94 FAMILIAR TREES 



It certainly savours somewhat of hyperbole to style 

 the stiff clusters of opaque white blossoms of this tree 

 " coronets of fragrant snow," whilst the " poet '' was 

 none other than John Gerard, apothecary and barber- 

 surgeon, so that the " evening dell " may have been in 

 his garden near Fetter Lane, Holborn. Noticing how 

 this roadside bush always looks as if covered with 

 dust, Gerard in his " Herball " (1597) called it " Way- 

 faring Man's Tree," which, it may be admitted, is, like 

 its author's other coinage " Traveller's Joy," a "right 

 pleasant name," bespeaking something of the poet in 

 its maker. * 



Under favourable conditions, in the calcareous 

 loam in which it mostly flourishes, the Wayfaring-tree 

 may grow to eighteen or twenty feet high. Its 

 branches spring from the leaf-axils at angles of, about 

 45 degrees with fissured grey-brown bark on their older 

 parts, dotted with lenticels and marked with crescent- 

 shaped leaf-scars ; but slightly angular, a paler yellow- 

 brown and thickly covered with mealy grey hairs to- 

 wards their extremities. The long narrow buds, spring- 

 ing in pairs from each node, in the early part of the 

 year, and the larger and more pointed ones that termi- 

 nate the leafy shoots, are described as " naked," as in 

 fact they soon become, the two minute bud-scales at 

 their base falling off at an early stage. All the remain- 

 ing leaves are normal, destined, that is, to expand into 

 ordinary foliage-leaves, and depend upon one another 

 for protection. Each leaf stands erect, folded longi- 

 tudinally along its midrib, plaited parallel to the strong 

 secondary veins and with its margins inrolled. The 

 short leaf-stalks are slightly dilated at their bases, and 



