WITT THE LEAVES FALL. 
371 
chestnut, there are others, such as the beech, the hornbeam, and 
some varieties of oak, which retain their leaves for the greater 
part of the winter, though generally in a dried, withered state, 
and do not part with them till forced to do so in spring by the 
gradual distension of the newly awakened buds. 
Gardeners were wont at one time, much more than at present, 
to make use of hornbeam hedges to afford shelter to their 
plants in winter, just as they do now with hedges of yew. 
In Holland, it is not unfrequent to see the brown withered 
foliage of the beech, or the hornbeam, contrasted with the rich 
dark green of the ivy, and making a screen at once useful and 
agreeable to the eye. It is noteworthy, that, in the case of the 
beech at least, the petiole becomes quite woody in its texture, 
and is not so easily cast off as some wherein the tissues are 
softer. 
Plants, too, have their idiosyncrasies as well as other creatures. 
There are some which will develop their leaves a fortnight or so 
earlier than their brothers of the same species, others that will 
retain their foliage long after it has fallen from other plants of 
the same specific form. This did not escape the notice of the 
old Greek naturalists, for Theophrastus, in his work “ De 
Plantis,” mentions a plane-tree in Crete, which never shed its 
leaves, and he adds, that that was the identical tree beneath whose 
shade Jupiter carried on his flirtation with Europa. Be that as 
it may, it is quite certain that, apart from individual peculiarities, 
such as we have just mentioned, plants of the same species will 
shed their leaves sooner or later according to the locality in 
which they grow. In the Canary Islands the vine only sheds its 
foliage very gradually, so that new leaves often appear before all 
the old ones are thrown off. The cherry-tree in Ceylon, and the 
peach in Brazil, are said to become almost completely evergreen. 
On the other hand, in colder latitudes than ours the leaves fall 
earlier, in consonance with the earlier advent of winter. In the 
tropics, although there is in general not so well-marked a 
period of defoliation, yet the dry season seems to act in a similar 
way to the winter season here. Travellers tell us that there is 
scarcely a month in the year in which young shoots and leaves 
may not be seen on the trees, so that the formation of the young 
leaves, as well as the fall of the old ones, is * spread over the 
whole year, as it were, and is not so much confined to particular 
periods as in temperate latitudes. The fall of the leaf cannot, 
however, be attributed solely to the change in the seasons from 
wet to dry, or from hot to cold, for it not unfrequently happens 
that if a tree be stripped of its leaves in summer, it forms during 
the autumn new ones, which remain on the tree during the 
greater part of the winter, or at any rate until long after the 
usual period. A similar occurrence was noticed in the Calcutta 
VOL. VI. — NO. XXV. E E 
