ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF TREES,

AND THEIR EFFECT IN FORMING PICTURESQUE SCENERY.

BY EDWIN LEES,

Honorary Curator of the Worcestershire Natural History Society, &c.*

I HAVE been surprised to find in preparing illustrative sketches of trees, how few artists have paid any attention to the subject. I have inquired in vain, in many instances, for original studies of aged trees, or portraits of remarkable veterans of the forest. Landscape painters have sketched ruins and castles till we are so familiar with the features of every ruined edifice "within the kingdom of England, dominion of Wales, and town of Berwickupon-Tweed," as to require no inscriptions beneath their representations. But trees-themselves more interesting ruins than many a black, dismantled, undistinguishable pile-have been in most instances neglected; and many a "stately tree," the "timehonoured" contemporary of olden days, has sunk into the arms of destruction unnoticed and unmarked on the canvass of the painter. Not, indeed, that artists can fill up their landscapes without the aid of trees, but too often the trees they display are creations of their own imagination, referable to no botanical class, formed on the spur of the moment to fill up a fore-ground, or clothe a barren space; and as the artist himself in all probability intended no particular tree or class of trees, it would argue too much skill in the spectator to suppose he could make out the species thus exhibited. It will be easily perceived, that on this Procrusteian system, a forest denizen is made to have arms or no arms as the whim of the moment may direct, and the "ferat ruber asper amomum" of the Mantuan bard, if not altogether realized, is very closely approximated to. Even professed delineations of trees, from careless finishing, often want character, and in too many instances I have noticed drawings and engravings that might have passed for almost any tree in the range of woodland scenery, but for the good-natured information contained in the inscription. If, indeed, we except the works of Gilpin and Strutt, we find our native literature very barren upon the subject; but few professional treatises have appeared

The following paper formed part of a lecture recently delivered before a Philosophical Society at Kidderminster, in compliance with the request of the members. [As the author is preparing a work on the dicotyledonous plants of the midland counties, and is desirous of obtaining information relative to any ruined veterans of the forest that may remain yet unnoticed in secluded situations, with the view of ascertaining their age, he will feel obliged by, and will duly acknowledge, any information calculated to illustrate old indigenous trees, not hitherto noticed, more especially those within the boundaries of the forests of Needwood, Wyre, Feckenham, Arden, Wichwood, and Dean.]

that deserve especial notice, and while thousands have dilated upon the effects of light and shade, and the advantages or disadvantages of a blue or a muddy sky to the pictures under their critique, they have been altogether indifferent as to the characteristic features presented by various trees, and the differences exhibited by the rigid tortuosity of the oak, the cumbrous uniformity of the elm, the lofty and majestic bearing of the ash, the umbrella-like umbrage of the sycamore or beech, or the thousand vivifying and latticed wiry sprigs of the dependent lime, letting in the mellow sunbeams as through the traceried interstices of an oriel window. Strutt, indeed, has admirably depicted many of our forest trees in his "Sylva Britannica" and "Delicia Sylvarum ;" these are works of which we may be justly proud-many, too, of Westall's views on the Thames represent waving willows not to be mistaken-but the subject yet remains to be treated in a scientific and botanical manner, with regard to our indigenous trees.

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Every tree has some peculiar character, which, though perhaps at first difficult to describe, is at once caught and recollected by the eye of the observant naturalist, so that whatever difficulty he may have to make out the trees of the landscape-painter, he has none with those of the real landscape itself.* The funereal yew, the bending willow, and the sturdy oak, will occur to all. This 'physiognomy" of vegetation depends, generally speaking, on a very few peculiarities. Of these the most obvious is the mode of branching, or ramification of a tree or shrub. The importance of this characteristic is so perceptible, that even in winter, trees may be distinguished by it, and the observer of nature needs not foliage to perceive the striking difference between a poplar, an oak, a beech, or a willow. The branches of a poplar form acute angles with the main stem; both are straight, giving the tree a pyramidal appearance, which in contrast with others, renders it ornamental in plantations. The willow, on the other hand, "stooping as if to drink," if in its prime of beauty, gracefully waves its tresses over the ruffled waters, or as an old pollard on the bank of the stream, looking like a giant, with huge distorted head, cannot be mistaken. The beech darting round its convoluted spokes in regular order, with its wiry branches and smooth bark, forms another character; while the "gnarled" and "knotted oak," stiff, rigid, and motionless, even amidst the most furious blast of winter, merely moans a gruff defiance to the storm.

