34 



became completely crimson ; certain red maples which being 

 favorably situated had retained their emerald hue, glowed 

 with crimson and gold ; a cluster of shrubs of Rhus typhina, 

 L., which previously had only a few red, lower leaves, 

 became entirely crimson ; a scarlet oak, being near the 

 writer's residence, had been carefully watched from day to 

 day. It had no red leaves at all before the frosts, l)ut, two 

 or three days after, all of the foliage of the outer branchlets 

 were tinged with crimson, and in less than a week every 

 leaf had changed color. The leaves of a white oak in the 

 vicinity changed to a yellow russet above and purple be- 

 neath. Four handsome Tupelos of large dimensions, spared 

 when the woods were felled and which the writer passed 

 daily, changed almost in a night to deep crimson. Sugar 

 maples, not native here but planted extensively for shade 

 trees, assumed a mellow yellow, also elms, which had been 

 slowly shedding their leaves since August, now changed 

 entirely to yellow ; Liriodendron, Honey Locust, Kentucky 

 Coffee Tree and Horse Chestnut joined the gay assemblage. 

 Thus "millions of leaves were painted by the magic fingers 

 of Frost with innumerable and indescribably beautiful tints 

 and shades of color " in the course of three or four days ! 



Extensive forests principally of oak, and almost entirely 

 green before, also when viewed a few days later from a 

 commanding eminence, except for a few pines, were com- 

 pletely changed to a reddish brown or brick red color ! No 

 one who had viewed these trees before and after the frosts 

 could have had any doubts as to the cause of the wonderful 

 transformation. And yet it is asserted with much positive- 

 ness by some writers that frost has no effect upon the color 

 of foliage ! 



J. Y. Bergen, in Elements of Botany, states that "The 

 brilliant coloration, yellow, scarlet, deep red and purple of 

 autumn leaves is popularly but wrongly supposed to be due 

 to the action of frost.'" This positive statement is in a few 

 lines farther on (|ualiiied by the remark that " Frost perhaps 



