174 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



they are reddish with flower and bud very early in the 

 year, the fresh leaf is a tender green ; in autumn they 

 are sometimes one mass of yellow. 



Ashes change from almost black to a light green, then 

 a deeper green, and again light green and yellow. Where 

 is the foreign evergreen in the competition ? Put side 

 by side, competition is out of the question ; you have 

 only to get an artist to paint the oak in its three phases 

 to see this. There is less to be said against the deodara 

 than the rest, as it is a graceful tree ; but it is not 

 English in any sense. 



The point, however, is that the foreigners oust the 

 English altogether. Let the cedar and the laurel, and 

 the whole host of invading evergreens, be put aside by 

 themselves, in a separate and detached shrubbery, main- 

 tained for the purpose of exhibiting strange growths. 

 Let them not crowd the lovely English trees out of the 

 place. Planes are much planted now, with ill effect; 

 the blotches where the bark peels, the leaves which lie 

 on the sward like brown leather, the branches wide apart 

 and giving no shelter to birds in short, the whole 

 ensemble of the plane is unfit for our country. 



It was selected for London plantations, as the Thames 

 Embankment, because its peeling bark was believed to 

 protect it against the deposit of sooty particles, and 

 because it grows quickly. For use in London itself it 

 may be preferable : for semi-country seats, as the modern 

 houses surrounded with their own grounds assume to be, 

 it is unsightly. It has no association. No one has seen 

 a plane in a hedgerow, or a wood, or a copse. There 

 are no fragments of English history clinging to it as 

 there are to the oak. 



If trees of the plane class be desirable, sycamores may 

 be planted, as they have in a measure become acclima- 



