Home › How to Know the Trees in Winter: November › How to Know the Trees in Winter: November: Aspens

How to Know the Trees in Winter: November: Aspens

Mountain Magnolia: In the forest rises to ninety feet, with sturdy, branchless trunk for two-thirds of its height. In the open becomes a cone with branches that sweep the ground. It loves the mountainside, where the soil is moist and fertile, the banks of streams, and the sides of narrow valleys. Pecan. (See Hickory.) Poplars: Aspens, Cottonwoods, and Poplars are all Poplars -- have the same Latin surname, "Populus." They're great people for standing out where they can look around and see what's going on in the world; so, although they're trees themselves, they don't like forests and don't gather in crowds much, even among themselves. They're to be found chiefly on forest borders and in open fields; in both cases near water, if there's any handy, thank you! They usually have a lot of youngsters around their feet -- sprouts from the roots. As a rule the bark is ashy gray to white. It furrows deeply with age, but on young trees, particularly the Aspens, it is almost smooth. In winter the ground is apt to be well covered with their broken branches, for their brittle wood simply can't stand the strain of high winds and the weight of snow and ice. There are twenty-seven kinds of Aspens, Poplars, and Cottonwoods in the world. Of these the most widely distributed in this country are the Trembling and Large-Toothed Aspens, the Balsam, the White, Black, and Lombardy Poplars, and the Cottonwood.

All artists and all lovers of beautiful landscapes and their pictures know how the branches of the Lombardy Poplar hug the trunk, "like wool upon the distaff," as St. Pierre said of the Cypress; a feature which sharply distinguishes it from all the other members of its family. Sassafras: May be almost a shrub or may grow to thirty, fifty, sometimes one hundred, feet. Seems to be about as undecided about its size as it is about the shape of its leaves, doesn't it? When a large tree it has a stout trunk and a flat crown. The bark? Taste it! If you've never had the pleasure of taking Sassafras tea for what ailed you, this will make it up to you! Sour-Gum: Rises fifty to one hundred feet along swamps and streams and in wet lowlands. Very straight, with long, slightly drooping branches. Long, narrow, cone-like head. Likes company and rarely flourishes in exposed positions. Bark, light, reddish brown, deeply furrowed, and scaly. Sweet-Gum: If you don't happen to remember the tree with the star-shaped leaf -- the one that looked as if it belonged to some kind of a Maple -- look now, in the leafless season, for a tree with cork wings on its twigs, and it may be the tree you want -- the Sweet-Gum. And maybe not! For the twigs of the Burr-Oak, the Cork-Elm, and some others also have cork wings. But if, besides, it has seed-balls on long stems that, at a distance, suggest the Sycamore, it's a Sweet-Gum, sure enough! And, like those of the Sycamore, these seed-balls hang all winter.

Sounds like one of those puzzle things where "my first is in this but not in that, my second is in that but not in t'other," doesn't it? But it's that way with lots of trees; and that's the fun of it!

Sycamore: Along streams and bottom-lands, seventy to one hundred feet high. Often divides near the ground into several secondary trunks free from branches; spreading limbs near the top make an irregular, open head. As it grows, the bark falls off in plates, leaving a surface that will remind you, if you're in a poetic mood, of the mottled water of a sea-beach after the breaking of a wave. (And you won't forget the little, round seed-balls that give the Sycamore one of its other names, "Buttonwood.") Tulip Tree: This is the tree with that curious, cropped-off leaf, but the tree itself is most noble in bearing and stature; thinks nothing of 70 to 100 feet, and has been known to grow to 190, with a trunk 10 feet in diameter. Prefers deep, rich, and rather moist soil. It isn't what you'd call a solitary tree, and yet the Tulips don't gather around in crowds. Bark, brown and furrowed. Walnut: It's rather a waste of space to tell a boy what a Walnut Tree looks like. The Black Walnut, besides giving us those delicious and not-too-easy-to-get-at kernels for the winter fireside, is one of the most imposing of the forest nobility; indeed, a very prince among all trees that are "good for food or pleasant to the eye." It reaches a height of one hundred feet, with a trunk four to six feet across, in the rich bottom-lands and on the fertile hillsides where it loves to dwell. In its broad-spreading crown and the bold way in which its limbs strike out, it suggests old King Oak. The White Walnut, better known as the Butternut, inhabits the same kind of soil and grows fifty to seventy feet high, with broad-spreading, horizontal branches, forming a low, symmetrical head. The bark is of a lighter gray than that of the Black Walnut and the ridges are much broader.