Speaker 1: Preface of tin Common Trees. This is a LibriVox recording.
Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
Speaker 1: by Larry Wilson. Ten Common Trees by Susan Stokes preface.
Speaker 1: Most of us have a general idea of what trees are,
Speaker 1: but few have real acquaintance with them. It is hoped
Speaker 1: that the following pages will lead to a number of
Speaker 1: simple nature lessons on trees and result in more definite
Speaker 1: impressions of what they are and how they live. Leaves
Speaker 1: and fruits are best adapted for these lessons. The flowers
Speaker 1: are often too complex. The teachers should provide leafy twigs
Speaker 1: and the fruits and can easily obtain from the children's
Speaker 1: simple descriptions of them. A description of the leaf should
Speaker 1: include its position, the arrangement, opposite or alternate size, shape, color,
Speaker 1: time of appearance, and use. The fruits may be treated
Speaker 1: in a similar way. The descriptions should be accompanied by
Speaker 1: a simple drawing of leaf or fruit. This makes vivid
Speaker 1: the impression upon the child's mind and gives to the
Speaker 1: lesson an invaluable touch of reality. The substance of the
Speaker 1: material in this book first appeared in a series of
Speaker 1: articles in primary education. The drawings were made by mister E. H. Estmond.
Speaker 2: End of preface, Chapter one of Ten Common Trees. This
Speaker 2: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
Speaker 2: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
Speaker 2: LibriVox dot org. Recording by John van stan Savannah, Georgia.
Speaker 2: Ten Common Trees by Susan Stokes. Chapter one, Black Willow.
Speaker 2: It was one cold morning in Mark. Black Willow looked
Speaker 2: down on her cousin Pussy, who grew in the shade
Speaker 2: of her branches, and said, Pussy, Pussy, what have you done.
Speaker 2: You have taken the scales from your winter buds. This
Speaker 2: wind is as cold as can be now. Pussy was
Speaker 2: just a shrub, not nearly so old as the big
Speaker 2: tree by her side. She had a dozen or more
Speaker 2: branches coming from near the ground altogether, while the big
Speaker 2: tree had one big trunk about two feet around. But
Speaker 2: she did not feel cold, so she said, I am
Speaker 2: not cold. Just see the gray wool with which my
Speaker 2: buds are covered. That will protect my flowers from the cold.
Speaker 2: And as for my leaves, they will not be out
Speaker 2: for some time to come. Black Willow saw that the
Speaker 2: shrubby willow was covered with short, furry stems, like the
Speaker 2: tip of a kitten's tail, but that no leaves were
Speaker 2: to be seen. This was strange, for black Willow was
Speaker 2: not accustomed to show her catkins until the leaves were
Speaker 2: also ready. Not until then did she drop the single
Speaker 2: brown hood from her winter buds. It is better to
Speaker 2: wait until later, said she. My flowers get all the
Speaker 2: sunshine this way was Pussy's reply, And my seed children
Speaker 2: have a nice start before fall. In spite of what
Speaker 2: Pussy had said, Black Willow found April a better time
Speaker 2: to begin. She had always waited for the south wind
Speaker 2: to come. Then showers of rain fall, warm and welcome.
Speaker 2: Plants lift up their heads, rejoicing back onto their lakes
Speaker 2: and marshes. Come the wild goose and the heron homeward
Speaker 2: shoots the arrow. We swallow sings, the blue bird and
Speaker 2: the robin. All the meadows wave with blossoms, all the
Speaker 2: woodlands ring with music, All the trees are dark with foliage.
Speaker 2: If Pussy were right, then the pussy willows ought to live,
Speaker 2: to be as old as the black willows do, but
Speaker 2: there are very few of them that are strong enough
Speaker 2: to develop even into small trees. Black willows live a
Speaker 2: long time. They grow tall and have long, drooping branches
Speaker 2: high above the heads of the pussy willows. So black
Speaker 2: willow drew a quantity of water up into her trunk
Speaker 2: and twigs. Her roots went down under the stream, which
Speaker 2: was filled with melting snows. One day, when the sun
Speaker 2: was warm, the flat brown hoods covering her buds slipped off,
Speaker 2: and some scaly catkins pushed out. They were covered with
Speaker 2: tiny green scales, fitting over one another like the shingles
Speaker 2: on a roof. There were some small leaves below. The
Speaker 2: twigs were not red as pussies had been, and the
Speaker 2: catkins were scarcely furry at all. When these were a
Speaker 2: little older, the scales pulled apart, and a sweet odor
Speaker 2: was carried by the breeze all around. The bees came
Speaker 2: looking everywhere for the honey, And where do you think
Speaker 2: they found it? Under the green scales. They had just
Speaker 2: been across the stream to another willow and looked exactly
Speaker 2: like our tree, but for its flowers. The catkins on
Speaker 2: that tree were bright yellow, and numbers of little yellow
Speaker 2: balls stood out from under its scales. Those balls had
Speaker 2: been covered with a bright gold colored dust called pollen.
Speaker 2: The bees had put a little of the pollen into
Speaker 2: some baskets on their hind legs. Then they sipped the
Speaker 2: honey at the base of the scale and started off
Speaker 2: to find some more. They traced the sweet odor to
Speaker 2: our black willow on the other side of the stream,
Speaker 2: and found the honey under the scales of the catkins,
Speaker 2: But they did not find any of the golden dust,
Speaker 2: which they liked to carry home to feed to the
Speaker 2: bee babies. Instead of the stamens with their yellow anthers,
Speaker 2: they found a tiny green bottle with a sticky summit,
Speaker 2: which is called a stigma. They crawled all over the catkin,
Speaker 2: their dusty legs brushed against the sticky stigma, and some
Speaker 2: of the golden dusk stuck fast. But that was right
Speaker 2: for the tree on the other side had sent the
Speaker 2: pollen to our tree and had paid the bee with
Speaker 2: honey for carrying it. Would you like to know what
Speaker 2: black willow does with this gold dust. It uses it
Speaker 2: to help make seed. Down in the bottom of each
Speaker 2: green bottle or the pistol, there are some very young
Speaker 2: seeds waiting to grow, and after they get the pollen
Speaker 2: they do grow. On the inside of each seed is
Speaker 2: a willow baby. It is a very tiny baby, but
Speaker 2: the mother tree has given it a little jacket with
Speaker 2: a tuft down. There are a great many of these
Speaker 2: babies and jackets in the green pistol, and to hold
Speaker 2: them all. As they grow, it gets bigger and bigger,
Speaker 2: until by and by it bursts and the downy seeds
Speaker 2: pop out. The wind catches them and away they fly.
Speaker 2: Some of the willow babies did not reach the ground.
Speaker 2: They were carried off by a yellow bird that was
Speaker 2: building in the tree across the stream, and were used
Speaker 2: to make a soft and downy lining for the young
Speaker 2: bird's nest. Although pussy willow had bloomed so much earlier
Speaker 2: than black willow, her leaves were not out much sooner.
Speaker 2: Black willow unfolded hers at the same time that the
Speaker 2: catkins were lengthening. The two were alike in great many ways.
Speaker 2: They were of about the same size and shape, with
Speaker 2: very many delicate veins forming a network. They also grew
Speaker 2: in alternate order, that is, there was one on one
Speaker 2: side and then one on the other side of the stem.
Speaker 2: Black willows were longer and narrower than pussy willows, and
Speaker 2: they tapered to both ends. At the base of each leaf,
Speaker 2: just where it joined the stem, were usually two black dots.
Speaker 2: These mark the place from which the stipules fell. The
Speaker 2: stipules look quite different in different parts of the tree.
Speaker 2: On the later shoots that spring from near the ground,
Speaker 2: they are often large and form two leaflike ears on
Speaker 2: either side of the base of the leaf. On the
Speaker 2: later branches, they are often so small that you might
Speaker 2: think they were not there at all. In these cases,
Speaker 2: they are small and hair like and fall early, leaving
Speaker 2: a small scar. Willow leaves are so much alike that
Speaker 2: you must look very closely if you were to tell
Speaker 2: which willow you have. Some of them have smooth edges,
Speaker 2: and some of them have tiny teeth. Black willow has
Speaker 2: the toothed margin, and its undersurface is silvery. There is
Speaker 2: a vein near the margin which runs all the way around.
Speaker 2: The leaves are used to make food. They have a
Speaker 2: heavy coat on the upper side to shed the rain
Speaker 2: and prevent the leaf from drying out when the sun
Speaker 2: shines upon it. This coat is so tough that it
Speaker 2: is necessary to have places where the air can get through.
Speaker 2: The gateways are small openings through the cuticle or wall.
Speaker 2: There is a guard cell on either side, and they
Speaker 2: are found on the underside of the leaf. They are
Speaker 2: so very tiny that we use a powerful lens to
Speaker 2: study them. Through these poores, the air passes in and
Speaker 2: the water, which the tree no longer needs, is thrown off.
Speaker 2: They are called breathing pores. Willows drink a large amount
Speaker 2: of water. For this reason, they live on the banks
Speaker 2: of streams, where their roots help to hold the soil
Speaker 2: when the melting snows fill the stream and threaten to
Speaker 2: wash everything away. They are also frequently found in soils
Speaker 2: which hold a large amount of water. Much of it
Speaker 2: is drawn into the tree and thrown off through the leaves.
Speaker 2: This helps to make new clouds. Black willows are often
Speaker 2: planted in parks along sidewalks, and they grow in all
Speaker 2: parts of the United States. The western form differs slightly
Speaker 2: from the eastern. Both have rough, dark bark, and the
Speaker 2: leaf stem or pettiole is smooth. You must not think
Speaker 2: that the black willow is the only tree willow. The
Speaker 2: white willow is another. It has yellow twigs and silvery
Speaker 2: white or gray leaves. The leaf petioles are somewhat spotted,
Speaker 2: with little bodies called glands. The crack willow is a
Speaker 2: tall tree with very brittle twigs. The young leaves are
Speaker 2: green above and waxy beneath. The poplars and cottonwoods are
Speaker 2: near relatives of the willows. The leaves are much broader
Speaker 2: and the buds better protected. The staminate flowers are less crowded.
Speaker 2: Some day you may compare them with the willow. A
Speaker 2: tiny gall gnat sometimes sting the ends of the twigs
Speaker 2: and stems of willows. This causes them to swell, and
Speaker 2: the buds, instead of growing in the twigs, form leafy cones,
Speaker 2: which might be mistaken for the fruit. The young of
Speaker 2: the gnat develop in these cones. The shoots of many
Speaker 2: willows are grown for basket work. They are planted close,
Speaker 2: and when they have grown tall and slim, they are cut.
Speaker 2: The bark is then stripped off, and the wood is
Speaker 2: used in the making of baskets and chairs. End of
Speaker 2: chapter one. Recording by John vanstan Savannah, Georgia, Chapter two
Speaker 2: of Ten Common Trees. This is a LibriVox recording. All
Speaker 2: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
Speaker 2: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by
Speaker 2: John Vanstan Savannah, Georgia. Ten Common Trees by Susan Stokes,
Speaker 2: Chapter two, The American Elm. Did you ever think what
Speaker 2: a fine old teacher Winter is? You would like to
Speaker 2: be in his school? I know, for he teaches such
Speaker 2: interesting things. There are clouds learning to snow, brooks building roofs,
Speaker 2: partridges coloring their feathers, and bluebirds being sent south. There
Speaker 2: are oaks and elms learning how not to be cold,
Speaker 2: and pines thickening their needles. How does he do it?
Speaker 2: He began with our elm, when it was only a straight,
Speaker 2: slim wand growing in the rich soil of a meadow.
Speaker 2: He came around in the early fall. The elm still
Speaker 2: had its pretty green leaves. He said, listen to me,
Speaker 2: I shall be coming soon. You should cover the ends
Speaker 2: of your twigs. It will soon be too cold for them.
Speaker 2: The little elm heard and stretched the scales around the
Speaker 2: bud so that they covered it all over. Where too
Speaker 2: came together, it put another over the place. You can
Speaker 2: see what they looked like, and the figures on page seventeen.
Speaker 2: Winter came again with a colder snap than before this time,
Speaker 2: he said, you should drop your leaves. It will be
Speaker 2: warmer without them. And again the little elm heard, and
Speaker 2: it dropped its leaves and found it warmer without. When
Speaker 2: winter finally came to stay, he could not get in,
Speaker 2: for the doors were safely barred. So he said, well done.
Speaker 2: That is the way they ought to be. There were
Speaker 2: others that did not so well, and with them he
Speaker 2: was severe. He nipped the ends of their twigs so
Speaker 2: that they did not grow again. That is the way
Speaker 2: trees are made hardy. Only the strongest can live. It
Speaker 2: is really strange that a slender twig, scarcely larger than
Speaker 2: a straw, can keep alive in weather that will freeze
Speaker 2: a foot of ice on the pond. There are very
Speaker 2: many that do not. A large number do not survive
Speaker 2: the first year. All winter long, the little elm was
Speaker 2: just as still as could be. It rested and waited
Speaker 2: until the days grew longer and the nights were not
Speaker 2: very cold. Then the sap began the flow. The twigs
Speaker 2: back of the buds filled up. The warm sun shone,
Speaker 2: and the elm loosened the scales a little. Then the
Speaker 2: leaves came out. They were of a pale gray color,
Speaker 2: folded and plaited, and covered with down. The veins ran
Speaker 2: from the mid drib to the margin very evenly. These
Speaker 2: leaves grew longer and wider. They had a pointed tip
Speaker 2: and a saw toothed edge. The leaf stem or pettiole,
Speaker 2: was quite short, and one half of the oval blade
Speaker 2: was smaller than the other. They were about three inches long.
Speaker 2: The twigs and buds were bare and smooth, and the
Speaker 2: early leaf down was soon shed. The leaves spread out
Speaker 2: on either side of the stem like a feather. In
Speaker 2: this way, the little elm showed that it was a
Speaker 2: white or American elm. Later its branches spread out like
Speaker 2: a great vase, and that is also a feature of
Speaker 2: the American elm. All summer long, it kept on growing.
