Wayside and Woodland Trees Part 11

Our placing the Chestnut and the Horse Chestnut into juxtaposition must not be understood as a recognition of any relationship that may be implied in their names, but rather the reverse--to accentuate the differences that exist between them, and which have led botanists to separate them widely in all systems of cla.s.sification. Although the fruits are sufficiently similar to have suggested the name Chestnut being applied to this, with a qualifying prefix, they have been produced by flowers of entirely different character. Evelyn tells us that the word Horse was added because of its virtues in "curing horses broken-winded and other cattle of coughs," a statement for which he was no doubt indebted to Parkinson (1640), who says, "Horse Chestnuts are given in the East Country, and so through all Turkie, unto Horses to cure them of the cough, shortnesse of winde, and such other diseases;"

but seeing that, in this country at least, horses refuse to touch them, there can be little doubt that the name was given to indicate their inferiority to the Sweet Chestnut, and by a process only too well known to the student of early botanical literature, the name was afterwards held to be proof of their medicinal value to horses.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Pl. 142._ Flowers of Sweet Chestnut.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Pl. 143._ Sweet Chestnut--winter.]

The Horse Chestnut is a native of the mountain regions of Greece, Persia, and Northern India, and is believed to have been introduced to Britain about 1550. It is not a tree that will be found in the woodlands, or even by the wayside, except when it is behind a fence; yet it constantly greets the rambler who has left the suburban gardens behind him, and in the public parks--notably the magnificent avenue of Bushey Park--where by contrast it exhibits itself as the grandest of all flowering trees. Though the stout cylindrical bole is short, its erect trunk towers to a height of eighty or a hundred feet, supporting the ma.s.sive pyramid, beautiful on account of its fine foliage and handsome flowers alike. The stout branches take an upward direction at first, then stretch outward and curve downwards, though in winter, when relieved of the weight of foliage, their extremities curl sharply upward, and the great buds in spring are almost erect.

These brown buds, with their numerous wraps and liberal coating of varnish, afford considerable interest to the suburban dweller in early spring. He watches their gradual swelling, and the polish that comes upon them through the daily melting of their varnish under the influence of sunshine. Then the outer scales fall flat, the upper parts show green and loose; there is a perceptible lengthening of the shoot, which leaves a s.p.a.ce between those outer wraps and the folded leaves. Next the leaflets separate and a.s.sume a horizontal position as they expand. Then probably there comes a frost, and next morning the leaflets are all hanging down, almost blackened, flaccid and dejected-looking. A warm southerly rain, followed by sunshine, reinvigorates them, and we see that the lengthening of the shoot has actually brought the incipient flower-spike clear into view. By about the second week in May the pyramid is clothed with bold handsome foliage, against which the conical spikes of white blossoms, tinged with crimson and dotted with yellow, stand out conspicuously.

The leaves are almost circular, but broken up, finger-fashion, into seven toothed leaflets of different sizes, which appear to have started as ovals, but the necessity for not overcrowding their neighbours has necessitated the portion nearest the leaf-stalk taking a wedge shape.

The large size of these leaves--as much as eighteen inches across--leads the non-botanical to regard the leaflets as being full leaves. On emerging from the bud the leaves are seen to be covered with down, but as they expand this is thrown off.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Horse Chestnut. A, flower; B, fruit.]

The flowers consist of a bell-shaped calyx with five lobes, supporting five separate petals, pure white in colour, but splashed and dotted with crimson and yellow towards the base of the upper ones, to indicate the way to the honey-glands. There are seven curved stamens, and in their midst a longer curved style proceeding from a roundish ovary with three cells. In each cell there are two seed-eggs, but as a rule only one egg in two of the cells develops into a "nut." The ovary develops into a large fleshy bur, with short stout spines, which splits into three valves when the dark-red glossy seeds are ripe. In the Sweet Chestnut the brown skin of the nut is the ovary, which had been overgrown by the p.r.i.c.kly involucre; here the spiny green sh.e.l.l is the ovary, and the "nut" a seed. Though horses will not eat this bitter fruit, cattle, deer, and sheep are fond of it. Pounded in water, it becomes one of the numerous vegetable subst.i.tutes for soap. Under the name of Konker, or Conqueror, it affords a seasonal joy to the average boy, who first bombards the tree with sticks and stones to dislodge the fruit, and then threads the ruddy konkers on string and does battle with a chum similarly equipped, the one whose string is broken or pulled from his hand by the conflict of weapons being the vanquished. In some parts the game is led off by the recitation of the rhyme, "Oblionker! my fust konker."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Pl. 144._ Horse Chestnut--summer.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Pl. 145._ Fruits of Horse Chestnut.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Pl. 146._ Bole of Horse Chestnut.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Pl. 147._ Horse Chestnut--winter.]

