4i6 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 504. 



Correspondence. 



Some Questions of Color. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — A commentator upon Nature's beauty in a recently 

 published book speaks of the " even yellow " which the Sugar 

 Maple assumes in the autumn. And another writer, trying to 

 decipher the mysteries of the coloring process, says that while 

 every shade of the golden and ruddy hues is seen in the forest, 

 each species of tree keeps to a tint of its own. Such careless 

 generalizations are contradicted, of course, by the witness of 

 any autumnal forest in eastern America, and in south-eastern 

 New York an astonishing diversity is shown this autumn in 

 the behavior of trees of the most prominent species. 



Our forests were nourished by much rain in July, and after- 

 ward were not scorched by many burning days. Up to the 

 time when they began to assume brighter tints their foliage, 

 as a whole, was almost as full, as succulent, and as freshly 

 green as in June ; and now that cold nights and sunny days 

 have alternated for a time, the untouched Maples, Oaks, and 

 Sassafras-trees still keep their luxuriant June-like aspect, while 

 their changed companions display their reds and yellows and 

 browns in unusually magnificent masses ; these often seem 

 even thicker and more sumptuous than the green trees be- 

 cause variety in the coloring throws the richness of each branch, 

 twig and tuft of leaves into strong relief. 



This is preeminently a region of hills, range lying beyond 

 range and shoulder rising above shoulder with only narrow 

 strips of valley between. One must drive a good many miles 

 up and down hill before coming out on high rolling districts 

 whence the dim outlines of the Catskills are discerned in the 

 far distance. And it is preeminently a region of forests. Only 

 the more level stretches are cleared and farmed and dotted 

 with houses and tiny villages where great Maple-trees show 

 their most splendid hues. Elsewhere everything is woodland, 

 broken only by a few meadows along the margin of the rail- 

 road, the little lakes and the streams, and a few partially 

 cleared spots where hopeful or shiftless settlers or where 

 summer residents have established themselves. It is all 

 second-growth forest, of course. A few ancient giants reveal 

 themselves here and there, but for the most part the lover of 

 individual trees would find much fault with our woods. Never- 

 theless, the hills, when viewed as a whole, seem as beautifully 

 clothed as they can have been by the aboriginal forest. No- 

 where are there such signs of long-past burnings as we find in 

 many parts of the Catskills or about Lake George, and nowhere 

 such proofs of more recent devastation as are frequent in the 

 Adirondacks. There are here no blackened stumps to declare 

 the vandalism of man. As far as the eye can reach and the 

 fancy can extend, the thick garment of the hills is torn only by 

 massive outcropping ledges and precipices of rock. One may 

 drive mile after mile, and except for the road upon which one 

 travels and an occasional small-cleared space, the landscape 

 appears as the Indians themselves beheld it. Yet this region 

 is less than forty miles from New York, and only a few miles 

 beyond begins the fertile and thickly-settled region of which 

 the beautiful town of Goshen is the centre. 



Few other regions so near a great city can show such broad 

 effects of autumn colors, spreading out and reaching over 

 range after range of hills. And the color is especially rich 

 and varied here, for the admixture of evergreen trees is 

 just sufficient to enhance that of the deciduous trees without 

 making it spotty and confused. I have seen similar panoramas 

 of wooded mountains in the Pennsylvania Alleghanies. But 

 there the coniferous trees were so abundant that the effect so 

 charming here was lost — an effect of infinitely varied yet 

 always suave and delicately blended colors, rivaled in harmony 

 among the works of man only by the coloring of old India 

 shawls. There are no stiff and spiry Firs and Spruces in this 

 region ; only White Pines and Hemlocks, solter in outline and 

 texture, and not a great many of these. The general tone of 

 the hillsides is supplied by the yellows and browns of Oaks 

 and Beeches, and it is accentuated in the most harmonious 

 way by ruddier Oaks, more coppery Hickories, and Maples 

 which show like balls of gold or tall feathers of scarlet. 



Our Sugar Maples are aglow in every shade of brightest 

 yellow, of flaming red, of clearest green and burning orange, 

 mingling together, in the larger trees in the cleared spaces, 

 with a brilliance exceeding that of anything else which Nature 

 produces. The radiance of jewels is relative dullness in com- 

 parison if the sun is shining on the most gorgeous Maples in 

 this season of brilliant coloring. And yet almost more beau- 

 tiful, and, I think, less commonly seen, are certain Swamp 

 Maples which are not yellow or red at all, but pink — pink of 



that shade which, if a milliner's term may be borrowed, is 

 called " old rose." 