Speaker 2: It pushed out its tip and added leaves, first one
Speaker 2: on one side of the stem and then one on
Speaker 2: the other. It started some twigs from the angles of
Speaker 2: last year's leaves, and looked much more like a tree
Speaker 2: than it had the year before. When the winter came,
Speaker 2: the elm had a stout heart and a warm bark.
Speaker 2: It made winter buds through which the frost could not pierce.
Speaker 2: Then too, it was in a sheltered place, and the
Speaker 2: wind did not sweep through its branches. In this way
Speaker 2: it grew. In the spring, it stretched its twigs into
Speaker 2: long branches. The rain washed it, the winds fanned it,
Speaker 2: and the earth fed it, and it became a tall,
Speaker 2: slender tree with graceful spreading arms. When the elm was
Speaker 2: several years old, it flowered for the first time. It
Speaker 2: was in April, when spring cometh over the hills, her
Speaker 2: garments with morning sweet, the breath of a thousand rills
Speaker 2: making music before her feet. This year, when the buds opened,
Speaker 2: it was not leaves that came out, but purplish tufts
Speaker 2: of tiny bells. Some of the bells had several clappers apiece.
Speaker 2: Some of them had none, but had instead two hairy arms,
Speaker 2: purple in color. Some of them had both. These were
Speaker 2: the flowers.
Speaker 3: Of the elm.
Speaker 2: The purplish cup or bell was the cloak or calyx.
Speaker 2: The clappers the anthers filled with golden pollen dust. The
Speaker 2: hairy arms were the stigmas, held up to catch the
Speaker 2: pollen born by the wind from another tree. People who
Speaker 2: have studied plants and trees for many years have found
Speaker 2: that the seed which grows when the flower uses its
Speaker 2: own pollen are weaker than the seed which grow when
Speaker 2: the pollen comes from another plant of the same kind
Speaker 2: and not from the flower's own anthers. They think that
Speaker 2: is the reason the elm flowers before the leaves come out.
Speaker 2: Can you see that the leaves would keep the wind
Speaker 2: from carrying in the other pollen. After the stigmas have
Speaker 2: caught the pollen, the fruit begins to grow. The fruit
Speaker 2: is the seed with whatever cloak may be wrapped about
Speaker 2: them in the elm. This cloak is flat and round
Speaker 2: and green. It looks like a green leaf, with a
Speaker 2: notch in the outer end and a fringe of hairs
Speaker 2: around the edge. The tiny cup of the flower is
Speaker 2: just below it, and the slender pedicil is about an
Speaker 2: inch long. In the center is a thickened part. Within
Speaker 2: this is the seed, and in the seed is the
Speaker 2: baby elm. Now can you tell me why it should
Speaker 2: have a wing a sail? It is that the wind
Speaker 2: may carry it away and plant it outside the shade
Speaker 2: of the mother tree. The white elms are among the
Speaker 2: most beautiful of the forest trees. They are often planted
Speaker 2: along streets and their long branches meeting overhead form arches.
Speaker 2: There are several such streets in Newhaven, which is called
Speaker 2: the City of Elms. There are also many historic elms.
Speaker 2: The Washington Elm at Cambridge and the Old Elm at Pittsfield,
Speaker 2: Massachusetts are two of these. There is another near Philadelphia
Speaker 2: known as Penn's Treaty elm? Why do you think that
Speaker 2: receive that name? A long time ago, before the Druids
Speaker 2: chose to worship only the oak, people would plant to
Speaker 2: birth trees when the child was born, and the tree
Speaker 2: became a sort of household god. It was thought that
Speaker 2: bad luck would come to the child if anything happened
Speaker 2: to the tree. The elm was one of the favorite
Speaker 2: trees planted in this way. It was also planted in
Speaker 2: front of the churches. Almost all of the old churches
Speaker 2: in France have an elm. So planted the people thought
Speaker 2: that they brought good luck. There are other elm trees
Speaker 2: which are somewhat like the white elm. You may know
Speaker 2: them by their alternate leaves, one side of which is
Speaker 2: smaller than the other, and by the veins which stand
Speaker 2: out like branching ridges. They have also a round, flat
Speaker 2: winged fruit. One of these is the bread elm or
Speaker 2: slippery elm, which grows in rich soil on river banks
Speaker 2: or hillsides, but is also planted in cities. It looks
Speaker 2: as if it had once lived in a colder place,
Speaker 2: for its bud scales are lined with rusty wool, Its
Speaker 2: flowers and seeds are wooly, and even its twigs are downy.
Speaker 2: The leaves are from for to eight inches long. The
Speaker 2: inner bark is sticky when wet, giving it the name
Speaker 2: slippery elm. Some have a very thick, corky bark. The
Speaker 2: cork elm is of this kind. Its branches are not
Speaker 2: smooth and round, but swell out in a strange, irregular shapes.
Speaker 2: The winged elm has the cork arranged as a wing
Speaker 2: on either side of the stem. Its leaves are much
Speaker 2: shorter than those of the other elms. You will also
Speaker 2: find a great many Scotch and English elms. Neither of
Speaker 2: these are tall and erect like the American elm. The
Speaker 2: Scotch elm has spreading or drooping branches. The fruit has
Speaker 2: a shallow notch. It is not a native, though frequently planted.
Speaker 2: The English elm is hardly so flat topped as the last,
Speaker 2: but it branches more abruptly than the American elm. Its
Speaker 2: leaves are much smaller and of a darker color. If
Speaker 2: you look closely at an elm, you will find that
Speaker 2: it has insect guests. Some of them may be fat
Speaker 2: little grubs with white bodies, black dots and a black stripe.
Speaker 2: These are later transformed into white and green leaf beetles.
Speaker 2: The kanker worms are of several colors, but each has
Speaker 2: a yellowish stripe on the side and two white bands
Speaker 2: on the head. They often eat the tree quite bare.
Speaker 2: There are also some very large green caterpillars with saw
Speaker 2: like teeth down the back and white lines on the side.
Speaker 2: These become hawk balls later in the fall. Elms are
Speaker 2: subject to the attacks of web worms. The birds are
Speaker 2: a protection against the insects, and are on this account
Speaker 2: friends of the trees. The Baltimore oriole is especially fond
Speaker 2: of the elm, and its hanging nests is more often
Speaker 2: seen in that tree than in others. End of chapter
Speaker 2: two recording by John van stan Savannah, Georgia.
Speaker 4: Chapter three of Ten Common Trees. This is a LibriVox recording.
Speaker 4: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
Speaker 4: information or to voluntier, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
Speaker 4: by Kimberly Sassen. Ten Common Trees by Susan Stokes, Chapter three,
Speaker 4: The apple tree. Have you plucked the apple blossoms in
Speaker 4: the spring? In the spring and caught their subtle odors
Speaker 4: in the spring? Pink buds pouting at the light, crumpled petals,
Speaker 4: baby white, just to touch them a delight in the spring,
Speaker 4: William Martin. If you live in a large city, you
Speaker 4: may not know the apple tree. In winter it is
Speaker 4: a short, reddish tree with a flat or rounded top.
Speaker 4: Its stout, thick branches are irregular and rigid. In spring
Speaker 4: it is a white tree. Its large clusters of white
Speaker 4: and pink flowers look like short stemmed bouquets, with a
Speaker 4: margin of leaves below. In the fall it is a
Speaker 4: green tree. That is the season we like it best,
Speaker 4: for then it bears its apples of red and gold.
Speaker 4: The poet Bryant has written the following upon planting the
Speaker 4: apple tree. He says, what plant we in the apple tree?
Speaker 4: Buds which the breath of summer days shall lengthen into
Speaker 4: leafy spray boughs, where the thrush with crimson breast shall
Speaker 4: haunt and sing and hide her nest. We plant upon
Speaker 4: the sunny lee a shadow for the noontide hour, a
Speaker 4: shelter from the summer shower. When we plant the apple tree,
Speaker 4: I will show you first its twigs. They are marked
Speaker 4: with the scars of last year's leaves. Just where they
Speaker 4: join the branch are some circular scars very close together.
Speaker 4: They mark the place of last year's bud scales Figures
Speaker 4: one and two. Last year it grew from the circular
Speaker 4: scars to the bud. If you look farther back on
Speaker 4: the stem, you will find some more scars like these.
Speaker 4: Each set marks the place of a winter bud, and
Speaker 4: you can tell the age of the branch by caunting
Speaker 4: from winter bud to winter bud a year for each space.
Speaker 4: The buds are of two kinds, leaf buds and flower buds.
Speaker 4: The leaf buds are usually single, the flower buds in clusters.
Speaker 4: They are no larger than the stem. The scales cover
Speaker 4: the end of the twig. They are short scales, and
Speaker 4: around the edge of each is soft fine wool to
Speaker 4: keep the tender inner part warm. The twigs are also
Speaker 4: downy with the warm air. Come the apple blossoms budding,
Speaker 4: blowing in the soft may air, cups with sunshine, overflowing
Speaker 4: flakes of fragrance, drifting, snowing, showering everywhere. Let us see
Speaker 4: what these flowers can tell us. They will speak to
Speaker 4: our eyes, not our ears. Fig. Three. Here is a flower.
Speaker 4: It says, I have a round white face. I have
Speaker 4: a yellow center. Look behind and you will see that
Speaker 4: I am attached to the tree by a slender stalk
Speaker 4: where it joins the flower. It is thick and round,
Speaker 4: like a bud. The calyx will say, I am the
Speaker 4: outside part of my flower. I help to keep it warm.
Speaker 4: I have five green sepals covered with down. They are
Speaker 4: closed over the whole flower in the bud. My petals
Speaker 4: help too, says the corolla. They keep the stamens and
Speaker 4: pistols warm in the bud and tell the bees where
Speaker 4: to come for honey. They are broad and white on
Speaker 4: the inside, but red as a rose on the outside,
Speaker 4: And then the stamens. We stand in a circle. There
Speaker 4: are about thirty of us. Each of us has a
Speaker 4: slender body and a yellow head. The head is full
Speaker 4: of pollen. What is pollen? Pollen is a yellow powder,
Speaker 4: which helps to make the seed grow. Just in the
Speaker 4: center are five green arms with sticky tips. What can
Speaker 4: they tell us we catch the pollen, we are of
Speaker 4: the pistol. The pistol holds the seed. Where down under
Speaker 4: the flower it has five little rooms. In each are
Speaker 4: some very young seeds which will grow when they get
Speaker 4: the pollen Figures four and five. Down at the base
Speaker 4: of the stamens and style, there is some honey for
Speaker 4: the bees. The bees visit the trees for this honey,
Speaker 4: bringing in pollen from other flowers and taking some away.
Speaker 4: In this way, the flowers do not always use their
Speaker 4: own pollen. But I think the leaf tells the best
Speaker 4: story of all. This is what it says. All winter
Speaker 4: long I lived in the bud. There were a great
Speaker 4: many of us, and we were so closely packed that
Speaker 4: it was warm and cozy. One day the scales about
Speaker 4: us loosened and a whiff of fresh air reached us.
Speaker 4: It was so good we all crowded out and stretched
Speaker 4: into the light. Then I found out what I was like.
Speaker 4: I had a broad green blade, a slender stem, and
Speaker 4: at the base of that too little ears stipules. My
Speaker 4: blade was fine and crisp, for it had a great
Speaker 4: many veins to hold it out. One in the middle
Speaker 4: was the mid rib, and there were several to each side.
Speaker 4: Did you know that these veins bring me water from
Speaker 4: the ground. I use the water and make starch and sugar.
Speaker 4: Then I send some of the sugar back to the
Speaker 4: roots in return for the water they send me. They
Speaker 4: are always in the ground and never get out to
Speaker 4: look at the sun or feel the wind. If the
Speaker 4: leaves did not send them food, they would starve. We
Speaker 4: make the food in the apple too. The wind is
Speaker 4: very cold when I first come out, so the underside
Speaker 4: of my blade is covered with yellow wool that keeps
Speaker 4: the cold air from entering at my breathing holes. Leaves
Speaker 4: need air just as you do, and they take it
Speaker 4: in through tiny holes on the underside of the leaf.
Speaker 4: After the pollen falls upon the sticky stigmas, the round
Speaker 4: part below the flower begins to grow, and it grows
Speaker 4: into an apple. But you know apples so well that
Speaker 4: you will be able to tell me all about them.
Speaker 4: They have a smooth skin and are sunk at both ends.
Speaker 4: The stem is at one end and the remains of
Speaker 4: the calyx at the other. Fig.
Speaker 2: Six.
Speaker 4: There are still five rooms in the center with the seed.
Speaker 4: The walls of the rooms are tough, and the mother
Speaker 4: tree has stored away a lot of food. Between these
Speaker 4: walls and the skin, you see the apple is intended
Speaker 4: to be a winter home for the seed. When spring comes,
Speaker 4: the apples have become soft and the seed have a
Speaker 4: nice place to begin to grow. Wild apples do not
Speaker 4: have so much food stored in the wall. The food
Speaker 4: also attracts birds so that they carry the seed away.
Speaker 4: Each seed contains a baby apple tree and has a
Speaker 4: brown and shiny coat. You do not find the tree.
Speaker 4: The hard white kernel is the young tree. How do
Speaker 4: we know by the fact that the kernel swells up
Speaker 4: and grows into a little tree. The coat cracks and
Speaker 4: the two leaves are pushed out, while the short stem
Speaker 4: is lengthened into a root. The young plant packed away
Speaker 4: in the sea is called an embryo. Shall I tell
Speaker 4: you the story of some wonderful apples, the apples of
Speaker 4: the garden of Eden. There was once a beautiful garden.
Speaker 4: It was away to the east. All sorts of fruits
Speaker 4: and flowers grew in this garden, and there lived in
Speaker 4: it a man Adam and his wife there was one
Speaker 4: tree of the fruit of which they were forbidden to eat.
