This book is included in the Outdoor Survival Basics section.
Introduction
There is a very considerable number of native trees and shrubs of these United States many of which are not as well known as they should be. I do not refer, of course, to such common trees as the Sugar Maple, Fir, and American Elm, but to their less familiar relatives and to the numerous interesting shrubs which are far from uncommon throughout the land. This book is intended, therefore, not only to furnish the reader with a means for identifying such species, but to demonstrate certain truths relative to form and color which are more within the province of the artist than the botanist and which naturally do not appear in text-books on botany. A particular tree, for instance, possesses a typical figure and a tone of green different from that of its associates. There is no reason why these differences should not be described with as much exactness as possible.
Moreover, it is important to record the fact that Nature is manifold in her differences there are no two things alike, yet there are salient types. It is best to know that the individuals of a species are not all run in the same mold, that
botanical rules cannot circumscribe all truth, that what one sees may be very different from what another sees, that even expressed expert opinion upon a given species leads to polemics in botany the outcome of which we will do well to await with patience.
Botany does not stand still, it moves. There used to be a score of species of Crataegus to-day there are more than two hundred! I suppose nothing could more surely indicate the incomplete condition of recent botanical investigation than the unsettled status of our common blackberries; they are not yet perfectly understood, and for that reason it seemed wisest to exclude them altogether from this book.
It would be well, on the other hand, to call attention to the recent exhaustive study of the Shadbushes by Professor K. M. Wiegand in Rhodora, and of the Birches by Professor M. L. Fernald in the Am. Journal of Science, although these treatises possibly do not constitute the last word which may be said in the two groups, they are splendid examples of thoroughness in the work of modern botanists. Not less illuminative of the painstaking character of recent investigation are Mr. Eggleston's revisions of Crataegus in Gray' s Manual and Britton and Brown's Flora. These are certainly as reliable as anything is likely
to be upon that most difficult and baffling group.
I must repeat what I have already said in the Field Book of American Wild Flowers about nomenclature. The system followed here is that of Engler and Prantle, and the scientific names conform to the Vienna Code at least it is intended that they should do so. It is deplorable that some American botanists do not abide by this internationally supported standard, but I presume they have their own excellent reasons for not doing so. In any event it is perfectly apparent that a difference like this promotes confusion and retards progress. Indeed progress is often retarded in all professions by just such unwillingness on the part of the individual to be subordinate. Meanwhile if we should pick up the works of, say, three botanical authors and find they
contain as many different scientific names for one species, we think we are justified in indulging in a few expressions not altogether complimentary to two out of the three writers.
Very naturally this book would not have been written if it had not become apparent that there were yet many things to say about trees and shrubs which, up to the present time, have remained unsaid. For example, an examination of my descriptions of Vaccinium and Gaylussacia will show that the records of leaf-forms do not altogether agree with those given in other botanical works. I must therefore draw attention to the diagrams herewith and suggest to the reader that form must be described with scientific accuracy and not according to popular usage. I would suggest, also, that the tendency of leaves in a particular species is to progress from an elliptical to an obovate form, and in another species from a lanceolate to an elliptical one. In scarcely any case is the progression threefold, i.e., from lanceolate through elliptical to obovate or vice versa. In the great majority of cases the apparent threefold character is due to an abnormal or deformed condition in one of the three forms. This rule exactly applies to Vactinium and Gaylussacia. It is also necessary that we should distinguish colors in a scientific way. Scarlet and pure red must not for a moment be confused. Each term has a diagnostic value. One species of Ilex bears scarlet berries, another pure red berries, and the fact is exceedingly significant.
The old axiom "There is no short road to Parnassus" should be borne in mind by the reader who Desires to obtain a knowledge of botany by an easy process in a limited space of time. It is indeed a long, hard road which leads to the mastery of any art or science, but the shorter way so often diligently sought is frequently set with snares and pitfalls more inimical to progress than the toilsome winding of the stony path traveled by the patient student. An entirely unsystematic and untechnical study of botany is both mistaken and insecure in these days of advanced learning. For that reason I have not hesitated to introduce a brief framework of system and technicality in this book which, it seems to me, is quite necessary to the intelligent reader.
