AUTUMNAL COLOURING. 487 



growing associated together in the particular spot. If the leaves are thickly 

 covered with silky or woolly hairs, or if the hairs are felted or peltate, anthocyanin 

 is scarcely ever developed; but when the green tissue of these leaves becomes 

 also changed in colour, the new tint can be seen as little as was the green previ- 

 ously, on account of the hairy coat over the coloured cells. Accordingly, such 

 felted, silky, or scale-covered leaves remain grey or white even when they fall 

 from the branches. If plants of this kind grow among others whose foliage is 

 bare, their grey and white tints considerably increase the variety of the entire 

 collection. But the greatest amount of colour is seen when the neighbourhood 

 is sprinkled with plants having evergreen foliage; it may then happen that a 

 relatively small space of meadow or wood appears decked in all the colours of 

 the rainbow in the most manifold variety. 



The splendour of colours exhibited by tropical forests, which is usually repre- 

 sented as much more magnificent than it really is, stands no comparison with 

 that developed in autumn in the north temperate zone. The forests of firs and 

 leafy trees on the mountain slopes along the Rhine and Danube in Europe, and 

 on the shores of the Canadian lakes in North America at that season present a 

 scene of entrancing beauty. The heights along the middle course of the Danube, 

 for example, the region known as the Wachan, below the town of Melk, shows 

 wide expanses of forests, in which beeches, hornbeams, evergreen oaks, common 

 and Norway maples, birches, wild cherries and pears, mountain ashes and wi] 

 service-trees, aspens, limes, spruces, pines and firs take a share in the greatest 

 variety. Bushes of Barberry (Berberis vulgaris), Dogwood (Corny* sanguin 

 Cornel (Cornus mas), Spindle Tree (Euonymus Ewopceus and verrutosi 

 Dwarf Cherry (Prunua Chamcecerasus), Sloe (Prunus spinosa), Junior (Ju 

 perus communis), and many other low shrubs arise as undergrowth, and spring 

 up on the margins of the forests. The mountain slopes abutting on the val 

 are planted with vines, and near by grow peach and apricot trees in gn 

 abundance. In the meadows on the shore, and on the islands of the 

 rise huge abeles and black poplars, elms, willows, alders, and ako an a 

 dant sprinkling of trees of the bird cherry (Prunus Padus). The mghts are 

 bitterly" cold Lre; even in the middle of October, Jamp = ts hover ove 

 the river, and hoar-frost covers the grassy regions at the bottom of e valley 

 But during the day it is still fairly warm, the mormng mists 

 the rays o? the sun, a cloudless sky stretches over the landscape, and 



unfolded! Th, or., I to &***** rf btata 



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