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Trees, Shown to the Children

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<h2>PLATE XXXI THE HORSE CHESTNUT</h2> The Horse Chestnut is not related in any way to the Sweet Chestnut; there is no resemblance between them except the appearance of their nuts, and even in these there are many points of difference. It is said that the name Horse Chestnut was given because the nuts of this tree were only fit for horses to eat, whereas the Sweet Chestnuts are valuable as a food for human beings. Even horses will not eat the nuts of the Horse Chestnut tree. You must not forget that if the Chestnut is spoken of without an adjective, it is the sweet Spanish Chestnut that has the right to the name, and is by far the more valuable tree. <hr class="tb" /> Plate XXXI <ANTIMG src="images/i_199.jpg" alt="" /> THE HORSE CHESTNUT 1. Horse Chestnut Tree in Autumn2. Young Leaf3. Full-grown Leaf 4. Sticky Bud in Leaf Scar5. Flower Spike6. Single Flower7. Fruit in Case <hr class="tb" /> The Horse Chestnut (1) was brought to this country five hundred years ago, and we prize it greatly for its beautiful flowers and leaves. It has a large, stout trunk, covered with a rough, scaly bark, on which you will frequently notice many green patches caused by a tiny plant which makes its home there. The branches are large and spreading, and they sweep downwards to the ground, then rise again towards the tips, forming graceful curves. The shoots bearing the buds always point towards the sky, and in spring these shoots grow very fast for about a month, then they do not become any larger, but the shoot thickens and is soon tough and woody. All winter the Horse Chestnut buds can be seen on the tree—large, dark, purply brown buds (4) covered with a thick coating of sticky gum. In April these buds begin to swell and the gummy covering melts. It held together twelve dark brown scales, and these fall to the ground, showing an under layer of paler scales. The growing bud inside soon pushes itself through these scales, and the young leaf appears, a delicate, pale green bud, with its leaves closely folded like a fan. They open very quickly in the warm sunshine, but for some days after they have shaken themselves loose from the scaly coverings each leaf (2) hangs on its stalk like a half-opened parasol, with all its tips pointing to the ground. But soon the leaf tips rise, and the parasol is fully opened and a beautiful leafy screen it is. The leaf (3) is cut up into seven leaflets, and every leaflet is shaped like a pear, with the broad part pointing outwards and the narrow end joining the leaf stalk. These pear-shaped leaflets are not all the same size; there are two which are quite small and two a little larger, and the other three are larger still. The leaflets have small teeth round their edges, and there is a raised rib running up the centre, from which branches a network of fine veins all over the leaflet. The Horse Chestnut leaves grow opposite each other in pairs, and each pair is placed cross-ways to the pair farther down on the branch, in the same way as those of the Sycamore. In July the leaves begin to change colour; they turn red and brown, and they fall very early in autumn. Look closely at the twigs and you will see on them many curious marks shaped like horse-shoes; these are the scars (4) where a leaf stalk joined the twig, and above each of these scars you can see next year’s leaf bud already distinctly formed. In May the Horse Chestnut is in flower (5), and a wonderful sight it is; the tree is laden with snowy spikes, which look like great candles set on a bushy Christmas tree. A giant’s nosegay, it is sometimes called by the country people, this great tree, with its wealth of fan-shaped leaves and these stiff snow-white spikes rising from every branch. The lowest flowers (6) in each spike open first, and they are called by botanists perfect flowers, because each one has all its parts complete. They have a green bell-shaped calyx with five divisions round the mouth. Within this calyx are five separate white petals, one of which is much larger than the others, and these petals have many hairs on them and are splashed with crimson and yellow stains. In the throat of this flower there are seven stamens with curved stalks and pale salmon-coloured heads, and among these you can see a slender curved green thread rising from the seed-vessel, which lies hidden in the centre of the flower. The upper flowers on the spike have no seed-vessel, and they fall off as soon as their stamen dust is scattered. The spike may bear thirty or forty flowers, yet only a few will remain to produce seeds after the beautiful petals are withered. When this has happened the seed-vessel grows larger and larger till it becomes a rough, horny green ball (7) studded with short spines. It is not bristly all over like the Sweet Chestnut fruit ball, but is hard and smooth, and its spines are thick and clumsy, with a wide space between each. If you open one of these balls before the fruit is ripe, you will find a nut inside, which is white and polished like a piece of ivory and which fits the covering closely. But if you leave the fruit to ripen on the tree, then the green ball splits into three pieces, and you see that the nut (7) inside has shrunk a little and has become a rich, dark brown. It is so glossy that it looks as if it had just been oiled, and it is almost round. There is a white scar at the foot of the nut, where it was fastened to the inside of the green ball. In the Sweet Chestnut, you remember, there were always two or three nuts inside each bristly ball, and these nuts were dull, and not glossy like those of the Horse Chestnut. Although horses will not eat this fruit, deer and cattle and sheep all like it. In this country the nuts are usually left to rot on the ground where they fall. After they decay these nuts may be pounded and made into a kind of soap; they contain a juice which is said to be good for cleansing. The Horse Chestnut is a very fast-growing tree. In fourteen years a tree grown from a nut will be large enough to sit under, and the wood, on this account, is less hard and lasting than woods that have taken longer to grow. It is used for cabinet-making and for flooring. <hr class="tb" /> Plate XXXII <ANTIMG src="images/i_205.jpg" alt="" /> THE CEDAR 1. Cedar Tree2. Leaf Spray3. Stamen Flower 4. Seed Flower5. Closed Cone and Open Cone <hr class="tb" /> The tree does not produce any fruit till it is twenty years old, but after that it will bear nuts yearly till it is two hundred. There is a variety of Horse Chestnut with pink flowers, which has not been so long known as the white-flowered tree. <hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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