Among the Trees at Elmridge. Ella Rodman Church
leaves are all out. But you must not expect to find a perfect vase-shape, for it is only an approach to it. The dome-shaped elm has a broad, round head, which is formed by the shooting forth of branches of nearly equal length from the same part of the trunk, which gradually spread outward with a graceful curve into the roof or dome that crowns the tree."
"I know something else about our elms," said Malcolm: "some of the roots are on top of the ground. Isn't that very queer, Miss Harson?"
"Not for old elm trees, as this is quite a habit with them. Indeed, in many ways, the elm is so entirely different from other trees that it can be recognized at a great distance. It is both graceful and majestic, and is the most drooping of the drooping trees, except the willow, which it greatly surpasses in grandeur and in the variety of its forms. The green leaves are broad, ovate, heart-shaped, from two to four or five inches long. You can see their exact shape in this illustration. Their summer tint is very bright and vivid, but it turns in autumn to a sober brown, sometimes touched with a bright golden yellow, And now," continued Miss Harson, "we will examine the flowers which we have here, and we see that each blossom is on a green, slender thread less than half an inch long, and that it consists of a brown cup parted into seven or eight divisions, rounded at the border and containing about eight brown stamens and a long compressed ovary surmounted by two short styles. This ripens into a flattened seed-vessel before the leaves are fully out, and the seeds, being small and chaffy, are wafted in all directions and carried to great distances by the wind."
"Where does slippery elm come from?" asked Clara.
"From another American species, dear, which is very much like the white elm that we have been considering. The slippery elm is a smaller tree, does not droop so much, and the trunk is smoother and darker. The leaves are thicker and very rough on the upper side. The inner bark contains a great deal of mucilage--that, I suppose, is the reason for its being called 'slippery'--and it has been extensively used as a medicine. The wood is very strong and preferred to that of the white elm for building-purposes, although the latter is considered the best native wood for hubs of wheels. There is a great elm tree on Boston Common which is over two hundred years old, and another in Cambridge called the 'Washington Elm,' because near it or beneath its shade General Washington is said to have first drawn his sword on taking command of the American army. In 1744 the celebrated George Whitefield preached beneath this tree."
"I'm glad we have elm trees here," said Malcolm, "though I s'pose nobody ever did anything in particular under ours."
"You mean," replied his governess, laughing, "that they are not historical trees; but they are certainly very fine ones. There is another species of elm, the English, which is often seen in this country too. It is a very large and stately tree, but not so graceful as our own elm. It is distinguished from the American elm by its bark, which is darker and much more broken; by having one principal stem, which soars upward to a great height; and by its branches, which are thrown out more boldly and abruptly and at a larger angle. Its limbs stretch out horizontally or tend upward with an appearance of strength to the very extremity; in the American elm they are almost universally drooping at the end. Its leaves are closer, smaller, more numerous and of a darker color. In England this tree is a great favorite with those black and solemn birds the rooks. The poet Hood writes of it as
"'The tall, abounding elm that grows
In hedgerows up and down,
In field and forest, copse and park,
And in the peopled town,
With colonies of noisy rooks
That nestle on its crown.'
"Some of these English elms are very ancient and of an immense size; one of them, known as the 'Chequer Elm,' measures thirty-one feet around the trunk, of which only the shell is left. It was planted seven hundred years ago. The Chipstead Elm is fifteen feet around; the Crawley Elm, thirty-five. A writer says, 'The ample branches of the Crawley Elm shelter Mayday gambols while troops of rustics celebrate the opening of green leaves and flowers. Yet not alone beneath its shade, but within the capacious hollow which time has wrought in the old tree, young children with their posies and weak and aged people find shelter during the rustic fêtes.'"
"Does that mean that people can sit inside the tree?" asked Clara. "I wish we had one to play house in where Hemlock Lodge is."
"That is one of the things, Clara," replied Miss Harson, "that people can have only in the place where they grow. In the South of England there is another great elm tree with a hollow trunk which has fitted into it a door fastened by a lock and key. A dozen people can be comfortably accommodated inside, and there is a story told of a woman and her infant who lived there for a time."
"What a funny house!" said Malcolm. "Just like a woodpecker's."
"Another great elm, near London, has a winding staircase cut within it, and a turret at the top where at least twenty persons can stand. One species of this tree, called the wych-, or witch-, elm, was believed by ignorant people to possess magical powers and to defend from the malice of witches the place on which it grew. Even now it is said that in remote parts of England the dairymaid flies to it as a resource on the days when she churns her butter. She gathers a twig from the tree and puts it into a little hole in the churn. If this practice were neglected, she confidently believes that she might go on churning all day without getting any butter."
"Isn't that silly?" exclaimed Clara.
"Very silly indeed," replied her governess; "but we must remember that the poor ignorant girl knows no better. The wood of the European elm is stronger than ours; it is hard and fine-grained, and brownish in color, and is much used in the building of ships, for hubs of wheels, axletrees and many other purposes. In France the leaves and shoots are used to feed cattle. In Russia the leaves of one variety are made into tea. The inner bark is in some places made into mats, and in Norway they kiln-dry it and grind it with corn as an ingredient in bread. So that the elm tree is almost as useful as it is beautiful."
CHAPTER IV.
MAJESTY AND STRENGTH: THE OAK.
"Here," said Miss Harson, "is a small branch from an oak tree containing the young leaves and the catkins, which come out together; for the oak belongs, like the willow and the maple, to the division of amentaceous plants."
"Oh dear!" sighed Clara at the hard name.
But Malcolm repeated:
"Amentaceous--ament. I know, Miss Harson: it's catkins"
"Yes, it means trees which produce their flowers in catkins, or looking as if strung on long drooping stems; and the oak is the monarch of this family, and in Great Britain of all the forest-trees. It is especially an English tree, although our woods contain several varieties. But they do not hold the pre-eminence in our forests that the oaks do in those of England. The oak ordinarily runs more to breadth than to height, and spreads itself out to a vast distance with an air of strength and grandeur. This is its striking character and what gives it its peculiar appearance. Oaks do not always go straight out, but crook and bend to right and left, upward and downward, abruptly or with a gentle sweep.
