Woodland Gleanings Part 5

"A Weeping Birch, at Balloghie, in the parish of Birse, in Aberdeenshire, in 1792, measured five feet in circ.u.mference; but it carried nearly this degree of thickness, with a clear stem, up to the height of about fifty feet, and it was judged to be about one hundred feet high."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CEDAR OF LEBANON.]

THE CEDAR OF LEBANON.

[_Cedrus Libani._ Nat. Ord.--_Coniferae_; Linn.--_Pinus C. Monoec.

Monand.]_

On high the Cedar Stoops, like a monarch to his people bending, And casts his sweets around him.

Barry Cornwall.

The Cedar of Lebanon is a majestic evergreen tree, generally from fifty to eighty feet in height, extending wide its boughs and branches; and its st.u.r.dy arms grow in time so weighty, as frequently to bend the very stem and main shaft. Phillips observes, that "this n.o.ble tree has a dignity and a general striking character of growth so peculiar to itself, that no other tree can possibly be mistaken for it. It is instantly recognized by its wide-extending branches, that incline their extremities downwards, exhibiting a most beautiful upper surface, like so many verdant banks, which, when agitated by the wind, play in the most graceful manner, forming one of the most elegant, as well as one of the most n.o.ble, objects of the vegetable kingdom."

The Cedar of Lebanon was formerly supposed to grow nowhere but on that mountain; but it was discovered, in 1832, on several mountains of the same group, and the probability is, that it extends over the whole of the Tauri mountains. It has also been discovered on the Atlas range of northern Africa.

It is generally spoken of as a lofty tree. Milton, in speaking of it, says,

Insuperable height of loftiest shade.

And Rowe, in his Lucan, alludes to the "tall Cedar's head;" and Spenser speaks of the "Cedar tall;" and Churchill sings,

The Cedar, whose top mates the highest cloud.

Notwithstanding these poetical authorities for the loftiness of the Cedar, we are a.s.sured by Evelyn, and others, that it is not lofty, but is rather remarkable for its wide-spreading branches. In Prior's Solomon, we read of

The spreading Cedar that an age had stood, Supreme of trees, and mistress of the wood, Cut down and carved, my shining roof adorns, And Lebanon his ruined honour mourns.

Mason describes it as far-spreading:

--Cedars here, Coeval with the sky-crowned mountain's self, Spread wide their giant arms.

The prophet Ezekiel has given us the fullest description of the Cedar: "Behold the a.s.syrian was a Cedar in Lebanon, with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of a high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. His boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long. The fir-trees were not like his boughs, nor the chestnut-trees like his branches, nor any tree in the garden of G.o.d like unto him in beauty."

In this description, two of the princ.i.p.al characteristics of the Cedar are marked.

The first is, the multiplicity and length of his branches. Few trees divide so many fair branches from the main stem, or spread over so large a compa.s.s of ground. His boughs are multiplied, as Ezekiel says, and his branches become long, which David calls spreading abroad.

The second characteristic is his shadowing shroud. No tree in the forest is more remarkable than the Cedar for its close-woven leafy canopy. Ezekiel's Cedar is marked as a tree of full and perfect growth, from the circ.u.mstance of its top being among the thick boughs.

Almost every young tree, and particularly every young Cedar, has what is called a leading branch or two, which continue spiring above the rest till the tree has attained its full size; then the tree becomes, in the language of the nurseryman, clump-headed: but, in the language of eastern sublimity its top is among the thick boughs; that is, no distinction of any spiry head, or leading branch, appears; the head and the branches are all mixed together. This is generally, in all trees, the state in which they are most perfect and most beautiful.

Such is the grandeur and form of the Cedar of Lebanon. Its mantling foliage, or shadowing shroud, as Ezekiel calls it, is its greatest beauty, which arises from the horizontal growth of its branches forming a kind of sweeping, irregular penthouse. And when to the idea of beauty that of strength is added, by the pyramidal form of the stem, and the robustness of the limbs, the tree is complete in all its beauty and majesty. In these climates, indeed, we cannot expect to see the Cedar in such perfection. The forest of Lebanon is, perhaps, the only part of the world where its growth is perfect; yet we may, in some degree, conceive its beauty and majesty, from the paltry resemblances of it at this distance from its native soil. In its youth, it is often with us a vigorous thriving plant; and if the leading branch is not bound to a pole (as many people deform their Cedars), but left to take its natural course, and guide the stem after it in some irregular waving line, it is often an object of great beauty. But, in its maturer age, the beauty of the English Cedar is generally gone; it becomes shrivelled, deformed, and stunted; its body increases, but its limbs shrink and wither. Thus it never gives us its two leading qualities together. In its youth, we have some idea of its beauty, without its strength; and in its advanced age, we have some idea of its strength, without its beauty. The imagination, therefore, by joining together the two different periods of its age in this climate, may form some conception of the grandeur of the Cedar in its own climate, where its strength and beauty are united.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (Leaves, Cone and Seeds of Cedar of Lebanon)]

