578 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 198. 



A Typical New England View. 



TO any stranger desiring to see a typical New England 

 coast landscape, the view from a house built a few 

 years ago on the so-called "Beverly Commons," in the 

 town of that name, might well be exhibited as combining 

 many of the features which make our northern shore inter- 

 esting and imposing. 



The house itself is a rugged stone building, rising 

 abruptly from a crag whose shelving surface slopes al- 

 most to the sills of the windows on the land side. The 

 approach to it is through a wild and rocky dell, bordered 

 with Pine-trees, some of which are of great size, with 

 widely spreading branches. The rocks and trees are very 

 striking in form and prepare the mind for what is to come. 

 Little attempt at cultivating the grounds has been made, 

 and the few exotic conifers that have been planted mar 

 rather than improve the natural distinction of the sur- 

 roundings. Their chief beauty consists in the masses of 

 wild shrubs and herbage which come to the very edge of 

 the irregular fragments of lawn that are here and there 

 apparent near the dwelling, from the sea-front of which the 

 view in all its majesty meets the eye. 



In the foreground rises a great ledge of rock out of 

 which spring great High-bush Blueberries of particularly 

 graceful grouping. Beyond and around the ledge Golden- 

 rod and Sumach follow the fine curves of the rocky surface, 

 and then the eye is led gently into the middle distance 

 where the soft outlines of Pines rise in gentle undulations, 

 till suddenly a round, wooded hill forms a strange and strik- 

 ing curve in the sky-line, which is further diversified in the 

 purple distance by bits of the shore, with a light-house 

 on a point running out into the bay, and glimpses of the 

 blue sea broken by the contours of distant islands. As far 

 as the eye can reach the solitude is unbroken, nothing vis- 

 ible but the thin blue water-Hne with its rocky bluffs in 

 soft haze of remoteness, and the great swell of the Pine- 

 clad hill, of deepest softest green, rolling in noble curves to 

 other masses of verdure that fill the hollows and rise again 

 in echoing curves on either hand, with wide-spreading arms 

 of Pine-trees, a single one outlined here and there against 

 the sky. The middle-distance has somewhat the effect of 

 a great rolling heath, which resolves itself near at hand 

 into component parts of Blueberry-bushes, and Sumach, 

 and other familiar herbage. 



When I saw this view the Golden-rods were fading and 

 the Sumachs just touched with autumn red, but when these 

 last are one glowing flame, in startling contrast with the 

 unchanging evergreens, the effect must be still more won- 

 derful, as brilliant color would then combine with noble 

 form to render the landscape extraordinarily beautiful. 



A distant view of the Danvers Hills, rising along the 

 western horizon, adds to the charm of this remarkable 

 scene, and glimpses of other points and islands are caught 

 between the swelling outlines of wooded hills, so that the 

 outlook is perpetually varied, and as the mists veil and 

 unveil its loveliness, must be full of mysterious suggestion 

 to those who are privileged to contemplate it at all seasons 

 and hours. 



So strange and lonely is the spot, so rugged the house, 

 and so wild the aspect of the ledges with their fringe of 

 native shrubs, that the imagination takes wing, and weaves 

 legends, and dreams of stories of uncanny deeds done in 

 this desolate place, and peoples it with imaginary denizens, 

 with histories and experiences to match the beautiful but 

 savage landscape. The house when I visited it was unin- 

 habited, which added still more mystery and charm to this 

 lonely scene, leaving the fancy free to roam, and to evoke 

 appropriate forms and events for this American Wuthering 

 Heights, which on a windy winter day must be as eerie a 

 dwelling as the one Emily Bronte pictured on her York- 

 shire moor. 



Unique as is the view, it is curiously characteristic, seem- 

 ing to combine all the various elements that lend beauty to 

 the majestic New England shore — rocks, hills, the sea, 



with glimpses of distant islands and elevations, and the 

 simple but impressive forms of vegetation that can find 

 sustenance in the decomposing surface of stones and arid 

 downs. 



