LEAF AND BRANCH 



257 



guishing ear-marks these are, may be suggested 

 by a few haphazard descriptions of the common 

 trees about us. 



The spruce, for instance, is a straight- 

 trunked tree that throws out branches that 

 ride upward like crescents, and bear needles 

 that hang downward like fringes. Its outline, 

 when seen in silhouette against the sky, is 

 pyramidal ; its color is dark green, often 

 blue-g^e'ijn when seen from a distance, and at 

 twilig-lit it is cold-purple. The pine is like it, 

 buf- its branches are not so crescent-shaped, 

 a^d the needles push outward in clusters rather 

 than droop downward in fringes. It is of a 

 darker color than the spruce, and at night or 

 under shadow it is bluer. The poplar is a tall 

 tree, and often a straight one, but the branches 

 do not swing outward like the pine. They 

 seek rather to grow straight beside the parent 

 stem, and the twigs and the sharp-pointed 

 foliage surround the branches as a loose sleeve 

 the arm of a woman. It is white-trunked, with 

 a leaf that is bright green on one side and sil- 

 very green on the other side. The black oak 

 grows a straight trunk with limbs that shoot 

 out almost at right angles ; but the white oak 

 and the pin oak are crooked and twisted, their 



Tree char- 

 acteristics. 



Vartou* 

 tree-font*. 



