TREES IN NATURE 83 



or winter it looks singularly beautiful against 

 the dark background they make for it. In 

 travelling through the pine-forests of Germany 

 I have felt almost as if I were at home in 

 Cheshire, when I have seen it on their borders. 

 It was Coleridge who called it "the Lady of 

 the Woods ". Few pictures have become more 

 popular through reproduction than the one of 

 a group of birches to which the painter, Mr. 

 McWhirter, gave the title " The Three Graces ". 

 Hamerton, as we have already seen, thought 

 it the most beautiful of our lighter trees. " The 

 birch is always beautiful in herself," he says, 

 "and not the least beautiful in winter, when all 

 her light, woody structure is distinctly visible, 

 from the silvery trunk to the dark purple 

 sprays. In spring her light green foliage 

 strikes the eye as crude, but in autumn the 

 thinly scattered little leaves of pale gold tell 

 with the greatest brilliance amongst the darker 

 shades of the forest, and the whiteness of the 

 stems is brilliant against the russets and purples 

 and dark greys." Its stem he declares to be 

 one of the masterpieces of Nature. "Every- 

 thing has been done to heighten its unrivalled 

 brilliance. The horizontal peeling of the bark, 



