Woodland Gleanings Part 15

[R] _Generic characters._ Flowers monoecious. Cones woody, with numerous 2-seeded scales, thickened and angular at the end. Seeds with a crustaceous coat, winged. Leaves acerose, in cl.u.s.ters of from 2 to 5, surrounded by scarious scales at the base.

The Scotch Fir or Pine, and its varieties, are indigenous throughout the greater part of Europe. It also extends into the north, east, and west of Asia; and is found at Nootka Sound in Vancouver's Island, on the north-west coast of North America. In the south of Europe it grows at an elevation of from 1000 to 1500 feet; in the Highlands of Scotland, at 2700 feet; and in Norway and Lapland, at 700 feet. Widely dispersed, however, as the species is throughout the mountainous regions of Europe, it is only found in profusion between 52 and 65 N. lat. It occurs in immense forests in Poland and Russia, as well as in northern Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Lapland, up to the 70 of N. lat. The indigenous forests of Scotland, which formerly occupied so large a portion of its surface, have been greatly reduced within the last sixty years, chiefly on account of the pecuniary embarra.s.sments of their proprietors.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Foliage, Flowers, Cones; Cone opened, showing the Seeds.]

The Scotch Fir, in favourable situations, attains the height of from eighty to one hundred feet, with a trunk from two to four feet in diameter, and a head somewhat conical or rounded, but generally narrow in proportion to its height, as compared with the heads of other broad-leafed trees. The bark is of a reddish tinge, comparatively smooth, scaling off in some varieties, and rough and furrowed in others.

The branches are disposed in whorls from two to four together, and sometimes five or six; they are at first slightly turned upwards, but finally become somewhat pendant, with the exception of those branches which form the summit of the tree. The leaves are in sheaths, spirally disposed on the branches; they are distinguished at first sight from all other pines in which the leaves are in pairs, by being much more glaucous, more especially when in a young state, and straighter. The general length of the leaves, in vigorous young trees, is from two to three inches; but in old trees they are much shorter; they are smooth on both surfaces, stiff, obtuse at the extremities, with a small point, and minutely serrated; dark green on the upper side, and glaucous and striated on the under side. The leaves remain green on the tree during four years, and generally drop off at the commencement of the fifth year, Long before this time, generally at the beginning of the second year, they have entirely lost their light glaucous hue, and have become of the dark sombre appearance which is characteristic of this tree at every season except that of summer, when the young glaucous shoots of the year give it a lighter hue. The flowers appear commonly in May and June. The barren flowers are from half an inch to upwards of an inch long, are placed in whorls at the base of the young shoots of the current year, and contain two or more stamens with large yellow anthers, which discharge a sulphur-coloured pollen in great abundance. The fertile flowers, or embryo cones, appear on the summits of the shoots of the current year, generally two on the point of a shoot, but sometimes from four to six. The colour of these embryo cones is generally purple and green; but they are sometimes yellowish or red. It requires eighteen months to mature the cones; and in a state of nature it is two years before the seeds are in a condition to germinate. The cone, which is stalked, and, when mature, begins to open at the narrow extremity, is perfectly conical while closed, rounded at the base, from one to two inches in length, and about an inch across in the broadest part; as it ripens, the colour changes from green to reddish brown. The scales of the cone are oblong, and terminate externally in a kind of depressed pyramid, which varies in shape and height. At the base of each scale, and close to the axis of the cone, two oval-winged seeds or nuts are lodged. From these nuts the young plant appears in the shape of a slender stem, with from five to six linear leaves or cotyledons. In ten years, in the climate of London, plants will attain the height of from twenty-five to thirty feet; and in twenty years, from forty to fifty feet.

The great contempt in which the Scotch Fir is commonly held, says Gilpin, "arises, I believe, from two causes--its dark murky hue is unpleasing, and we rarely see it in a picturesque state. In perfection it is a very picturesque tree, though we have little idea of its beauty.

