Woodland Gleanings Part 10

Here the gray smooth trunks Of ash, or Lime, or beech, distinctly shine Within the twilight of their distant shades, There lost behind a rising ground, the wood Seems sunk and shortened to its topmost boughs.

This peculiarity of the bark has also been noticed by Leigh Hunt, in the story of _Rimini_:

Places of nestling green for poets made, Where, when the sunshine struck a yellow shade, The slender trunks to inward peeping sight, Thronged, in dark pillars, up the gold-green light.

The leaves of the Lime-tree are also useful, and were esteemed so in common with those of the elm and poplar, both in a dried and green state for feeding cattle, by the Romans.

The other two indigenous or naturalized species of Lime are--

2. _The broad-leaved, T. grandifolia._ Ehrh. Flowers without nectaries; leaves roundish, cordate, pointed, serrate, downy, especially beneath, with hairy tufts at the origin of the veins; capsule turbinate, with prominent angles, downy.----_Flowers_ in August: found in woods and hedges.

3. _The small-leaved, T. parvifolia._ Ehrh. Flowers without nectaries; leaves scarcely longer than their petioles, roundish, cordate, serrate, pointed, glaucous beneath, with hairy tufts at the origin of the veins, and scattered hairy blotches; capsule roundish, with slender ribs, thin, brittle, nearly smooth.----_A handsome_ tree, distinguished from the former by its much smaller leaves and flowers: germen densely woolly: flowers in August: grows in woods in Ess.e.x, Suss.e.x, &c.: frequent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MAPLE-TREE.]

THE MAPLE-TREE.

[_Acer._[L] Nat. Ord.--_Aceraceae_; Linn. _Octan. Monog._]

[L] _Generic characters._ Calyx inferior, 5-cleft. Petals 5, obovate.

Fruit consisting of 2 capsules, united at the base, indehiscent and winged (a _samara_). Trees, with simple leaves and flowers, often polygamous, in axillary corymbs or racemes.

The Common Maple (_A. campestre_) is found throughout the middle states of Europe, and in the north of Asia. It is common in hedges and thickets in the middle and south of England, but is rare in the northern counties and in Scotland, and is not indigenous in Ireland. It is a rather small tree, of no great figure, so that it is seldom seen employed in any n.o.bler service than in filling up a part in a hedge, in company with thorns and briers. In a few instances, where it is met with in a state of maturity, its form appears picturesque. It is not much unlike the oak, only it is more bushy, and its branches are closer and more compact. Although it seldom attains a height of more than twenty feet, yet in favourable situations it rises to forty feet, as may be seen in Eastwell Park, Kent, and in Caversham Park, near Reading. The Rev.

William Gilpin, from whose _Remarks on Forest Scenery_ we have derived much interesting matter, is buried under the shade of a very large Maple in the church-yard of Boldre, in the New Forest, Hampshire.

The botanical characters of _A. campestre_ are:--_Leaves_ about one and a half inch in width, downy while young, as are their foot-stalks, obtusely five-lobed, here and there notched, sometimes quite entire.

Flowers green, in cl.u.s.ters that terminate the young shoots, hairy, erect, short, and somewhat corymbose. Anthers hairy between the lobes.

Capsules downy, spreading horizontally, with smooth, oblong, reddish wings. Bark corky, and full of fissures; that of the branches smooth.

Flowers in May and June.

The ancients held this tree in great repute. Ovid compares it to the Lime:

The Maple not unlike the lime-tree grows, Like her, her spreading arms abroad she throws, Well clothed with leaves, but that the Maple's bole Is clad by nature with a ruder stole.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Leaves, Flowers, and Fruit of _A. campestre_.]

Pliny speaks as highly of its k.n.o.bs and its excrescences, called the _brusca_ and _mollusca_, as Dr. Plot does of those of the ash. The veins of these excrescences in the Maple, Pliny tells us, were so variegated that they exceeded the beauty of any other wood, even of the citron; though the citron was in such repute at Rome, that Cicero, who was neither rich nor expensive, was tempted to give 10,000 sesterces for a citron table. The brusca and mollusca, Pliny adds, were rarely of a size sufficient for the larger species of furniture, but in all smaller cabinet-work they were inestimable. Indeed, the whole tree was esteemed by the ancients on account of its variegated wood, especially the white, which is singularly beautiful. This is called the French Maple, and grows in northern Italy, between the Po and the Alps; the other has a curled grain, so curiously spotted, that it was called, from a near resemblance, the peac.o.c.k's tail. So mad were people formerly in searching for the representations of birds, beasts, and other objects in the brusc.u.m of this tree, that they spared no expense in procuring it.

