THE SMOOTH ALDER 



IN his delightful essay upon "The Procession of the Flowers" Thomas Wentworth 

 Higginson writes: "The earliest familiar token of the coming season is the expan- 

 sion of the stiff catkins of the Alder into soft drooping tresses. These are so sensitive 

 that if you pluck them at almost any time during the winter, a few days sunshine will 

 make them open in a vase of water, and thus they eagerly yield to every moment of April 

 warmth. The blossom of the birch is more delicate, that of the willow more showy, 

 but the alders come first. They cluster and dance everywhere upon the bare bough above 

 the water-courses; the blackness of the buds is softened into rich brown and yellow, 

 and as this graceful creature thus comes waving into the spring, it is pleasant to remember 

 that the Norse Eddas fabled the first woman to have been named Embla, because she 

 was created from an Alder bough." 



As the Speckled Alder is the prevailing form in the North, so the Smooth Alder is 

 the prevailing form in the South, while in the latitude of Central New England the two 

 intermingle and may be found growing together in varying abundance. The Smooth Alder 

 may be distinguished by the leaves, which are more finely serrate on the margins than 

 those of the Speckled Alder, and also have much rounder or blunter tips : the under sur- 

 face is generally hairy along the veins. The undeveloped seed-bearing catkins commonly 

 project upward or forward during winter, while those of the Speckled Alder generally 

 hang downward before the blossoming period. 



There are various other Alders to be found along ponds and water-courses. One 

 of the most important of these is the European Alder (A. glutinosa), which has been so 

 generally planted by man that it is fairly naturalized in many localities. This frequently 

 takes on the shape and size of a tree, and is the commonest tree-like Alder in the Eastern 

 States. Like all the Alders, it flourishes in the wettest soil and so is valuable for land- 

 scape gardening in lowlands. In Europe it is called the Black Alder, but in America this 

 name is commonly applied to a very different species one of the Hollies. There are half- 

 a-dozen horticultural varieties of this European Alder in which the form and color of the 

 leaf is strikingly modified in various ways. The Green or Mountain Alder (A. viridis) 

 is a native species found especially in northern or mountainous regions. It is a low shrub, 

 seldom exceeding six feet in height. The Japanese Alder (A. Japonica) is said by Mr. 

 Alfred Reyder to be "the largest and perhaps the most beautiful of all Alders. " It is a 

 tall tree, generally pyramidal in form. 



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