586 SWEET CHESTNUT TREE. 



sometimes varied by smooth stretches. In some cases the column 

 itself is deeply fluted. 



In the other and less usual form of the tree, the trunk divides 

 sooner, perhaps at 20 feet above the ground, into large limbs, and 

 the minor ramifications are graduated in better proportion than in 

 the form first described. This gives the tree in winter a faint 

 resemblance to an Oak, but the illusion is quickly dispelled by the 

 hanging branchlets. When pollarded the tree presents yet another 

 aspect. The poles with their upstanding lines spring from the stool 

 in a sweeping, unbroken curve, and are flattened at the base. In 

 colour the older ones are a dark purplish grey ; the grey of the 

 younger poles is tinged with purple or red, and at a still earlier stage 

 they are bronze-green. 



The ringed marks upon the poles (which show the position of 

 former twigs), and the vertical lines between them (which represent 

 the raised portions of the deeply-fluted young shoot) are in their 

 way decorative. 



ARRANGEMENT OF THE LEAVES AND TWIGS. 



Between the brackets from which leaf-stalks have fallen away, 

 the year-old twigs on a Chestnut tree are nearly cylindrical. These 

 brackets project from two sides of the twig and are arranged 

 alternately ; consequently the leaves are found in two ranks. On 

 an upright twig they lie horizontally, so that the ranks are parallel 

 to one another, but the leaves are not in the same plane. On the 

 horizontal twigs they also form two ranks and lie in one plane ; their 

 midribs are set at half-a-right angle with the twig, and by this 

 means the margins of all the leaves in one rank touch one another, 

 as do those in the opposite rank, and thus, with marvellous economy 

 of space, each leaf is clear of its neighbour and can obtain light and air. 