The timber is used for musical instruments, inlaying, &c., and is reckoned superior to most woods for turnery ware. Our poets generally place a Maple dish in every hermitage they speak of.

Methinks that to some vacant hermitage My feet would rather turn,--to some dry nook Scooped out of living rock, and near a brook Hurled down a mountain-cave, from stage to stage, Yet tempering, for my sight, its bustling rage In the soft haven of a translucent pool; Thence creeping under forest arches cool, Fit haunt of shapes whose glorious equipage Would elevate my dreams. A beechen bowl, A Maple dish, my furniture should be; Crisp, yellow leaves my bed; the hooting owl My night-watch; nor should e'er the crested fowl From thorp or vil his matins sound for me, Tired of the world and all its industry.

Wordsworth, _Eccl. Sk._, 22.

Wilson and Cowper also furnish the hermit's cell with a Maple dish, while Mason notes one that lacked this article, deemed so requisite for such a habitation:

--Many a visitant Had sat within his hospitable cave; From his Maple bowl, the unpolluted spring Drunk fearless, and with him partook the bread That his pale lips most reverently had blessed, With words becoming such a holy man.

His dwelling a recess in some rude rock, Books, beads, and Maple dish his meagre stock.

--It seemed a hermit's cell, Yet void of hour-gla.s.s, skull, and Maple dish.

There is an American species of the Maple, _A. saccharinum_, which yields a considerable quant.i.ty of sap, from which the Canadians make sugar of an average quality. The season for tapping the trees is in February, March, and April. From a pint to five gallons of syrup may be obtained from one tree in a day; though, when a frosty night is succeeded by a dry and brilliant day, the rush of sap is much greater.

The yearly product of sugar from each tree is about three pounds. Trees which grow in lone and moist places, afford a greater quant.i.ty of sap than those which occupy rising ground; but it is less rich in the saccharine principle. That of insulated trees, left standing in the middle of fields, or by the side of fences, is the best. It is also remarked, that in districts which have been cleared of other trees, and even of the less vigorous sugar maples, the product of the remainder is proportionally greater. The sap is converted into sugar by boiling, till reduced to the proper consistency for being poured into moulds.

There are now cultivated in England more than twenty species of Maple, brought from every quarter of the globe, several of which are likely to prove hardy. They are among the most ornamental trees of artificial plantations, on account of the great beauty and variety of their foliage, which changes to a fine scarlet, or rich yellow, in autumn. The larger growing species are often many years before they come to flower, and, after they do so, they sometimes flower several years before they mature seeds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MOUNTAIN-ASH, OR ROWAN-TREE.]

THE MOUNTAIN-ASH, OR ROWAN-TREE.

[_Pyrus._[M] Nat. Ord.--_Rosaceae_; Linn.--_Icosand. Pentag._]

[M] _Generic characters._ Calyx superior, monosepalous, 5-cleft. Petals 5. Styles 2 to 5. Fruit a _pome_, 5-celled, each cell 2-seeded, cartilaginous.

The Mountain-Ash (_P. aucuparia_) is a native of most parts of Europe, and western Asia. It is also found in j.a.pan, and in the most northern parts of North America. In Britain it is common in woods and hedges in mountainous, but rather moist situations, in every part of the island, and also in Ireland. It forms an erect-stemmed tree, with an orbicular head. When fully grown, like every other description of _Pyrus_, it a.s.sumes a somewhat formal character, but in a young state its branches are disposed in a more loose and graceful manner. In the Scottish Highlands, according to Lauder, "it becomes a considerable tree. There, on some rocky mountain covered with dark pines and waving birch, which cast a solemn gloom over the lake below, a few Mountain-Ashes, joining in a clump, and mixing with them, have a fine effect. In summer the light green tint of their foliage, and in autumn the glowing berries which hang cl.u.s.tering upon them, contrast beautifully with the deeper green of the pines; and if they are happily blended, and not in too large a proportion, they add some of the most picturesque furniture with which the sides of those rugged mountains are invested."

The stems of the Mountain-Ash are covered with a smooth gray bark, and the branches, while young, have a smooth purplish bark. The leaves are pinnate, downy beneath, serrated; panicle corymbose, with downy stalks; flowers numerous, white; fruit globose, scarlet, acid, and austere.

