Trees Worth Knowing Part 1

Trees Worth Knowing.

by Julia Ellen Rogers.

INTRODUCTION

Occasionally I meet a person who says: "I know nothing at all about trees." This modest disclaimer is generally sincere, but it has always turned out to be untrue. "Oh, well, that old sugar maple, I've always known that tree. We used to tap all the sugar maples on the place every spring." Or again: "Everybody knows a white birch by its bark."

"Of course, anybody who has ever been chestnutting knows a chestnut tree." Most people know Lombardy poplars, those green exclamation points so commonly planted in long soldierly rows on roadsides and boundary lines in many parts of the country. Willows, too, everybody knows are willows. The best nut trees, the s.h.a.gbark, chestnut, and b.u.t.ternut, need no formal introduction. The honey locust has its striking three-p.r.o.nged thorns, and its purple pods dangling in winter and skating off over the snow. The beech has its smooth, close bark of Quaker gray, and n.o.body needs to look for further evidence to determine this tree's name.

So it is easily proved that each person has a good nucleus of tree knowledge around which to acc.u.mulate more. If people have the love of nature in their hearts--if things out of doors call irresistibly, at any season--it will not really matter if their lives are pinched and circ.u.mscribed. Ways and means of studying trees are easily found, even if the scant ends of busy days spent indoors are all the time at command. If there is energy to begin the undertaking it will soon furnish its own motive power. Tree students, like bird students, become enthusiasts. To understand their enthusiasm one must follow their examples.

The beginner doesn't know exactly how and where to begin. There are great collections of trees here and there. The Arnold Arboretum in Boston is the great dendrological Noah's Ark in this country. It contains almost all the trees, American and foreign, which will grow in that region. The Shaw Botanical Garden at St. Louis is the largest midland a.s.semblage of trees. Parks in various cities bring together as large a variety of trees as possible, and these are often labelled with their English and botanical names for the benefit of the public.

Yet the places for the beginner are his own dooryard, the streets he travels four times a day to his work, and woods for his holiday, though they need not be forests. Arboreta are for his delight when he has gained some acquaintance with the tree families. But not at first.

The trees may all be set out in tribes and families and labelled with their scientific names. They will but confuse and discourage him.

There is not time to make their acquaintance. They overwhelm with the mere number of kinds. Great arboreta and parks are very scarce. Trees are everywhere. The acquaintance of trees is within the reach of all.

First make a plan of the yard, locating and naming the trees you actually know. Extend it to include the street, and the neighbors'

yards, as you get ready for them. Be very careful about giving names to trees. If you think you know a tree, ask yourself _how_ you know it. Sift out all the guesses, and the hearsays, and begin on a solid foundation, even if you are sure about only the sugar maple and the white birch.

The characters to note in studying trees are: leaves, flowers, fruits, bark, buds, bud arrangement, leaf scars, and tree form. The season of the year determines which features are most prominent. Buds and leaf scars are the most unvarying of tree characters. In winter these traits and the tree frame are most plainly revealed. Winter often exhibits tree fruits on or under the tree, and dead-leaf studies are very satisfactory. Leaf arrangement may be made out at any season, for leaf scars tell this story after the leaves fall.

Only three families of our large trees have opposite leaves. This fact helps the beginner. Look first at the twigs. If the leaves, or (in winter) the buds and leaf scars, stand opposite, the tree (if it is of large size) belongs to the maple, ash, or horse-chestnut family. Our native horse-chestnuts are buckeyes. If the leaves are simple the tree is a maple; if pinnately compound, of several leaflets, it is an ash; if palmately compound, of five to seven leaflets, it is a horse-chestnut. In winter dead leaves under the trees furnish this evidence. The winter buds of the horse-chestnut are large and waxy, and the leaf scars look like prints of a horse's hoof. Maple buds are small, and the leaf scar is a small, narrow crescent. Ash buds are dull and blunt, with rough, leathery scales. Maple twigs are slender.

Ash and buckeye twigs are stout and clumsy.

Bark is a distinguishing character of many trees--of others it is confusing. The sycamore, shedding bark in sheets from its limbs, exposes pale, smooth under bark. The tree is recognizable by its mottled appearance winter or summer. The corky ridges on limbs of sweet gum and bur oak are easily remembered traits. The peculiar horizontal peeling of bark on birches designates most of the genus.

The prussic-acid taste of a twig sets the cherry tribe apart. The familiar aromatic taste of the green twigs of sa.s.safras is its best winter character; the mitten-shaped leaves distinguish it in summer.

It is necessary to get some book on the subject to discover the names of trees one studies, and to act as teacher at times. A book makes a good staff, but a poor crutch. The eyes and the judgment are the dependable things. In spring the way in which the leaves open is significant; so are the flowers. Every tree when it reaches proper age bears flowers. Not all bear fruit, but blossoms come on every tree. In summer the leaves and fruits are there to be examined. In autumn the ripening fruits are the special features.

