Woodland Gleanings Part 19

In Ovid we read of

A hollow vale, where watery torrents gush, Sinks in the plain; the osier, and the rush, The marshy sedge and bending Willow nod Their trailing foliage o'er its oozy sod.

And Churchill speaks of

The Willow weeping o'er the fatal wave, Where many a lover finds a watery grave.

Shakspeare introduces it in Hamlet, where he describes the place of Ophelia's death:

There is a Willow grows ascant the brook, That shows his h.o.a.r leaves in the gla.s.sy stream; There with fantastic garlands did she make, Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them: There on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious silver broke; When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook.

The Willows that attain the size of trees of the first and second rank, and that produce valuable timber, are the four following:--The Crack Willow, the Russell Willow, the Huntingdon Willow, and the Goat Willow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Leaves and Catkins of _S. fragilis_.]

The Crack or Red-wood Willow, _S. fragilis_, is a tall bushy tree, sometimes growing from eighty to ninety feet in height, with the branches set on obliquely, somewhat crossing each other, not continued in a straight line outwards from the trunk; by which character it may be readily distinguished even in winter. The branches are round, very smooth, "and so brittle at the base, in spring, that with the slightest blow they start from the trunk," whence the name of Crack Willow. Its leaves are ovate-lanceolate, pointed, serrated throughout, very glabrous. Foot-stalks glandular, ovary ovate, abrupt, nearly sessile, glabrous. Bracts oblong, about equal to the stamens and pistils. Stigmas cloven, longer than the style.

The Russell or Bedford Willow, _S. Russelliana_, is frequently found from eighty to ninety feet in height. It is more handsome than _S.

fragilis_ in its mode of growth, as well as altogether of a lighter or brighter hue. The branches are long, straight, and slender, not angular in their insertion, like those of _S. fragilis_. The leaves are lanceolate, tapering at each end, serrated throughout, and very glabrous. Foot-stalks, glandular or leafy. Ovary tapering; stalked, longer than the bracts. Style as long as the stigma. Dr. Johnson's favourite Willow, at Lichfield, was of this species. In 1781, the trunk of this tree rose to the height of nearly nine feet, and then divided into fifteen large ascending branches, which, in any numerous and crowded subdivisions, spread at the top in a circular form, not unlike the appearance of a shady oak, inclining a little towards the east. The circ.u.mference of the trunk at the bottom was nearly sixteen feet; in the middle about twelve feet; and thirteen feet at the top, immediately below the branches. The entire height of the tree was forty-nine feet; and the circ.u.mference of the branches, at their extremities, upwards of two hundred feet, overshadowing a plane not far short of four thousand feet. This species was first brought into notice for its valuable properties as a timber-tree, by the late Duke of Bedford; whence its name.

The Huntingdon, or Common White Willow, _S. alba_, grows rapidly, attaining the height of thirty feet in twelve years, and rising to sixty feet in height, or upwards, even in inferior soils; while, in favourable situations, it will reach the height of eighty feet, or upwards. "The bark is thick and full of cracks. The branches are numerous, spreading widely, silky when young. The leaves are all alternate, on shortish foot-stalks, lanceolate, broadest a little above the middle, pointed, tapering towards each end, regularly and acutely serrated, the lowest serrature most glandular; both sides of a grayish, somewhat glaucous, green, beautifully silky, with close-pressed silvery hairs, very dense and brilliant on the uppermost, or youngest leaves; the lowermost on each branch, like the bracts, are smaller, more obtuse, and greener.

Stipules variable, either roundish or oblong, small, often wanting.

Catkins on short stalks, with three or four spreading bracts, for the most part coming from the leaves, but a few more often appear after midsummer; they are all cylindrical, rather slender, obtuse, near one and a half inch long. Scales fringed, rounded at the end; those of the barren catkins narrower towards the base; of the fertile, dilated and convolute in that part. Two obtuse glands, one before, the other behind the stamens. Filaments hairy in their lower part. Anthers roundish, yellow. Ovary very nearly sessile, green, smooth, ovate, lanceolate, bluntish, longer than the scale. Style short. Stigmas short, thickish, cloven. Capsule ovate, brown, smooth, rather small."

The Goat Willow, Large-leafed Sallow, or Saugh, _S. caprea_, is distinguished from all the other Willows by its large ovate, or sometimes...o...b..cular ovate leaves, which are pointed, serrated, and waved on the margin; beneath they are of a pale glaucous colour, and clothed with down, but dark green above; varying in length from two to three inches. Foot-stalks stout, downy. Stipules crescent-shaped. Capsules lanceolate, swelling. Style very short. Buds glabrous. Catkins very thick, oval, numerous, nearly sessile, expanding much earlier than the foliage. The ovary is stalked, silky, and ovate in form; the stigmas are undivided, and nearly sessile. In favourable situations this tree attains a height of from thirty to forty feet, with a trunk from one to two feet in diameter. It seldom, however, possesses any considerable length of clean stem, as the branches which form the head generally begin to divide at a moderate height, and diverging in different directions, give it the bearing and appearance of a compact, round-headed tree. It grows in almost all soils and situations, but prefers dry loams, and in such attains its greatest size.

