Part 4

Cut a bundle of these things, and carry them home. Put them in a vase of water. The delicate fragrance of the flowers will go through the house, and every one will marvel that any tree or bush can be found in blossom at the very end of the year. Now the strangest thing will happen. Above the quiet talk around the evening lamp sounds the sharp click, as of a bit of metal, or a bead striking the wall with considerable force. Every one sits up to listen. A second click, this time on the glass covering a picture, is located, and a little black object, smaller than an apple seed, pointed and tipped with white, is picked up from the floor. It is this seed which was thrown against the glass; and it does not require a Sherlock Holmes to prove that it came out of one of the witch hazel seed pods. If each person takes a twig, and keeps an eye upon the pods, that show a slight opening, more than one of the pods will be seen when they burst, and throw their seeds. The warmth of the indoor air springs the trigger, and the tiny projectiles fly.

How surprised the squirrels must be when the witch hazel guns are bombarding the dry leaf carpet of the woods! How much pleasure it gives you to take your friends to the thicket, and explain to them the meaning of those scattering shots the pods are firing each crisp autumn day! If it is rainy weather the pods will all be closed. But let the sun come out, and dry them, and the game begins again.

Can any one wonder that witch hazel trees grow in companies? Each little tree flings its seeds in all directions, and for each seed planted a little tree may come. Twenty feet from the parent tree the pods are able to throw their seeds.

Extract of witch hazel is obtained by boiling twigs and leaves of this tree in a still with alcohol. The Indians taught white men that this plant contained a drug which had soothing and curative powers when rubbed upon sprains and bruises. Whether there is any truth in this notion or not, the belief is still strong, and people continue to rub extract of witch hazel on their bruises, even though many doctors say there is nothing medicinal in it but the alcohol.

In England the witch elm corresponds to our own witch hazel. No one in the mining regions would dare to sink a shaft for coal unless he had warrant for doing so from the actions of a divining rod in the hands of a competent person. In other regions the digging of a well depends upon the same thing, and this idea prevails in many parts of this country. An old fellow who can “water witch” may be found in most old-fashioned communities. If you wish to dig a well, you must call on him to locate the site. He cuts a y-shaped twig from the witch hazel, trims it, and is ready for the ceremony. Grasping one of the two tips in each hand, and holding the main stem erect, he paces over the ground you have chosen. In his rigid hands the supple twigs waver, and finally the wand bends downward. This, according to popular belief, is the proper place to find good water, and plenty of it. The water witch moves away, again holding the stem erect. He comes back finally, and as he crosses the spot again, the wand goes down. Now every one is sure that this is the spot, and the well is dug. If the seer’s prediction comes true, his reputation improves, and scoffers concede that “there may be something in it, after all.” In regions where the witch hazel does not grow, a twig of wild plum tree will do.

THE OAK FAMILY

The fifty kinds of oak trees that are native to America are about evenly divided on the two sides of the Rocky Mountains. No Western oaks are found in the Eastern states, and none of our Eastern kinds grows wild on the other side of the mountains. The backbone of the continent is a bar that neither group has been able to pass.

To know fifty different kinds of oaks by sight, so as to call each one by its right name, is not an easy task; and yet it is not so difficult as it at first might seem. To begin with, any tree we meet, which bears acorns, we at once recognise as an oak. By this one sign, we are able to set this great family apart from every other tree. As soon as they are old enough, all oaks bear acorns. If a tree which we suspect to be an oak has no acorn to show us, on or under the tree, a little close looking will usually find some acorn cups still hanging on, or lying where they fell upon the ground.

The leaves of oaks are distinctive. In general, they are all simple, and their outline is oval. The borders are variously cut by deep or shallow bays, between sharp points or rounding finger-like lobes. They are leathery in texture, compared with leaves of most trees. After a little practice, we learn to recognise oak leaves, no matter how variously cut their borders may be.

In spring the flowers of oaks come out with the leaves. A fringe of catkins at the base of the new shoot is composed of pollen-bearing flowers. In the angles of the new leaves farther up the stem, we shall find the little acorn flowers, usually in twos. This is the flower arrangement of all the oaks; staminate and pistillate flowers on the new shoots, separate and very different from each other, but always close together, and always both kinds on each tree. The fringe of catkins falls as soon as the pollen is shed. Little, red, forked tongues are thrust out by the pistillate flowers to catch the golden dust when it is flying through the air, and thus to set seed. All through the summer, the little acorns are growing. We can find them in their tiny cups in the angles of the leaves.

In the autumn the acorns are ripe, and falling. Some trees will show acorns of two sizes, half-grown ones on the new shoots, and full-sized ones on the bare twigs, just back of the new shoots.