Speaker 4: If they did, they would surely die. It stood in
Speaker 4: the middle of the garden. There was also in the
Speaker 4: garden a beautiful but an evil serpent. It told Eve
Speaker 4: that if she ate, she would not die, but would
Speaker 4: be as the gods were, knowing good from evil. Then
Speaker 4: Eve ate of the fruit, and Adam also ate, and
Speaker 4: they knew good from evil. But the one who had
Speaker 4: placed them in the garden was angry and drove them forth.
Speaker 4: And he placed at the east of the garden of
Speaker 4: Eden cherubim and flaming sword, which turned every way to
Speaker 4: keep the way of the Tree of life up. In
Speaker 4: Norway and Iceland, Theirs told the story of Iduna and
Speaker 4: her golden apples. Duna was a beautiful goddess who had
Speaker 4: charge of some wonderful apples, apples that made all who
Speaker 4: ate of them young and happy. The gods ate of
Speaker 4: these apples and remained young, and the earth was always green.
Speaker 4: But there was one, the evil god Loki, who thought
Speaker 4: he would like to see the world grow cold and old.
Speaker 4: He persuaded Iduna to go with him to see some
Speaker 4: wonderful apples that grew outside the city gate. There she
Speaker 4: was stolen away by a giant from Jodenheim. Then the
Speaker 4: world grew cold and the gods grew gray. They mourned
Speaker 4: for Iduna. If you do not bring her back, we
Speaker 4: will kill you, said they to Loki. So he went
Speaker 4: to the home of the giant and rescued her. When
Speaker 4: Aduna came back, winter was driven away. The gods ate
Speaker 4: once more of the golden apples and grew young. The
Speaker 4: earth was fair, and the flowers bloomed again. When the
Speaker 4: children of Greece lay in the shade, resting from their games,
Speaker 4: they were told the story of the golden apples of Hesperdes. Hercules,
Speaker 4: the strong son of Jupiter, was commanded to bring them
Speaker 4: to his cousin, whom he served. The apples had been
Speaker 4: given to Hera, the Queen of Heaven, at the time
Speaker 4: of her marriage to Zeus. They were guarded by the
Speaker 4: daughters of Atlas, he who bore the weight of the
Speaker 4: heavens on his shoulders. Hercules sought them far and wide.
Speaker 4: At last he came to Atlas in Africa. He thought
Speaker 4: that Atlas must know where they were. If anyone did so,
Speaker 4: he sent him to seek the apples, and took upon
Speaker 4: his own shoulders the burden. This was one of the
Speaker 4: seven labors of Hercules. You observe that the apple is
Speaker 4: a fleshy fruit with the seed in horny cavities. Such
Speaker 4: a fruit is called a pom. There are other fleshy
Speaker 4: fruits which have a single bony stone in the center,
Speaker 4: like the peach and cherry. They are then called droopes.
Speaker 4: The nearest relatives of the apple bare palms. Many of
Speaker 4: the others bear droopes. In this way we can divide
Speaker 4: them into two groups. Those which bear poems are the pear,
Speaker 4: quince and crab apple. The wild crab apple tree is
Speaker 4: small and has beautiful pink blossoms. The fruit is small
Speaker 4: and sour. It is sunken at both ends and is
Speaker 4: about an inch in diameter. The pear tree differs from
Speaker 4: the apple tree in not being flat topped and in
Speaker 4: being taller than broad. The flowers are white with purple
Speaker 4: anthers and are without scent. The pears are sunken at
Speaker 4: one end only, and the stem end is smaller. The
Speaker 4: trees are often thorny. The quint's tree has broader leaves.
Speaker 4: The flowers are not in clusters, but solitary and of
Speaker 4: a white or rose color. The large yellow fruit is
Speaker 4: hard and sour and is sunken at the flower end
Speaker 4: Figure eight. There are many seeds in each cavity, and
Speaker 4: these become covered with jelly when soaked in water. The
Speaker 4: tree has a crooked stem with rambling branches. The trees
Speaker 4: which bear droops are the peach, plum, and cherry. Peach
Speaker 4: trees are thought to have been derived from almond trees
Speaker 4: and to have been changed by cultivation. They bloom early,
Speaker 4: ere ever the first bee, hummoth or woodland wild flower blows.
Speaker 4: They have large pink flowers, long narrow leaves, a downy fruit,
Speaker 4: and a wrinkled stone. The plum trees usually have smaller flowers,
Speaker 4: and the fruit has a bloom that is, a thin
Speaker 4: wax coat which can be rubbed off. The stone is flattened.
Speaker 4: The trees are often thorny. The pistol is single, with
Speaker 4: a single room in the lower part. This is also
Speaker 4: the case with the cherry and plum Fig nine. Cherry
Speaker 4: trees have smooth fruits, without bloom and with a roundish stone.
Speaker 4: The cherries are born in umbuls or in racemes, that is,
Speaker 4: on an elongated axis for cherry blossoms Japan surpasses all
Speaker 4: other places. The cherry trees are cultivated for the flowers,
Speaker 4: and when the trees are in bloom, people go long
Speaker 4: distances to see the finest groves. It is called the
Speaker 4: Festival of the cherry blossoms. Both the apple and the
Speaker 4: cherry have many cousins, one which you know well. The
Speaker 4: wild rose, has given its name to the whole family.
Speaker 4: Look at this figure and see if you can tell
Speaker 4: why the apple belongs to the rose family. Fig. Ten.
Speaker 4: It is because it has broad petals and many stamens,
Speaker 4: all of which are born in a circle upon the
Speaker 4: green outer cup or calyx. Do you know of any
Speaker 4: family to which we owe more than to the rose family?
Speaker 4: References the wild apples, the row peach blossoms, Bayard Taylor
Speaker 4: apple blossoms, Lucy larcom planting of the apple tree, Bryant,
Speaker 4: the little red apple tree, Riley apple blossoms. Alice E. Allen,
Speaker 4: Primary Education, May eighteen ninety nine. Three Trees, Charles crandall
Speaker 4: Primary Education, April eighteen ninety eight, end of chapter three,
Speaker 4: Chapter four of ten Common Trees. This is a LibriVox
Speaker 4: recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For
Speaker 4: more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
Speaker 4: by Kimberly Sassen. Ten Common Trees by Susan Stokes, Chapter four.
Speaker 4: The horse chestnut under the greenwood tree, who loves to
Speaker 4: lie with me and tuned his merry. Note unto the
Speaker 4: sweet bird's throat, the horse chestnut is not an American tree.
Speaker 4: Shall I tell you how it comes to be here?
Speaker 4: Long ago, you know, America belonged to the Indians. They
Speaker 4: built their wigwams, wore war paint and feathers, and wandered
Speaker 4: wherever they liked. There were native plants and animals as
Speaker 4: well as native Indians, and they too, spread everywhere over
Speaker 4: hill and vale. The beaver built in many brooks, and
Speaker 4: the wild grass perfumed the air. But when the Englishmen
Speaker 4: and the Frenchmen came over, they brought with them grains
Speaker 4: and fruits and domestic animals. So the Indian pink and
Speaker 4: the wild flower were plowed under that the white man
Speaker 4: might have a wheat field. The murmuring pines and the
Speaker 4: hemlocks made whey for apple and vine, and the tame
Speaker 4: duck swam in the wild ducks pools now. Only those
Speaker 4: trees are native, which were growing here before the white
Speaker 4: men came. All the others are introduced. The horse chestnut
Speaker 4: is one of these. It is thought it came to
Speaker 4: Europe from Asia. There its nuts have been used as
Speaker 4: food for horses, as they still are in Turkey. On
Speaker 4: this account, and because they look like the sweet brown chestnuts,
Speaker 4: they are called horse chestnuts. In southern Europe they are
Speaker 4: fed to sheep, cattle and poultry, while in Ireland they
Speaker 4: are used in the bleaching of linen. So you see,
Speaker 4: the horse chestnut may be a very useful tree, although
Speaker 4: in America it is more often planted simply as an ornament.
Speaker 4: The horse chestnut, like all the trees we have so
Speaker 4: far studied, drops its leaves in the fall and spends
Speaker 4: the winter in its trunk. When the cold wind howls
Speaker 4: outside and says, ho, ho, are you there? Let me in,
Speaker 4: the tree says no, No, don't you dare. You can't
Speaker 4: come in, And he can't, for how could he make
Speaker 4: his way through the rough, dark bark. The gateways are
Speaker 4: through the winter buds. But the tree thought of that
Speaker 4: when he made the buds. He said to himself. I'll
Speaker 4: get all my leaves ready to come out at once
Speaker 4: in the springtime Figure one. But how shall I keep
Speaker 4: them from taking cold during the winter? So he thought
Speaker 4: and thought, and then he wrapped them all together in
Speaker 4: a thick coat of cotton, and over the outside put
Speaker 4: oh so many scales. The inner ones were green, and
Speaker 4: the outer ones brown and shiny, said the tree to himself,
Speaker 4: I'll coat them with resins, so neither the snow nor
Speaker 4: the rain can get in. And he coated them over
Speaker 4: with shiny brown and laughed to think how cozy they'd be.
Speaker 4: Then he dropped the leaflets one by one, and last
Speaker 4: of all the stem to which they had clung on
Speaker 4: the brown branch. Where they fell were deep scars, shaped
Speaker 4: like a horseshoe, and with a row of dots around
Speaker 4: the edge, like the nails of the shoe. Figure two.
Speaker 4: He went to sleep now as snug as a bug
Speaker 4: in a rug, and waked only when the wind shook
Speaker 4: his head and threatened to tear him to pieces. When
Speaker 4: spring drew near, the warm south wind came softly and
Speaker 4: whispered in his ear, wake up, wake up, the robins
Speaker 4: are here. So the horse chestnut loosened his buds Figure three,
Speaker 4: and spread them out more and more till only the
Speaker 4: last green cotton cover lid was left. Then he cracked that,
Speaker 4: And what do you think? He pushed through the crack
Speaker 4: a cluster of tiny wooly hands, just as welly as
Speaker 4: they could be, softered in a baby's be it three
Speaker 4: days old. Did he call them hands?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 4: No, he said, these are my leaves. I made them
Speaker 4: last summer, after my flowers fell. But they had five
Speaker 4: or seven fingers. They were flat and were folded over
Speaker 4: and platted together like a fan. When they spread out,
Speaker 4: you found that they were broader near the tip than
Speaker 4: at the base.
Speaker 1: Fig.
Speaker 4: Four, and were very wooly underneath. They came out very quickly,
Speaker 4: all at once, and turned the tree quite green in
Speaker 4: a single day. When these grew larger, he didn't make
Speaker 4: even another one, but began at once to make ready
Speaker 4: for the next winter, making a new winter bud. It
Speaker 4: must be that is the reason it's so large, growing
Speaker 4: all summer long. There was something else in the bud,
Speaker 4: just in the center, a great number of tiny green balls.
Speaker 4: They grew and grew, and at last we knew they
Speaker 4: must be flower buds. But they were so long coming out,
Speaker 4: they were not ready till June, the month when every
Speaker 4: clod feels a stir of might, an instinct within it
Speaker 4: that reaches an towers and groping blindly above it for light,
Speaker 4: climbs to a soul. In grass and flowers, out they came.
Speaker 4: Each separate branch was crowned with a great spire of buds,
Speaker 4: a giant nosegay. Some people even called it a hyacinth
Speaker 4: tree because its blossoms were so close and so fragrant
Speaker 4: page forty one. This great cone of flowers is called athyrsus.
Speaker 4: The in flowers bloom first, said the tree, and then
Speaker 4: the side buds push their way out beyond them and
Speaker 4: take their turn in the sunlight. Of course, both my
Speaker 4: flowers and leaves must get the sunshine. Have you seen
Speaker 4: how my leaves peep out between each other, so that
Speaker 4: none are in the shade. But oh, the flowers, they
Speaker 4: were gorgeous. Each flower had a bright white party dress
Speaker 4: of its own. On the outside, there was first a
Speaker 4: little green cup, just a little spring jacket, you know,
Speaker 4: to be worn in the springtime. Inside of this was
Speaker 4: a dainty white dress dotted with yellow and purple it
Speaker 4: had five deep scallops on the edge. Even Solomon, in
Speaker 4: all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these.
Speaker 4: Of course, everything that went by saw the beautiful white
Speaker 4: dresses and wondered what they were. Four. But the tree knew,
Speaker 4: for he had his invitations all ready for a great party.
Speaker 4: He sent out a sweet odor on the breeze, and
Speaker 4: every bee and bumblebee that passed knew that the tree
Speaker 4: was saying, come to see me, Come to see me.
Speaker 4: I have something for you. Come to see me here.
Speaker 4: I am over here the tree with the white flowers,
Speaker 4: And every one of them that received an invitation went
Speaker 4: at once. Each flew to a flower and put his
Speaker 4: tongue straight into a honeypot. Fig.
Speaker 1: Five.
Speaker 4: How did he find it? On each one of those
Speaker 4: white petals, tiny lines and dots pointed to it, and
Speaker 4: so the bee found it. They are called insect guides.
Speaker 4: Do you see those stamens of mine? Said the tree.
Speaker 4: They have pockets full of gold in their heads. When
Speaker 4: the bees stood upon them, it jarred them a little,
Speaker 4: and when they flew away they were just loaded with
Speaker 4: pollen dust. But the bee did not mind. He flew
Speaker 4: straight to another flower for more honey. As he lighted,
Speaker 4: there was a little green bud standing out from a
Speaker 4: circle of stamens which held their heads low Figure six.
Speaker 4: It was the head of a pistol, and of course
Speaker 4: the bee bumped right into it. On he went after
Speaker 4: the honey, but the pistol was left crowned with the
Speaker 4: gold dust he carried. Then I looked closer and found
Speaker 4: that wherever the pistol held its head high, the stamens
Speaker 4: drooped theirs. And when the pistol had been crowned for
Speaker 4: several days, then the stamens lifted up their heads, opened
Speaker 4: their pockets, and scattered the dust for some other flour.