There are very few existing Willow-trees remarkable for age or size. The one most worthy of note is the Abbot's Willow, at Bury St. Edmunds. It grows on the banks of the Lark, a small river running through the park of John Benjafield, Esq. It is seventy-five feet in height, and the stem is eighteen feet and a half in girth; it then divides in a very picturesque manner into two large limbs, one fifteen and the other twelve feet in girth. It shadows an area of ground two hundred and four feet in diameter, and the tree contains four hundred and forty feet of solid timber.

The uses of the Willow are perhaps equal to those of any other species of our native trees; it is remarked that it supports the banks of rivers, dries marshy soil, supplies bands or withies, feeds a great variety of insects, rejoices bees, yields abundance of fine wood, affords nourishment to cattle with its leaves, and yields a subst.i.tute for Jesuit's bark; to which Evelyn adds, all kinds of basket-work, pillboxes, cart saddle-trees, gun-stocks, and half-pikes, harrows, shoemakers' lasts, forks, rakes, ladders, poles for hop vines, small casks and vessels, especially to preserve verjuice in. To which may be added cricket-bats, and numerous other articles where lightness and toughness of wood are desirable. The wood of the Willow has also the property of whetting knives like a whetstone; therefore all knife-boards should be made of this tree in preference to any other.

From the earliest times, the various species of Willow have been made use of by man for forming articles of utility; but as an account of our princ.i.p.al forest-trees is the object of this work, it would be out of place to describe those species which are cultivated for coppice-wood, hoops, basket-rods, or hedges. We may, however, remark that the shields of the ancients were made of wicker work, covered with ox-hides; that the ancient Britons served up their meats in osier baskets or dishes, and that these articles were greatly admired by the Romans.

A basket I by painted Britons wrought, And now to Rome's imperial city brought.

And for want of proper tools for sawing trees into planks, the Britons and other savages made boats of osiers covered with skins, in which they braved the ocean in quest of plunder:--

The bending Willow into barks they twined, Then lined the work with spoils of slaughtered kind; Such are the floats Venetian fishers know, Where in dull marshes stands the settling Po, On such to neighbouring Gaul, allured by gain, The bolder Briton crossed the swelling main.

Rowe's _Lucan_.

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

THE YEW-TREE.

[_Taxus[AB] baccata._ Nat. Ord.--_Taxaceae_; Linn.--_Dioec. Monad._]

[AB] _Generic characters. Barren_ flowers in oval catkins, with crowded, peltate scales, bearing 3 to 8 anther-cells. _Stamens_ numerous. _Style_ 1. _Anthers_ peltate, with several lobes. _Fertile_ flowers scaly below.

_Ovule_ surrounded at the base by a ring, which becomes a fleshy cup-shaped disk surrounding the seed.

The Berried or Common Yew is indigenous to most parts of Europe, from 58 N. lat. to the Mediterranean Sea; also to the east and west of Asia; and of North America. It is found in every part of Britain, and also in Ireland: on limestone cliffs, and in mountainous woods, in the south of England; on schistose, basaltic, and other rocks, in the north of England: and in Scotland, it is particularly abundant on the north side of the mountains near Loch Lomond. In Ireland, it grows in the crevices of rocks, at an elevation of 1200 feet above the level of the sea; but at that height it a.s.sumes the appearance of a low shrub. The Yew is rather a solitary than a social tree; being generally found either alone or with trees of a different species.

The Yew-tree rises from the ground with a short but straight trunk, which sends out, at the height of three or four feet, numerous branches, spreading out nearly horizontally, and forms a head of dense foliage.

When full-grown it attains the height of from thirty to fifty feet. The trunk and bark are channelled longitudinally, and are generally rough, from the protruding remains of shoots which have decayed and dropped off. The bark is smooth, thin, of a brown colour, and scales off like the pine. The branches are thickly clad with leaves, which are two-rowed, crowded, naked, linear, entire, very slightly revolute, and about one inch long; very dark green, smooth, and shining above; paler, with a prominent midrib, beneath; terminating in a point. The flowers, which appear in May, are solitary, proceeding from a scaly axillary bud; those of the barren plant are pale brown, and discharge a very abundant yellowish white pollen. The fertile flowers are green, and in form not unlike a young acorn. Fruit drooping, consisting of a sweet, internally glutinous, scarlet berry, open at the top, inclosing a brown oval nut, unconnected with the fleshy part. The kernels of these nuts are not deleterious, as supposed by many, but may be eaten, and they possess a sweet and agreeable nutty flavour.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Foliage, Leaves, and Fruit of _T. baccata_.]

