230 The Fall of the Leaf 



species introduced into Britain which always yield 

 the earliest to our island autumn ; nor are our 

 undoubtedly native trees by any means either the 

 last to keep their foliage in what Americans well 

 name " the fall," or the first to renew it in spring. 

 It is true that one of the earliest of all trees to shed 

 its leaves is the garden horse-chestnut; and this, 

 being a native of South-eastern Europe, might 

 naturally be supposed to resent the damp cold of 

 our October nights. But the horse-chestnut is 

 also one of the earliest trees to break into April 

 green ; the uplifting of those delicate palmate 

 leaflets, packed close to the central stalk when 

 they emerge from the glutinous bud, seems to set 

 the final stamp on the first day of quickening 

 sunshine in late March. Yet the same Southern 

 sensitiveness which apparently makes the horse- 

 chestnut shrink from the chills of autumn should 

 also make it respond but with tardiness and sus- 

 picion to the fitful advances of an English spring. 

 The larch is another foreigner, but a native either 

 of high latitudes, as in Norway, or high altitudes, 

 as in Switzerland or other parts of Central Europe ; 

 it may therefore be considered not too forward 

 by breaking out into its delicate and beautiful mist 

 of green at that magical time in the second week of 

 April, when, in a year of normal mildness, all nature 

 seems alive and moving. But our native ashes 

 are among the latest of all trees on our list ; spring 

 is almost summer by the time when their leaf is 

 seen. The alder, too, is very late in unfolding 

 the glossy quills of its opening leaves, though it 