Speaker 4: What's this, said I. Some of your flowers have no pistols.
Speaker 4: Oh dear, no, said the tree. If I had as
Speaker 4: many pistols as I have flowers, I should be overloaded
Speaker 4: with burrs in the fall. I waited to see what
Speaker 4: this could mean, and until the petals faded and fell
Speaker 4: figure eight. And the tree was full and green, a
Speaker 4: very dark green, with the broad leaf faces spread out
Speaker 4: to the sun. When I looked, I found that the
Speaker 4: wooly pistol had been growing larger and larger, and was
Speaker 4: covered over with short prickles. Later, I saw it fall
Speaker 4: to the ground a prickly burr it was. Be sure.
Speaker 4: Some cattle sniffed it, but not one was brave enough
Speaker 4: to try opening it. That's what the prickles are for,
Speaker 4: said the tree, And he really thought the ugly hooks
Speaker 4: were a pretty fine coat to make for his seed.
Speaker 4: As it lay on the ground, the hard shell grew dry,
Speaker 4: and then it popped open in three places, three doors,
Speaker 4: to let out the shiny brow seed with its great eye.
Speaker 4: It looks so like the yellow eyed chestnuts that I
Speaker 4: was tempted to eat it, but I didn't, for I
Speaker 4: knew it was very bitter.
Speaker 1: Fig.
Speaker 4: Nine. Although the horse chestnut is not a native of America,
Speaker 4: it has some native cousins, which are called buckeyes. The
Speaker 4: Ohio buckeye is well known. It has a very disagreeable odor.
Speaker 4: The leaves are opposite and palmate. There are from five
Speaker 4: to seven leaflets, which are broadest near the middle, and
Speaker 4: its birr is prickly. The greenish flowers are not so
Speaker 4: handsome as those of the horse chestnut. The yellow buckeye
Speaker 4: or sweet buckeye is so called because it does not
Speaker 4: have the disagreeable odor. Common to the others. It grows
Speaker 4: from thirty to ninety feet high. The leaflets are broadest
Speaker 4: near the middle, and the long, narrow flowers are yellow
Speaker 4: with a deep green cup at the base. The burr
Speaker 4: is rough but not prickly. Figures ten, A, B, C,
Speaker 4: and D references something in a pastoral line Lowell the
Speaker 4: horse chestnut, Harper's Magazine, Volume seventy four. Fertilization of Flowers Miller,
Speaker 4: end of chapter four, Chapter five of Ten Common Trees.
Speaker 4: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
Speaker 4: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
Speaker 4: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Kimberly Sawsen. Ten Common
Speaker 4: Trees by Susan Stokes, Chapter five The birch tree. At
Speaker 4: first it was only a tiny tree with two little
Speaker 4: leaves lifted up to the light. They were very little leaves,
Speaker 4: but they sifted the sunlight, made food for the roots
Speaker 4: and gave back to the clouds the water the roots
Speaker 4: had found in the soil. Of course, the sunlight helped them,
Speaker 4: and so when the breeze passed by, they would sing
Speaker 4: in rustling voices, Oh Sun, Sun, beautiful sun. When the
Speaker 4: sun sank behind the hills in the west, and the
Speaker 4: stars came out. The little tree went to sleep, and
Speaker 4: an owl in the great tree near by kept watch,
Speaker 4: saying hoo hoo. One morning the sky was gray and
Speaker 4: the rain fell in torrents. Oh, what can the matter be?
Speaker 4: What is all this? Said the little tree. This, this
Speaker 4: is rain. We need it said the big tree, and
Speaker 4: his leaves slip slipped against each other. Then the sun
Speaker 4: came out, and the leaves worked so busily that the
Speaker 4: little tree grew apace. After a while it grew so
Speaker 4: cold that the young tree shivered. Why is it so cold,
Speaker 4: it asked of the tall tree. Winter is coming. Drop
Speaker 4: your leaves, said the great tree. Then there came a
Speaker 4: gust of wind which carried away the young trees leaves. Oh,
Speaker 4: my leaves, my pretty leaves, Where are they going? It cried.
Speaker 4: But soon it found it was warmer without the leaves,
Speaker 4: and so it did not regret them. Fortunately, it was
Speaker 4: not very cold there at the willow's feet. When spring
Speaker 4: came again, it put out some more leaves. The bark
Speaker 4: upon the stem grew smooth and shiny, and was marked
Speaker 4: with short horizontal lines, without any knots or uneven places.
Speaker 4: Near the tip. It was downy, as is the way
Speaker 4: with birches. One day a tall young Indian passed by.
Speaker 4: He was straight as an arrow, and tall like the
Speaker 4: pine tree. He crossed over to a big tree, saying,
Speaker 4: give me of your bark, o birch tree, of your
Speaker 4: yellow bark, O birch tree growing by the rushing river,
Speaker 4: tall and stately in the valley. I a light canoe
Speaker 4: will build me build a swift chiemund for sailing, that
Speaker 4: shall float upon the river like a yellow leaf in autumn,
Speaker 4: like a yellow water lily. Then the tree made answer,
Speaker 4: take my cloak, o Hiawatha. Then Hiawatha stripped the tree
Speaker 4: of its smooth, tough bark, and in the valley by
Speaker 4: the river, made his birch canoe and launched it. Then
Speaker 4: he came again, this time from his pouch, he took
Speaker 4: his colors, took his paints of different colors on the
Speaker 4: smooth bark of a birch tree, painted many shapes and figures.
Speaker 4: Of course, our young tree could not know their meaning,
Speaker 4: but it would have liked to have him put upon
Speaker 4: its bark some songs of war and songs of hunting
Speaker 4: across the river from the little tree, there stood a
Speaker 4: great birch tree. In the spring, its branches were tipped
Speaker 4: with long, drooping tails. In the winter there were brown
Speaker 4: cones upon its bare boughs. The young birch wish to
Speaker 4: have some of these strange fruits, so it asked the
Speaker 4: old tree what it should do. You must begin in
Speaker 4: the fall, said the old tree. Make some long cone
Speaker 4: like winter buds. In the spring they will open and
Speaker 4: become these drooping yellow tails. The young tree listened, and
Speaker 4: in the fall it made some great long buds Figure one,
Speaker 4: and covered them over with thick scales bracts. Under each
Speaker 4: heavy scale there were several thin scales. In each of
Speaker 4: these were two small balls full of yellow powder. They
Speaker 4: were fastened in place by a filament which forked Fig.
Speaker 5: Two.
Speaker 4: During April's sunny days, the tail like buds grew long
Speaker 4: and feathery, and the yellow pollen floated away, But still
Speaker 4: there were no black cones. Again, the young tree asked,
Speaker 4: what shall I do that I may have cones. The
Speaker 4: old tree replied, oh, you can make these in the spring.
Speaker 4: Instead of making so many large leaves. Take some of
Speaker 4: your buds and do with them as I tell you.
Speaker 4: So the young birch took some young twigs, such as
Speaker 4: it had been making into leaves on a stem not
Speaker 4: more than an inch long. Figure three B. It crowded
Speaker 4: almost a hundred tiny, three lobed bracts Figure four A.
Speaker 4: In front of each one were three little bodies, nearly
Speaker 4: round and quite flat, for they were crowded. These were
Speaker 4: the pistols. Each had two curved arms at the top.
Speaker 4: They caught the yellow pollen dust which the wind carried
Speaker 4: about Figure four B. It made them grow, not very large,
Speaker 4: but as large as the bract back of them. Figure
Speaker 4: four C. What shall I do now, asked the young tree.
Speaker 4: Wait until winter, then shake them out, and the wind
Speaker 4: will carry them away and plant them. What four Have
Speaker 4: you forgotten that you were once a tiny seed, and
Speaker 4: that the wind when dropped you among the willows there
Speaker 4: you fell from one of my cones. Was not the
Speaker 4: little tree? Glad to know this, Glad to have been
Speaker 4: a part of that great and beautiful tree. Her cones
Speaker 4: grew larger and thicker.
Speaker 1: Fig.
Speaker 5: Five.
Speaker 4: The little seeds were strong and healthy, and when they
Speaker 4: were ripe, the wind scattered them far and wide. Would
Speaker 4: you like to be a birch tree, and learn to
Speaker 4: make soft catkins and winged seed. How may you tell
Speaker 4: the birches apart? You must look at the bark, the leaves,
Speaker 4: and the droop of the branches. They are alike in
Speaker 4: their flowers and fruit. Have you seen a tree with
Speaker 4: white bark and long hanging branches, a tree with branches
Speaker 4: so slender that they scarcely cast a shadow? This airy tree,
Speaker 4: with its flicker of green and white, is a gray
Speaker 4: or white birch Figure six. Its bark has the horizontal
Speaker 4: markings peculiar to the birches. There are dark spots below
Speaker 4: the leaf scars, and the leaf is notched. The notches
Speaker 4: are not so deep, however, as those of its relative,
Speaker 4: the European white birch Fig. Seven. The yellow birch is
Speaker 4: easily recognized by the yellow hue of the bark, But
Speaker 4: it was not from the bark of the yellow birch
Speaker 4: that canoes were made. The paper or canoe birch has
Speaker 4: bark that easily separates in layers, and it was from
Speaker 4: this that the Indians made their canoes. The white color
Speaker 4: of the trunk is more conspicuous than that of the
Speaker 4: gray birch, but it lacks the brown patches, and the
Speaker 4: branches do not droop. The white birch is not a
Speaker 4: tall tree. The paper birch frequently becomes tall, and its
Speaker 4: bark is unbroken for some distance upon the trunk. The
Speaker 4: leaf is shown in Figure eight. The western birch, from
Speaker 4: which the drawings were taken is a small tree. Its
Speaker 4: twigs are very glandular, that is, they are rough and sticky.
Speaker 4: This character it shares with some of the east stern forms.
Speaker 4: The young stems are often downy. The alders are closely
Speaker 4: related to the birches. The leaves and cones look much alike.
Speaker 4: The difference is in the stamens. The little stock holding
Speaker 4: the anther is forked in the birches, but is distinct
Speaker 4: to the base in the alders. References Song of Hiawatha
Speaker 4: Longfellow Hiawatha's sailing picture writing the birch Tree Lowell, an
Speaker 4: Indian summer Reverie Lowell, end of chapter five.
Speaker 6: Chapter six of Ten Common Trees. This is a LibriVox recording.
Speaker 6: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
Speaker 6: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
Speaker 6: by Jennifer Dolman. Ten Common Trees by Susan Stokes. The
Speaker 6: white Oak? What is a tree? Is it only a
Speaker 6: wooden trunk with wooden branches, a bark and leaves. There
Speaker 6: is something more. Let me tell you about it today.
Speaker 6: It is the spirit of the tree. There is something
Speaker 6: about it, the shape of the head, the color of
Speaker 6: the leaves, the outline of the trunk, which tells a tale.
Speaker 6: The tree has an expression. Elms toss their long branches
Speaker 6: and are dainty. Birches are the most shy and ladylike
Speaker 6: of trees. What is the character of the oak? The
Speaker 6: short trunk, holding its immense weight of branches, says I
Speaker 6: am strong. The great broad head of leaves says I
Speaker 6: am wise. The whole tree seems to say, trust me,
Speaker 6: you can depend upon me. Its wood has shown the strength.
Speaker 6: The heart of the oak has been used for hundreds
Speaker 6: of years in the building of ships, and it will
Speaker 6: bear enormous strains. There needs no crown to mark the
Speaker 6: forest's king. The poet Keats saw that they looked wise
Speaker 6: and dignified. He calls them those green robed senators of
Speaker 6: mighty woods. If you had lived in England about two
Speaker 6: thousand years ago, you would probably have worshiped the oak trees.
Speaker 6: At that time there were great forests of oaks, and
Speaker 6: people saw in them such good qualities. They were so hearty,
Speaker 6: they rustled like giants with the wind and storm, and
Speaker 6: lived to be so old that the people and their priests,
Speaker 6: the druids, worshiped them. In southern Europe about the same time,
Speaker 6: you would have been told about the dryads or maidens
Speaker 6: who lived in trees. Sometimes they were even seen. A
Speaker 6: young Greek returning from the chase would tell the tale.
Speaker 6: I started a stag on the mountain and followed him
Speaker 6: until I was weary. Then I threw myself on the
Speaker 6: ground beneath some great oak trees. I heard the lisping
Speaker 6: of the leaves, and then a sweet voice singing. It
Speaker 6: almost sounded like the crooning of birds. Rest you rest you,
Speaker 6: Green boughs shade you kind when sing you soothe you,
Speaker 6: soothe you sleep you sleep you. No bee hums near you,
Speaker 6: no bird flits above you. Dream you dream you. And
Speaker 6: then there slipped out of the trees some merry, misty maidens,
Speaker 6: and they danced and danced. I half raised my head,
Speaker 6: and they vanished like a flash, so you see. The
Speaker 6: Greeks also recognize the spirit of the tree. Some of
Speaker 6: the country people would even place food under the trees
Speaker 6: for the merry dryads. Nowadays we do not see the
Speaker 6: sprite that lives in the tree, but we examine her
Speaker 6: house very closely. If it is a white oak, we
Speaker 6: find a white trunk with a great dome shaped roof.
Speaker 6: This roof is upheld by stout many curved arms and
Speaker 6: is covered over with leaves, bright green above and pale below.
Speaker 6: They have deep, blunt notches and are arranged so that
Speaker 6: every leaf may get some sunshine. The strangest thing about
Speaker 6: this roof is that it is only used in summer.
Speaker 6: In the fall, it becomes a deep red. The twigs
Speaker 6: cover their tips with the brown scales and begin to
Speaker 6: prepare new leaves for next summer's new roof. The leaves
Speaker 6: then fall, and the oak is ready for winter storms.
Speaker 6: These past the buds unfold and wooly pink leaves appear.