To know a tree's name is the beginning of acquaintance--not an end in itself. There is all the rest of one's life in which to follow it up.

Tree friendships are very precious things. John Muir, writing among his beloved trees of the Yosemite Valley, adjures his world-weary fellow men to seek the companionship of trees.

"To learn how they live and behave in pure wildness, to see them in their varying aspects through the seasons and weather, rejoicing in the great storms, putting forth their new leaves and flowers, when all the streams are in flood, and the birds singing, and sending away their seeds in the thoughtful Indian summer, when all the landscape is glowing in deep, calm enthusiasm--for this you must love them and live with them, as free from schemes and care and time as the trees themselves."

_Tree Names_

Two Latin words, written in italics, with a cabalistic abbreviation set after them, are a stumbling block on the page to the reader unaccustomed to scientific lore. He resents botanical names, and demands to know the tree's name in "plain English." Trees have both common and scientific names, and each has its use. Common names were applied to important trees by people, the world over, before science was born. Many trees were never noticed by anybody until botanists discovered and named them. They may never get common names at all.

A name is a description reduced to its lowest terms. It consists usually of a surname and a descriptive adjective: Mary Jones, white oak, _Quercus alba_. Take the oaks, for example, and let us consider how they got their names, common and scientific. All acorn-bearing trees are oaks. They are found in Europe, Asia, and America. Their usefulness and beauty have impressed people. The Britons called them by a word which in our modern speech is _oak_, and as they came to know the different kinds, they added a descriptive word to the name of each. But "plain English" is not useful to the Frenchman. _Chene_ is his name for the acorn trees. The German has his _Eichenbaum_, the Roman had his _Quercus_, and who knows what the Chinaman and the Hindoo in far Cathay or the American Indian called these trees? Common names made the trouble when the Tower of Babel was building.

Latin has always been the universal language of scholars. It is dead, so that it can be depended upon to remain unchanged in its vocabulary and in its forms and usages. Scientific names are exact, and remain unchanged, though an article or a book using them may be translated into all the modern languages. The word _Quercus_ clears away difficulties. French, English, German hearers know what trees are meant--or they know just where in books of their own language to find them described.

The abbreviation that follows a scientific name tells who first gave the name. "Linn." is frequently noticed, for Linnaeus is authority for thousands of plant names.

Two sources of confusion make common names of trees unreliable: the application of one name to several species, and the application of several names to one species. To ill.u.s.trate the first: There are a dozen ironwoods in American forests. They belong, with two exceptions, to different genera and to at least five different botanical families.

To ill.u.s.trate the second: The familiar American elm is known by at least seven local popular names. The bur oak has seven. Many of these are applied to other species. Three of the five native elms are called water elm; three are called red elm; three are called rock elm. There are seven scrub oaks. Only by mentioning the scientific name can a writer indicate with exactness which species he is talking about. The unscientific reader can go to the botanical manual or cyclopedia and under this name find the species described.

In California grows a tree called by three popular names: leatherwood, slippery elm, and silver oak. Its name is _Fremontia_. It is as far removed from elms and oaks as sheep are from cattle and horses. But the names stick. It would be as easy to eradicate the trees, root and branch, from a region as to persuade people to abandon names they are accustomed to, though they may concede that you have proved these names incorrect, or meaningless, or vulgar. Nicknames like n.i.g.g.e.r pine, he huckleberry, she balsam, and bull bay ought to be dropped by all people who lay claim to intelligence and taste.

With all their inaccuracies, common names have interesting histories, and the good ones are full of helpful suggestion to the learner. Many are literal translations of the Latin names. The first writers on botany wrote in Latin. Plants were described under the common name, if there was one; if not, the plant was named. The different species of each group were distinguished by the descriptions and the drawings that accompanied them. Linnaeus attempted to bring the work of botanical scholars together, and to publish descriptions and names of all known plants in a single volume. This he did, crediting each botanist with his work. The "Species Plantarum," Linnaeus's monumental work, became the foundation of the modern science of botany, for it included all the plants known and named up to the time of its publication. This was about the middle of the eighteenth century.

The vast body of information which the "Species Plantarum" contained was systematically arranged. All the different species in one genus were brought together. They were described, each under a number; and an adjective word, usually descriptive of some marked characteristic, was written in as a marginal index.

After Linnaeus's time botanists found that the genus name in combination with this marginal word made a convenient and exact means of designating the plant. Thus Linnaeus became the acknowledged originator of the binomial (two-name) system of nomenclature now in use in all sciences. It is a delightful coincidence that while Linnaeus was engaged on his great work, North America, that vast new field of botanical exploration, was being traversed by another Swedish scientist. Peter Kalm sent his specimens and his descriptive notes to Linnaeus, who described and named the new plants in his book. The specimens swelled the great herbarium at the University of Upsala.

