THE ALDER, ETC. 109 



ican boy, and needs no praise here. The tree often 

 grows to a height of 100 feet in the South ; north- 

 ward it is commonly 50 feet high. In the early au- 

 tumn it is particularly beautiful ; all its leaves turn 

 an even, clear, pale golden yellow, which seems on a 

 sunny day to diffuse a strange radiance in its imme- 

 diate vicinity. With my eyes closed I have been sen- 

 sible of the peculiar light reflected from the tree in 

 its yellow dress. There is no prettier combination of 

 color than that of the golden leaves and white-spotted 

 gray and greenish trunk. The wood is very hard, 

 close-grained, and is used for making chairs, loom 

 spools, shoe lasts, and milking stools. The tree is so 

 strikingly beautiful in its winter aspect that it has 

 become a favorite subject with several well-known 

 artists ; Mr. W. L. Palmer, in particular, delights to 

 portray its picturesque and stolid gray trunk casting 

 blue shadows over the sunlit snow. It has been well 

 named " the painted beech," for no other tree has a 

 trunk so attractively painted by Nature. 



The European beech (Fagus sylvatica), occasion- 

 ally planted in our parks, is the tree, I believe, which 

 is indirectly responsible for the downfall of Mac- 

 beth. It was not the Birnam beeches * which cost 



* The old forest, Birnam Wood, has long since disappeared, 

 and in its place is a meager young growth scarcely deserving the 



name. 