The modern botanist, I fear, is not always understood. He often seems willfully and inexcusably independent as well as ultratechnical. But his is a difficult science and he deserves our sympathy so long as that science is dependent upon individual judgment for its determinations, and upon abstruse technicality for its expression. For example, one botanist considers a given specimen a good species, another declares it a variety, the third a mere form, the fourth a hybrid. Still a fifth declares his determination to recognize straight species and forms only and drops varietal rank altogether. Now must
we decide when doctors disagree! Again, such words as endocarp, exocarp, homogamous, and heterogamous are only an indication of the technicalities with which some botanical descriptions fairly bristle. These are the stones over which we stumble on our way to Parnassus. Nor do our difficulties cease here, for, with a cheerful disregard of exactness outside of his own profession, some misguided botanist will use such a simple word as innovation, purple, or oval according to his own ideas of usefulness and throw us completely off the track. Oval and ovate are synonyms in the absolute scientific sense, and ovoids and ellipsoids are solids. There is no way of avoiding such facts, yet not infrequently some careless writer confuses the plane with the solid and one geometrical figure with another. It would be an ungracious thing for me to call attention to such irregularities without reminding the reader that the science of botany cannot be held responsible for infractions of the individual.
I have tried to follow, therefore, through-out these pages, both in text and drawings, the consistent course of one whose initial interest in botany is purely aesthetic, and whose aim is strict scientific accuracy in the presentation of form, proportion, and color in trees and shrubs. An occasional expression of opinion in reference to the validity of a given species, however, should be taken as such, and not construed as authoritative statement; but I have no hesitation in recording a scientific inaccuracy even though fixed custom may have accounted a term correct. An asymmetrical leaf, for instance, is inconsistently called oblique; the word oblique means "deviation from a straight line." That does not apply to a lop-sided leaf. The term asymmetrical does, it is more comprehensive. The Venus di Milo's face is asymmetrical out in its proportions,
the word oblique would not properly apply. It is not without hope that I may stimulate an interest in our vanishing woodlands that I describe in somewhat condensed form the character of the wood of various timber trees. It is worth while knowing for what purposes this wood is used, and consequently what we are likely to lose when the lumber supply is ultimately exhausted. We have in this country 1694 timber owners who hold in fee simple 105,600,000 wooded acres, over one-twentieth of the land area of the United States from Canada to Mexico. The Commissioner of Corporations at Washington reveals this in his published maps. These few enormous holdings combined are two and one half times the area of New England and four-fifths times the size of France! The concentration in a few hands of one of the most important natural resources of this land, the commissioner says, is due to "lavish land grants" and loose, ill-enforced land laws. Now it does not follow that these landowners are
obstructing any efforts by the people to save the timber lands because no such proper efforts are being made in extenso.
The fact is, had not these few hands owned the lands nearly every acre of them would have been stripped and burned over for purposes of grazing and tilling long years ago. The owners, then, have proved to be conservators. But are they really such in the true sense of the word? No. Dollars actually hold the woods and when there are enough of them passing from hand to hand the trees will go. Why any of the natural resources of the land should be jeopardized by private ownership it is difficult
to understand. The trouble, however, is less a matter of ownership than a lack of protective law.
In recording my grateful acknowledgments to those who have generously contributed in material ways to the making of this volume I wish to mention the late Maria L. Owen, whose interest in my work and whose letters about New England trees were a great encouragement, Mr. Joseph E. Harned who furnished me with extensive lists of the trees of Maryland and West Virginia, Professor Harvey M. Hall who answered many inquiries about conditions on the Pacific Slope, Professor Karl M. Wiegand who advised me on the subject of the Shadbushes, Dr. B. L. Robinson and Mr. Walter Deane to whom I have referred many problems
and upon whose general advice I always implicitly rely, Professor Geo. B. Sudworth, the leading dendrologist of this country, whose advice and lists of distribution have been very useful, Professor Charles S. Sargent whose monumental work on the Silva of North America I have been glad constantly to consult, Mr. Carroll S. Mathews whose assistance in the work of technical compilation has been invaluable, and Miss Mary A. Day, librarian of the Gray Herbarium, whose ministrations to my need in
books and data have so largely contributed to the successful accomplishment of my task.
F. SCHUYLER MATHEWS.
Cambridge, Mass., Oct. I, 1914.
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