Among trees unknown to science before are the Magnolia, named in honor of the great French botanist, Magnol. Robinia, the locust, honors another French botanist, Robin, and his son. Kalmia, the beautiful mountain laurel, immortalizes the name of the devoted explorer who discovered it.

Inevitably, duplication of names attended the work of the early scientists, isolated from each other, and far from libraries and herbaria. Any one discovering a plant he believed to be unknown to science published a description of it in some scientific journal. If some one else had described it at an earlier date, the fact became known in the course of time. The name earliest published is retained, and the later one is dropped to the rank of a _synonym_. If the _name_ has been used before to describe some other species in the same genus, a new name must be supplied. In the "Cyclopedia of Horticulture" the sugar maple is written: "_Acer saccharum_, Marsh. (_Acer saccharinum_, w.a.n.g. _Acer barbatum_, Michx.)" This means that the earliest name given this tree by a botanist was that of Marshall. w.a.n.gheimer and Michaux are therefore thrown out; the names given by them are among the synonyms.

Our cork elm was until recently called "_Ulmus racemosa_, Thomas." The discovery that the name _racemosa_ was given long ago to the cork elm of Europe discredited it for the American tree. Mr. Sargent subst.i.tuted the name of the author, and it now stands "_Ulmus Thomasi_, Sarg." Occasionally a generic name is changed. The old generic name becomes the specific name. Box elder was formerly known as "_Negundo aceroides_, Moench." It is changed back to "_Acer Negundo_, Linn." On the other hand, the tan-bark oak, which is intermediate in character between oaks and chestnuts, has been taken by Professor Sargent in his Manual, 1905, out of the genus _Quercus_ and set in a genus by itself. From "_Quercus densiflora_, Hook. and Arn." it is called "_Pasania densiflora_, Sarg.," the specific name being carried over to the new genus.

About one hundred thousand species of plants have been named by botanists. They believe that one half of the world's flora is covered.

Trees are better known than less conspicuous plants. Fungi and bacteria are just coming into notice. Yet even among trees new species are constantly being described. Professor Sargent described 567 native species in his "Silva of North America," published 1892-1900. His Manual, 1905, contains 630. Both books exclude Mexico. The silva of the tropics contains many unknown trees, for there are still impenetrable tracts of forest.

The origin of local names of trees is interesting. History and romance, music and hard common sense are in these names--likewise much pure foolishness. The nearness to Mexico brought in the musical _pinon_ and _madrona_ in the southwest. _Pecanier_ and _bois d'arc_ came with many other French names with the Acadians to Louisiana. The Indians had many trees named, and we wisely kept hickory, wahoo, catalpa, persimmon, and a few others of them.

Woodsmen have generally chosen descriptive names which are based on fact and are helpful to learners. Botanists have done this, too. Bark gives the names to s.h.a.gbark hickory, striped maple, and naked wood.

The color names white birch, black locust, blue beech. Wood names red oak, yellow-wood, and white-heart hickory. The texture names rock elm, punk oak, and soft pine. The uses name post oak, canoe birch, and lodge-pole pine.

The tree habit is described by dwarf juniper and weeping spruce. The habitat by swamp maple, desert willow, and seaside alder. The range by California white oak and Georgia pine. Sap is characterized in sugar maple, sweet gum, balsam fir, and sweet birch. Twigs are indicated in clammy locust, cotton gum, winged elm. Leaf linings are referred to in silver maple, white poplar, and white ba.s.swood. Color of foliage, in gray pine, blue oak, and golden fir. Shape of leaves, in heart-leaved cuc.u.mber tree and ear-leaved umbrella. Resemblance of leaves to other species, in willow oak and parsley haw. The flowers of trees give names to tulip tree, silver-bell tree, and fringe tree. The fruit is described in big-cone pine, b.u.t.ternut, mossy-cup oak, and mock orange.

Many trees retain their cla.s.sical names, which have become the generic botanical ones, as acacia, ailanthus, and viburnum. Others modify these slightly, as pine from _Pinus_, and poplar from _Populus_. The number of local names a species has depends upon the notice it attracts and the range it has. The loblolly pine, important as a lumber tree, extends along the coast from New Jersey to Texas. It has twenty-two nicknames.

The scientific name is for use when accurate designation of a species is required; the common name for ordinary speech. "What a beautiful _Quercus alba_!" sounds very silly and pedantic, even if it falls on scientific ears. Only persons of very shallow scientific learning use it on such informal occasions.

Let us keep the most beautiful and fitting among common names, and work for their general adoption. There are no hard names once they become familiar ones. n.o.body hesitates or stumbles over chrysanthemum and rhododendron, though these sonorous Greek derivatives have four syllables. n.o.body asks what these names are "in plain English."

TREES WORTH KNOWING

TREES

PART I

THE LIFE OF THE TREES