Trees, Shown to the Children — The Aspen

--Scott.

The Aspen (1) is a member of the Poplar family, and in many ways it resembles its cousins.

But you will always know an Aspen tree by its leaves (2).

These are never still unless when a storm is brooding and the air is perfectly calm; at all other times they shake and quiver incessantly, and you can hear the gentle rustle they make as each leaf rubs against its neighbour.

In the Scottish Highlands the country people tell you that the Aspen trembles because at the Crucifixion the cross of Christ was made of Aspen, and the tree must always shudder at the recollection of the cruel purpose it served.

[Illustration: PLATE XIV THE ASPEN

1. Aspen Tree 2. Leaf Spray 3. Stamen Catkins 4. Seed Catkin] The Aspen is usually found growing in copses, or in meadow lands, where it flourishes best in a damp soil; but it is also found on mountain ground, and is very common in the north of Scotland.

It is not a long-lived tree: the heart of it begins to decay after fifty or sixty years, just at the age when many of our most familiar trees are at their finest.

The wood is very soft, and is of little use either for building or for manufacturing purposes; but it is beautifully white, and sculptors use it for decorative carving; also many of the wooden blocks required by engravers for printing are made of Aspen wood.

The Aspen is one of our catkin-bearing trees.

Early in spring you will see dangling on the branches long fluffy tails, which you must pluck and examine carefully.

There are two kinds of flowering catkins on the Aspen, and both kinds may be found growing on the same tree.

Sometimes you find them close beside each other on the same branch.

In the stamen catkin (3) you see many bunches of tiny stamens with bluey-purple heads: these bunches are dotted all over the catkin tail, and each stamen bunch is nearly hidden by a large scale which rises at one side.

This scale is green in the lower half and pale brown in the upper half, and its edges are cut into deep jagged points.

This jagged scale lies above the stamen bunch, so that you can just see their heads appearing under the torn edge of the scale.

Each stamen is surrounded by a mass of soft grey woolly down, which makes all the catkin look fluffy and silky.

The seed catkin (4) of the Aspen looks much the same as the stamen catkin; it is a long, dangling fat tail, covered with fluffy grey down;

but it has no stamens.

This catkin bears the seed-vessels, and each seed-vessel resembles a small green pea sitting in a tiny green cup.

This pea splits open at the top, and you see four pale pink points rising from the opening.

These points are waiting for the stamen dust to reach them, and as soon as that happens they shrivel and disappear;

then the seed busies itself in preparing the new plant.

Above each green seed-vessel there stands a scale with the edge cut into large torn-looking points.

These scales nearly cover the seed-vessel, and they look like brown splashes on the bed of soft fluffy down.

When the seeds are ripe the catkins fall from the tree; the seeds separate from the tail, and the wind blows them a long distance by the aid of the fluffy down which surrounds each seed.

[Illustration: PLATE XV THE WHITE WILLOW

1. White Willow Tree 2. Leaf Spray 3. Pussy Buds 4. Stamen Catkin 5. Seed Catkin] The Aspen leaves (2) are very dainty and pretty.

Each leaf grows at the end of a long slender stalk which is flattened like a ribbon, and is placed edge-ways to the twig.

The stalk is not strong enough to hold the leaf upright, so it droops, unless when the breeze lifts it in the air, and then you hear a constant rustle-rustle, as if the leaves were whispering to each other.

These Aspen leaves are nearly round, and they have evenly-cut teeth on the edges.

They are rather small and are dark in colour, and there is no white lining underneath except the soft down which you often find on very young leaves, and which soon disappears.

Through the grass beside its root the Aspen sends up a great many young shoots which are called suckers.

The leaves on these young suckers are heart-shaped, and the edges are quite smooth, without any teeth.

Cattle are very fond of these young leaves, so are deer, and goats, and even the beaver.

In some places people strip the Aspen leaves from the trees and give them to the cattle, which eat them greedily.