COLORS OF TREES. 



155 



though transient, elements of color. Some of our 

 readers may have come unexpectedly on a fine labur- 

 num or thorn, in blossom, partially concealed in a 

 secluded wood, or overhanging the bend of a remote 

 stream, and may have received from it an impression 

 which has not yet passed away. We need scarcely 

 point out the rich effects produced, at times, by the 

 snowy flowers of the wild cherry and sloe, by the 

 creamy bloom of the hawthorn and bird-cherry, and 

 the more varying pink and white of the wild-apple 

 and the horse-chestnut. Then, there is the delicate 

 pale-yellow of the flowers of the lime and Spanish- 

 chestnut, later in the season. Among the underwoods, 

 we have the brilliant yellow of the elegant mahonias, 

 in spring ; and in June, the lavish purple of the Pon- 

 tic rhododendron, one of the hardiest and best of all 

 shrubs for making close and tangled thickets in woods. 

 "W e do not mean that the chromatic effects of a flower- 

 garden should be, by artificial means, elaborated in a 

 park or forest ; but there is no want of brilliant tints, 

 even in the wildness of nature, as the common furze 

 and broom amply testify ; and the moderate and un- 

 obtrusive employment of the brighter hues of blossom, 

 in the external grounds, is sure to please. 



Even the leafless branches of shrubs and trees af- 

 ford an available element of color. We might point 

 out the dog-wood, with its crimson twigs, and the 

 azerole thorn, with its silvery branches ; these, indeed, 

 belong chiefly to shrubbery or pleasure-ground. But 

 the larch, with its light-brown spray ; the birch, with 

 its dark twigs and snowy stems ; and the oak itself, 

 with its varieties of russet, green, gray, and brown, 

 are examples of daily occurrence in the woods. We 



