Familiar trees / With coloured plates by W.H.J. Boot.

  • Boulger, G. S. (George Simonds), 1853-1922.
Date:
[1887-1888]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Familiar trees / With coloured plates by W.H.J. Boot. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Africa, and North America, and along the Andes into Chili; hut our one British representative of the group is confined to the Old World. Its distinctive feature is its leaves, which are roundish, with a wedge-shaped base, a wavy and slightly-toothed margin, and a short stalk, whilst they are hairy and glutinous when young—whence the specific name, A. glutinosa—and glossily dark olive green on both surfaces later on. Though it may grow to a tree of considerable size, even reaching a height of seventy feet, and more than nine feet in girth, it does not usually exceed thirty or forty feet in height, or six feet in circumference, and is so commonly treated as coppice that it is most familiar to us in rounded clumps of a bushy habit, with several stems, none of which exceed half that size. Then it is that what beauty it possesses is revealed, as it grows, either with Willows or isolated, on the banks of streams in our midland or northern counties. Gilpin indeed speaks of it as growing in perfection on the banks of the Wole; but there are far finer specimens by many more northern streams. ce He who would see the Alder in perfection,” he writes, “ must follow the banks of the Mole, in Surrey, through the sweet vales of Dorking and Mickleham, into the groves of Esher. The Mole, indeed, is far from being a beautiful river : it is a quiet and sluggish stream ; but what beauty it has it owes greatly to the Alder, which everywhere fringes its meadows, and in many places forms very pleasing scenes, especially in the vale between Box Hill and the high grounds of Norbury Park. In such situations our attention has often been called to the beauty of its rich masses of foliage as they overhang the golden beds of marsh-marigolds, or, later in the year, the