VERNAL WOOD-SCENERY. 43 



On the other hand, the foliage of trees that do not change 

 their color in the autumn displays only a diluted shade 

 of green, in its half-unfolded state. This remark, how- 

 ever, is not universal in its application ; for we see the 

 lilac, that appears in autumn without any change, coming 

 out in the spring with dark impurpled foliage. 



Green cannot, therefore, be said to characterize a ver- 

 nal landscape. It belongs more especially to summer. 

 The prevailing color of the forest during the unfolding 

 of the leaf, when viewed from an elevated stand, is 

 a cinereous purple, mingled with an olive-green. The 

 flowers of the elm, of a dark maroon, and the crimson 

 flowers of the red maple, coming before their leaves, are 

 an important element in the earliest hues of the wood. 

 The red maple, especially, which is the principal timber 

 of the swamps in all the southern parts of New England, 

 yields a warm and ruddy glow to the woods in spring, 

 hardly less to be admired than its own bright tints in 

 October. Green hues, which become, day by day, more 

 apparent in the foliage, do not predominate until summer 

 has arrived and is fully established. 



It is only in the spring that the different species of the 

 forest can be identified by their colors at distances too 

 great for observing their botanical characters. A red- 

 maple wood is distinguished by the very tinge that per- 

 vades the spray, when the trees are so far off that we 

 cannot see the forms of their branches and flowers, as if 

 the ruddy hues of morning illuminated the whole mass. 

 A grove of limes would be known by their dark-colored 

 spray, approaching to blackness ; an assemblage of white 

 birches by that of a chocolate-color diverging from their 

 clean white shafts. A beechen grove would manifest 

 a light cinereous color throughout, mixed with a pale 

 green as the foliage appears. If there were as many as- 

 semblages as there are species, we might at the time the 



