THE WOODS. 



deciduous, do shed all of their leaves eventually — 

 rotating in a series of years, dropping some of them 

 one year and some another, as the conifers do — even 

 if they do not cast them annually. For all popular 

 usage the division of trees into narrow-leaf and broad- 

 leaf species, or the sword-leaved and shield-leaved, as 

 Ruskin called them, is the most accurate and conven- 

 ient; for no tree outside of the Conifera has narrow 

 leaves or needles, and there is but one of the Conifera 

 that has broad leaves, namely, the gingko, and this is 

 not a native variety, but an importation from Japan. 

 It is an interesting fact, however, that some of our trees 

 bear cones, but yet are not among the Conifera; such 

 as the birches, alders, and the tulip-tree. Trees, too, 

 whose flowers and fruit are similar, and which there- 

 fore belong to the same order, may have leaves of an 

 entirely different formation; as, for example, the red 

 maple and box elder, both of the Aceracea, or the 

 apple and mountain ash, of the Rosacea, or the white, 

 red, and laurel oaks. It is also possible, as has been 

 pointed out, to find in the same genus both evergreen 

 and deciduous species; as, for instance, the live oak is 

 an evergreen broad-leaf among a host of deciduous 

 brethren. The inflorescence is the only court of final 

 resort. 



The full crown of that fine hard maple yonder indi- 

 cates, perhaps, that the tree is beside a spring or a water 

 course, and is in an opening of light; which are indeed 

 the case. The little grove of beeches there on the ridge 

 is, as plainly as day, a reproduction from an older tree 

 whose nuts had fallen at times and rolled some distance 

 away on either side, yet not so far but that we can dis- 



