254 



ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF TREES, 



AND THEIR EFFECT IN FORMING PICTURESQUE SCENERY. 



BY EDWIN LEES, 



Hoiwrary Curator of the Worcestershire Natural History Society, §•<;.* 



I HAVE been surprised to find in preparing illustrative slcetches of 

 trees, how few artists have paid any attention to the subject. I 

 have inquired in vain, in many instances, for original studies of 

 aged trees, or portraits of remarkable veterans of the forest. 

 Landscape painters have sketched ruins and castles till we are so 

 familiar with the features of every ruined edifice " within the 

 kingdom of England, dominion of Wales, and town of Berwick- 

 upon-Tweed," as to require no inscriptions beneath their repre- 

 sentations. But trees — themselves more interesting ruins than 

 many a black, dismantled, undistinguishable pile — have been in 

 most instances neglected ; and many a " stately tree," the " time- 

 honoured " contemporary of olden days, has sunk into the arms 

 of destruction unnoticed and unmarked on the canvass of the 

 painter. Not, indeed, that artists can fill up their landscapes 

 without the aid of trees, but too often the trees they display are 

 creations of their own imagination, referable to no botanical 

 class, formed on the spur of the moment to fill up a fore-ground, 

 or clothe a barren space ; and as the artist himself in all pro- 

 bability intended no particular tree or class of trees, it would 

 argue too much skill in the spectator to suppose he could make 

 out the species thus exhibited. It will be easily perceived, that 

 on this Procrusteian system, a forest denizen is made to have 

 arms or no arms as the whim of the moment may direct, and the 

 "ferat ruber asper amomum" of the Mantuan bard, if not alto- 

 gether realized, is very closely approximated to. Even professed 

 delineations of trees, from careless finishing, often want character, 

 and in too many instances I have noticed drawings and engravings 

 that might have passed for almost any tree in the range of 

 woodland scenery, but for the good-natured information con- 

 tained in the inscription. If, indeed, we except the works of 

 Gilpin and Strutt, we find our native literature very barren upon 

 the subject; but few professional treatises have appeared 



♦ The following paper formed part of a lecture recently delivered bafore a 

 Philosophical Society at Kidderminster, in compliance with the request of the 

 members. [As the author is preparing a work on the dicotyledonous plants of the 

 midland counties, and is desirous of obtaining information relative to any ruined 

 veterans of the forest that may remain yet unnoticed in secluded situations, with 

 the view of ascertaining their age, he will feel obliged by, and will duly acknow- 

 ledge, any information calculated to illustrate old indigenous trees, not hitherto 

 noticed, more especially those within the boundaries of the forests of Needwood, 

 Wyre, Feckenham, Arden, Wichwood, and Dean.] 



