54 TREES 



occasionally a cross betwixt the two colours. 

 The nuts are quite uneatable, but serve 

 as playthings to boys. The tree grows to 

 eighty or a hundred feet, but the timber is 

 soft. 



Another instance of confusion of relation- 

 ships, on account of some trivial similarity, 

 is found in the case of the Mountain Ash, or 

 Eowan (Pyrus aucuparia), Plate I., Fig. 12. 

 It is allied not to the ash, but to the apple. 

 No tree is more closely associated with 

 romantic scenery than this*, although its use 

 in garden decoration renders it familiar to 

 many who never saw a mountain or glen. It 

 attains a height of thirty to fifty feet. As a 

 defence against the attacks of witches it was 

 long held in esteem. When one is wandering 

 through a Highland glen, he will come upon 

 the site of deserted homesteads, still marked 

 by the rowans, which were planted to defeat 

 the machinations of witches, but were in- 

 effectual against the more insidious attacks 

 of sheep-farmers and deer-stalkers. 



The Field Maple (Acer campestre), Plate II., 

 Fig. 1, is purely ornamental. It has deep- 

 green leaves, about three inches across, rough 



