Part 41

--CUPULIFERÆ.--]

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.

Pinus sylvestris.

--CONIFERÆ.--]

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.

Pinus pinaster.

--CONIFERÆ.--]

=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.

Abies pectinata.

--CONIFERÆ.--]

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.

Abies excelsa.

--CONIFERÆ.--]

=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:--

“Rosy plumelets tuft the Larch, And rarely sings the mounted thrush; And underneath the barren bush Flits by the sea-blue bird of March.”

These “rosy plumelets” are the future cones, and they are very conspicuous on the bare branches. They become ripe by their first Autumn, when they are but little more than an inch in length, rather oval than conical; erect on the branch, and the scales with irregular margins. When first the leaves appear they are in tufts, arranged alternately, as shown in our figure, but as the season advances each tuft lengthens into a twig and the leaves become scattered along it as the wood grows--the tree not gaining in good looks thereby. The tree has a wonderfully slender pyramidal form, due to the downward growth of all the branches. It is greatly appreciated as a timber-producing tree, its useful wood being fit to use when the tree is only forty years of age, in which respect it has distinct advantage over the Scotch-pine, which requires eighty years in order to produce serviceable timber. In its early years its annual growth exceeds two feet. At ten years of age from the sowing of the seed it has reached the height of twenty or twenty-five feet, and at fifty years it is eighty feet high. Its natural life is from one hundred and fifty to two hundred years. The Larch and the Spruce-fir have to a great extent supplanted the Scotch-pine in this country, owing to their more rapid growth and development of wood.