ALDER. 307 



bottom, whilst upon the centre a bright red tint 

 is developed. In other cases whilst the green 

 remains in its ordinary shade, upon the leaf 

 edge or in the centre of the leaf, a bright, red tint 

 will overspread the centre or the edge. A pretty 

 effect is produced when golden green and red and 

 orange are mingled so deftly upon the leaf surface 

 that it is impossible to define the limits of either. 

 Now and then the same leaf will exhibit a patch 

 of light brown, another of green, one of yellow 

 and another of red ; or there may be mottlings 

 of yellow upon a green ground or mottlings of 

 green or red upon a yellow ground. A patch of 

 red upon the upper side of a leaf will be repre- 

 sented on the under side by a similar patch of 

 yellow, but a yellow or orange upper side produces 

 a similar, though sometimes paler, shade on the 

 other side. A small Barberry bush will, indeed, 

 furnish variations of colour and tinting that, in 

 the early season of Autumn, are almost endless. 



The Alder is not subject to much of what Gilpin 

 calls 'picturesque beauty' in its autumn colour- 

 ing but a fine shade of reddish brown oftentimes 



