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How to Know the Trees in Winter: November: Willow-Oak

We're not likely to have any trouble with the Willow-Oak, for not only do its leaves strongly suggest the Willow, but its shape, poise, and general appearance is that of the Willow, and it loves low, wet places. A LITTLE PORTRAIT-GALLERY OF THE TREES St. Pierre, a distinguished French botanist, with the true artistic instinct of his nation, made a very happy little picture group, illustrating the characteristic shapes of trees, when he said:

Sometimes trees ascend vertically and, having arrived at a certain height, fork off in various tiers and send out their branches horizontally, like an Apple Tree; or incline them toward the earth, like a Fir; or hollow them in the form of a cup, like the Sassafras; or round them into the shape of a mushroom, like the Pine; or straighten them into a pyramid, like the Poplar; or roll them as wool upon the distaff, like the Cypress; or suffer them to float at the discretion of the winds, like the Birch. HOW TO KNOW THE TREES IN WINTER It was Coleridge who called the Birch "The Lady of The Woods." Another and more comprehensive portrait-gallery of trees, which will be particularly valuable for winter use, has been made by Joseph Illick, of the Department of Forests and Waters, of Pennsylvania, and is given in his book Tree Habits.

Trees with Spines and Thorns: Locust, Hawthorn, Wild Plum, Crab. With Stout Branches: Ash, Walnut, Hickory, Horse-Chestnut, Buckeye, Catalpa, Walnut, Kentucky Coffee Tree.

With Pendant Branches: Weeping Willow, Elm, Birch, Mulberry, Beech. With Erect Crowns: Black, Lombardy, and Carolina Poplars. With Broad-Spreading Crowns: Live, White, and Valley Oaks, Elm, Sycamore. All these are identification marks that lie on the surface, as it were, and by which they can often be known, like the driving of Jehu, at a great distance; but there are other marks that are known only to the initiated. SOME FAMILY SECRETS OF WINTER TREES One of the most interesting and useful things such careful students of the lives and manners of the trees as Mr. Illick (in his Tree Habits) and Harriet Keeler (in her Native Trees) have done for us is to show, by word and picture, certain "birthmarks" on these princes of the woods by which they may be known in winter; marks we would never have thought to look for -- such as the scars left by the fallen leaves and the form of the pith and -- buds! Who'd think of asking Little Bud to tell us his family name? Indeed who, unless he was in the secret, would think of looking for buds at all in winter? But the truth is the trees, before they close down for the long winter sleep, get their buds all ready so as to be up and dressed, bright and early, the following spring. These buds, on the different kinds of trees, are characteristically large or small, slender or "heavy-set," flat, oval, pointed, or rounded, smooth, downy, sticky, or rough, covered with scales or naked; and colored from pale yellow to inky black, like Mr. Hamlet's cloak. And so with Mr. Illick's leaf scars and pith forms. If I were you I'd not only copy in the tree book, in which you make your notes and pictures of things seen on your woodland hikes, the "birthmarks" which we have here reproduced from these and other books, (Notably the beautifully illustrated and extremely convenient pocket manual Forest Trees of the District of Columbia, just issued by The American Forestry Association.) but I'd collect twigs with buds and leaf scars and make additional illustrations of my own. Nothing talks like a picture -- so straight out and plain! It will be time enough, later on, to talk about "ovate" and "obtuse," "imbricated," and so forth. II. AN A B C AND GEOGRAPHY OF TREES Following is a list, arranged alphabetically for convenient reference, giving certain identification marks of various trees that may be noted in winter, but it will, I hope, prove equally useful at all seasons; particularly at planting-time when you'll want to remember on what kind of soil or land forms -- as hillsides or lowlands -- different trees grow best. Notice that the trees, like certain other faithful friends whose joyful companionship contributes so much to the pleasure of a day in the woods, have their characteristic barks. In the case of the trees these barks differ not only in color but in texture and surface finish, as illustrated by the deeply wrinkled coat of the Sassafras, the smooth Birch and Locust, the loose and friable White Oak and Elm. And trees even have their characteristic ways of taking off these coats -- or "getting rid of their barks," as we might say, to keep up our little joke on Friend Dog; stripping them off lengthwise, as in the Shellbark Hickory, the Bald Cypress, and the Red Cedar; peeling them off sidewise, as do the Birches; or, thirdly -- for three definite classifications are made in this respect -- taking them off "any old way," as the Sycamore does.

Ash: Tapering trunk, broad crown. Prefers rich, moist soil. Thrives in swamps. White Ash seventy to one hundred feet high. Diamond-shaped furrows in gray or grayish-brown bark.

Aspen. (See Poplar.) Beech: Widely distributed on uplands and mountain slopes, bottom-lands and stream borders. Height, seventy to eighty feet. In the forest grows tall and slender with narrow head; in the open, shorter and stockier with round-topped head of slender, slightly drooping branches. Has many short, lateral branchelets. Bark, smooth and ashy gray.