Speaker 6: With warm weather, they turn green and the oak's new
Speaker 6: roof is complete. The oak bears two kinds of flowers
Speaker 6: on the same tree. Early in the year, the stamenant
Speaker 6: flowers grow in catkins, there are eight stamens and tiny,
Speaker 6: many lobed calys, and there are many flowers and the catkin.
Speaker 6: The stamens provide the pollen. It is stored away in
Speaker 6: the two pockets of the anthers. These flowers are easily
Speaker 6: found in april or may. The other kind. The pistolate
Speaker 6: flowers will escape you if you are not careful. They
Speaker 6: do not look at all like flowers, but like tiny
Speaker 6: pink knobs on the tender young shoots. All you can
Speaker 6: see is three or four pink lips peeping out of
Speaker 6: a tiny cup. The pollen falls upon these lips, and
Speaker 6: both the cup and the pistol within begin to grow.
Speaker 6: The pistol becomes the nut of the acorn, and the
Speaker 6: cup becomes the cap of the nut. The cap is
Speaker 6: interesting for it represents a branch of the tree, a
Speaker 6: branch which, instead of growing out and unfolding its leaves,
Speaker 6: has been cut short and hardened that it might help
Speaker 6: take care of the new oak, the baby that is
Speaker 6: to become the lord of the forest. For each one
Speaker 6: of her many acorn children, the mother Oak provides several things.
Speaker 6: She makes it a cap from a twig and a
Speaker 6: coat from the wall of the pistol. This horny coat
Speaker 6: keeps out the frost in the snow. In its two
Speaker 6: seed leaves, she stores food enough to last through the winter,
Speaker 6: and she gives it a tiny root, so it only
Speaker 6: has to keep on growing. The white oaks drop the
Speaker 6: acorns at the end of about six months, but the
Speaker 6: red oaks and the black oaks do not shed their
Speaker 6: acorns until they are a year and a half old.
Speaker 6: One windy day in October, an acorn fell from the
Speaker 6: top of the big white oak. It had been growing
Speaker 6: there since May. At that time it had been so
Speaker 6: small that you could hardly have seen it at all. Still,
Speaker 6: it held its six little brothers all together in the
Speaker 6: room at the bottom of the pistol. One of these
Speaker 6: had grown so fast that there was no room for
Speaker 6: the others. And at last it had the hole of
Speaker 6: the horny shell by itself. This was the baby oak
Speaker 6: of whose fortune I'm going to tell you. As it
Speaker 6: struck the ground, its cap fell off, and it rolled
Speaker 6: down a hill. On and on it went, until it
Speaker 6: lodged in a little hole near the foot of the hill.
Speaker 6: The wind which had started it brought leaves and covered it.
Speaker 6: Over here it was snugging quiet. Its cap was gone,
Speaker 6: but it had the hard brown coat which its mother
Speaker 6: tree had given it. There was a big round scar
Speaker 6: which showed where it had been broken off. It lay
Speaker 6: under the leaves for a long time. It did not
Speaker 6: feel the cold, and it did not see the snow
Speaker 6: that covered the ground. But in the spring, the melting
Speaker 6: snow soaked through the little tree's hard jacket. Then it
Speaker 6: awoke and drank and drank until the jacket actually cracked
Speaker 6: and split into three parts. Out of the rent crept
Speaker 6: a little root, which turned and pushed down. Down From
Speaker 6: between the two thick white seed leaves came a stem
Speaker 6: which grew up, but which kept its head bent over
Speaker 6: until it had pushed its way through the soil. Above
Speaker 6: it was a slender, ruddish stem with pairs of scaly
Speaker 6: leaves that did not look at all like leaves usually do.
Speaker 6: After a while, it began to have leaves that were
Speaker 6: like those of the white oak. They were no longer
Speaker 6: in pairs and were green in color. These leaves made food,
Speaker 6: which was carried to the root and helped to feed it.
Speaker 6: By this time, all the food which had been stored
Speaker 6: and the seed leaves had been used during the summer
Speaker 6: it grew to be a stout little tree, and in
Speaker 6: the fall it dropped its leaves and made ready for winter.
Speaker 6: The next summer it grew again and rested through the winter.
Speaker 6: In this way it became strong and hardy. Its branches thickened,
Speaker 6: and the hole had a sturdy look. The winds blew
Speaker 6: upon it, but it did not bend. The snows loaded
Speaker 6: its branches, but it broke not. The hail pelted it,
Speaker 6: and the clouds wept over it, and it still held
Speaker 6: its head to the storm and never weakened. As it
Speaker 6: grew older, it made flowers, and upon its branches were
Speaker 6: born other acorns. The wild birds nested in its branches.
Speaker 6: The squirrels filled their stores from its fruits. The woodpeckers
Speaker 6: also carried the acorns away, digging little holes into it,
Speaker 6: which they put them for safe keeping. The mistletoe clung
Speaker 6: to its branches green even in winter time, and the
Speaker 6: ivy wound its slender stems about its trunk. So you
Speaker 6: can see the little oak had become a power in
Speaker 6: the forest, and repaid the carrot had received some of
Speaker 6: the best known oaks. There are a great many different
Speaker 6: kinds of oaks would you like to be able to
Speaker 6: recognize a few of the common ones. The flowers are
Speaker 6: all very closely alike. The leaves are not always the
Speaker 6: same on the same tree, but the acorns and the
Speaker 6: acorn cups are so constant that we use them in
Speaker 6: distinguishing between the kinds. October or November is the best
Speaker 6: time to study them. Look sharply when you go to
Speaker 6: the woods or to the park, and bring in a
Speaker 6: few leaves and a twig with some acorns. Be sure
Speaker 6: to find out at the same time if the acorns
Speaker 6: fall at the end of the first year or at
Speaker 6: the end of the second, you will find the last
Speaker 6: on the tree during the winter. Those which fall the
Speaker 6: first year are called annual fruited. They have usually a
Speaker 6: sweet kernel. Those that fall the second year are called
Speaker 6: biennial fruited. They have a bitter kernel. We will suppose
Speaker 6: your acorn is one of the first and has a
Speaker 6: sweet kernel. It may either be a white oak or
Speaker 6: a chestnut oak, or a live oak. If it is
Speaker 6: either of the first two, the leaves will fall at
Speaker 6: the approach of winter, but if it is the last,
Speaker 6: they do not. The white oaks have very deeply notched
Speaker 6: leaves with blunt lobes, while the chestnut oaks have large
Speaker 6: leaves with coarsely toothed or wavy margins. Now there are
Speaker 6: several kinds of white oaks and several chestnut oaks, but
Speaker 6: only one of each is called white oak or chestnut oak.
Speaker 6: The white oak, which has received the name, has a
Speaker 6: rough acorn cup somewhat shorter than the acorn. It is
Speaker 6: at its best in the Alleghany Mountains. The mossy cup
Speaker 6: white oak has a fringed and scaly cup which nearly
Speaker 6: covers the acorn. It is more abundant in the prairie
Speaker 6: region east of the Mississippi River. It is also known
Speaker 6: as the bur oak or over cup oak. The chestnut oak,
Speaker 6: which receives the name, has leaves somewhat like the chestnut,
Speaker 6: but the teeth are not pointed. Its acorns are born
Speaker 6: on a stem shorter than the leaf stem are pettiole.
Speaker 6: The swamp white oak is classed with the chestnut oaks
Speaker 6: because their leaves are like those of the other chestnut
Speaker 6: oaks near the tip. They are, however, like the white
Speaker 6: oaks in being lobed near the base. The acorns are
Speaker 6: born on the stems longer than the leaf stems. The
Speaker 6: leaves of the live oak are not deciduous. They are
Speaker 6: thick and heavy, and the acorn cups taper to the
Speaker 6: peticolar stem. The Southern live oak is a tree highly
Speaker 6: valued for its timber. The cups nearly cover the acorns.
Speaker 6: The California live oak has long, slender nuts several times
Speaker 6: as long as the cups. The wood is brittle. If
Speaker 6: you should have an acorn with a bitter kernel, it
Speaker 6: is probably a red oak, a black oak, or a
Speaker 6: willow oak. Red oaks have a reddish wood. Their leaves
Speaker 6: are often deeply cut, with the lobes tipped with bristle.
Speaker 6: They turn brilliant red in autumn. The red oak has
Speaker 6: a shallow acorn cup and the leaves turn orange red
Speaker 6: in autumn. The scarlet oak has very ragged leaves, scarlet
Speaker 6: and autumn. The acorn cup is top shaped and rather deep.
Speaker 6: The kernel is white and bitter. The bark is gray
Speaker 6: without red within. The black oak is quite like the
Speaker 6: scarlet oak in many ways, but the bark is dark
Speaker 6: and rough and has an orange yewed lining. This oak
Speaker 6: is valuable for the tannin, which is used in the
Speaker 6: manufacture of leather. The willow oaks have simple leaves like
Speaker 6: those of a willow, but very tough. The acorns are
Speaker 6: round like a ball. End of chapter six.
Speaker 1: Chapter seven of Ten Common Trees. This is a LibriVox recording.
Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please vi at LibriVox dot org.
Speaker 1: Recording by Larry Wilson, Ten Common Trees by Susan Stokes
Speaker 1: Chestnut Trees. Have you ever hunted chestnuts? Then you must
Speaker 1: go to the country some day in October. A day
Speaker 1: in the woods in October is something almost better than
Speaker 1: a day in June. Some morning when the air is
Speaker 1: crisp and cool, when the frost is on the ground.
Speaker 1: Put some apples and cookies in your pocket, and a
Speaker 1: long stick with a crook at the end over your shoulder.
Speaker 1: As you run across the hard white ground, you can
Speaker 1: shout and sing to your heart's content. You can pass
Speaker 1: the corn in shock and tumble from the stack of straw.
Speaker 1: The chipmunk on the fence will listen to your whistle,
Speaker 1: and the red squirrel leap from tree to tree it
Speaker 1: your approach. In the woods, the maples will be scarlet
Speaker 1: the ash is purple. There will be winter green berries
Speaker 1: with red jackets and white pulp, but you need not
Speaker 1: stop for these. Find the yellow trees with long leaves
Speaker 1: saw toothed on the edge. On the grounds, scattered by
Speaker 1: last night's wind are some long tailed nuts and some
Speaker 1: prickly burrs. These burrs are stiff and covered with sharp
Speaker 1: branched thorns. They open in four parts when tweaked by
Speaker 1: the frost. The wind helps pull them from the tree.
Speaker 1: If they should not have fallen, take your crook and
Speaker 1: shake them down. When your pockets are full of chestnuts,
Speaker 1: when you have filled the salt sack you brought from home,
Speaker 1: when you have eaten apples with chestnuts and chestnuts with cookies,
Speaker 1: you can hide your sack of nuts while you explore
Speaker 1: a little. You can climb the tree and peep at
Speaker 1: the gray squirrel's stock. He is a thrifty little fellow,
Speaker 1: for he puts by only the kernels. You would not
Speaker 1: think of robbing him. The chipmunk too has a store,
Speaker 1: but they are underground. Once in a while he puts
Speaker 1: a few together under some leaves. But you have found them,
Speaker 1: and then you can go home home to pumpkin pie
Speaker 1: and dreams of chestnuts popping in the ashes. Here is
Speaker 1: a question for you, what are chestnuts? Yes, chestnuts are seeds,
Speaker 1: but they are also young trees, each packed away in
Speaker 1: a tough brown coat. Could you have looked in the
Speaker 1: burr in July, you would have found only some small
Speaker 1: white nuts. In June they would have been so small
Speaker 1: that they were really not nuts at all, but some
Speaker 1: long necked flowers. Even then, the three flowers had a
Speaker 1: prickly cup or in volucar. I have told you about
Speaker 1: the oaks and the cap they make for the young acorn.
Speaker 1: This cup of the young chestnut is not very unlike
Speaker 1: the cap of the acorn. It grows much larger, and
Speaker 1: it holds three flowers instead of one. But it shows
Speaker 1: that the chestnut is a relative of the oaks. Their
Speaker 1: staminate flowers show the same thing. In June, the chestnut
Speaker 1: tree has long catkins of whitish flowers. The catkin is
Speaker 1: made up of numerous clusters of tiny flowers. The birds
Speaker 1: are not born among these, but on separate peduncles, as
Speaker 1: in the oak. Chestnut trees are known to live, sometimes
Speaker 1: to an age of several hundred years. One on Mount
Speaker 1: Etna in Italy is one hundred and ninety feet around.
Speaker 1: It is called the tree of a hundred horses, for
Speaker 1: at once sheltered a queen with her followers. It is
Speaker 1: a Spanish or Italian chestnut. Other very old ones are
Speaker 1: found in England. They do not differ maturely from the
Speaker 1: American chestnut, but are frequently planted in America, for the
Speaker 1: nuts are larger. The American chestnut is smaller and sweeter.
Speaker 1: The chestnut has some relatives a little nearer than the oaks.
Speaker 1: They are the chin equipins. The leaves of these are
Speaker 1: much smaller than the chestnut that leaves. The edge is
Speaker 1: only slightly toothed, if at all, and the undersurface is downy.
Speaker 1: The birds are smaller, and there is but one nut
Speaker 1: instead of three. The nut is of course not flattened
Speaker 1: on the sides. One of the Jinequa pins is a
Speaker 1: native of the Pacific coast and is a tall tree.
Speaker 1: The other is southern, and the trees are quite small.
Speaker 1: End of chapter seven.
Speaker 4: Chapter eight of Ten Common Trees. This is a LibriVox recording.
Speaker 4: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
Speaker 4: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot Org recording
Speaker 4: by Kimberly Sassen. Ten Common Trees by Susan Stokes, Chapter eight,
Speaker 4: The little walnut. Once upon a time there was a
Speaker 4: little nut. It lived in a greenhouse upon the top
Speaker 4: of a high tree. Figure one. The house was a
Speaker 4: sticky affair on the outside, and had neither door nor windows.
