Part 40

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.

Salix viminalis.

--SALICINEÆ.--]

=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.

Populus fastigiata.

--SALICINEÆ.--]

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.

Platanus orientalis.

--PLATANACEÆ.--]

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.

Betula alba.

--CUPULIFERÆ.--]

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.

Alnus glutinosa.