Of all trees the Yew is the most tonsile. Hence all the indignities it formerly suffered. Everywhere it was cut and metamorphosed into such a variety of deformities, that we could hardly conceive that it had any natural shape, or the power which other trees possess, of hanging carelessly and negligently. Yet it has this power in a very eminent degree; and in a state of nature, except in exposed situations, is perhaps one of the most beautiful evergreens we have. It is now, however, seldom found in a state of perfection. Not ranking among timber-trees, it is thus in a degree unprivileged, and unprotected by forest laws, and has often been made booty of by those who durst not lay violent hands on the oak or the ash. But still, in many parts of the New Forest, some n.o.ble specimens of it are left. There is one which was esteemed by Gilpin to be a tree of peculiar beauty. It immediately divides into several ma.s.sy limbs, each of which, hanging in grand loose foliage, spreads over a large compa.s.s of ground, and yet the whole tree forms a close compact body; that is, its boughs are not so separated as to break into distinct parts. It is not equal in size to the Yew at Fotheringal, near Taymouth, in Scotland, which measures fifty-six and a half feet in circ.u.mference, nor to many others on record; but is of sufficient size for all the purposes of landscape, and is in point of picturesque beauty probably equal to any of them. It stands near the left bank of Lymington river, as you look towards the sea, between Roydon Farm and Boldre Church.

So long as the taste prevailed for metamorphosing the Yew into obelisks, pyramids, birds, and beasts, it was very commonly planted near houses. Now it is nearly banished from the precincts of our residences and pleasure-grounds; not, it would appear, from any real objection that can be urged either against its form or the effect it produces, but from now considering it as a funereal tree, and a.s.sociating it with scenes of melancholy and the grave, a feeling doubtless arising from many of our most venerable and celebrated specimens growing in ancient church-yards.

The origin of these locations is now considered to have arisen from churches having been erected on the sites of Druidical places of worship in Yew groves, or near old Yew-trees. Hence the planting of Yews in church-yards is a custom of heathen origin, which was ingrafted on Christianity on its introduction into Britain.

The sepulchral character of the Yew is thus referred to by Sir Walter Scott, in _Rokeby_:--

But here 'twixt rock and river grew A dismal grove of sable Yew.

With whose sad tints were mingled seen The blighted fir's sepulchral green.

Seemed that the trees their shadows cast, The earth that nourished them to blast; For never knew that swathy grove The verdant hue that fairies love, Nor wilding green, nor woodland flower, Arose within its baleful bower.

The dank and sable earth receives Its only carpet from the leaves, That, from the withering branches cast, Bestrewed the ground with every blast.

And Kirke White, in a fragment written in Wilford church-yard, near Nottingham, on occasion of his recovering from sickness, thus introduces it:--

Here would I wish to sleep.--This is the spot Which I have long marked out to lay my bones in; Tired out and wearied with the riotous world, Beneath this Yew I would be sepulchred.

While in that beautiful and pathetic Elegy of Gray's, which is familiar to every mind in Britain, we read:--

Beneath----------that Yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

Poor Carrington has the following lines on the Yew-tree, in a poem ent.i.tled _My Native Village_. The author is buried in the little quiet church-yard of Combehay, a sequestered village at a short distance from Bath. It is situated in a deep and unfrequented valley, where some of the finest and most luxuriant scenery in the west of England may be found. It was chosen, his son tells us, because it is a spot which, when living, he would have loved full well:--

Tree of the days of old--time-honour'd Yew!

Pride of my boyhood--manhood--age, Adieu!

Broad was thy shadow, mighty one, but now Sits desolation on thy leafless bough!

That huge and far-fam'd trunk, scoop'd out by age, Will break, full soon, beneath the tempest's rage: Few are the leaves lone sprinkled o'er thy breast, There's bleakness, blackness on thy shiver'd crest!

When Spring shall vivify again the earth, And yon blest vale shall ring with woodland mirth, Morning, noon, eve,--no bird with wanton glee Shall pour anew his poetry from thee; For thou hast lost thy greenness, and he loves The verdure and companionship of groves-- Sings where the song is loudest, and the spray, Fresh, fair, and youthful, dances in the ray!

Nor shall returning Spring, o'er storms and strife Victorious, e'er recal thee into life!

Yet stand thou there--majestic to the last, And stoop with grandeur to the conquering blast.

Aye, stand thou there--for great in thy decay, Thou wondrous remnant of a far-gone day, Thy name, thy might, shall wake in rural song, Bless'd by the old--respected by the young; While all unknown, uncar'd for,--oak on oak Of yon tall grove shall feel the woodman's stroke; One common, early fate awaits them all, No sympathizing eye shall mark their fall; And beautiful in ruin as they lie, For them shall not be heard one rustic sigh!

Since the use of the bow has been superseded by more deadly instruments of warfare, the cultivation of the Yew is now less common. This, says Evelyn, is to be deplored; for the barrenest ground and coldest of our mountains might be profitably replenished with them. However, in winter, we may still see some of the higher hills in Surrey clad with entire woods of Yew and cypress, for miles around, as we stand on Box Hill; and might, without any violence to the ordinary powers of imagination, fancy ourselves transported into a new or enchanted country. Indeed, Evelyn remarked, in his day, that if in any spot in England,

--'tis here Eternal spring and summer all the year.

Our venerable author records a Yew-tree, ten yards in girth, which grew in the church-yard of Crowhurst, in the county of Surrey. And another standing in Braburne church-yard, near Scot's Hall, Kent; which being fifty-eight feet eleven inches in circ.u.mference, would be near 20 feet in diameter.