*An instance exemplifying this occurred to me a few weeks since. Walking with a friend in the country, an extraordinary large misletoe bush caught our view among the branches of a tree on an eminence at some distance. Its great size had a curious effect, and from the shape of the branches of the trees around, I thought it was an oak. My companion differed from me in opinion, and we had an arduous scramble "over bush, bank, and scaur," to determine the matter, when it actually proved to be a lime, but growing so close to an oak, that the branches of two trees were intermingled together. What was also very curious, numerous oaks grew on this ridge, but no other lime. 2 L

May, 1835.-VOL. II. NO. X.

It is important to notice these graphic outlines traced upon trees, because, as Baron Humboldt has well observed-it is vegetation that principally characterizes the features of a country, and distinguishes it from another. The granite rock, the basaltic column, and the limestone ridge, are the same in Iceland and Sweden as in Mexico and Peru:-but who could mistake the vegetation of the two regions? Even animals seldom appear in quantities sufficient to give a feature to the scene, and their continual restlessness removes them from our view; but trees affect our imagination by their magnitude and stability, flowers by the brilliancy of their colours, and herbs by the freshness of their verdure.

If trees have their distinguishing characteristics even amidst the gloom of winter, when their denuded branches stretch in mournful array across the heavy atmosphere, we may easily conceive their varied effect when clothed in the vivid umbrage of summer. This, indeed, is noticeable by all who have an eye to appreciate sylvan scenery, and is frequently alluded to by our poets. Thus Cowper has described the various aspect of the leaves of trees, in his "Task :"

"No tree in all the grove but has its charms,
Though each its hue peculiar; paler some,
And of a wannish gray, the willow such,
And poplar, that with silver lines his leaf,
And ash, far stretching his umbrageous arm ;
Of deeper green the elm; and deeper still,
Lord of the woods, the long-surviving oak.
Some glossy-leaved, and shining in the sun,
The maple, and the beech of oily nuts
Prolific, and the lime at dewy eve
Diffusing odours: nor unnoticed pass
The sycamore, capricious in attire,

Now green, now tawny, and, ere autumn yet

Has chang'd the woods, in scarlet honours bright."

Numerous other trees might be mentioned more or less obviously claiming the attention, but all are familiar with the silvery feature given to a landscape where the waving willows of the brook predominate and are agitated by the wind. Contrast, too, the gloomy aspect of a pine forest, or even of a single dark pine or fir, recognizable over a country for miles, with the splendid parti-coloured and golden umbrage of the beech in autumn, unrivalled in its vividity, as the sunbeams play upon the smooth leaves. The forest scenery of Great Britain, indeed, when we leave the cathedral tower far behind, the dim blue apex to a dark mass of distant foliage,-when we enter among the scattered relics of olden forests, or penetrate amid the glens of a hilly or rocky region, presents features interesting to the true lover of nature; and without studying from scenes like these, the true effect of our forest trees is unknown and unattended to. Look at the contorted lime forced in the plantation to crimp up its toes and

shoulders to range in the "rank and file" line that some capability Brown has marked out for it—but how different its independent aspect on the rocky strata of Ankerdine hill, in Worcestershire, or like an hoary Druid, shaking its tresses over the foaming cataracts of Pont-nedd-Vechan, Glamorganshire. The yew, subjected to the metempsychosis of a Dutch gardener, with outstretched wing, or stiff tasseled crest, is unsightly enough to the eye of taste; but seen in its native solitudes, clustering up the sides of a bare hill, or encamped with its horny tortuous roots upon the edge of a steep precipice, its funereal plume waves there in unison with the rough rocks around. Those who have seen the yew on the sides of the Wrekin, and adjacent Lime-kiln Woods, or where, overshadowing the streams that murmur from their defiles, clustered with ivy, it throws the deepest possible obscurity of shade upon noon's fervid glare; or those who have paused, as I have, to mark its old mossy clumps, shrouding in early spring the brook that patters down the rocks of Areley, on whose black basaltic height the Roman eagles have stooped, will duly estimate the yew as a British tree,* and admit its pictorial effect in its native habitat. Wordsworth has well described the appearance of the yew in Cumberland—