It is a hardy plant, and is therefore put to every servile office. If you wish to screen your house from the south-west wind, plant Scotch Firs; and plant them close and thick. If you want to shelter a nursery of young trees, plant Scotch Firs; and the phrase is, you may afterwards weed them out as you please. I admire its foliage, both for the colour of the leaf, and its mode of growth. Its ramification, too, is irregular and beautiful, and not unlike that of the stone pine; which it resembles also in the easy sweep of its stem, and likewise in the colour of the bark, which is commonly, as it attains age, of a rich reddish brown. The Scotch Fir, indeed, in its stripling state, is less an object of beauty.

Its pointed and spiry shoots, during the first years of its growth, are formal; and yet I have sometimes seen a good contrast produced between its spiry points and the round-headed oaks and elms in its neighbourhood. When I speak, however, of the Scotch Fir as a beautiful individual, I conceive it when it has outgrown all the improprieties of its youth; when it has completed its full age, and when, like Ezekiel's cedar, it has formed its head high among the thick branches. I may be singular in my attachment to the Scotch Fir. I know it has many enemies; but my opinion will weigh only with the reasons I have given." Sir Thomas d.i.c.k Lauder, in his commentary on this pa.s.sage, says, "We agree with Gilpin to the fullest extent in his approbation of the Scotch Fir as a picturesque tree. We, for our part, confess, that we have seen it towering in full majesty, in the midst of some appropriate Highland scene, and sending its limbs abroad with all the unconstrained freedom of a hardy mountaineer, as if it claimed dominion over the savage regions around it; we have then looked upon it as a very sublime object.

People who have not seen it in its native climate and soil, and who judge of it from the wretched abortions which are swaddled and suffocated in English plantations, in deep, heavy, and eternally wet clays, may well call it a wretched tree; but, when its foot is among its own Highland heather, and when it stands freely on its native knoll of dry gravel, or thinly covered rock, over which its roots wander afar in the wildest reticulation, whilst its tall, furrowed, and often gracefully sweeping red and gray trunk, of enormous circ.u.mference, rears aloft its high umbrageous canopy, then would the greatest sceptic on this point be compelled to prostrate his mind before it with a veneration which, perhaps, was never before excited in him by any other tree."

Some of the most picturesque trees of this kind, perhaps, in England, adorn Mr. Lenthall's mansion, of Basilsleigh, in Berkshire. The soil is a deep rich sand, which seems to be well adapted to them. As they are here at perfect liberty, they not only become large and n.o.ble trees, but they expand themselves likewise in all the careless forms of nature.

There is a remarkably fine specimen of the Scotch Fir at Castle Huntly, in Perthshire. In 1796, it measured thirteen feet six inches in girth, at three feet from the ground; and close to the ground, it measured nineteen feet, and is thought not unlikely to be the largest planted Fir in the country. The word _planted_ is very properly used here, as many examples of larger _natural_ Firs have been produced. Professor Walker observes, that few Fir-trees were planted before the beginning of the present century; and that as the Fir is a tree which, from the number of rings found in it, will probably grow four hundred years, it is impossible that the planted Firs can have arrived at perfection. "This,"

says Sir T. Lauder, "may be all true; but as the reasoning proceeds upon the fact of a natural Swedish tree, perfectly sound, having three hundred and sixty circles in it, it by no means follows that a planted Fir will not rot in a premature state of disease, and die before it has sixty circles."

The acerose or needle leaf of the Pine seems necessary to protect the tree from injury; for if their leaves were of a broader form, the branches would be borne down, in winter, by the weight of snow in the northern lat.i.tudes, and they would be more liable to be uprooted by the mighty hurricane. It is, however, enabled thus to evade both; as the snow falls through, and the winds penetrate between, the interstices of its filiform leaf. Struggling through the branches, the wind comes in contact with such an innumerable quant.i.ty of points and edges, as, even when gentle, to produce a deep murmur, or sighing; but when the breeze is strong, or the storm is raging abroad, it produces sounds like the murmuring of the ocean, or the beating of the surge and billows among the rocks:--

The loud wind through the forest wakes With sounds like ocean roaring, wild and deep, And in yon gloomy Pines strange music makes, like symphonies unearthly heard in sleep; The sobbing waters wash their waves and weep: Where moans the blast its dreary path along, The bending Firs a mournful cadence keep, And mountain rocks re-echo to the song, As fitful raves the wind the hills and woods among.

