Among the Trees at Elmridge. Ella Rodman Church
you perverse boy!" said his governess as she laughingly turned him around. "Are you looking up into the sky for them? There is a clump of golden willows right before you, with some rosy maples on one side. What other colors can you call them?"
Malcolm had to confess that "yellow and pink trees" were not so wide of the mark, after all, and that they were very pretty. Little Edith was particularly delighted with them, and wanted to "pick the flowers" immediately.
"They are too high for that, dear," was the reply, "and these blossoms--for that is what they really are, although nothing more than fringes and catkins--are much prettier massed on the trees than they would be if gathered. The still-bare twigs and branches seem, as you see, to be draped with golden and rose-colored veils, but there will be no leaves until these queer flowers have dropped. If we look closely at the twigs and branches, we shall see that they are glossy and polished, as though they had been varnished and then brightened with color by the painter's brush. It is the flowing of the sap that does this. The swelling of the bark occasioned by the flow of sap gives the whole mass a livelier hue; hence the ashen green of the poplar, the golden green of the willow and the dark crimson of the peach tree, the wild rose and the red osier are perceptibly heightened by the first warm days of spring."
"Miss Harson," asked Clara, with a perplexed face, "what are catkins?"
"Here," said her governess, reaching from the top bar of the road-fence for the lowest branch of a willow tree; "examine this catkin for yourself, and I will tell you what my Botany says of it: 'An ament, or catkin, is an assemblage of flowers composed of scales and stamens or pistils arranged along a common thread-like receptacle, as in the chestnut and willow. It is a kind of calyx, by some classed as a mode of inflorescence (or flowering), and each chaffy scale protects one or more of the stamens or pistils, the whole forming one aggregate flower. The ament is common to forest-trees, as the oak and chestnut, and is also found upon the willow and poplar.'"
"It's funny-looking," said Malcolm, when he had made himself thoroughly acquainted with the appearance of the catkin, "but it doesn't look much like a flower: it looks more like a pussy's tail."
"Yes, and that is the origin of its name. 'Catkin' is diminutive for 'cat;' so this collection of flowers is called 'catkin,' or 'little cat.'"
"I think I'll call them 'pussy-tails,'" said Edith.
"There is a great deal to be learned about trees," said Miss Harson, when all were comfortably seated in the pleasant schoolroom; "and, besides the natural history of their species, some old trees have wonderful stories connected with them, while many in tropical countries are so wonderful in themselves that they do not need stories to make them interesting. The common trees around us will be our subjects at first; for I suppose that you can scarcely tell a willow from a poplar, or a chestnut tree from either, can you?"
"I can tell a chestnut tree," said Malcolm, confidently.
"When it is not the season for nuts?" asked his governess, smiling.
There was not a very positive reply to this; and Miss Harson continued:
"I do not think that any of us know as much as we ought to know of the trees which we see every day, and of the uses to which many of them are put, to say nothing of many familiar trees that we read about, and even depend upon for some of the necessaries of life."
"Like the cocoanut tree," suggested Clara.
"That is not exactly necessary to our comfort, dear," was the reply, "for people can manage to live without cocoanuts, although in many forms they are very agreeable to the taste, and it is only the inhabitants of the countries where they grow who look upon these trees as necessaries; but we will take them up in their turn. And first let us find out what we can about the willow, because it is the first tree, with us, to become green in the spring, and, of that large class which is called deciduous, the last one to lose its leaves."
"And why are they called deciduous?" asked Malcolm.
"Because they shed their leaves every autumn and are furnished with a new set in the spring: 'deciduous' is Latin for 'falling off.' And this is the case with nearly all our native trees and plants. Persistent, or permanent, leaves remain on the stem and branches all through the changes of season, like the leaves of the pine and box, while evergreens look fresh through the entire year and are generally cone-bearing and resinous trees. 'These change their leaves annually, but, the young leaves appearing before the old ones decay, the tree is always green.'"
"Miss Harson," said Clara, "when people talk about weeping willows, what do they mean? Do the trees really cry? I sometimes read about 'em in stories, and I never knew what they did."
"They cry dreadfully," said Malcolm, "when it rains."
"But only as you do when you are out in it," replied his governess--"by having the water drip from your clothes.--No, Clara, the tree is called 'weeping' because it seems to 'assume the attitude of a person in tears, who bends over and appears to droop.' The sprays of this tree are particularly beautiful, and 'willowy' is often used for 'graceful,' as meaning the same thing. Its language is 'sorrow,' and it is often seen in burial-grounds and in mourning-pictures. 'We remember it in sacred history, associating it with the rivers of Babylon, and with the tears of the children of Israel, who sat down under the shade of this tree and hung their harps upon its branches. It is distinguished by the graceful beauty of its outlines, its light-green, delicate foliage, its sorrowing attitude and its flowing drapery.'"
"Were those weeping willows that we saw to-day?" asked Clara.
"No," replied her brother, quickly; "they just stuck up straight and didn't weep a bit."
"They are called water willows," said Miss Harson, "because they are never found in dry places. They are more common than the weeping willow. The water willow has the same delicate foliage and the same habit, under an April sky, of gleaming with a drapery of golden verdure among the still-naked trees of the forest or orchard. 'When Spring has closed her delicate flowers,' says a bright writer, 'and the multitudes that crowd around the footsteps of May have yielded their places to the brighter host of June, the willow scatters the golden aments that adorned it, and appears in the deeper garniture of its own green foliage.' A group of these golden willows, seen in a rainstorm, will have so bright an appearance as to make it seem as if the sun were actually shining."
"I wish we had them all around here, then," said Edith; "I like to see the sun shining when it rains."
"But the sun is not shining, dear," replied her governess: "it is only the reflection from the willows that makes it look so; and we can make just such sunshine ourselves when it rains, or when there is dullness of any sort, by being all the more cheerful and striving to make others happy. Who loves to be called 'Little Sunshine'?"
"I do," said the child, caressing the hand that had patted her rosy cheek.
"Let's all be golden willows," said Malcolm, in a comical way that made them laugh.
Miss Harson told him that he could not make a better attempt than to be one of those home-brighteners who bring the sunshine with them, but she added that such people are always considerate for others. Malcolm wondered a little if this meant that he was not, but he soon forgot it in hearing the many things that were to be said of the willow.
"The family-name of this tree is Salix, from a word that means 'to spring,' because a willow-branch, if planted, will take root and grow so quickly that it seems almost like magic. 'And they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the watercourses,' says the prophet Isaiah, speaking of the children of the people of God. The flowers of the willow are of two kinds--one bearing stamens, and the other pistils--and each grows upon a separate plant. When the ovary, at the base of the