CHARACTERISTICS OF TREES. 



291 



Fig. 83. 



clearly-defined masses of light and shade, but 

 the masses are small — too narrow and too nu- 

 merous to produce the grand effects of the 

 larger openings in the oak and chestnut, though 

 our cut shows larger lights and shadows than 

 are usual in the maple. The brighter green 

 and more abundant foliage of the maple make 

 amends for this inferiority, but it is none the less an inferiority. 

 An examination of the structure of these trees in winter will show 

 why the oak and the chestnut mass their foliage 

 more nobly. It is because they have fewer and 

 larger branches, not radiating like those of the 

 maple with uniform divergence, but breaking 

 out here and there at right angles with the part 

 from which they issue. The consequence is, 

 that when they are in leaf, the projecting leaf surfaces and the 

 shadow openings are larger and nobler in expression. The hick- 

 ories are all observable for the massiveness of their lights and 

 shadows, and, unlike the chestnut, they assume 

 this character while yet young. By the shadows 

 alone it would not be easy to distinguish a 

 hickory from an oak or chestnut, though they 

 are readily distinguishable at sight by difference 

 of contour — the hickory being proportionally 

 taller and squarer than the others. There is, "^ 



however, a difference in the shadows that close observers will mark: 

 the wood being my^re elastic, the branches of old trees bend to 

 form curved line!,, which give the shadows a similar general di- 

 rection, as v>-ill be seen on Fig. 86. This effect 

 may be seen in many other trees, and is more 

 noticeable in the lower than the upper part of 

 the tree. There are many species which can be 

 distinguished readily by this peculiarity in their 

 shadows in connection with their contours. The 

 sassafras, Fig. 87, naturally takes an umbrella 

 form of head, and its foliage divides into cur- 

 vilinear strata, or rather appears so as seen 



Fig. 84. 



Fig. 85. 