The Pines are of exceptional loveliness ; there is a furry 

 softness about their great masses of foliage, full of lights 

 and shadows, that seems to clothe the rugged surfaces 

 with warmth and comfort. No tree seems so appropriate 

 for a bleak and tempestuous region as this in which nature 

 loves to enwrap her dreariest and most uncompromising 

 wilds. Its aspect consoles, suggests shelter and protec- 

 tion; the roundness of its masses seems to soften the asper- 

 ities of the hard surface from which it springs. Amid 

 desolation it is the friend of man, affording him a roof by 

 day, light and warmth by night — a pillow for his weary 

 head, a carpet for his aching feet. 



In this wide view the Pines appeal most strongly to the 

 heart and give softness and beauty to a scene otherwise 

 appalling in desolation. The fine sky-line without their 

 feathery foliage would be harsh and unsympathetic, the 

 intervening spaces barren and stern, the foreground un- 

 sheltered and drear. Thanks to their welcome presence, 

 the eye rests gratefully upon as beautiful a prospect as 

 can anywhere be viewed on the Massachusetts coast, the 

 foreground being in perfect keeping with the distant views, 

 and the whole making a delightful combination for a nobly 

 representative type of New England scenery, in which 

 woods and the ocean are happily combined, in the way 

 that is best seen on that part of the coast north of Massa- 

 chusetts Bay. 



Hingham, Mass. M. C. Robbins. 



The Colors of Flowers. — II. 



Yellow. — Having proved the primary color of flowers to 

 be white, the query naturally arises, Which is the second in 

 the order of progression ? Is it red, yellow or blue ? Is there, 

 indeed, any established sequence ? 



Following the method already pointed out we shall endeavor 

 to answer these questions, first taking up yellow flowers. Of 

 course, we must put aside all corollas wholly yellow, such as 

 Buttercups, Potentillas, Caltha, Celandine, GEnothera, etc., and 

 find some whose claw, throat or tube is other than yellow. 



The tips of the yellow central florets of the Sunflower {Heli- 

 anthus annuus), for instance, are chocolate-brown, but this 

 cannot be the foundation color, for one should look for it at 

 the base rather than tip ; but we find the tubes of Sonchus 

 oleraceus, Prenanthes, Hieracium, Lactuca, Leontodon, Taraxa- 

 cum, the bases of Oxalis, yellow Pansies, the true yellow flower 

 of Poly 'gala sanguinea, garden Snapdragons, etc., all of them to 

 be white, some more so than others, but never any other color 

 except it be a special marking. In Gnaphalium polycephalum 

 the long tube remains green, while the minute corolla quickly 

 turns from white to yellow. Garden Nasturtiums, Tropaeolum, 

 are traced down from orange-red, or even a deeper shade, 

 through every degree of yellow to the most delicate cream 

 color, thereby establishing white as the foundation. Yellow 

 in its lighter shades being nearest to white is more difficult to 

 detect than any other color. Specimens of Prenanthes alba 

 would probably be called white by some, yet when placed be- 

 side a pure white, as that of Maruta Cotula, they are seen to be 

 " off color " and inclined to yellow, while P. serpentaria is 

 clearly yellowish ; quite likely, in course of time, their colors 

 will become more pronounced. 



Within half a mile of my summer residence are sixteen spe- 

 cies of Golden-rod (Solidago), fifteen of which are bright yel- 

 low ; but these are of no avail for our purpose. Nature, 

 however, comes to our aid by leaving the sixteenth in its orig- 

 inal white state. We examine it carefully, and find it even 

 lighter than cream-color, substantially white. Yet its variety, 

 S. concolor, is yellow. The pappus of the Golden-rods is pure 

 white. Turk's Cap Lily exhibits a small area of white low 

 down about the midrib before the yellow develops. 



Mr. Grant Allen remarks in regard to the Daisy tribe as fol- 

 lows, p. 53 : " Now, the earliest ray-florets would naturally be 

 bright yellow, like the tubular blossoms of the central disk 

 from which they sprung. And to this day the ray-florets of 

 Sunflowers, etc., are like the central flowers. In the Camo- 

 mile, however, the Ox-eye Daisy and the May-weed the rays 

 have become white ; and this, I think, fairly establishes the 

 fact, that white is a higher development of color than yellow.' 