The following particular botanical description of this celebrated tree, is given by Loudon in his _Arboretum_:--

"The _leaves_ are generally of a dark gra.s.s green, straight, about one inch long, slender, nearly cylindrical, tapering to a point, and are on foot-stalks. The leaves, which remain two years on the branches, are at first produced in tufts; the buds from which they spring having the appearance of abortive shoots, which, instead of becoming branches, only produce a tuft of leaves pressed closely together in a whorl. These buds continue, for several years in succession, to produce every spring a new tuft of leaves, placed above those of the preceding year; and thus each bud may be said to make a slight growth annually, but so slowly, that it can scarcely be perceived to have advanced a line in length; hence, many of these buds may be found on old trees, which have eight or ten rings, each ring being the growth of one year; and sometimes they ramify a little. At length, sooner or later, they produce the male and female flowers. The _male catkins_ are simple, solitary, of a reddish hue, about two inches long, terminal, and turning upwards.

They are composed of a great number of sessile, imbricated stamens, on a common axis. Each stamen is furnished with an anther with two cells, which open lengthwise by their lower part; and each terminates in a sort of crest, pointing upwards. The pollen is yellowish, and is produced in great abundance. The _female catkins_ are short, erect, roundish, and rather oval; they change, after fecundation, into ovate oblong _cones_, which become, at maturity, from two and a half to five inches long. The cones are of a grayish-brown, with a plum-coloured or pinkish bloom when young, which they lose as they approach maturity; they are composed of a series of coriaceous imbricated _scales_, laid flat, and firmly pressed against each other in an oblique spiral direction. The scales are very broad, obtuse, and truncated at the summit; very thin, and slightly denticulated at the edge; and reddish and shining on the flat part. Each scale contains two seeds, each surmounted by a very thin membranous _wing_, of which the upper part is very broad, and the lower narrow, enveloping the greater part of the seed. The cones are very firmly attached to the branches; they neither open nor fall off, as in the other Abietinae; but, when ripe, the scales become loose, and drop gradually, leaving the axis of the cone still fixed on the branch. The _seeds_ are of an irregular, but somewhat triangular form, nearly one and a half inch long, of a lightish brown colour. Every part of the cone abounds with resin, which sometimes exudes from between the scales.

The female catkins are produced in October, but the cones do not appear till the end of the second year; and, if not gathered, they will remain attached to the tree for several years. The Cedar of Lebanon does not begin to produce cones till it is twenty-five or thirty years old; and, even then, the seeds in such cones are generally imperfect; and it is not till after several years of bearing, that seeds from the cones of young trees can be depended upon. Some Cedars produce only male catkins, and these in immense abundance; others, only female catkins; and some both. There are trees of vigorous growth at various places, which, though upwards of one hundred years old, have scarcely ever produced either male or female catkins. The duration of the Cedar is supposed to extend to several centuries."

The Cedar is cultivated from seeds and berries. Any climate suits it, provided it meet with a sandy soil; though it grows better in cold than in warm climates, as its cultivation is more successful in Scotland than in England.

The peculiar property of its timber is extremely remarkable, being declared proof against all putrefaction of human or other bodies, serving better than all other ingredients or compositions for embalming; thus, by a singular contradiction, giving life as it were to the dead, and destroying the worms which are living, as it does, where any goods are kept in chests and presses of the wood--except woollen cloths and furs, which, it is observed, they destroy. Its preservative power is attributed to the bitterness of its resinous juices. The ancients, in praising any literary work, would say, "It is worthy of being cased in Cedar." It is also very durable, it being on record that in the Temple of Apollo, at Utica, there was found timber of near two thousand years old.

The most remarkable existing Cedars in this country are at Chelsea, at Enfield, at Chiswick House, at Sion House, at Strathfieldsaye, at Charley Wood near Rickmansworth, at Wilton, near Salisbury and at Osgood Hanbury's near Coggeshall. The largest of these, at Strathfieldsaye, is one hundred and eight feet in height; diameter of the trunk, three feet, and diameter of the head, seventy-four feet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SWEET CHESTNUT-TREE.]

