THE ARCHITECTURE OF TREES 155 



Each works hard with solemn forethought all its 

 life." The reader may think all this somewhat 

 fanciful. Ruskin does not insist on his nomen- 

 clature. He says we are welcome to give the 

 plants what names we please, and to render 

 what account of them we think fittest. " But," 

 he says, ''to us, as artists, or lovers of art, this 

 is the first and most vital question concerning 

 a plant : ' Has it a fixed form or a changing 

 one ? Shall I find it always as I do to-day — 

 this Parnassia palustris — with one leaf and one 

 flower? or may it some day have incalculable 

 pomp of leaves and unmeasured treasure of 

 flowers? Will it rise only to the height of a 

 man — as an ear of corn — and perish like a 

 man ; or will it spread its boughs to the sea 

 and branches to the river, and enlarge its circle 

 of shade in heaven for a thousand years?'" 

 This last kind of plant, the tree, is the one we 

 are considering in this book ; and we have now 

 briefly to note its building or architectural 

 character. 



The next chapter of this book is entitled 

 *' Trees in Architecture," and there we shall find, 

 amongst other things, that there is consider- 

 able resemblance, sometimes greater, some- 