Speaker 4: Still it was cozy and warm, for as you see,
Speaker 4: it had a tough husk for an outer wall. Next
Speaker 4: to this was a bony shell, and clear inside was
Speaker 4: the little nut. Figure two. There were two rooms into
Speaker 4: which its two leaves fitted. Their walls were crumpled, and
Speaker 4: the little nut pressed out just as far as it
Speaker 4: could and filled all the crannies. This little nut was
Speaker 4: five months old, for it had arrived upon the tree
Speaker 4: in May. Now, if you will look at a walnut
Speaker 4: tree in May, you will find it has made ready
Speaker 4: a great many homes for nut babies. They don't look
Speaker 4: just like the full grown house, first because they are
Speaker 4: not any larger than a grain of rice, and second
Speaker 4: because they have two top knots. Perhaps we had better
Speaker 4: call them chimneys. Here is a group of these nut
Speaker 4: houses Fig. Three. You can find them in the tip
Speaker 4: of a branch just after the leaves unroll. The round
Speaker 4: part is sticky, but the chimneys are hairy, and if
Speaker 4: you look very closely, you can see that they have
Speaker 4: been dusted over with a yellow powder, and there is
Speaker 4: a slight frill at the neck.
Speaker 1: Fig.
Speaker 4: Four. I have sometimes cut down into the house through
Speaker 4: the chimney and found where the grains had made their
Speaker 4: way through the chimney into a little room. At the bottom.
Speaker 4: In the little room was an egg cell. When the
Speaker 4: pollen grain reaches it, the little egg cell wakes up
Speaker 4: and begins to grow. It grows and grows until it
Speaker 4: becomes the kernel of a nut. I think you would
Speaker 4: like to know where the little pollen grain the walnut's
Speaker 4: fairy prints came from. It was probably carried by the
Speaker 4: wind from another tree, although we find both stamens and
Speaker 4: pistols on the same tree. It came from a queer
Speaker 4: little flower that has thirty or forty pockets full of
Speaker 4: gold dust. The little flower doesn't look much like a flower.
Speaker 4: It seems to be a little shelf holding eight or
Speaker 4: ten little stamens, each of which has four pockets.
Speaker 5: Fig.
Speaker 3: Five.
Speaker 4: The little shelves grow in clusters in tail like catkins. Fig.
Speaker 2: Six.
Speaker 4: There are from twenty to forty flowers in a catkin,
Speaker 4: and a very great many catkins on a single tree.
Speaker 4: The catkins do not grow in the tip of the branch,
Speaker 4: but stand out from the sides farther back. They are
Speaker 4: always green in color and disappear after the wind carries
Speaker 4: away the pollen. They were very different from the little
Speaker 4: nuts high up in the tree. The little nuts kept
Speaker 4: on growing, the winds rock them to and fro the
Speaker 4: rains washed their sticky walls, and the mother tree kept
Speaker 4: adding to the food supply in the little leaves. By
Speaker 4: and by October came and with it a high wind
Speaker 4: which whisked down nut house and all down into a corner.
Speaker 4: But the same wind also carried the leaves about and
Speaker 4: covered the nutt with a warm blanket. Then the clouds
Speaker 4: gathered and the white snow fell. The little nut slept
Speaker 4: under the snow, but when the ground froze deep down,
Speaker 4: it cracked the nut's shell. After a while, the nut
Speaker 4: awoke and began to use the food the mother tree
Speaker 4: had put in its leaves. It was thirsty too, and
Speaker 4: was glad to drink the melting snow, so it ate
Speaker 4: and drank and began to grow. The two rooms of
Speaker 4: its house became too small for it, and it pushed
Speaker 4: out a tiny root, which turned into the ground. By
Speaker 4: and by. The little root was so busy getting water,
Speaker 4: and the little nut was so busy using it that
Speaker 4: a long green sprout sprang out from between the two leaves,
Speaker 4: pushed through the old leaves above out into the sunlight,
Speaker 4: where it opened out into a green leaf. It was
Speaker 4: a long green leaf made up of many separate leaflets,
Speaker 4: a great many pairs of them. Then it put out
Speaker 4: another at another, and you could see that it was
Speaker 4: going to be a walnut tree. If you would like
Speaker 4: to see one like it, look under the walnut trees.
Speaker 4: In the spring Fig. Seven, after the young tree had
Speaker 4: put out several leaves, it took a rest, and when
Speaker 4: October came I found it with a hood on the
Speaker 4: end of the stem. The hood was made from leaves
Speaker 4: which did not grow long, but which remained short and dark.
Speaker 4: These were the bud scales, and they covered the winter bud.
Speaker 4: Then it dropped the leaves it had put out in
Speaker 4: the spring and passed the winter as a bare twig.
Speaker 4: In the spring, it dropped the bud scales and made
Speaker 4: some more green leaves, And then again it made a
Speaker 4: winter bud. Each year it added a few inches to
Speaker 4: its height and a few leaves to the ends of
Speaker 4: its branches. Each year it added a layer to its
Speaker 4: bark and made new winter buds. So it became a tall,
Speaker 4: young tree with strength to spare. And in the spring
Speaker 4: it fashioned houses for new nuts and as which should
Speaker 4: shed pollen dust. Just as the mother tree had stored
Speaker 4: food and its seed leaves, it now stored food in
Speaker 4: the leaves of its own seed children. The tree grew
Speaker 4: tall and beautiful in its forest home. Its umbrella like
Speaker 4: head was lifted some sixty feet into the bright sunshine.
Speaker 4: Its plume like leaves waved in the breeze for a
Speaker 4: hundred summers more. And then there came a change. On
Speaker 4: the edge of the forest. There sprang up a little town.
Speaker 4: The hum of the sawmill frightened away the birds by
Speaker 4: and by. The land was all cleared, and the daisies
Speaker 4: plowed under, And the tree I suspect it passed through
Speaker 4: the saw mill. The walnut family. The walnut tree whose
Speaker 4: story I have told is the American black walnut. It
Speaker 4: has been so highly valued for its beautiful dark wood
Speaker 4: that the forests, once very abundant in the Mississippi Valley,
Speaker 4: have almost entirely disappeared. Fortunately, it is now being planted
Speaker 4: and cultivated for future use, although it grows very slowly.
Speaker 4: It is distinguished from other walnuts by its long leaf
Speaker 4: with fifteen to twenty three leaflets, its dark wood, and
Speaker 4: the nut, which is nearly black with sharply cut ridges.
Speaker 4: The white walnut or butter nut is also prized for
Speaker 4: its wood, which is reddish in color, but not so
Speaker 4: desirable as black walnut. It has a shorter leaf with
Speaker 4: from nine to seventeen leaflets. The base of its fuzzy
Speaker 4: stem is shaped like a horseshoe. The nut is oblong
Speaker 4: and pointed at the tip, and the kernel is much valued.
Speaker 4: The English or European walnut is frequently cultivated in the
Speaker 4: mild portions of the United States. It has short leaves
Speaker 4: with five to nine leaflets. Fig. Eight. The thin shelled
Speaker 4: nut separates easily from the husk when dry. They are
Speaker 4: common in the market. The hickories are closely related to
Speaker 4: the walnuts by their leaves, flowers, and nuts with a
Speaker 4: bony partition. They are separated from the walnuts on account
Speaker 4: of the husk. The husk of the walnut is continuous
Speaker 4: of one piece. The husk of the hickory opens by
Speaker 4: four distinct valves. The shag bark or hickory is a tall,
Speaker 4: spreading tree with bark which breaks away in long strips
Speaker 4: and has light colored wood. The leaves have usually five leaflets,
Speaker 4: which are several inches in length. The nut is thin, walled, whitish,
Speaker 4: and slightly flattened. The big shell bark has a larger
Speaker 4: leaf with from seven to nine leaflets, which are downy
Speaker 4: on the underside. The young twigs are slightly orange colored.
Speaker 4: The nut is larger and pointed at both ends. The
Speaker 4: pecan is the species found in the south. It grows
Speaker 4: to a greater height than the northern forms. The leaves
Speaker 4: are longer, with from nine to fifteen pointed leaflets, and
Speaker 4: the husk is thin with yellowish threads. It opens by
Speaker 4: four valves, dropping the nut but not the husk. The
Speaker 4: nut is oblong, about an inch in length, smooth and
Speaker 4: thin shelled. The kernel is sweet and of excellent flavor.
Speaker 4: Reference Seed Babies, Margaret Morley Nuts Falling Foster in Child's
Speaker 4: Garden of Song. Succession of forest Trees the row end
Speaker 4: of chapter eight.
Speaker 3: Chapter nine of Ten Common Trees. This is a LibriVox recording.
Speaker 3: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
Speaker 3: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Ten
Speaker 3: Common Trees by Susan Stokes The cone Bearers. At one
Speaker 3: time there was a great forest of pine trees. They
Speaker 3: covered the hillsides and the steam deep slopes of the mountains.
Speaker 3: They stood spear straight in the moss by the streams.
Speaker 3: They looked down from the cliffs, where they grew tall
Speaker 3: and strong, or clung ragged and stunted to the bare rocks.
Speaker 3: On the edge of this forest lived the Indians. Their
Speaker 3: young men grew up in the shade of the pines,
Speaker 3: and somehow they were alike. The trees were dark in summer.
Speaker 3: They cared not for summer nor winter. Neither were the
Speaker 3: Indians merry. They were fearless and hardy. No blast was
Speaker 3: too strong, and no cold too fierce. They trapped the
Speaker 3: beaver and followed the bear under the trees. And they
Speaker 3: listened to the winds when they whistled or moaned through
Speaker 3: the branches. When they danced and sung around their war fires.
Speaker 3: The pines echoed their voices, and so they came to
Speaker 3: feel that the trees were alive, that there was in
Speaker 3: the tree a spirit to which they could appeal. They
Speaker 3: also thought that some men had been changed into trees.
Speaker 3: Even now, there is in the Bitter Root Mountains a
Speaker 3: great medicine or peast tree. It is a pine and
Speaker 3: stands on the boundary between two tribes. Under it, they
Speaker 3: settled their disputes, and to it they bring offerings, which
Speaker 3: they hang on its branches. Shall I tell you some
Speaker 3: of the stories they used to tell about the pines.
Speaker 3: A long time ago, there were ten Indian boys living
Speaker 3: in a village. They were great friends. Every evening, at
Speaker 3: dusk they would meet and dance about one of their number,
Speaker 3: who was a sweet singer. Once they wanted to have
Speaker 3: a great feast, but their parents thought it was foolish
Speaker 3: and would not give them the things for which they asked.
Speaker 3: That night they came out and danced as usual. The
Speaker 3: singers sang more sweetly than ever before. As he sung,
Speaker 3: they danced faster and faster. Then the singer rose into
Speaker 3: the air, and still they whirled round and round him.
Speaker 3: Their mothers came out and called to them to come
Speaker 3: back and they might have what they wished. Still, there
Speaker 3: rose higher and higher, dancing around the singer. Only one
Speaker 3: of them looked back, and he fell to the earth
Speaker 3: and was changed into a pine tree. And so the
Speaker 3: pine trees still tell the fate of the boys who
Speaker 3: danced away into the clouds. The trunk is a singer,
Speaker 3: and its circles of branches are the boys who danced
Speaker 3: about him.
Speaker 6: Away.
Speaker 3: Up in the top of a pine tree, there is
Speaker 3: a tip like a feather, and this is a story
Speaker 3: they tell about it. Three men once went to the
Speaker 3: great spirit Glusgup to ask for favors. The first was
Speaker 3: a young Indian who wore bark and fur in his
Speaker 3: moccasins in order to appear tall. He also plastered his
Speaker 3: hair high and stuck in a turkey feather. What would
Speaker 3: you have, asked Glusgup. I wish to be taller than
Speaker 3: any Indian in the land, said he. Glusgub was not
Speaker 3: pleased and turned to the what will you have? He asked?
Speaker 3: The second wanted to live upon the earth forever that
Speaker 3: he might see its beauty. Grant that I may live
Speaker 3: to be very old, and that I may have good
Speaker 3: health to enjoy it, said the third Glusgab called his
Speaker 3: servant and told him to take the men to a
Speaker 3: hill near by and fasten their feet in the ground.
Speaker 3: This done, he changed them into pine trees. In this
Speaker 3: way each had his wish granted. If you will listen
Speaker 3: when you pass under the pines, you can hear their
Speaker 3: voices and see the turkey feather in the top. Some
Speaker 3: of the pine trees are very very tall. Would you
Speaker 3: like to hear how they became so? The great Manabosso
Speaker 3: had been hunting one day when he came to the
Speaker 3: edge of the forest. He saw the prince of the
Speaker 3: serpents lying on the sand by the big sea water.
Speaker 3: Mana Bosso remembered how much harm the serpents had done,
Speaker 3: and so he shot the magic arrow straight to its
Speaker 3: heart and killed it. Then he turned and ran. The
Speaker 3: serpent had given a loud cry, and the others, hearing it,
Speaker 3: came to him. When they saw that Manobosso had killed him,
Speaker 3: they started after him, crawling and leaping. They went so
Speaker 3: fast that they were soon upon him, and he could
Speaker 3: hear them hissing. He had run to the top of
Speaker 3: a mountain, and now he had just time to climb
Speaker 3: the tree. He found there, the serpents were about its space.
Speaker 3: Waters of Earth rise and save me, he cried. The
Speaker 3: waters came, roaring and splashing. They rose to the top
Speaker 3: of the mountain. They swallowed the serpents and crept higher
Speaker 3: and higher up the tree. They came about his feet. Tree, tree,
Speaker 3: stretch and save me, he cried. The tree was a pine.
Speaker 3: It stretched and stretched until it was several times as
Speaker 3: tall as before. And still the waters rose. They crept
Speaker 3: to his knees, to his waist, but when they reached
Speaker 3: his neck they stopped. He called to a passing loon
Speaker 3: to dive and bring up some earth. It dived but
Speaker 3: came up dead. Then a muskrat came floating by Manabosso
Speaker 3: called to it, muskrat, bring me some dirt from the
Speaker 3: ground below the water, and you shall have your choice
Speaker 3: of places on the new Earth I will build. The
Speaker 3: muskrat dived and brought up some dirt in its paws.