Drummond.

Wordsworth, also, thus speaks of Pine-trees moved by a gentle breeze:--

An idle voice the Sabbath region fills Of deep that calls to deep across the hills, Broke only by the melancholy sound Of drowsy bells for ever tinkling round; Faint wail of eagle melting into blue Beneath the cliffs, and Pine-wood's steady sugh.

The quality of the timber of the Scotch Fir, according to some, is altogether dependent on soil, climate, and slowness of growth; but, according to others, it depends jointly on these circ.u.mstances, and on the kind of variety cultivated. It is acknowledged that the timber of the Scotch Fir, grown on rocky surfaces, or where the soil is dry and sandy, is generally more resinous and redder in colour, than that of such as grow on soils of a clayey nature, boggy, or on chalk. At what time the sap wood is transformed into durable or red wood, has not yet been determined by vegetable physiologists. The durability of the red timber of this tree was supposed by Brindley, the celebrated engineer, to be as great as that of the oak; and some of it, grown in the north Highlands, is reported to have been as fresh and full of resin after having been three hundred years in the roof of an old castle, as newly-imported timber from Memel.

The red wood timber of the Scottish forests, similar, in every respect, to the best Baltic Pine, is the produce of trees that have numbered from one to two or more centuries. In Norway, it is not considered full-grown timber till it has reached from one hundred and thirty to two hundred years. It seems, then, rather preposterous, that any one should expect that plantation Fir timber, cut down when, perhaps, not more than thirty years old, and consisting entirely of sap wood, should be adapted to all those purposes which require the best full-grown and matured timber; and yet such seems very generally to have been the case, and to the disappointment at not finding those expectations realized, may be attributed a large portion of that prejudice and dislike so generally entertained towards this tree.

On Hampstead Heath, near London, there are a number of Pines which are said to have been raised from seed brought from Ravenna. If so, the cones are very different from those of the Ravenna Pine described by Leigh Hunt:--

Various the trees and pa.s.sing foliage there,-- Wild pear, and oak, and dusky juniper, With bryony between in trails of white, And ivy, and the suckle's streaky light, And moss warm gleaming with a sudden mark, Like flings of sunshine left upon the bark; And still the Pine long-haired, and dark, and tall, In lordly right, predominant o'er all.

Much they admire that old religious tree, With shaft above the rest up-shooting free, And shaking, when its dark locks feel the wind, Its wealthy fruit with rough Mosaic rind.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SILVER FIR.]

THE SILVER FIR.

[_Abies[S] picea._ Nat. Ord--_Coniferae_; Linn.--_Monoec. Mon._]

[S] For the generic characters, see p. 221.

The Silver Fir is indigenous to the mountains of Central Europe, and to the west and north of Asia, rising to the commencement of the zone of the Scotch fir. It is found in France, on the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Vosges; in Italy, Spain, Greece, and the south of Germany; also in Russia and Siberia; but it is not found indigenous in Britain or Ireland. On the Carpathian mountains it is found to the height of 3200 feet; and on the Alps, to the height of from 3000 to 4000 feet. Wherever it is found of a large size, as in the neighbourhood of Strasburg, and in the Vosges, where it has attained the height of one hundred and fifty feet, it invariably grows in good soil, and in a situation sheltered rather than exposed. It appears to have been introduced into England about the commencement of the seventeenth century; as we learn from Evelyn, that in 1663 there were two Silver Firs growing at Harefield, Middles.e.x, which were there planted sixty years before, at two years'

growth from the seed, the larger of which had risen to the height of 81 feet, and was 13 feet in girth below; and it was calculated that it contained 146 feet of good timber.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Foliage and Cones of _A. picea_, or _Picea_.]

