CHAPTER V 



THE ARCHITECTURE OF TREES 



** A CHILD'S division of plants," says 

 l\ Ruskin in Modern Painters, '* is into 

 'trees and flowers'. If, however, we were to 

 take him in spring, after he had gathered his 

 lapful of daisies, from the lawn into the orchard, 

 and ask him how he would call those wreaths 

 of richer floret, whose frail petals tossed their 

 foam of promise between him and the sky, he 

 would at once see the need of some intermedi- 

 ate name, and call them, perhaps, * tree-flowers '. 

 If, then, we took him to a birch- wood, and 

 showed him that catkins were flowers, as well 

 as cherry-blossoms, he might, with a little help, 

 reach so far as to divide all flowers into two 

 classes ; one, those that grew on ground ; and 

 another, those that grew on trees. The botanist 

 might smile at such a division ; but an artist 

 would not. To him, as to the child, there is 

 something specific and distinctive in those 



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