LESSON XXIX.
A WALK AMONG WONDER TREES.
“The groves of Eden, vanished now so long,Live in description and look green in song.These, were my breast inspired with equal flame,Like them in beauty, should be like in fame.”
“The groves of Eden, vanished now so long,Live in description and look green in song.These, were my breast inspired with equal flame,Like them in beauty, should be like in fame.”
“The groves of Eden, vanished now so long,Live in description and look green in song.These, were my breast inspired with equal flame,Like them in beauty, should be like in fame.”
“The groves of Eden, vanished now so long,
Live in description and look green in song.
These, were my breast inspired with equal flame,
Like them in beauty, should be like in fame.”
—Pope.
We know that vegetable life has accompanied and probably preceded all animal life. The long successions of animal existences have been attended in their march through time by an equally long succession of plants. All those ancient and wonderful living creatures which we have noted have been and are now matched by equally wonderful vegetable organisms.
BEFORE BLOSSOMS.
BEFORE BLOSSOMS.
A few of the wonderful plants of the world we now propose to set as in a garden, and walk forth among them in fancy, and note their marvels. Come then, let us take a walk among wonder trees.
Who is there that enjoys the strange, the unique, the rare, the grand in nature? Let him come and walk slowly through this wonder grove with us, and his passion for the strange and the unexpected may be satisfied.
Our first wonder tree is notable only for its great age and vast size. It is the Cowthorpe oak of Yorkshire, England. John Evelyn, the pleasing writer and true gentleman of Charles Second’s time, celebrates this oak in his book called “Sylva.”
This noble tree is fully fifteen hundred years old.Not the oldest tree in the world then, for some of the olives in Gethsemane, near Jerusalem, are supposed to be older than that by several hundred years. The girth of the Cowthorpe oak at the ground is seventy-eight feet. Forty persons can stand inside its hollow hole. One of its main branches broke off in a gale, and being cut up, yielded five tons of timber. In Evelyn’s time the branches shaded half an acre of ground. The circumference of this tree is greater than that of the Eddystone light-house. That famous light-house was modelled after an oak tree, as giving the best pattern of a well-rooted, firmly resisting column.
This Cowthorpe oak is not the largest tree in the world. There is a tree in South America with a girth of one hundred and twelve feet, and a California red-wood is known that measures one hundred feet around just above the ground. The red-woods belong to an ancient order of vegetation, and doubtless it could be said of the trees of the Carboniferous, and next two or three world-building periods, “There were giants in the earth in those days.”
Australia is a land of wonders, animal and vegetable, and one of its curiosities stands next in our grove—the bottle tree. The name is given because of the shape of the tree, which resembles a gigantic bottle. This tree is sixty feet high; the bark is brown, smooth, shining, like thick glass. The girth of the tree is greatest just above the root, where it is forty feet in circumference; it tapers very little until about forty feet above the ground, where it narrows suddenly into a shape like the neck of a bottle; and in this neck the branches have their base. The branches are rather the long,pliant stems of compound leaves than real branches; and the slender, numerous, small leaves give a light, feathery effect to the foliage. This leafy crown forms the fantastic cork, or stopper, of this quaint bottle. The leaf-stalks rise and then bend over in a dome, or umbrella shape. The bottle trees grow in groves of about thirty each, and stand a hundred feet apart, as regularly as if planted by the hand of a gardener.
Be careful and do not tread on our next tree, the very pigmy of trees; perfect in root, trunk, branches, leaves, flowers, fruit,—a dwarf cherry tree from Japan. Are the trees of Japan then even more diminutive than the little, olive-skinned, and almond-eyed people? How did the skilful Japanese gardeners succeed in making this tiny tree? For it is dwarfed not by nature, but by the art of man.
I once saw one of these dwarfed cherry trees. It was a foot high and had a trunk about as thick as a lead pencil. The leaves were as small as those of the clipped box plants which bordered the flower-beds in my grandmother’s garden. There were perhaps twenty or thirty small, red cherries upon it; but the cherries were large in proportion to the tree. This is a curiosity merely, and artificial; we admit it for the sake of contrast, and pass it by for a mighty tree that stands next,—bo, the “god tree” from Ceylon.