Almost this same color appears also in the Dogwoods, 

 together with several other colors : a dusky purple, an almost 

 orange-red, a dull dark crimson and a pale ashes-of-roses hue. 

 The Ash is still another tree which assumes a wide range of 

 color, and varies between a dusty plum color and a pale 

 yellow. Many of the Sassafras-trees are multitudinously 

 variegated, almost every leaf streaked with red, green and 

 yellow, as though each was anxious to show the three promi- 

 nent colors which October has chosen for its heraldic shield. 

 Again, if we group the various kinds of Oaks together, we get 

 a gamut of tints which runs from the darkest maroon to 

 yellows of a golden, a copper and a brazen quality. 



Perhaps some day an observer scientific enough to explore 

 the laws of plant-growth even more minutely than they have 

 yet been explored, and patient enough to watch the same trees 

 carefully year after year, may, in part at least, read the riddle 

 of these seemingly lawless variations. One thing to be studied 

 will be the question in how far any weakness in a tree or in 

 any of its parts accelerates the coming and affects the charac- 

 ter of the autumnal change. We have all seen the leaves on 

 a branch half-broken from its trunk turn brilliantly while the 

 rest of the tree remained green. But, on the other hand, one 

 which appears as vigorous as its fellows may turn a bright 

 gold or blush a vivid red and stand out as a great isolated 

 bouquet from the verdant masses about it. Does this branch 

 also in some way and to some degree lack vitality, as the half- 

 broken one so evidently does ? 



Again, if leaves turn as they dry, or dry as they turn, why 

 are the well-watered trees in swamps so apt to be the first to 

 show bright colors ? And the effects of light need also to be 

 studied. Here, for instance, is an Ash-leaf picked up from 

 the ground. Some of its leaflets had partially overlapped the 

 others, glued to them, probably, by moisture. The exposed 

 surfaces are a soft plum-color, while the surfaces which had 

 been hidden are a clear yellow. On the other hand, Beech- 

 leaves which had similarly clung together I have found to be 

 of a bright yellow color where the light had struck them, and 

 of their normal green where they had been concealed. Light 

 seems to have played a controlling part in these diversities, as 

 it sometimes seems to do when only the tips of Maple-boughs 

 grow vivid. But, on the other hand, a White Oak beginning 

 to turn will show deep red leaves, not gathered on a single 

 branch or tipping isolated shoots, but sprinkled singly all over 

 the tree, and as often near its trunk and on the under side of 

 its branches as where the sunshine falls more fully. 

 Tuxedo Park, N. y. M. G. Van Rensselaer. 



In Nature's Own Domains. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir, — To travelers who reach the far frontier the richness of 

 the native flora of the prairies and woodland is a surprise and 

 pleasure. Wherever the sod is yet unturned, or the verdure 

 unchecked by close grazing, it is like a rainbow-hued flower 

 garden in which one may wander and gather at will and yet 

 leave a world of bloom behind. Nor are the banks of the 

 rivers or the shores of unfrequented ponds much behind the 

 prairies and woodlands in the rare beauties displayed. The 

 snow-white Water-lily floats on the still waters. A fringe of 

 scarlet and blue and white sweeps the water's edge, where the 

 bright-hued Cardinal-flower and Lobelia are established, while 

 the sweet breath of the neighboring Clethra fills the air. 



But on the unbroken prairie and the unfrequented wood- 

 lands are the chief surprises. Everywhere are plants and 

 flowers unknown to us. There is a grace and charm about 

 these wind-tossed flowers that by contrast make the ordinary 

 flowers in trade appear ugly and stiff. Taken from their 

 native haunts, with no longer the cloudless blue sky above 

 them, and the loving comradeship of thousands of their own 

 kind about them, where they no longer nod to the prairie 

 breezes or peep through the vailing prairie grasses, the 

 charm of many of the wildings vanishes. They are then poor 

 and weedy, and consigned to quick oblivion by the gardener. 



But the beauty of some of these denizens of the wild wood 

 survives even in our hard, formal borders. The Lilium 

 superbum, with its tall column of clustered nodding flowers, 

 is rich and stately whether blowing at will on a western plain 

 or planted in a park. Cultivated Orchids from far countries 

 are not more beautiful than their American relative, Cypripe- 

 dium spectabile. Their curiously twisted and inflated blooms, 

 satiny white, with clouding and needle-like rays of softest 

 pink-purple, are plentifully borne on plants transferred to a 

 shaded hillside or water edge. 



