THE TREE IN WINTER 



When autumn has turned the verdancy of the forest into discolored 

 hues, and the roaring gales have shaken off the last withered leaf, 



■' And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around 

 The desolated prospect thrills the soul," 



even then nature is not dead, she sleeps only. The new life lies hidden in 

 the bud, born early in summer from the axil of the leaf. 



It is our own fault, if in the bare forest we see only a crowd of wooden 

 trunks and limbs and twigs. There is in winter an abundance of objects to 

 be studied by the naturalist. The book of nature lies open at every season 

 to the attentive eye. 



To recognize the different trees in winter is not only amusing to the 

 friend of nature, but in many eases of great practical use. To expose the 

 characters by which the species of our woody plants can be distinguished in 

 winter, is the aim of this paper. As the space allowed is not sufficient for 

 a synoptical description of each single species, — matter enough to fill a 

 book, — the reader cannot expect more, in these few lines, than an intro- 

 duction to the subject, and may accept this as an invitation to inform him- 

 self by autopsy and study, assisted by the most necessary drawings. 



Everybody will easily recognize, even at a distance, an old oak tree by 

 its stout stem, its strong crooked divaricate limbs ; or an elm by its dome- 

 like appearance, caused by its numerous twigs dividing from a number of 

 primary limbs of equal strength ; or a Gyninorla<his by its slender stem 

 with but few branches and comparatively thick twigs. In some trees the 

 bark is characteristic : that of the hackberry is very rough with narrow 

 elevated ridges, while that of the beach and hornbeam is quite even and 

 smooth. The bark of the shell-bark hickory separates the outer layers 

 in long flaps, while in the mockernut and bitternut it is compact, and often 

 nearly smooth ; sometimes the bark of the stem is rough and that of the 

 limbs smooth, as in the red oak ; the bark of the twigs is often corky- 

 ridged (^Quercus macrocarpa), or separates in small flaps (^Qnercus hicolor), 

 or bears two opposite corky ridges (^Ulnuts alata). In many trees the ridges 

 anastomose obliquely, leaving lozenge-shaped spaces. The white color 

 of the bark of the canoe birch is very characteristic. The whole di- 

 vision of white oaks differs from that of the black oaks by the color of 

 the bark, which is paler in the former and darker in the latter. We have 

 no surer guide than the characters taken from the arrangement, form and 

 construction of the buds and, in many cases, the form of the leaf-scars. 



