25S 



BEAUTIES OF BBITISII TREES. 



[Feb., 



ixscending branches generally arranged in a lax manner that in itself 

 gives an air of negligent grace and lightness to the tree, which is 

 enhanced by the colouring and form of bark, leaf, blossom and fruit. 

 The leaves are what is known as ' pinnate,' being, as a whole, some 

 six or eight inches in length, but made up of from thirteen to 

 seventeen leaflets, I.e., one terminal one and from twelve to sixteen 

 in pairs. Each leaflet is from one to two inches in length and about 

 one-third as broad, with a coarsely toothed margin and an acute point. 

 They are at first downy on their under-surfaces, and though they lose 

 this character as they mature, they remain paler on that side and are 

 fringed with hairs along their chief veins. When the foliage is newly 

 expanded in May, and the gracefully cut, bright green leaflets turn in 

 the breeze, exhibiting their pallid lower surfaces, they certainly form a 



SPRAY OP THE WILD SERVICE TREE. {Pijrus torminaHs.) 



distinct charm in themselves apart from the contrasting ashen bark 

 and the creamy clusters of blossom that appear at this period. 



The individual flowers are very small, only one-third of an inch 

 across; but they are crov/ded into a nearly flat or 'corymbose,' 

 ' cyme,' generally nearly six inches across, so that they gain by 

 being massed together the conspicuousness that they do not possess 

 individually. 



It is, however, undoubtedly, after these blossoms haA'e fallen in 

 June and Jul}", when the little hawthorn-like fruits, or miniature 

 apples have, in August and September, turned from imnoticed 

 greenness to a remarkable shade of scarlet, that the graces of the 

 Rowan force themselves upon our notice. Then, as "Wordsworth 

 says : — 