The growth of the tree is very rapid, and consequently the timber is soft and of no value where durability is required. Still, its even grain and susceptibility to a high polish make it useful for indoor wood, such as cabinet-making and flooring. It is also used for making charcoal for the gunpowder mills. Although Salvator Rosa and other landscape painters have made such good use of the Sweet Chestnut pictorially, they have utterly neglected the Horse Chestnut; and Hamerton hints that the cause of this neglect is the artist's inability to represent its large flowers and leaves by the landscape painter's ordinary method of laying on ma.s.ses of colour: this requires drawing. The tree begins to produce fruit about its twentieth year, and continues to do so nearly every year. Its age is estimated as about two hundred years. The bark, at first smooth, breaks into irregular scales and in old trees a twist may be developed, as ill.u.s.trated by our photo of the bole.

The generic name _aesculus_ (from Latin _esca_, food) has no real connection with the tree, the ancients having given it to some species of Oak with edible acorns (_vide_ Pliny), but by some unknown means it has become transferred to a tree whose fruit is far too bitter to be eaten by man.

The Red-flowered Horse Chestnut (_aesculus carnea_) is a smaller and less vigorous tree. Its origin is unknown, but it is believed to be a garden hybrid that made its appearance about 1820.

The Bay Tree (_Laurus n.o.bilis_).

The Bay is the true Laurel, of whose leaves and berries the wreaths were made in ancient days for poets and conquerors. Naturally it is more of a shrub than a tree, for though it often attains a height of sixty feet, it persists in sending up so many suckers that the tree-like character is lost. In cultivation, however, it is often grown on a single stem, as well as formed by cutting into arbours and arches. We call to mind a Cornish village, where a garden enclosure in its square (or "plestor,"

as Gilbert White would say) was surrounded by about a dozen Bays so grown. Bays grow abundantly in the gardens of South Cornwall, and we always connected their general cultivation with the pilchard fishery.

Certainly, these trees in the plestor were very convenient in the autumn and winter, for the leaves are an essential ingredient in the proper composition of that seductive dish, marinated pilchards, to which they impart their peculiar aromatic flavour.

The Bay is a native of Southern Europe, whence it was introduced at some date prior to 1562. Prior says the name is the old Roman _bacca_ (a berry), altered "by the usual omission of 'c' between the two vowels,"

this plant having become the _bacca par excellence_, because its berries were articles of commerce.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bay. A, flower; B, fruit.]

The evergreen leaves are lance-shaped, without teeth, and arranged alternately on the branchlets. Not all the trees produce the berries, for the s.e.xes are in distinct individuals, and all the white or yellowish four-parted flowers on one tree are stamen-bearing, whilst on another individual they all bear ovaries and no stamens. The berries, at first green, ultimately become of a dark purple hue. The flowers will be found in April or May; the ripe berries in October. The Bay is grown chiefly as a shrubbery ornament, and can only survive our winters out-of-doors in the South of England.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Pl. 148._ Bay.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Pl. 149._ Laburnum.]

Laburnum (_Laburnum vulgare_).

Although the Laburnums of our parks and gardens have all come from seed, and themselves produce an abundance of it, we do not meet with wayside "escapes" as we might expect to do, having regard to the habit of the tree and the fact that it is comparatively indifferent respecting character of soil. Possibly a remark of Loudon's may explain this. He says that rabbits are exceedingly fond of the bark, and it may be that they destroy any young trees that are unprotected by palings or netting.

The tree produces such a glorification of many an ordinary suburban road, when its flowering time comes round, that one would like to note its effect as a common object of the hillside and the woodland, against a background furnished by our more sober native trees.

The Laburnum is at home in the mountain forests of Central and Southern Europe, but there is no record of its introduction to Britain. We do know, however, that it has been with us for more than three centuries, for Gerarde, in his "Herbal," published 1597, refers to it as growing in his garden. It belongs to the great Pea and Bean family (_Leguminosae_), and is very closely related to the Common Broom, whose solitary flowers those of the Laburnum's drooping racemes nearly resemble. Ordinarily it is only a low tree of about twenty feet in height, but in favourable situations it may attain to thirty feet or more. Some of the larger Laburnums, however, are of a distinct species (_L. alpinus_).

The pale round branches are clothed with leaves that are divided into three oval-lance-shaped leaflets, covered on the underside with silvery down. Both leaves and golden flowers appear simultaneously in May, but from the fact that the latter are gathered into numerous long pendulous racemes, their blaze of colour makes the leaves almost invisible.

