Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 6.djvu/273

 I860.] Among the Trees. 265 flowing lines of grace and elegance, and the harmonious blending of forms and colors introduced by art. On the same principle we may explain the difficulty of reading with attention a whole volume on one subject, written in verse. We are soon weary of luxuries ; and when we have been strolling in grounds laid out with gaudy flower-beds, the tired eye, when we go out into the fields, rests with serene delight upon rough pastures bound- ed by stone walls, and hills clothed with lichens and covered with boulders. The homely Pitch Pine serves this im- portant purpose of relief in the land- scapes of Nature. Trees of this species are abundant in sandy levels, in company with the slender and graceful White Birch, " The Lady of the Woods," as the poet Coleridge called it. From these Pines proceed those delightful odors which are wafted to our windows by a mild south wind, not less perceptible in winter than in summer, and which are in a different manner as charming as a beautiful pros- pect. The Juniper, or Red Cedar, known in some places as the Savin, is another home- ly tree that gives character to New Eng- land scenery. It is one of the most fre- quent accompaniments of the bald hills near certain parts of our coast, giv- ing them a peculiar aspect of desolation. This tree acquires larger dimensions and a fuller and fairer shape in the Middle and Southern States. There the Juni- pers are beautiful trees, having a finer verdure than they ever acquire at the North. But the Juniper, with all its im- perfections, its rugged form, and its in- ferior verdure, is not to be contemned ; and it possesses certain qualities and fea- tures which ought to be prized hardly less than beauty. Its sombre ferruginous green adds variety to our wood-scenery at all times, and by contrast serves to make the foliage of other trees the more brilliant and conspicuous. In the latter part of summer, when the woods have ac- quired a general uniformity of verdure, the Junipers enliven the face of Nature by blending their duller tints with the fading hues of the fully ripened foliage. Thus will an assemblage of brown and gray clouds soften and at the same time enliven the deep azure of the heavens. In this sketch, I have omitted to de- scribe many important trees, especially those which have but little individuality of character, leaving them to be the sub- ject of another essay concerning Trees in Assemblages. I have likewise said noth- ing here of those species which are com- monly distinguished as flowering trees. But I must not omit, while speaking of the pyramidal trees, to say a word con- cerning the Larch, which has some strik- ing points of form and habit. Like the Southern Cypress, it differs in its decidu- ous character from other coniferous trees : hence both are distinguished by the bril- liancy of their verdure in the early part of summer, when the other evergreens are particularly sombre ; but they are leafless in the winter. The Larch is beau- tifully pyramidal in its shape when young. In the vigor of its years it tends to uni- formity, and to variety when it is old. In- deed, an aged Larch is often as rugged and fantastic as an old Oak. The Amer- ican and European Larches differ only in the longer flowing foliage and the larger cones of the latter. Among the minor beauties of both species may be mention- ed the bright crimson cones that appear in June and resemble clusters of fruit. The Larch is a Northern tree, being in ' O its perfection in the latitude of Maine. It seems to delight in the coldest situa- tions, and, like the Southern Cypress, is found chiefly in low swamps. There are not many trees that assume the shape of an obelisk, or a long spire ; but Nature, who presents to our eyes an ever-charming variety of forms as well as hues, in the objects of her creation, has given us the figure of the obelisk in the Chinese Juniper, in the Balsam Fir, in the Arbor- Vitas, and lastly in the Lom- bardy Poplar, which may be offered to exemplify this class of forms. The Lom- bardy Poplar is interesting to thousands who were familiar with it in their youth, as an ornament to road-sides and village