baby leaflets open, they are shiny and crinkly, and altogether attractive. One thinks of the more aristocratic and dwarfed Japanese maples, in looking at the opening of these red-brown beauties, and it is no pleasure to see them smooth out into sedate greenness. Again, in fall, a glory of color comes to the leaves of the red maple; for they illumine the countryside with their scarlet hue, and, as they drop, form a brilliant thread in the most beautiful of all carpets--that of the autumn leaves. I think no walk in the really happy days of the fall maturity of growing things is quite so pleasant as that which leads one to shuffle through this deep forest floor covering of oriental richness of hue.

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