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no description. With the exaggeration so often employed 
when coloured objects are referred to, people frequently speak 
of the multitudinous tints of autumn. In reality, however, 
these colours, not counting the original green, are only four 
in number, viz., yellow, brown, red, and purple, and of these 
the last is a dull inconspicuous colour, while the red occurs 
so seldom in our native trees as to add but little to the total 
effect when our woods and plantations appear in their 
autumnal clothing. It is to the passing of the original green 
into yellow, and from yellow into brown, and the various 
shades and tin tings so produced that the effect is in the 
main due. The yellow coloration is most distinctly seen in 
the chestnut and the elm. In the latter the gradual tinging 
of the deep green with yellow produces a peculiarly beauti- 
ful effect, and when the change is complete, and the whole 
tree (to use one of those figurative expressions to which one 
is so prone) is arrayed in a garb of gold, the appearance 
when first seen is almost startling. Arrived at this stage 
the leaves mostly fall, but retain their yellow hue for a short 
time only, the colour under the influence of air and moisture 
rapidly becoming brown, though they remain yellow if 
quickly dried. The oak and the beech keep their leaves 
after the yellow stage is passed, and the rich reddish-brown 
they then exhibit forms a distinct feature in the autumnal 
landscape. Young beech trees, as every one knows, remain 
clothed with brown leaves during the winter, and only lose 
them on the unfolding of the fresh leaves in spring. 
The leaves of some of our native plants, such as the wild 
cherry, the currant, the bramble, and various species of 
sorrel, turn of a lively red in autumn, but this coloration 
intensified to a positive scarlet is more distinctly seen in 
some of the exotics which have been introduced into our 
gardens, such as the Virginia creeper and the Azalea. A 
mixture of red and yellow is rarely observed on the same 
leaf. It is a singular circumstance that the leaves of the 