In full-grown trees, the trunk of the Silver Fir is from six to eight feet in diameter, covered, till its fortieth or fiftieth year, with a whitish-gray bark, tolerably smooth; but, as it increases in age, it becomes cracked and chapped. At a still greater age, the bark begins to scale off in large pieces, leaving the trunk of a dark brown colour beneath. The branches stand out horizontally, as do the branchlets and spray, with reference to the main stem of the branch. The leaves on young trees are distinctly two-rowed, and the general surface of the rows is flat; but, as the tree advances in age, and especially on cone-bearing shoots, the disposition of the leaves is less perfect. In every stage of growth they are turned up at the points; but more especially so on old trees, and on cone-bearing branches. The leaves are shorter and broader, and are set much thicker on the spray, than those of other firs and pines. The upper surface of the leaves is also of a darker and brighter green, while underneath they have two white silvery lines running lengthwise on each side of the midrib, which make a conspicuous appearance on the partially turned up leaves; whence its name. The cones of the Silver Fir are large and cylindrical, being from six to eight inches long, erect, and bluntly pointed at both ends. When young they are green, but, as they advance to maturity, the scales acquire a rich purplish colour, and when quite ripe are deep brown; they remain upwards of a year upon the tree, as they first appear in May, when they blossom, and do not ripen the seed till October of the following year. The scales are large, with a long dorsal bract, and fall from the axillar spindle of the cone in the spring of the second year.

The seeds are irregular and angular, with a large membranaceous wing.

Cones with fertile seeds are seldom produced before the tree has attained its fortieth year; though without, seeds often appear before half that period has elapsed.

Gilpin remarks that "the Silver Fir has very little to boast in point of picturesque beauty. It has all the regularity of the spruce, but without its floating foliage. There is a sort of harsh, stiff, unbending formality in the stem, the branches, and the whole economy of the tree, which makes it disagreeable. We rarely see it, even in its happiest state, a.s.sume a picturesque shape." In this opinion Sir T. D. Lauder does not entirely coincide, for, in his remarks upon Gilpin's text, he says, "As to the picturesque effect of this tree, we have seen many of them throw out branches from near the very root, that twined and swept away from them in so bold a manner, as to give them, in a very great degree, that character which is most capable of engaging the interest of the artist."

The rate of growth of the Silver Fir is slow when young, but rapid after it has attained the age of ten or twelve years. In England, under advantageous circ.u.mstances, it attains a magnificent size, some recorded trees being from 100 to 130 feet in height, with trunks varying in diameter from three to six feet, and containing from two hundred to upwards of three hundred feet of timber. In Scotland, also, it has reached dimensions equally great. At Roseneath Castle, Argyleshire, there are two Silver Firs which Sir T. D. Lauder considered the finest specimens he had ever seen. When measured in 1817, he says, "the circ.u.mference of one of them, at five feet from the ground, was fifteen feet nine inches; at three feet from the ground, it was seventeen feet six inches; and just above the roots, it was nineteen feet eight inches.

The second tree was sixteen feet two inches in girth at five feet from the ground; seventeen feet eleven inches at three feet from the ground; and nineteen feet ten inches when measured immediately above the roots."

The Silver Fir likewise grows to a large size in Ireland, much more rapidly than any other tree. Some planted in a wet clay, on a rock, have measured twelve feet in girth at the base, and seven feet six inches at five feet high, after a growth of forty years.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NORWAY SPRUCE.]

THE NORWAY SPRUCE.

[_Abies[T] excelsa._ Nat. Ord.--_Coniferae_; Linn.--_Monoec. Mon._]

[T] _Generic characters._ Flowers monoecious. _Barren_ catkins crowded, racemose. Scales of the cone thinned away to the edge, and usually membranous or coriaceous. _Leaves_ never fascicled.

Though a native of the mountains of Europe and Asia in similar parallels of lat.i.tude, the Spruce Fir is not considered indigenous to Britain. It must, however, have been introduced at an early period, as it is mentioned by our oldest writers on arboriculture. It is most common in Lapland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and throughout the north of Germany.