"There is a yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore,
Not loth to furnish weapons in the hands
Of Umfreville, or Percy, ere they marched

To Scotland's heaths, or those that crossed the sea,
And drew their sounding bows at Agincourt,

Perhaps at earlier Cressy, or Poictiers.
Of vast circumference and gloom profound,
This solitary yew!-a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed."

England is distinguished by her park-like scenery, and nothing is more characteristic of an English nobleman or gentleman's mansion, than the "old patrician trees" that surround it, and give only an indistinct and imperfect view of the towers and wreathed chimneys rising above them. A long avenue of trees, forming a natural arch overhead, if the vegetable columns have sufficient room to extend themselves, forms a majestic object to gaze down, especially when a picturesque building in dim perspective forms a vista to the scene. In this case, however, the trees must be all

In Loudon's "Arboretum Britannicum," recently published, a doubt is raised on the authority of Daines Barrington, as to the yew's being an indigenous tree. Those who have rambled over the woods and hills of Worcestershire and Herefordshire, where hundreds may be seen in every stage of growth, can entertain no more doubt on the subject than they would as to the bramble's being a native. At the western base of the Herefordshire Beacon, beyond Little Malvern, some very fine old trees occur, and numerous others are dispersed in the woods.

of one species, or the mass is broken, and the longer the avenue the better the effect. Those who have seen the magnificent avenue of limes at Cotheridge Court, Worcestershire, a quarter of a mile long, in double columns; or the huge luxuriant firs stretching along a broad extent of greensward, at Llauvihangel Court, Monmouthshire, will fully comprehend the effect thus produced.

"A length of colonnade

Invites us. Monument of ancient taste
Now scorn'd, but worthy of a better fate.
Our fathers knew the value of a screen
From sultry suns; and, in their shaded walks
And long protracted bow'rs, enjoy'd at noon
The gloom and coolness of declining day."

COWPER.

But in admitting the effect of colonnades, under certain circumstances, we must discard all other regular figures from the picturesque of plantation. Squares, circles, or polygons are all in bad taste, and when as at Bleinheim, the plantations are made to represent the positions of squadrons of horse and foot in battle array, the puerile conception of groves thus "nodding at each other," is too flagrant and apparent to be dwelt upon.

An estate or wild district of country is often much improved and rendered beautiful and picturesque by judicious planting; but the present practice is often too indiscriminate, and the effect therefore fails. A clump of firs on the summit of a barren hill (if the aspect be not too bleak) has in general a good effect; but if the entire hill be planted in the same way, the uniform sameness tires the eye, the trees being all nearly of the same growth. A wild pine forest, on the other hand, on rocky and broken ground, with aged veteran trees stretching their roots upon the banks of a brawling stream, hurrying along a deep stony ravine, has a fine picturesque effect. The indiscriminate planting of evergreens and deciduous trees together, though commonly practised, is objectionable, and particularly if they are placed too near each other, and no attention paid to their thinning and pruning. But judiciously grouped together, the effect of evergreens is often very fine; Lord Bacon has descanted in his Essays upon their effect in a winter garden, and Evelyn speaks with rapture of his magnificent holly hedge, at Say's Court, which the eccentric Czar Peter amused himself by riding through when an artizan in the Woolwich dock-yard. Where the holly grows naturally, its effect as a wild thicket in the wintry season, with its varnished leaves and brilliant ruby berries, is very exhilarating in a season when all appears bleak and denuded, and I have frequently met with spots about the Wrekin, the Lickey, or the Malvern hills, that at such a time had the effect of the most beautiful and brilliant cabinet pictures, seen in unison with the objects around. This is the charm of forest scenery-suddenly to dive into some bosky recess where the world is entirely shut