Tennyson's description of its flowering--"Laburnum, dropping wells of fire"--is fine, but we rather prefer Cowper's "rich in streaming gold,"

as embodying a more exact colour idea. The flowers are succeeded by long downy legumes or pods, like those of the bean and pea, containing many seeds, which are of a dangerously violent emetic character when introduced to the human stomach. The dark wood is of coa.r.s.e grain; but, in spite of this, hard and enduring, and taking a good polish. It is chiefly used by musical instrument makers, turners, and cabinet-makers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Laburnum. A, seed-pod.]

Laburnum is the old Latin name, which is thus rather fancifully explained by Prior, "an adjective from _L. labor_, denoting what belongs to the _hour of labour_, and which may allude to its closing its leaflets together at night, and expanding them by day." Common local names are Golden Chain, suggested by the strings of flowers, and Bean-trefoile and Pea-tree, having reference to the leaves and legumes respectively.

The Locust Tree (_Robinia pseudacacia_).

Although the Locust, or False Acacia, is little planted now, it is only paying the penalty for having had its merits enormously exaggerated; just as human reputations sometimes sink into oblivion after a season of popularity achieved by the persistent "booming" of influential friends.

The friend in this case was William Cobbett, who, on his return from the United States, about 1820, preached salvation to the timber grower through the planting of Robinia; "nothing in the timber way could be so great a benefit as the general cultivation of this tree." So great was the demand thus created that Cobbett himself started a nursery for the propagation and supply of Robinias, and so great is the virtue of a name that people refused the Locust-trees that every nurseryman had in stock and wished to sell, and would be content with nothing but Cobbett's Robinias, which could not be produced fast enough for the demand! They thought it was an entirely new introduction, though it had been grown in this country as an ornamental tree for nearly two centuries! Its wood is hard, strong, and durable, but liable to crack, and of limited utility.

The Locust was introduced to Europe from North America early in the seventeenth century, and was then thought to be identical with the African Acacia. Linnaeus named the genus in honour of Jean Robin, a French botanist, whose son, an official at the Jardin des Plantes, was the first to cultivate the tree in Europe.

It is a tree of light and graceful proportions, its branches being long and slender, and the long narrow leaves being broken up into a large number of small oval leaflets, arranged _pinnately_, that is, featherwise. The stipules, which are found at the base of the leaf-stalk in many plants, are in this genus converted into sharp spines. The flowers, of similar pea-shape to those of the Laburnum, are white and fragrant. They are in long loose racemes, which droop from the axils of the leaves in May. The legumes are very thin, and of a dark-brown hue.

[Ill.u.s.tration: False Acacia, or Locust Tree. A, seed-pod.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Pl. 150._ Locust Tree--summer.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Pl. 151._ Bole of Locust Tree.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Pl. 152._ Locust--winter.]

This was one of the first American trees introduced to Europe, and its name of Locust came with it, the missionaries believing it must be the tree upon whose fruit, with the addition of wild honey, John the Baptist supported himself in the wilderness. It is also known as Silver Chain, in contradistinction to the Gold Chain or Laburnum; also as White Laburnum.

The Larch (_Larix europaea_).

An enormous number of exotic Coniferous trees are at the present time commonly grown in our parks and pleasure grounds, and even our woods show a considerable variety beyond the Scots Pine and Yew that Nature has alone given us as timber trees in this order. To attempt to give even a very brief account of all these in a pocket volume, in addition to almost the entire woody Flora indigenous to these islands, would be manifestly absurd. We can, however, deal with a few representative species of these exotics, and we give the Larch the first place by reason of its present plentifulness in extensive unmixed woods and plantations.

The Larch is naturally a tree of the mountains, and ascends to a greater elevation even than the Spruce Fir. Unmixed forests of Larch in the Bavarian Alps occur between 3000 and 6000 feet above sea-level, and on the central Swiss Alps it ascends to nearly 7000 feet. A long winter of real cold is necessary for its full development and the ripening of its wood, and for that reason the timber of Larch grown in England is inferior to that grown in its native countries, because our winters are either short or mild, and neither gives the tree the full rest it needs.

It is a European tree, and was introduced--though not in any numbers--to England at some date prior to 1629. For 150 years it appears to have been cultivated here merely as an ornamental garden tree. Then attention was called to its value as a timber tree, and the Society of Arts offered gold medals for Larch planting and essays upon its economic importance. Already (1728) the second Duke of Atholl had begun those experiments in Larch growing for timber which have been continued by his successors on a vast scale, the fourth Duke planting 27,000,000 Larch-trees on 15,000 acres of barren land. Their example has been copied on a smaller scale all over the country.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Larch. A, flower.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Pl. 153._ Larch--summer.]