Speaker 3: It seemed to be dead, but Manabosso breathed into its
Speaker 3: nostrils and it came to life. So Manabosso made a
Speaker 3: new Earth, and ever since the pine trees have been
Speaker 3: taller than other trees the pine family. Almost all cone
Speaker 3: bearing trees are called pines by those who have not
Speaker 3: studied them. The pine family includes not only the true pines,
Speaker 3: but the firs and spruces, the hemlocks, larches, and cedars.
Speaker 3: They are also called evergreens, for they do not drop
Speaker 3: their leaves as do many of the other common trees.
Speaker 3: This does not mean that the leaves never drop at all,
Speaker 3: but that they do not fall at the same time
Speaker 3: or on the approach of winter. If you look under
Speaker 3: the trees, you can always find the dried needles that
Speaker 3: have fallen. They fall from the inner and older parts
Speaker 3: of the branches. Evergreen leaves do not look much like
Speaker 3: those of other trees. They are sometimes long and pointed,
Speaker 3: like needles. They may be narrow and flat. They may
Speaker 3: look like flattened scales on the branches, or they may
Speaker 3: be short and all like such. Leaves are much stiffer
Speaker 3: than other leaves and must have some way of protecting
Speaker 3: themselves against the cold. They are usually resinous. That is,
Speaker 3: there are in each leaf bodies which produce a thick,
Speaker 3: sticky gum, which we call balsam. This is sometimes fragrant,
Speaker 3: as in the furbals. The pines are much more like
Speaker 3: the trees that were growing on the earth at the
Speaker 3: time that the great coal beds were forming than are
Speaker 3: any of the deciduous trees. Their leaves are more like
Speaker 3: the leaves of the old club mosses. Their cones are
Speaker 3: also somewhat like those of the ancient mosses. In this
Speaker 3: way we know that the pines are much older in
Speaker 3: their form than the deciduous trees. The fruit of the
Speaker 3: pines is called a cone. You have all seen cones.
Speaker 3: They are usually round or oval in shape, and consist
Speaker 3: of a central axis around which grow many hard, stiff,
Speaker 3: brown scales. Sometimes these scales are thin and flat, sometimes
Speaker 3: they are thick and rough. In the pines they overlap,
Speaker 3: but in the cypresses and in the cedars their edges
Speaker 3: may fit together, so that they are rather ball like
Speaker 3: and have hard ridges. If you could watch a cone grow,
Speaker 3: you would find them that it began as a twig begins.
Speaker 3: The part that in a twig grows into leaves in
Speaker 3: a cone flatten out and become the scales of the cone.
Speaker 3: The seed are borne on these scales, even in their seed.
Speaker 3: The pine family are quite different from the deciduous trees.
Speaker 3: A pine nut is smooth on the outside. Cut away
Speaker 3: the shell, and the kernel looks like a small egg
Speaker 3: with a small cap on one end. That cap is
Speaker 3: always found among the cone bearers. Now, if you cut
Speaker 3: the white kernel in two, you will find that the
Speaker 3: outside is food, and in the center of the food
Speaker 3: is a tiny little plant which may be green at
Speaker 3: one end. This is a young pine tree. This is
Speaker 3: a part which, when you plant the nut, cracks the
Speaker 3: shell and pushes its way out. These young plants are
Speaker 3: different from all other seedlings. You may find instead of
Speaker 3: one seed leaf like the corn, or two seed leaves
Speaker 3: like them, there are a circle of narrow leaves, usually
Speaker 3: about eight or ten. When the young tree begins to branch,
Speaker 3: buds form in a circle and become a circle of branches.
Speaker 3: But the middle bud is stronger than any of the others.
Speaker 3: It forms the trunk, which always exceeds the branches. The
Speaker 3: Norway spruce is the easiest to find of this group.
Speaker 3: It is cultivated in almost all the parts of this country.
Speaker 3: It is an evergreen tree with a straight, slender trunk
Speaker 3: and circles of slightly drooping branches. The sprays are flattened,
Speaker 3: and the stems covered with short needles of about an
Speaker 3: inching length. The needles are single, four sided, slightly curved,
Speaker 3: and occur on all sides of the stems. Their tips
Speaker 3: are pointed, but not sharp. The stems are marked with
Speaker 3: curious flat ridges or cushions from which the needles spring.
Speaker 3: If the tree is well grown, you may find it
Speaker 3: in flower In April or May. On the underside of
Speaker 3: the sprays will be found some dull yellow catkins of
Speaker 3: about an inchine length. They are not at all wooly
Speaker 3: and consists of overlapping scales. Each scale is supplied with
Speaker 3: two pockets from which the pollen is shed when ripe.
Speaker 3: These are the staminant catkins. The pistolate catkins or young
Speaker 3: cones are always higher up near the top of the tree.
Speaker 3: They are about an inchine length, of a deep red color,
Speaker 3: and hanged down. They too are made of flattened scales.
Speaker 3: At the base of each scale are two tiny oval bodies,
Speaker 3: which grow into seeds after they have been supplied with pollen.
Speaker 3: The mature cones are from four to six inches long
Speaker 3: and very regular in their shape. There is a central
Speaker 3: axis upon which the bracts or scales are arranged spirally.
Speaker 3: Figure six shows a cut through a cone, the bracts
Speaker 3: upon either side, and the seeds as they lie upon
Speaker 3: the bracts. Since the seed do not lie in a
Speaker 3: closed cavity, cone bearing trees are known as gymnosperms, or
Speaker 3: trees with naked seed. The seed are winged and fall
Speaker 3: out when the scales loosen in February. The true pines
Speaker 3: have flowers very much like these, but they are grouped differently.
Speaker 3: There is usually a cluster of the staminate catkins near
Speaker 3: the end of the lower branches. The young cones are
Speaker 3: higher up on older trees. They seem to take the
Speaker 3: place of a circle of young twigs on the branches.
Speaker 3: Great groups in the pine family. I am sure you
Speaker 3: will want to be able to distinguish the best known
Speaker 3: members of the pine family. This can be easily done
Speaker 3: if you answer the following questions. Is your cone bearer
Speaker 3: an evergreen? If not, it is probably a large or
Speaker 3: the southern cypress. If evergreen, others some thin dry bud
Speaker 3: scales about the base of the leaf. If so, it
Speaker 3: is a true pine. The leaves usually occur in groups
Speaker 3: from two to five, wrapped together and The cones are
Speaker 3: thick and woody. The scotch pine and yellow pine have
Speaker 3: the needles arranged in clusters of two. The pitch pine
Speaker 3: has the needles in groups of three. The white pines
Speaker 3: have five needles in a cluster. The bark is smooth
Speaker 3: and of a pale color. Are the leaves of your
Speaker 3: evergreen single and attached to little ridges on the stem?
Speaker 3: Do the cones group, then it is a spruce or
Speaker 3: a hemlock. The spruces have the needles arranged on all
Speaker 3: sides of the stems. Each needle is a little bit
Speaker 3: four sided. The cones fall as one piece. The black
Speaker 3: spruce of America and the white spruce have shorter cones
Speaker 3: than the one described. The first has dark bark and
Speaker 3: small cones. The second has light green foliage and a
Speaker 3: cone about two inches long. They both grow in that
Speaker 3: northern United is States and in Canada, where there are
Speaker 3: large forests. The Colorado spruce has sharp, pointed, pungent leaves
Speaker 3: and the branches incline upward. The hemlocks differ from the
Speaker 3: spruces in that the leaves are flattened and arranged in
Speaker 3: two rows on the stems, like a feather. This gives
Speaker 3: the tree a dainty, feathery spray, which droops decidedly. The
Speaker 3: staminate catkins are nearly round. Are the leaves of your
Speaker 3: evergreen single flattened and inclined to turn upward so that
Speaker 3: the under side of the stem is nearly bare. Then
Speaker 3: you have a fur. Observe that each leaf springs from
Speaker 3: a circular disc. The balsam firs are Native Americans and
Speaker 3: have served as Christmas trees for several centuries. The blisters
Speaker 3: upon their bark yield Canada balsam, and their leaves are
Speaker 3: very fragrant. Figure nine represents a twig of the northern
Speaker 3: balsam fir. The cones of the fir trees stand erect
Speaker 3: on the stems. When they open to shed the seed,
Speaker 3: the scales fall at the same time. This leaves the
Speaker 3: central axis standing. There are often conspicuous bracts between the scales.
Speaker 3: When the lower side of the leaves is marked with white,
Speaker 3: they are called silver firs. These are very handsome trees.
Speaker 3: The cedars may puzzle you at first, but if you
Speaker 3: look at them closely or get the cones, it will
Speaker 3: not be for long. The Lebanon cedars have needle like
Speaker 3: leaves arranged in tufts. The white cedars have flattened stems
Speaker 3: covered with four rows of overlapping scales. They are of
Speaker 3: two kinds, those having the flattened branches extending up and
Speaker 3: down the tree from top to bottom, and those in
Speaker 3: which the branches extend round the tree. The first are
Speaker 3: called arbor vita. The scales of the cones overlap the
Speaker 3: second are called cypress. The cones are round, like marbles.
Speaker 3: These are very common in California. The junipers or red
Speaker 3: cedars do not have a cone at all, but bear
Speaker 3: purple berries. The leaves are either scaleke or sharp and pointed,
Speaker 3: and the branches are horizontal. End of chapter nine.
Speaker 5: Chapter ten of Ten Common Trees. This is a LibriVox recording.
Speaker 5: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
Speaker 5: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
Speaker 5: by Miriann Spiegel. Ten Common Trees by Susan Stokes. Chapter ten,
Speaker 5: The red maple good news. Good news. Winter is going
Speaker 5: winter with his gloomy skies and whistling winds. Winter who
Speaker 5: gives the fields and the trees so old They are
Speaker 5: beards of icicle and snow there's not a robin to
Speaker 5: be seen, not a spring beauty peeping out of the snow.
Speaker 5: But down by the river I have found a tree,
Speaker 5: a beautiful red tree. It blooms earlier than the pussy willows,
Speaker 5: earlier than the crocuses. Sometimes it blooms so very early
Speaker 5: that the gray old king nips its buds and turns
Speaker 5: its twigs brown. There are no leaves yet on this tree,
Speaker 5: but you may know it by its shape, by the
Speaker 5: compact round head, low branches, sharp angles, and bushy twigs.
Speaker 5: The bark is thin, a grayish brown on the trunk,
Speaker 5: red on the twigs. It is smooth above, but down
Speaker 5: below it has cracked lengthwise. Let us see what kind
Speaker 5: of tree it is. Here On the twigs are the
Speaker 5: scars of last year's leaves, in pairs and v shaped.
Speaker 5: If there are three or four eyes in each scar,
Speaker 5: it is a maple. This one, with its red twigs
Speaker 5: and flowers, is the red maple. It grows wild along
Speaker 5: stream and in swamps. Sometimes we call it the swamp maple.
Speaker 5: The flowers are these bright red tufts. The poet Lowell
Speaker 5: calls them the maples corals. There are so many of
Speaker 5: them that they color the whole tree red. You must
Speaker 5: look closely to discover that there are two kinds. Some
Speaker 5: of them have little balls covered with yellow dust, while
Speaker 5: others have just two tiny red plumes in each flower.
Speaker 5: On this tree you find a great many of the
Speaker 5: balls and only a few of the plumes. But on
Speaker 5: some of the trees you will find a great many
Speaker 5: of the plumes with but very few balls. In some families,
Speaker 5: all the children are boys, in others girls, and in
Speaker 5: others there are boys and girls together. So with the maple,
Speaker 5: one tree may have balls or stamens alone, another plumes
Speaker 5: or pistols, and still another, though this kind is more rare,
Speaker 5: may have stamens and pistols together. Both the balls and
Speaker 5: the plumes grow in red cups. These help to keep
Speaker 5: them warm. It would not be safe for every tree
Speaker 5: to bloom at this season, but the red maple seems
Speaker 5: to be prepared for cold weather in several ways. First,
Speaker 5: the flowers grow in tufts that keeps out some of
Speaker 5: the wind, for they bloom just when wild march winds
Speaker 5: on their errands sing. Second, the buds are protected by scales.
Speaker 5: You will find them turned back just below the open flowers,
Speaker 5: but they show better. In the bud. Around the young flowers,
Speaker 5: there is a brown and shiny coat of resin, a
Speaker 5: waterproof to keep out the rain and snow. They are
Speaker 5: so small, these tiny flowers, that they do not need
Speaker 5: a waterproof for each, but are wrapped up three or
Speaker 5: four together. Third, when the bud scales turn back and
Speaker 5: the flowers push out on their pedicels, they have still
Speaker 5: two red cloaks or cups, which keep the inner parts warm.
Speaker 5: The outer of these is called a calyx, the inner
Speaker 5: a corolla. When the cup contains stamens, they may be
Speaker 5: from four to twelve in number, each with a tiny
Speaker 5: ball or anther. Each ball has four little pockets full
Speaker 5: of yellow dust called pollen. When the pollen falls upon
Speaker 5: the red plumes, it pushes its way into the urn
Speaker 5: shaped body at the base. This then begins to grow.
Speaker 5: Its shoulders enlarge, and each becomes a broad, flat wing
Speaker 5: or sail. Such a two winged fruit is a samara
Speaker 5: or key. You may remember seeing such keys late in
Speaker 5: the year, when the wind carries them about, whisking them
Speaker 5: into corners or dropping them in the shade of the
Speaker 5: mother tree. Some day you may open one and see
Speaker 5: what is within carefully cut away one wall of the
Speaker 5: thickened base, there are two little rooms, and in each
Speaker 5: one is a seed. Now cut off the seed wall.
