49 6 



THE BIRD CHERRY. 



Look now, one by one, at some of the surrounding trees. 

 The Beech shows flat horizontal layers of buds and twigs, while the 

 young leaves already half open droop as do those of the Hazel. 

 The Maple and Horse Chestnut buds alike are stark upright, and 

 from them the leaf-pairs will presently emerge. 

 The Mountain Ash buds and those on the 

 Willow, and still more noticeably on the 

 Bird Cherry, curve curiously round the 

 twig. 



The Bird Cherry, though a small tree, rarely 

 exceeding twenty feet in height, is attractive in 

 many ways. Those curved and tapering buds, of 

 which we have spoken, often unfold their hidden 

 wealth of brilliant green leaves and graceful 

 flower-racemes before the primrose time is over. 

 In May there is a display of pure white blossoms 

 growing in oval clusters, and the leaves reach 

 their full development and are large and finely 

 veined. 



The twigs are slender and delicate, and the 

 branches, both great and small, are smooth and 

 rounded, and so well graduated in size that a 

 main-branch appears exactly proportioned to the 

 several branchlets into which it divides. The 

 curves of the branches also are very graceful, 

 and the whole gives an impression of delicate 

 workmanship beside which such a tree as the 

 Horse Chestnut seems clumsy and coarsely t i,„; 

 moulded. opening leaf buds. 



