THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 105 



to wonder what kind of minds are possessed by the people 

 who love such things. Doubtless they are the same people 

 who originate those botanical monstrosities the "weeping" 

 trees in which the twigs show an abnormal tendency to grow 

 earthward instead of up and out into free air and sunshine. 

 In passing it may be well to correct an impression which pre- 

 vails in some quarters in regard to these same weeping trees. 

 They are not produced by grafting the top of a tree upside 

 down as many people suppose. 



The white pine towers upwards to heights far beyond the 

 poplar, but how neatly it escapes the ungaimly by a system 

 of regular and horizontal branching. And the hemlock, while 

 not so regularly branching as the pine, what a picture of rug- 

 ged grandeur a well grown specimen of it presents! The 

 chestnut tree when standing alone in a field forms a broad 

 pyramidal head as do many of the oaks and maples, but it is 

 seldom that the hickory will do so. 



How two trees growing side by side can suck up from the 

 earth and take in from the air, the materials for such diversi- 

 fied substances as they may produce will always be a fruitful 

 subject for speculation. One will be too soft for any practical 

 purpose ; the other may be as hard as metal. Nor do the 

 trees lavish all their beauty on the outside ; there are many 

 beautiful colors hidden away beneath the dingy bark, from 

 the dark rich browns of the butternut and walnut to the pure 

 white of their relatives the hickories. The wood of the cherry 

 and sweet birch is the color of mahogany and scarcely to be 

 distinguished from it either bv color or hardness. The wood 

 of some oaks is red, while that of the sumac and locust are 

 mixtures of green, yellow and brown. If we extend our in- 

 quiries to the tropics even more varied colorings surprise us. 



In almost any locality, there are from twenty-five to fifty dif- 

 ferent kinds of trees. Commonest among these are likely to 

 be the elms, maples and oaks and the casual observer is usually 