Speaker 5: Also what you find two tiny baby maples twins. They
Speaker 5: are wrapped up and swung in a winged cradle. Each
Speaker 5: one has a tiny root and two little leaves. The
Speaker 5: root works down into the soil and gathers water with
Speaker 5: its velvety root hairs. The stem pushes up into the sunlight.
Speaker 5: The second pair of leaves differ in shape from the
Speaker 5: first or seed leaves, and the third are more perfect. Still,
Speaker 5: all summer long, the little maples grow adding to their
Speaker 5: crown of leaves, till in the fall they may be
Speaker 5: two feet tall. Then winter comes and the cold kills
Speaker 5: them off by the hundreds. The red maple blooms early,
Speaker 5: so that the children grow tall and strong before winter begins.
Speaker 5: The keys, falling as they do down upon the wet
Speaker 5: soil of marsh and river, could not live through the winter,
Speaker 5: but would decay. Fortunately, the swamp maple blooms in March
Speaker 5: and drops its keys in May. When this is done,
Speaker 5: the maple has summer before it, the long warm summer
Speaker 5: in which to work and build. After the flowers bloom,
Speaker 5: the winter buds unfold. The winter buds are at the
Speaker 5: end of the twigs and are darker in color than
Speaker 5: the flower buds. They too are covered with scales, coated
Speaker 5: with resin, and lined with wool. There are six or
Speaker 5: eight of them. Do you see a scar as below
Speaker 5: the flower buds on either side? The flower buds grew
Speaker 5: in the axle of the lowest scale, and it has
Speaker 5: fallen away and left a scar. The first leaves are
Speaker 5: not quite perfect, but seem to be half leaf half scale.
Speaker 5: Having been wrapped up in the bud all winter, they
Speaker 5: never recover from the effects of the crowded position. Spread
Speaker 5: one of the later leaves out on your hand, and
Speaker 5: you will see why they are described as palmata, or
Speaker 5: five lobed. If you look at a number, you may
Speaker 5: find some with only three lobes. The margin is notched
Speaker 5: and the leaves are opposite. When they first unfold, the
Speaker 5: leaves are deep red in color. As they grow older
Speaker 5: and turn green, the maple uses them to prepare food.
Speaker 5: It takes the water from the soil and gas from
Speaker 5: the air, just such gas as you throw out of
Speaker 5: your lungs, and it mixes them there behind the green curtain.
Speaker 5: The curtain is of wonderful material. It does not let
Speaker 5: all the light through. That which passes is of a
Speaker 5: deep green color, and it turns the gas and water
Speaker 5: into starch and sugar. When October comes, the season for
Speaker 5: making food is over. Then the maple takes in the
Speaker 5: green curtains and puts up some of crimson and yellow
Speaker 5: and scarlet. This is the time when squirrels gather their
Speaker 5: nuts and farmers house their grain for winter use. The trees, too,
Speaker 5: are making ready for winter. They are storing sap away
Speaker 5: in the trunk. The beautiful colors are also useful. Though
Speaker 5: trees need sunlight, it may sometimes be too strong. The
Speaker 5: food which is carried in the sap might easily be
Speaker 5: hurt by the sunlight, but the bright colors turn back
Speaker 5: a part of the light so that the food reaches
Speaker 5: the trunk in safety. The young leaves are also red
Speaker 5: until they begin to produce the leaf green, which they
Speaker 5: use in making the food. When the food is safely stored,
Speaker 5: the tree has no further use for the leaves. They
Speaker 5: turn brown and fall to the ground, but they are
Speaker 5: not altogether lost, for the soil they fall upon is
Speaker 5: richer for the shower of leaves. There is something else
Speaker 5: which a maple makes during the sunny summer. It is wood,
Speaker 5: wood in which to keep warm when the wintry winds
Speaker 5: are blowing. The wood is somewhat pink in color, and
Speaker 5: is often used to make furniture, gun stocks, and other things.
Speaker 5: One kind, the bird's eye maple, is very handsome. You
Speaker 5: may look for it yourself some day. The wood extends
Speaker 5: out into the bark in very many minute prickles. When
Speaker 5: this is cut and polished, it is found to be
Speaker 5: marked with many circular grains the bird's eyes. Another kind
Speaker 5: is the curly maple. The woody fibers, which are usually
Speaker 5: quite straight, are sometimes wavy. When such wood is polished,
Speaker 5: it shows lights and shades like the folds of a
Speaker 5: satin gown, and is called curly maple. Did you ever
Speaker 5: think how long it takes a tree to build its
Speaker 5: house of wood? If you are small enough to go
Speaker 5: through all its rooms, you would find it a perfect palace.
Speaker 5: Every year new rooms are added, always between the wood
Speaker 5: and the bark. In this way a ring is added
Speaker 5: each year. We can tell the age of a tree
Speaker 5: by the number of rings in the wood. If there
Speaker 5: are a hundred rings, the tree is a hundred years old,
Speaker 5: which the tree has many friends. It is fixed in
Speaker 5: a single place, but the winds and the birds can
Speaker 5: come and go. The wind is a family friend of
Speaker 5: long standing, one that has been trusted by the family
Speaker 5: for generations. He carries the pollen from tree to tree
Speaker 5: and starts the children out into the world. He also
Speaker 5: drives the clouds to the hills and cools the leaves
Speaker 5: when the air is hot. As for others, the shyest
Speaker 5: birds sing in its branches. It shares their joys and sorrows,
Speaker 5: and protects them with its shade. Another good friend is
Speaker 5: Jack Frost, who warns it when winter is coming that
Speaker 5: it may be ready. But Jack is not the Maple's
Speaker 5: friend alone. He does many kind things for nature's other children.
Speaker 5: The wild geese must be driven southward. The gray partridge
Speaker 5: must be warned to put on her snow white feathers.
Speaker 5: He whispers to the brown bear to find a hollow tree,
Speaker 5: and invites the red squirrel to north hollow when he
Speaker 5: opens the farmer's chestnuts. How would you like to live
Speaker 5: a life like that? At the maple? You could never
Speaker 5: leave your house at all, but it would be warm
Speaker 5: and comfortable during the cold, hard winters. Sometimes the melting
Speaker 5: snows would swell the streams in the spring and would
Speaker 5: wash all the earth from your roots. Or the worms
Speaker 5: might eat the leaves from your branches, the sugar man
Speaker 5: might steal your sap, or the lumber man take your house.
Speaker 5: But think of the long days of sunshine under blue skies,
Speaker 5: when you could wave your leaves in the breeze, of
Speaker 5: the cool showers, and of the lofty nights with the
Speaker 5: moon and stars and crooning birds. Native maples, the red
Speaker 5: maple is found in the northern and eastern part of
Speaker 5: the United States. It is often planted along streets or
Speaker 5: in parks, but grows wild only in river bottoms and
Speaker 5: swampy places. It has a great many relatives which you
Speaker 5: may meet, and which you may know by their palmate,
Speaker 5: opposite leaves, and two winged fruit, although they may differ
Speaker 5: in other respects. The silver maple is a tall tree
Speaker 5: with a pale bark which flakes off in thin sheets.
Speaker 5: Like the red maple, it blooms early, but its tufts
Speaker 5: of flowers are much thicker and its buds more numerous.
Speaker 5: When the flowers come out. There is a single hairy
Speaker 5: green cup to keep the inner parts warm. Its leaves
Speaker 5: are silvery below with deep sharp notches. This tree is
Speaker 5: widely planted, for it grows very rapidly. The wood is
Speaker 5: soft and when burned, does not give much heat. The
Speaker 5: sugar maple is another relative and is well known for
Speaker 5: its sweet sap. It does not bloom early. The flowers
Speaker 5: and leaves come out together, and the keys are not
Speaker 5: shed until October. They fall on dry ground, however, and
Speaker 5: the seed leaves are filled with starch, so they wait
Speaker 5: till spring before they start to grow. The flower has
Speaker 5: a long pedicel and there is but one cup. The
Speaker 5: leaves are nearly round with a few large blunt notches.
Speaker 5: It is known as the hard maple for the wood
Speaker 5: is tough and clothes grained. The striped maple has light
Speaker 5: green bark striped with dark lines. The wood is hard
Speaker 5: and fine, but it does not grow very tall unless
Speaker 5: it is grafted upon a young tree of another kind
Speaker 5: of maple, when it may become sixty or seventy feet high.
Speaker 5: The mountain maple is shrubby. Also, its leaves appear before
Speaker 5: the flowers, which are occur in a long spike at
Speaker 5: the end of twigs. There are large numbers of keys
Speaker 5: in a cluster. The great leaved maple of California has
Speaker 5: leaves which are often a foot broad, and the scar
Speaker 5: is marked with seven eyes. Another the vine maple of Oregon,
Speaker 5: forms dense clumps. It divides near the base, and the
Speaker 5: long branches bend over by their own weight, taking root
Speaker 5: where they touch the ground. There are also many maples
Speaker 5: which have been brought over from Europe. The box elder
Speaker 5: closely resembles the maple, but its stamens and pistols do
Speaker 5: not occur on the same tree. Its leaves consist of
Speaker 5: from three to five leaflets.
Speaker 7: End of chapter ten, Chapter eleven of ten Common Trees.
Speaker 7: This is a liprivox recording. All liprivox recordings are in
Speaker 7: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
Speaker 7: visit liprivox dot org. Recording by AVAI in May twenty fifteen.
Speaker 7: Ten Common Trees by Susan Stokes, Chapter eleven. Forests and
Speaker 7: their Preservation. The forests of America have been rapidly depleted
Speaker 7: in the past century. At one time they were thought
Speaker 7: to be inexhaustible. This has been found not to be
Speaker 7: the case, the young timber does not grow so rapidly
Speaker 7: as to replace that which has been removed. This is
Speaker 7: in part due to the growth of industry and in
Speaker 7: part to the wasteful use of trees. The industries depending
Speaker 7: upon the products of trees are so numerous, and the
Speaker 7: necessity for renewing the trees so self evident, that the
Speaker 7: government has been obliged to study the subject thoroughly. Large
Speaker 7: quantities of timber are used in building, manufacturing, fencing, for
Speaker 7: railroad ties and fuels. The bark is used in the
Speaker 7: tanning of leather. Turpentine, pitches, and sugar are derived by
Speaker 7: tapping the trees. The most considerable waste is due to
Speaker 7: forest fires and the ruthless cutting of timber on the
Speaker 7: public lands. Charcoal is frequently burned without any attempt to
Speaker 7: preserve the gases which would be of value for illuminating purposes.
Speaker 7: One of the first effects of removing the forests in
Speaker 7: a neighborhood has been the necessity of bringing in lumber
Speaker 7: from other localities. This increases its price. It is, however,
Speaker 7: in its final effects upon a country that clearing the
Speaker 7: hills has proved most detrimental. It has been found that
Speaker 7: clearing districts are not so warm in winter as before
Speaker 7: the hills were bared. This has caused a failure in
Speaker 7: crops formerly successful. In northern Illinois, the climate was so
Speaker 7: altered by the removal of woods that the peach crops
Speaker 7: were seriously injured. Winter weed was killed in open field
Speaker 7: but was successful were protected by the woods. Thus, in winter,
Speaker 7: the trees break the winds and moderate the cold. In summer,
Speaker 7: they reduce the heat and lessen the danger from storms.
Speaker 7: Since the removal of trees, many localities which were formerly
Speaker 7: free from storms are visited by storms of great violence.
Speaker 7: Forests produce conditions leading to rain. The evaporation from the
Speaker 7: soil and leaves cools the atmosphere and tends to precipitate
Speaker 7: the moisture. This rain does not run off at once,
Speaker 7: as it often does in the open fields. The ground
Speaker 7: being meadllow and loose, it sinks and is gradually fed
Speaker 7: out to springs and streams. Snow is falling in the
Speaker 7: forest melt but slowly, and so a supply of water
Speaker 7: is maintained for the summer. Where woods have been replanted.
Speaker 7: The irregular rainfalls and frequent droughts observed since clear have disappeared,
Speaker 7: and more favorable conditions prevail. Birds too, are wont to
Speaker 7: nest in woods they desired. The clearings in such numbers
Speaker 7: that crops are injured by the insects they used to destroy.
Speaker 7: It is for these reasons that the government encourages the
Speaker 7: planting of trees. It has made favorable terms to settlers
Speaker 7: who cultivate trees. Various states are doing what they can
Speaker 7: to remedy the evils brought about by the indiscriminate cutting
Speaker 7: of trees. The strictest laws are issued to control the
Speaker 7: setting of fires in the woods and to prevent their spreading.
Speaker 7: The treeless character of the prairie regions is thought to
Speaker 7: be due to the burning of the trees by the Indians.
Speaker 7: The old timber culture laws were not an entire success,
Speaker 7: for trees were planted without care and without regard to
Speaker 7: their adaptability. This is now remedied so far as possible.
Speaker 7: Gagation has decided which trees are suitable in certain localities.
Speaker 7: There are in almost every place some parts which would
Speaker 7: be more profitable in trees than in the usual crop,
Speaker 7: but they must be cared for. They cannot be neglected
Speaker 7: as they have been in times past. Trees are also
Speaker 7: planted largely as wind breaks in prairie regions, and some
Speaker 7: experiments have been made to redeem certain beach tracts from
Speaker 7: the encroaching sands by planting trees which will resist the
Speaker 7: winds to prevent floods and shortage of water during the summer.
Speaker 7: The government has made laws which are designed to stop
Speaker 7: the cutting of trees upon public lands, except under definite regulations.
Speaker 7: These look to the preservation of the young trees and
Speaker 7: the ultimate recovering of the hills with a growth of trees.
Speaker 7: References reports upon Forestry, Department of Agriculture, Forests of northernma
Speaker 7: America C. S. Sergeant Government report. This gives fine maps
Speaker 7: of the wooded districts in each state, with the character
Speaker 7: of the trees found in each. End of chapter eleven,
Speaker 7: end of Ten Common Trees by Susan Stokes