THE SWEET CHESTNUT-TREE.

[_Castaneae vulgaris._ Nat. Ord.--_Amentiferae_; Linn.--_Monoec.

Poly._]

The Sweet Chestnut, so called with reference to the fruit, in contradistinction to that of the Horse-Chestnut, which is bitter, is also called the Spanish Chestnut, because the best chestnuts for the table are imported from Spain. In favourable situations, it becomes a magnificent tree, though it never attains a height, or diameter of head, equal to that of the oak. The trunk generally rises erect, forming, in all cases, a ma.s.sy column of wood, in proportion to the expansion of the head, or the height of the tree. The branches form nearly the same angle with the trunk as those of the oak; though in thriving trees the angle is somewhat more acute. If planted in woods, by the road-side, and left untrimmed, as they should be, they will be feathered to the bottom, and will in summer, in addition to their beautiful appearance, hide the naked stems of other trees which are considered disagreeable objects; while in autumn, the golden hue of the leaves will heighten the mellow and pleasing effect produced in the woodlands by the variety of hues in the foliage of different trees, which contrast and blend together in one harmonious and pictorial aspect.

The Chestnut has been considered indigenous; but this is the more doubtful, that the tree rarely ripens its fruit, except in a climate that will ripen the grape in the open air. On old trees, the leaves are from four to six inches long; but on young and vigorous shoots, they are often nearly twelve inches in length, and from three to four inches in breadth. They are of a rich shining green above, and paler beneath. The flowers are produced on the wood of the current year, and are ranged along the common stalk, in lateral sessile tufts. The rate of growth of young trees, in the neighbourhood of London, averages from two to three feet for the first ten or twelve years. The tree will attain the height of from sixty to eighty feet in about sixty years; but the tree will live for several centuries afterwards, and produce abundance of fruit.

The finest trees in England are said to stand on the banks of the Tamer, in Cornwall; and at Beechworth Castle, in Surrey, there are seventy or eighty Chestnuts, measuring from twelve to eighteen or twenty feet in girth, and some of them very picturesque in form. One, on Earl Durie's estate of Tortworth, in Gloucestershire, is proved to have stood ever since 1150, and to have been then remarkable for its age and size.

[Ill.u.s.tration: * _Generic characters of the Castaneae._ _Barren_ flowers in a long cylindrical spike. Perianth 6-cleft. Stamens 8 to 20.

_Fertile_ flowers, 3 within a 4-lobed muricated involucre. Stigmas 3 to 8. Ovary 5 to 8-celled. Nuts 1 or 2, within the enlarged p.r.i.c.kly involucre.

_Specific characters of C. vulgaris_. Leaves lanceolate, acutely serrate, smooth beneath; p.r.i.c.kles compound and entangled; stigmas 6.]

The Chestnut is cultivated best by sowing and setting: the nuts must, however, be left to sweat, and then be covered with sand; after having been thus heated for a month, plunge the nuts in water, and reject the swimmers; then dry them for thirty days, and repeat the process. In November, set them as you would beans, taking care to do it in their husks. This tree will thrive in almost all soils and situations, though it succeeds best in rich loamy land. Nothing will thrive beneath its shade. Among mast-bearing trees this is said to be the most valuable; since the nuts, when ripened in southern climates, are considered delicacies for princes. In this country, however, where they rarely come to maturity, they fall to the lot of hogs and squirrels. The trees cultivated for fruit are generally grafted; and, in several parts of South Europe, the peasantry are mainly supported by bread made of the nut-flour. In Italy, in Virgil's time, they ate them with milk and cheese:

Chestnuts, and curds and cream shall be our fare.

And again, in his second _Pastoral_, thus translated by Dryden:

Myself will search our planted grounds at home, For downy peaches and the glossy plum; And thrash the Chestnuts in the neighbouring grove, Such as my Amaryllis used to love.

The timber of the Chestnut is strong and very durable; but it is often found decayed at the core, and, in working, is very brittle. The wood is preferred for the manufacture of liquor tubs and vessels, as it does not shrink after being once seasoned. This tree is now, however, chiefly grown for hop-poles, which are the straightest, tallest, and most durable. Though cut at an early age for this purpose, the trees are frequently ornaments of our parks and pleasure-grounds.