FOLIAGE. 59 



and in photographic pictures of single leaves, the 

 beauty of their outlines becomes more evident than in 

 nature. 



The most remarkable quality of foliage is color ; and 

 all will admit that green is the only color that would not 

 produce weariness and final disgust. Omitting what may 

 be said of autumn tints, the different shades of green in 

 the forest, both while the foliage is ripening and after its 

 maturity, constitute a very important distinction of indi- 

 viduals and species. Pure green is rarely found in any 

 kind, except in its early stage of ripeness. The foliage 

 of trees, when fully matured, is slightly tinged with 

 brown or russet, and on the under side with white or blue. 

 Painters, therefore, seldom use unalloyed green in their 

 foliage ; for even if they would represent its appearance 

 in early summer, when its verdure is nearly pure, the 

 effects of sunshine and shade upon the green forest can 

 be produced only by a liberal mixture of the warm tints 

 of orange and yellow when the sunshine falls upon it, 

 and of purple and violet when it is in shadow. 



If I were to select an example of what seems to me 

 the purest green of vegetation, I should point to grass 

 when smoothly shorn, as in a well-dressed lawn, so that 

 the leaf only remains. By comparing the verdure of dif- 

 ferent trees with this example, we shall find it generally 

 of a darker shade and inferior purity. The only trees of 

 our soil that seem to me lighter, when in leaf, than grass, 

 are the plane and the catalpa. We must observe trees on 

 a cloudy day to distinguish the different shades of their 

 foliage with precision. In such a state of the atmosphere 

 they are all equally favored by the light ; while, if the 

 sun shines upon them, their verdure is modified according 

 to the direction in which it is viewed. 



That kind of foliage to which the epithet " silver " is 

 usually applied is a very general favorite ; but it is ad- 



