248 AUTUMNAL FOLIAGE 



comparatively few do so. It is usually considered 

 biennial, as its botanical name implies, but on cool soils 

 the robust variety called Lamarclciana becomes a true 

 perennial, growing into a bush six feet high and as many 

 in diameter a splendid object when in full bloom. It 

 ripens seed by the hatful ; scatter this liberally in any 

 open moist wood where rabbits do not come, and you 

 ensure a yearly display for evermore. 



LVIII 



Nature seems to derive a sly pleasure in upsetting 

 Autumnal generalisations founded upon superficial ob- 

 Foiiage servation. She certainly has succeeded this 

 season (1907) in disproving what most of us had come 

 to regard as a fixed rule, namely, that the brilliancy of 

 autumnal tints were in some proportion to the heat of 

 the foregoing summer. We have passed through a 

 summer almost without precedent for cold and wet, 

 yet here we are surrounded by such splendour in dying 

 foliage as I have never seen surpassed in this country, 

 and hardly ever equalled. Moreover, owing to the 

 generally calm weather which has prevailed during the 

 present fall, the display has been so much prolonged 

 that it seems well worth while to take note of a few of 

 the more effective species with a view to securing the 

 best results in future seasons. It would lead us too far 

 and too deep into vegetable histology to examine the 

 causes in the structural and chemical changes in 

 foliage which, in the first stages of decay, cause it to 

 reflect red and yellow rays instead of green ones ; more- 



