8o READINGS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



While these trees wield a giant brush of red and purple, others, such 

 as the chestnut oak, are responsible for the brilliant yellow. Hickories, 

 especially saplings, often show the touch of Midas. There are hillsides on 

 which the tulip tree grows that look for all the world like the pot of gold 

 at the end of the rainbow. The tulip tree is one of our oldest trees, geologi- 

 cally speaking. It has literally come down through the ages. In the Blue 

 Ridge country it gets as much as two hundred feet in height and ten feet 

 in diameter. Also adding its light yellow to the autumn landscape, espe- 

 cially in the haunts of man, is the Ginkgo, maidenhair tree of the Orient. 

 With its fan-shaped leaves and exotic type of branching, it seems indeed 

 like a tree of the Far East, especially to an occidental. It is known defi- 

 nitely only in cultivation, having come to us as a temple tree from China 

 and Japan. Once found growing wild clear across the northern hemi- 

 sphere, it has aptly been called a "living fossil," for it alone survives of an 

 ancient group that has otherwise passed. Seward has suggested that each 

 year, for a short time, its leaves reflect the glory of that golden age when 

 it flourished so abundantly. 



Last of the trees to turn is the black cherry. Rather appropriately, it 

 takes on all shades, from yellow to deep red to dark purple — a fitting re- 

 sume of events that have transpired, and all the more striking when, in 

 November, the skies are often dark and even the noon-day shadows 

 are long. At this time, too, the steel-gray bark of the trunks of the beech 

 stands in marked contrast to its light brown leaves. 



Although trees play the major role in this whole display, shrubs also, 

 contribute, especially the sumachs and the blueberries. Most of the su- 

 machs, like the dwarf and the smooth, become bright red or scarlet. At 

 times though, the staghorn sumach, whose twigs are downy like antlers 

 in spring, takes on all the colors of the rainbow, from violet to red, some- 

 times in one leaf, and almost in one leaflet. "Infinite shades of color" says 

 the artist; "gradual changes in acidity," says the scientist. 



Related to the sumachs is the poison ivy, usually a vine, but shrubby 

 at times. Its leav^es are often bright red, in contrast to the ivory white 

 fruits. The latter look like simple symbols of purity, though they are 

 poisonous. Boston ivy shows similar color effects in the leaves, but with- 

 out a trace of malice. 



No other shrubs are so common in eastern North America as the blue- 

 berries; some of them are to be found growing in dry soil, while others 

 inhabit swamps and bogs. Almost universally they turn a bright red in 

 the fall; they may augment the colors of the maple, the oak and the sour 

 gums, or they may stand in sharp contrast to the green of the pitch pine, 

 the southern white cedar and the mountain laurel. Due to the oaks, sumachs 

 and blueberries, much of New Jersey looks toward the end of October 

 as though some giant had passed through the countryside with a single 

 large pot of red paint and had applied it lavishly. Barberry, including the 



