January — The Quince- free. 37 



No tree in January is so variously rich in color as 

 the quince-tree. The branches (so wonderfully tortuous 

 and interlaced) are tinted of a summer-like green — 

 painted, I may say, by Nature with the tiniest of her 

 green mosses ; whereas the leaves, of which very many 

 are still remarkably perfect in form, are of a rich red 

 brown, and the under side is of a pale golden brown, 

 with a little down remaining. The most decayed leaves 

 are a good deal darker. Now, although the oak, beech, 

 or hornbeam, still retain their leaves in the following 

 year, they offer but little variety of hue ; and though a 

 sprig of oak might instruct and occupy a designer, the 

 quince-tree would occupy a colorist. So, indeed, would 

 the common bramble, with its crimson or purple stalk 

 and leaves, often still retaining a perfectly fresh green, 

 others being of a dark, ochrous red, but still very perfect 

 in their form. 



VIII. 



Deschanel's description of an English Landscape Painter — Botany and 

 Art — An Effect in January — The Harmony of Gray and Gold — 

 How Diaz would have given it — Sunset-light on Dead Foliage — 

 Use of Scientific Knowledge — The Microscope — Use of a Nomencla- 

 ture — Drawing Plants — Jules Jacquemart's way of Drawing Plants 

 — Memoranda — Colors of the Wintry Landscape — Fanaticism about 

 Nature — Eglantine — The rich green of Broom — Woods in Mass — 

 Edges of Woods — Birches — Lichen. 



DESCHANEL, in his clever and amusing ' Essai 

 de Critique naturelle,' gives a description of an 

 English landscape-painter addicted to botanical study ; 