Flowers in May and June.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Leaves, Flowers, and Fruit of _P. aucuparia_.]

The Mountain-Ash is almost always raised from seed, which may be sown any time from November to February. The tree grows rapidly for the first three or four years, attaining, in five years, the height of from eight to nine feet; after which it begins to form a head, and, in ten years, will attain the height of twenty feet. As it grows rapidly, even in the most exposed situations, it forms an admirable nurse-tree to the oak, and other slow-growing species; the more so as it is incapable of being drawn up by culture above a certain height, thereafter quietly submitting to be over-topped and destroyed, by the shade and drip of those which it was planted to shelter and protect. It is frequently planted for coppice-wood, the shoots being well adapted for poles, and for hoops, and the bark being in demand by tanners. The wood is fine-grained, hard, capable of being stained any colour, and of taking a high polish. It is much used for the husbandman's tools, goads, &c., and the wheelwright values it on account of its being h.o.m.ogeneous, or all heart. If the tree be large and fully grown, it will yield planks, boards, and timber. Next to the yew it was useful for bows--a circ.u.mstance we ought not to omit recording, if it were only to perpetuate the celebrity of our once English ancestors. It is named in a statute of Henry VIII. as being serviceable for this purpose. It makes excellent fuel; though Evelyn says he never observed any use, except that the blossoms are of an agreeable scent, and the berries offer such temptation to the thrushes, that, as long as they last, you may be sure of their company. Ale and beer brewed with these berries, being ripe, is esteemed an incomparable drink. In Wales, this tree is reputed so sacred, that there is scarcely a church-yard without one of them growing therein. And formerly--and, we believe, in some parts even now--on a certain day in the year many persons religiously wore a cross made of the wood.

Keats, in his early poems, notices the loftiness of this tree, and its waving head:

--He was withal A man of elegance and stature tall; So that the waving of his plumes would be High as the berries of a wild Ash-tree, Or the winged cap of Mercury.

In former days, when superst.i.tion prevailed, the Mountain-Ash was considered an object of great veneration. Often at this day a stump of it is found in some old burying-place, or near the circle of a Druid temple, whose rites it formerly invested with its sacred shade. It was supposed to be, and in some places still is esteemed to be, possessed of the property of driving away witches and evil spirits, and this property is recorded in one of the stanzas of a very ancient song, called the _Laidley Worm of Spindleston Heughs:_

Their spells were vain, the hags return'd To the queen, in sorrowful mood, Crying that witches have no pow'r Where there is roan-tree wood.

That the superst.i.tion respecting the virtues of this tree does exist in Yorkshire at the present day, we know, and of the truth of the following anecdote, related by Waterton, the author of the celebrated _Wanderings_, we have not the slightest doubt; it is printed in one of his communications to the _Magazine of Natural History_:--"In the village of Walton," says Mr. Waterton, "I have two small tenants; the name of one is James Simpson, and that of the other Sally Holloway; and Sally's stands a little before the house of Simpson. Some three months ago I overtook Simpson on the turnpike road, and I asked him if his cow was getting better, for his son had told me that she had fallen sick.

'She's coming on surprisingly, Sir,' quoth he; 'the last time the cow-doctor came to see her, "Jem," said he to me, looking earnestly at Old Sally's house; "Jem," said he, "mind and keep your cowhouse door shut before the sun goes down, otherwise I won't answer for what may happen to the cow." "Ay, ay, my lad," said I, "I understand your meaning; but I am up to the old s.l.u.t, and I defy her to do me any harm now!"' 'And what has Old Sally been doing to you, James?' said I. 'Why, Sir,' replied he, 'we all know too well what she can do. She has long owed me a grudge; and my cow, which was in very good health, fell sick immediately after Sally had been seen to look in at the door of the cowhouse, just as night was coming on. The cow grew worse, and so I went and cut a bit of wiggin (Mountain-Ash), and I nailed the branches all up and down the cowhouse; and, Sir, you may see them there if you will take the trouble to step in. I am a match for Old Sally now, and she can't do me any more harm, so long as the wiggin branches hang in the place where I have nailed them. My poor cow will get better in spite of her.' Alas!

thought I to myself, as the deluded man was finishing his story, how much there is yet to be done in our own country by the schoolmaster of the nineteenth century!"