The bo tree is famous for its long life and the reverence paid to it by its Ceylonese worshippers. Perhaps it was the vigor and stately beauty of the bo tree which suggested to the Ceylonese that it was either divine, or the especial dwelling-place of a divinity. Alone the bo tree stood, and for twothousand years had been the idol of tree-worshippers. In 1887 a tremendous storm swept the island of Ceylon and prostrated the ancient idol tree. The fragments were gathered by the people and cremated with all the pomp awarded to dead kings.
The next specimen in our wonder grove comes from Africa, the famous and beneficent rain tree. This is a tall and beautiful tree, with widely spreading branches, gifted with the astonishing power of extracting water out of apparently the driest soil and atmosphere. While the earth seems absolutely parched, and the air is like the breath of a furnace, the blessed rain tree draws from somewhere abundant moisture, which it distills in a heavy shower from its leaves, saturating all the earth beneath.
What could be more grateful to a hot and thirsty traveller than this tree, bringing moisture from the very air of the burning desert?
Closely allied to the African rain tree is our next tree, brought to our grove from Ferro, the smallest island of the Canary group. This island is so dry that scarcely a rivulet or spring is found there, but on its rocks grows a tree with narrow leaves that are green all the year. A constant dewy cloud surrounds this tree, and is condensed, dripping from the leaf points like the swift patter of a summer shower. Under the branches the natives place cisterns and great jars, which are kept always full by the copious supply provided by these trees.[61]
Coming from the South Sea Islands, where there are so many marvels, see next in our wonder grove the bread tree. The tree is of moderate height, with large glossy leaves. The fruit is of about the size of a Hubbard squash, and tastes like bread that has a little sugar in it. It is eaten raw, and is also cooked in various ways. The natives usually roast it in the ashes, as the negroes of the South roast yams. The bread fruit forms the most important food staple of the South Sea Islands, but is not so nourishing as the yam, wheat, or corn; children fed entirely upon it lose flesh and strength. The bread tree never finds an “off year” in bearing, nor a dull season; it is laden with good fruit every year and all the year. From the timber the natives can build their boats, and they make cloth from the bark. So with a rain tree, a milk tree, and a bread-fruit tree one could do very well for food, drink, shelter, and clothing.
As we have here in our wonder grove a bread tree, it is proper to put a milk tree close by its side. Water, bread, milk, these three trees of our collection afford all that is needful to support life. But the milk-producer, the cow tree, is not a native of Africa; it grows in South America, on the dry plains of Venezuela, where food and drink are alike hard to obtain. Blessed then be the shadow of this admirable tree, the hope of the perishing. The cow tree rises to a noble height. Its straight smooth trunk lifts into the air seventy or eighty feet before a branch springs from it. Then the wide arms extend in fair proportions on every side, until the topmost twig is more than a hundred feet from the ground. Tap the trunk anywhere, and an abundant sap,having the appearance and taste of rich new milk or cream, flows to revive the thirsty. The sap of our sugar maple runs freely only in early spring, the sap of the cow tree is always ready.
What more appropriate than to place the butter tree beside the milk tree? So we have placed it in our wonder grove, but nature planted it elsewhere, for the butter tree grows in Africa. The butter of this tree does not flow spontaneously. If people want butter it seems they must take the trouble to make it, even if it comes from a tree. The butter tree produces a fruit with a very rich kernel. When this kernel is ground, the oil exudes and hardens into a fine quality of butter, which will keep sweet for a year. David Livingstone, the celebrated missionary traveller, made known to the world the virtues of the butter tree.
Next let us have a tree that produces a fashion of confectionery. The manna tree grows in Calabria and Sicily. In August the tree is tapped, and the sap slowly exudes, hardening under the hot southern sun to the consistency of fig paste. The flavor of the manna while sweet is sickish to those unaccustomed to it. A taste for it seems to come by habit. The product of the manna tree is by no means so rich and useful as that of our beautiful sugar maple, but the sap of the maple must be prepared for use by boiling.
Next to the confectionery tree let us place in our grove a medicine tree. Who has not seen camphor, the clear white aromatic gum, so useful in medicine and in the arts? This is the product of the camphor tree of Japan. In Borneo, China, and the Malay Peninsula, the camphor treeshave the gum formed in the trunk in large lumps. The camphor of other countries is obtained by boiling the wood of the camphor trees, and then crystallizing the camphor so obtained.
FOOTNOTES:[61]This tree, called by the natives the Til-tree, has almost entirely disappeared.
[61]This tree, called by the natives the Til-tree, has almost entirely disappeared.
[61]This tree, called by the natives the Til-tree, has almost entirely disappeared.