Trees of the Northern United States Part 5

PART II.

PLAN AND MODELS FOR TREE DESCRIPTION

All pupils should be required to write some form of composition on the trees of the region. As far as possible, these compositions should be the result of personal investigation. It is not what a pupil can read and redescribe in more or less his own words, but how accurately he can see and, from the information conveyed by his own senses, describe in his own way the things he has observed, that makes the use of such a book as this important as an educational aid. Some information in regard to trees, in a finished description, must be obtained from books, such as hardiness, geographical distribution, etc. Pupils generally should be required to include only those things which they can give from actual observation.

There are four distinct forms of tree descriptions that might be recognized by the teacher and occasionally called for as work from the pupil. 1st. A bare skeleton description, written by aid of a topical outline, from the observation of a single tree and its parts. 2d. A connected description, conveying as many facts given in the outline as can well be brought into good English sentences. This again is the description of a single tree. 3d. A connected, readable description of a certain kind of tree, made up from the observation of many trees of the same species to be found in the neighborhood. 4th. The third description including information to be obtained from outside sources in regard to the origin, geographical distribution, hardiness, character of wood, habits, durability, etc. These four plans of description are more or less successive methods to be introduced as the work of a cla.s.s. Pupils should be induced to carry on their own investigations as far as possible before going to printed sources for information. A good part of cla.s.s work should be devoted to the first three of the methods given, but the work might finally include the fourth form of composition. The first two methods should follow each other with each of the trees studied; that is, one week let a mere outline be written, to be followed the next week with as clear and connected a description as the ability of the pupil will allow, and containing as much of the information given in the outline as possible.

OUTLINE FOR TREE DESCRIPTION.

_The tree as a whole_: size, general form, trunk, branching, twigs, character of bark, color of bark on trunk, branches, and fine spray.

_Leaves_: parts, arrangement, kinds, size, thickness, form, edges, veining, color, surface, duration.

_Buds_: position, size, form, covering, number, color.

_Sap_ and _juice_.

_Flowers_: size, shape, color, parts, odor, position, time of blooming, duration.

_Fruit_: size, kind, form, color when young and when ripe, time of ripening, substance, seeds, duration, usefulness.

_Wood_ (often necessarily omitted): hardness, weight, color, grain, markings, durability.

_Remarks_: the peculiarities not brought out by the above outline.

NOTES ON THE FOREGOING OUTLINE.

The height of a tree can be readily determined by the following plan.

Measure the height you can easily reach from the ground in feet and inches. Step to the trunk of the tree you wish to measure and, reaching up to this height, pin a piece of white paper on the tree. Step back a distance equal to three or four times the height of the tree; hold a lead-pencil upright between the thumb and forefinger at arm's-length.

Fix it so that the end of the pencil shall be in line with the paper on the trunk; move the thumb down the pencil till it is in line with the ground at the base of the tree; move the arm and pencil upward till the thumb is in line with the paper, and note where the end of the pencil comes on the tree. Again move the pencil till the thumb is in line with the new position, and so continue the process till the top of the tree is reached. The number of the measures multiplied by the height you can reach will give quite accurately the height of the tree.

The width of the tree can be determined in the same manner, the pencil, however, being held horizontally.

In giving the forms of trees, it is well to accompany the description with a penciled outline.

The distance from the ground at which the trunk begins to branch and the extent of the branching should be noted. The direction taken by the branches, as well as the regularity and the irregularity of their position, should also be observed and described.

Although most twigs are cylindrical, still there are enough exceptions to make it necessary to examine them with reference to their form.

Under leaves, it will be well to make drawings, both of the outline and of the veining.

Crushed leaves will give the odor, and the sap can best be noticed at the bases of young leaves. The differences in sap and juice need the following words for their description: _watery_, _milky_, _mucilaginous_, _aromatic_, _spicy_, _sweet_, _gummy_, _resinous_.

