THE AMERICAN FORESTS. 
313 
the gorgeous tints, which nature repeats horn the dying dol¬ 
phin to paint the falling leaf of the American maples, oaks, 
and ash trees, clothe the hillsides and fringe the watercourses 
with a rainbow splendor of foliage, unsurpassed by the bright¬ 
est groupings of the tropical flora. It must be admitted, how¬ 
ever, that both the northern and the southern declivities of 
the Alps exhibit a nearer approximation to this rich and mul¬ 
tifarious coloring of autumnal vegetation than most American 
travellers in Europe are willing to allow ; and, besides, the 
small deciduous shrubs which often carpet the forest glades of 
these mountains are dyed with a ruddy and orange glow, 
which, in the distant landscape, is no mean substitute for the 
scarlet and crimson and gold and amber of the transatlantic 
woodland. 
No American evergreen known to me resembles the um¬ 
brella pine sufficiently to be a fair object of comparison with 
it.* A cedar, very common above the Highlands on the 
Hudson, is extremely like the cypress, straight, slender, with 
erect, compressed ramification, and feathered to the ground, 
but its foliage is neither so dark nor so dense, the tree does not 
attain the majestic height of the cypress, nor has it the lithe 
flexibility of that tree. In mere shape, the Lombardy poplar 
nearly resembles this latter, but it is almost a profanation to 
compare the two, especially when they are agitated by the 
wind ; for under such circumstances, the one is the most ma¬ 
jestic, the other the most ungraceful, or—if I may apply such 
an expression to anything but human affectation of movement 
—the most awkward of trees. The poplar trembles before the 
blast, flutters, struggles wildly, dishevels its foliage, gropes 
around with its feeble branches, and hisses as in impotent 
passion. The cypress gathers its limbs still more closely to its 
stem, bows a gracious salute rather than an humble obeisance 
* It is hard to say how far the peculiar form of the graceful crown of 
this pine is due to pruning. It is true that the extremities of the topmost 
branches are rarely lopped, but the lateral boughs are almost uniformly 
removed to a very considerable height, and it is not improbable that the 
shape of the top is thereby affected. 