It grows in the south of Norway at an elevation of 3000 feet above the level of the sea, and in the north on mountains in 70 N. lat. at 750 feet. In the valleys of the Swiss Alps, the Spruce is frequently found above one hundred and fifty feet in height, with trunks from four to five feet in diameter. This tree requires a soft moist soil. Among dry rocks and stones, where the Scotch fir would flourish, the Spruce Fir will scarcely grow.

The Norway Spruce Fir is the loftiest of European trees, attaining, in favourable situations, the enormous height of one hundred and eighty feet; with a very straight upright trunk, from two to six feet in diameter, and widely extending branches, which spread out regularly on every side, so as to form a cone-like or pyramidal shape, terminating in a straight arrow-like leading shoot. In young trees, the branches are disposed in regular whorls from the base to the summit; but in old trees the lower branches drop off. The trunk is covered with a thin bark, of a reddish colour and scaly surface, with occasional warts or small excrescences distributed over its surface. The leaves are solitary, of a dark gra.s.sy green, generally under one inch in length, straight, stiff, and sharp-pointed, disposed around the shoots, and more crowded together laterally than on the upper and under sides of the branchlets. The barren flowers, about one inch long, are cylindrical, on long catkins, curved, of a yellowish colour, with red tips, and discharging, when expanded, a profusion of yellow pollen. The fertile flowers are produced at the ends of the branches, first appearing as small pointed purplish-red catkins; they afterwards gradually a.s.sume the cone-like form, and become pendant, changing first into a green and latterly into a reddish brown, acquiring a length of from five to seven inches, and a breadth of above two inches. The scales are rhomboidal, slightly incurved, and rugged or toothed at the tip, with two seeds in each scale. The seeds, which are very small, and furnished with large membranous wings, are not shed till the spring of the second year.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Foliage and Cones of _A. excelsa_.]

As an ornamental tree, all admirers of regularity and symmetry are generally partial to the Spruce. Gilpin was, however, no great admirer of the tree; but still he allows it to have had its peculiar beauties.

"The Spruce Fir," he says, "is generally esteemed a more elegant tree than the Scotch pine; and the reason, I suppose, is because it often feathers to the ground, and grows in a more exact and regular shape: but this is a princ.i.p.al objection to it. It often wants both form and beauty. We admire its floating foliage, in which it sometimes exceeds all other trees; but it is rather disagreeable to see a repet.i.tion of these feathery strata, beautiful as they are, reared tier above tier, in regular order, from the bottom of a tree to the top. Its perpendicular stem, also, which has seldom any lineal variety, makes the appearance of the tree still more formal. It is not always, however, that the Spruce Fir grows with so much regularity. Sometimes a lateral branch, here and there taking the lead beyond the rest, breaks somewhat through the order commonly observed, and forms a few chasms, which have a good effect.

When this is the case, the Spruce Fir ranks among picturesque trees.

Sometimes it has as good an effect, and in many circ.u.mstances a better, when the contrast appears still stronger; when the tree is shattered by some accident, has lost many of its branches, and is scathed and ragged.

A feathery branch, here and there, among broken stems, has often an admirable effect; but it must arise from some particular situation. In all circ.u.mstances, however, the Spruce Fir appears best either as a single tree, or unmixed with any of its fellows; for neither it, nor any of the spear-headed race, will ever form a beautiful clump without the a.s.sistance of other trees."

The Spruce Fir is raised from seed, which should be chosen from healthy vigorous trees. The young plant appears with from seven to nine cotyledons, but makes little progress till after the third year, when it begins to put out lateral branches. Its progress from this time, till its fifth or sixth year, is at the annual rate of about six inches, after which age its annual growth, in favourable soils, is very rapid, the leading shoot being frequently from two to three feet in length, and this increase it continues to support with undiminished vigour for forty or fifty years, many trees within that period attaining a height of from sixty to eighty feet. Its growth after this period is slower, and the duration of the tree, in its native habitats, is considered to range between one hundred and one hundred and fifty years.