This peculiarity divides the oak family into two great groups. One group is composed of trees which have light-coloured bark, bear a crop every year, and in winter are bare of fruit. This is known as the White Oak Group. Its leaves have rounded margin lobes which do not end in sharp points, as many of the lobes of oak leaves do.

All of the oaks whose leaves have pointed, spiny lobes on their margin belong to the Black Oak Group. The bark of these trees is usually dark-coloured. The acorns require two years of growth. For this reason, there are half-grown acorns on the tree all winter, waiting for the second summer to bring them to maturity. Every autumn the acorns which are ripe are found on the twigs just back of the leafy shoots, which grew during the past summer. These acorns have completed their second year of growth.

When we hear any one speak of annual-fruited and biennial-fruited oaks, we know that the White Oak and Black Oak Groups are meant. If you see an oak tree whose leaves are cut into sharp pointed lobes, you will find acorns of two sizes on its twigs. If you look across the fence and see a pale-barked oak with finger-lobed leaves, and not a spiny point on their margins, you will know that acorns of but one size will be found. Fix these three points in mind. Then study all the oak trees you can find.

Trees of the White Oak Group have: 1. Rounded lobes on their leaf margins. 2. Acorns ripe in a single season. 3. Pale-coloured bark.

Trees of the Black Oak Group have: 1. Spiny-pointed lobes on their leaves. 2. Acorns requiring two seasons to ripen. 3. Dark-coloured bark

THE WHITE OAK

Those who know trees best agree that there is no nobler broad-leaved tree in the American forests than the White Oak. Tree lovers in England have but one native oak upon which to spend their loyal devotion, the tree worship inherited from Druid ancestors, whose temples were their sacred groves of oaks. The same feeling is in our blood, and roused at sight of an aged white oak, with stout, buttressed trunk, and great horizontal limbs supporting a rounded dome, much broader than high.

The tree is grey in winter. It stands bare of leaves, clothed in its pale, scaly bark. This is the time to study the framework of the dome. The limbs are twisted and gnarled, and their branches end in dense thickets of twigs. Each twig bears the winter buds, and five buds are clustered at the tip of each.

In spring these buds open, and a leafy shoot comes out of each. At the base are the yellow, fringed catkins of the sterile flowers, and above them, in the angles between leaves and twig, the fertile flowers thrust out forked tongues for pollen. These will be acorns next autumn, if the pollen falls upon them, and thus sets seed.

All summer the leaves are green, with pale linings, and when summer ends, they turn to rich shades of purplish red. The sweet acorns are ripe, and as they fall, thrifty squirrels are all about, gathering them into their hidden store-houses for winter use. Plenty of the thin, shallow cups we shall find, but the kernels are scarce, unless we come when they are falling in October.

The Indians taught the early colonists in America to use acorns of this species for food. They boiled them, like hominy, and found them not only nourishing, but good to eat.

If you find solitary white oaks growing here and there in a mixed woods, you may wonder how they were planted thus. The tree cannot scatter its own seeds. It depends upon the work of scampering nut-gatherers, in fur coats, that put away more acorns than they can eat during the long winter. An acorn that is left over in one of the dark pockets along a squirrel’s run-way sprouts in the spring, and in a few years it is a sturdy oak sapling. All oaks are dependent on outside help in planting.

White oak lumber is very high-priced. The wood of this tree we rarely see nowadays except in the most expensive oak furniture. The beautiful satiny streaks that are the chief ornament of the grain in polished table tops, are bands of fibres that radiate from the central pith to the bark. When oak is “quarter-sawed,” these pith rays, called “mirrors,” show to best advantage. They are most numerous in the wood of the white oak.

THE BUR OR MOSSY-CUP OAK

The largest acorn I know is the fruit of the bur oak, and it is borne in a mossy cup, indeed. The cup’s scales are drawn out into long, hairy points, and those near the rim form a loose fringe. Once in a while you may find an acorn almost covered up in its husk. But as a rule, the nut is a little more than half-covered. Sometimes these nuts are two inches long, but this is not usual. They are over an inch long, and almost as broad, and the meat is white and sweet. No wonder squirrels harvest the crop, and young trees spring up wherever an acorn is missed by the hungry creatures.

The bur oak is a shaggy tree, for it sheds its bark in big flakes, like the sycamore. The small branches are stout, and their bark is developed into corky wings, like the sweet gum. The tree is irregular in shape, too, its gnarled limbs are thrown out in any direction, and so the top is often unsymmetrical. But it is a rugged and picturesque tree, in spite of all its faults, and it adds beauty of an unusual kind to parks and woodlands.

In Sioux City, Iowa, an aged bur oak stands in Riverside Park. It is called “The Council Oak,” for it was a venerable tree in the days when the Indians lived on the banks of the Missouri River. Under this tree their chieftains used to meet the white men, and talk over the questions that interested both. Here treaties were drawn up and signed that kept peace between the red and white men.