AUTUMNAL COLOURING. 487 



growing associated together in the particular spot. If the leaves are thickly 

 covered with silky or woolly hairs, or if the hairs are felted or peltate, anthocyanin 

 is scarcely ever developed; but when the green tissue of these leaves becomes 

 also changed in colour, the new tint can be seen as little as was the green previ- 

 ously, on account of the hairy coat over the coloured cells. Accordingly, such 

 felted, sUky, or scale-covered leaves remain grey or white even when they fall 

 from the branches. If plants of this kind grow among others whose foliage is 

 bare, their grey and white tints considerably increase the variety of the entire 

 collection. But the greatest amount of colour is seen when the neighbourhood 

 is sprinkled with plants having evergreen foliage; it may then happen that a 

 relatively small space of meadow or wood appears decked in all the colours of 

 the rainbow in the most manifold variety. 



The splendoiir of colours exhibited by tropical forests, which is usually repre- 

 sented as much more magnificent than it really is, stands no comparison with 

 that developed in autumn in the north temperate zone. The forests of firs and 

 leafy trees on the mountain slopes along the Rhine and Danube in Europe, and 

 on the shores of the Canadian lakes in North America at that season present a 

 scene of entrancing beauty. The heights along the middle course of the Danube, 

 for example, the region known as the Wachan, below the town of Melk, shows 

 wide expanses of forests, in which beeches, hornbeams, evergreen oaks, common 

 and Norway maples, birches, wild cherries and pears, mountain ashes and wild 

 service-trees, aspens, Hmes, spruces, pines and firs take a share in the greatest 

 variety. Bushes of Barberry (Berberis vulgaris), Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea), 

 Cornel {Cornus mas). Spindle Tree (Euonymus EuropcBus and verrucosus). 

 Dwarf Cherry (Prunus GhamoBcerasus), Sloe (Prunus spinosa), Juniper (Juni- 

 perus communis), and many other low shrubs arise as undergrowth, and spring 

 up on the margins of the forests. The mountain slopes abutting on the valleys 

 are planted with vines, and near by grow peach and apricot trees in great 

 abundance. In the meadows on the shore, and on the islands of the Danube, 

 rise huge abeles and black poplars, elms, willows, alders, and also an abun- 

 dant sprinkling of trees of the bird cherry (Prunus Padus). The nights are 

 bitterly cold there ; even in the middle of October, damp mists hover over 

 the river, and hoar-frost covers the grassy regions at the bottom of the valley. 

 But during the day it is still fairly warm, the morning mists are dispelled by 

 the rays of the sun, a cloudless sky stretches over the landscape, and soft breezes, 

 swaying the threads of the vagrant spiders, blow from the east through the 

 river valley. The first frosts are the signal for the beginning of the vintage; 

 all is busy in the vine-planted districts, and the call of the vine-dresser resounds 

 from hill to hill. But it is also the signal for the forests on the mountain slopes 

 and in the meadows to change their hues. What an abundance of colour is then 

 unfolded! The crowns of the pines bluish-green, the slender summits of the 

 firs dark green, the foliage of hornbeams, maples, and white-stemmed birches 

 pale yellow, the oaks brownish-yeUow, the broad tracts of forest stocked with 