Pupils should not always be expected to find out much about the flowers of a tree, as they are frequently very evanescent, and usually difficult to reach.

The fruit lasts a greater length of time and, usually dropping spontaneously, gives a much better chance for investigation.

Specimens of most of the common woods may be obtained from cabinet-makers and carpenters. In cases where these specimens are at hand, description of the wood should be required. If the school has such specimens as are described in Chapter VI., Part I., the wood in all its peculiarities can be described.

EXAMPLES OF TREE DESCRIPTION.

_Taxodium distichum (Bald Cypress)._

_(Atterbury's Meadow.)_

_No. 1._

Tree eighty-four feet tall, thirty feet wide near base, ovate, conical, pointed; trunk seven feet in circ.u.mference near base and ridged lengthwise, but only four feet at the height of six feet from the ground, where it becomes round or nearly so, then gradually tapering to the top; branches small, very numerous, beginning six feet from the ground, sloping upward from the trunk at an angle of nearly forty-five degrees; twigs very slender, numerous, pendulous, two, three or even more growing together from supernumerary buds around the old scars; bark brownish, quite rough, thick and soft on the trunk, smoother on the branches, greenish on the young spray.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Leaves about sessile, without stipules, alternate, crowded, two-ranked, thin, linear, entire, parallel-veined, with midrib, dark green, smooth, deciduous.

Buds show in the axils of only a few of the leaves, and are very small; but there are several supernumerary buds around many of the cl.u.s.ters of the shoots of the year.

Sap clear and slightly sticky with resin.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Flowers looked for, but not seen; must have been small, or have bloomed before my examination in the spring.

Fruit one inch in diameter, cone globular, brown in the autumn; did not notice it before; fifteen six-sided scales, two seeds under each, still hanging on, though the leaves have dropped; only to produce seeds, I think.

The wood I do not know about.

_Remarks._ Around the base, at some distance from the trunk, there are four peculiar k.n.o.bs, seemingly coming from the roots, one being nearly a foot high and nine inches through.

_No. 2._

The Bald Cypress standing near a small ditch in Atterbury's meadow is a very beautiful, tall, conical tree, over 80 feet high, with an excurrent trunk which is very large and ridged near the ground. It tapers rapidly upward, so that the circ.u.mference is only about half as great at the height of 6 feet, where the branches begin. The branches are very numerous and, considering the size of the trunk, very small; the largest of them being only about 2 inches through. They all slope upward rapidly, but the tip and fine spray show a tendency to droop; the fine thread-like branchlets, bearing the leaves of the year, are almost all pendulous.

The bark is very rough, thick and soft, as I found in pinning on the bit of paper to measure the height of the tree, when I could easily press the pin in to its head.

The leaves are very small and delicate, and as they extend out in two ranks from the thread-like twigs, look much like fine ferns. The small linear leaves and the spray drop off together in the autumn, as I can find much of last year's foliage on the ground still fastened to the twigs. I could not see any flowers, though I looked from early in the spring till the middle of the summer; then I saw a few of the globular green cones, almost an inch in diameter, showing that it had bloomed.

Next spring I shall begin to look for the blossoms before the leaves come out.

On the ground, about 6 feet from the tree, there are four very strange k.n.o.bs which I did not notice till I stumbled over one of them. They seem to grow from the roots, and are quite soft and reddish in color.

_No. 3._

I have found twenty-two Bald Cypresses in Trenton; they are all beautiful conical trees, and seem to grow well in almost any soil, as I have found some in very wet places and some in dry, sandy soil. They look from their position as though they had been planted out, and as I have found none in the woods around the town, they are probably not native in this region. They are from 50 to nearly 100 feet tall. I found one 96 feet high. They are all of a very symmetrical, conical form, and pointed at the top; in no case has the trunk divided into branches, and on the old trees the trunk enlarges curiously near the ground, the lower portion being very rough with ridges. The bark is very thick and rough, and is so soft that a pin can readily be pushed through it to the wood.