256 ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF TREES. 



It is important to notice these graphic outlines traced upon 

 trees, because, as Baron Humboldt has well observed — it is 

 vegetation that principally characterizes the features of a country, 

 and distinguishes it from another. The granite rock, the basaltic 

 column, and the limestone ridge, are the same in Iceland and 

 Sweden as in Mexico and Peru : — but who could mistake the 

 vegetation of the two regions ? Even animals seldom appear in 

 quantities sufficient to give a feature to the scene, and their con- 

 tinual restlessness removes them from our view ; but trees affect 

 our imagination by their magnitude and stability, flowers by 

 the brilliancy of their colours, and herbs by the freshness of their 

 verdure. 



If trees have their distinguishing characteristics even amidst 

 the gloom of winter, when their denuded branches stretch in 

 mournful array across the heavy atmosphere, we may easily con- 

 ceive their varied effect when clothed in the vivid umbrage of 

 summer. This, indeed, is noticeable by all who have an eye to 

 appreciate sylvan scenery, and is frequently alluded to by our 

 poets. Thus Cowper has described the various aspect of the 

 leaves of trees, in his " Task :" — 



" No tree in all the grove but has its charms, 

 Though each its hue peculiar ; paler some, 

 And of a wannish gray, the willow such. 

 And poplar, that with silver lines his leaf. 

 And ash, far stretching his umbrageous arm ; 

 Of deeper green the elm ; and deeper still, 

 Lord of the woods, the long-surviving oak. 

 Some glossy-leaved, and shining in the sun, 

 The maple, and the beech of oily nuts 

 Prolific, and the lime at dewy eve 

 Diffusing odours : nor unnoticed pass 

 The sycamore, capricious in attire, 

 Now green, now tawny, and, ere autumn yet 

 Has chang'd the woods, in scarlet honours bright." 



Numerous other trees might be mentioned more or less obviously 

 claiming the attention, but all are familiar with the silvery 

 feature given to a landscape where the waving willows of the 

 brook predominate and are agitated by the wind. Contrast, too, 

 the gloomy aspect of a pine forest, or even of a single dark pine 

 or fir, recognizable over a country for miles, with the splendid 

 parti-coloured and golden umbrage of the beech in autumn, un- 

 rivalled in its vivid ity, as the sunbeams play upon the smooth 

 leaves. The forest scenery of Great Britain, indeed, when we 

 leave the cathedral tower far behind, the dim blue apex to a dark 

 mass of distant foliage, — when we enter among the scattered 

 relics of olden forests, or penetrate amid the glens of a hilly or 

 rocky region, presents features interesting to the true lover of 

 nature; and without studying from scenes like these, the true effect 

 of our forest trees is unknown and unattended to. Look at the 

 contorted lime forced in the plantation to crimp up its toes and 



