ARBORETUM ET FRUTICETUM

BRITANNICUM.

INTRODUCTION.

THOUGH, from our title, the Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum, the reader may expect to find chiefly a history and description of the trees and shrubs which endure the open air in Britain, yet we mean to connect this history with that of the trees and shrubs of all similar climates throughout the world, in such a manner as to show what has been done in the way of introducing them, and what may be anticipated from future exertions. The Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum may, therefore, be considered as a General History of the Trees and Shrubs of Temperate Climates, but more especially of those of Britain.

Trees are not only, in appearance, the most striking and grand objects of the vegetable creation; but, in reality, they are those which contribute the most to human comfort and improvement. If cereal grasses and edible roots are essential for supplying food to sustain human existence, trees are not less so for supplying timber, without which, there could neither be the houses and furniture of civilised life, nor the machines of commerce and refinement. Man may live and be clothed in a savage, and even in a pastoral, state by herbaceous productions alone; but he cannot advance farther: he cannot till the ground, or build houses or ships, he cannot become an agriculturist or a merchant, without the use of trees.

Trees and shrubs also supply an important part of the food of mankind in many countries; besides all the more delicate luxuries of the table, and the noblest of human drinks in every part of the globe. The fruit of the palms, and of other trees of tropical climates, are as essential to the natives of those countries, as the corn and the edible roots of the herbaceous plants of temperate climates are to us. Wine, cider, arrack, and other liquors, are the products of trees and shrubs; as are also our more useful and exquisite fruits, the apple, pear, plum, peach, orange, mango, and many others. others. Not to insist in detail on the various

uses of trees and shrubs, it may be sufficient to observe, that there is hardly an art or a manufacture, in which timber, or some other ligneous product, is not, in one way or other, employed to produce it.

The use of trees in artificial plantations, in giving shelter or shade to lands exposed to high winds or to a burning sun, and in improving the climate and general appearance of whole tracts of country; in forming avenues to public or private roads, and in ornamenting our parks and pleasure-grounds, is too well known to require to be enlarged on here.

Every one feels that trees are among the grandest and most ornamental objects of natural scenery: what would landscapes be without them? Where would be the charm of hills, plains, valleys, rocks, rivers, cascades, lakes, or islands, without the hanging wood, the widely extended forest, the open grove, the scattered groups, the varied clothing, the shade and intricacy, the contrast, and the variety of form and colour, conferred by trees and shrubs? A tree is a grand object in itself; its bold perpendicular elevation, and its commanding attitude, render it sublime; and this expression is greatly heightened by our knowledge of its age, stability, and duration. The characteristic beauties of the general forms of trees are as various as their species; and equally so are the beauty and variety of the ramifications of their branches, spray, buds, leaves, flowers, and fruit. The changes in the colour of the foliage of trees, at different seasons of the year, alone form a source of ever-varying beauty, and of perpetual enjoyment to the lovers of nature. What can be more interesting than to watch the developement of the buds of trees in spring, or the daily changes which take place in the colour of their foliage in autumn?-But to point out here all the various and characteristic beauties of trees, would be to anticipate what we shall have to say hereafter of the different species and varieties enumerated in our Work.

Shrubs, to many of the beauties of trees, frequently add those of herbaceous plants; and produce flowers, unequalled both for beauty and fragrance. What flower, for example, is comparable in beauty of form and colour, in fragrance, and in interesting associations, with the rose? The flower of the honeysuckle has been admired from the most remote antiquity, and forms as frequent an ornament of classic, as the rose does of Gothic, architecture. In British gardens, what could compensate us, in winter, for the arbutus and the laurustinus, or even the common laurel and the common ivy, as ornamental evergreens; for the flowers of the rhododendron, azalea, kalmia, and mezereon, in spring; or for the fruit of the gooseberry, currant, and raspberry, in summer? And what hedge plant, either in Europe or America, equals the common hawthorn? In short,

if trees may be compared to the columns which support the portico of a temple, shrubs may be considered as the statues which surmount its pediment, and as the sculptures which ornament its frieze.

It is not to be wondered at, that trees and shrubs should have excited the attention of mankind in all civilised countries, and that our accumulated experience respecting them should be considerable. The first characteristic instinct of civilised society is, to improve the natural productions by which we are surrounded; and the next is, by commerce to appropriate and establish in our own country the productions of others, while we give our own productions in exchange; and, thus, the tendency of all improvement seems to be to the equalisation of enjoyment, as well as to its increase.

Notwithstanding the use, the grandeur, and the beauty of timber trees, it is a fact, that, compared with herbaceous vegetables, the number of species distributed over the globe is comparatively small. The palms, the banana, the pine-apple, and other plants, popularly or botanically considered as trees or shrubs, though some of them attain a great height and thickness, are, with very few exceptions, of no use as timber. Almost all the timber trees of the world, with the exception of the bamboo, belong to what botanists denominate the dicotyledonous division of vegetables; and, perhaps, there are not a thousand genera of this division on the face of the earth which afford timber trees exceeding 30 ft. in height. The greater part of these genera, supposing such a number to exist, must belong to warm climates; for in the temperate zones, and in the regions of warm countries rendered temperate by their elevation, the number of genera containing timber trees 30 ft. in height, as far as hitherto discovered, does not amount to a hundred. The truth is, that between the tropics the greater number of species are ligneous, while in the temperate regions there are comparatively few, and in the frozen zone scarcely any. It may naturally be expected, therefore, that, in the temperate regions, there should only be a few timber trees which are indigenous to each particular country. In Britain, for example, there are not above a dozen genera of trees, furnishing in all about thirty species, which attain a height exceeding 30 ft.; but there are other countries of similar climates, all over the world, which furnish other genera and species, to what is, at present, an unknown extent; and it is the beautiful work of civilisation, of patriotism, and of adventure, first, to collect these all into our own country, and next, to distribute them into others. While Britain, therefore, not only enjoys the trees of the rest of Europe, of North America, of the mountains of South America, of India, and of China, she distributes her own trees, and those which she has appropriated, to each of these

countries respectively, and, in short, to all parts of the world; thus contributing almost imperceptibly, but yet most powerfully, to the progress and equalisation of civilisation and of happiness.

It must be interesting to the philosopher and the philanthropist, to know the precise position in which we stand relatively to this kind of interchange of natural productions. Much as has been done within the last century, there is reason to believe, from the number of countries unexplored, that this department of the civilisation of the great human family is yet in its infancy. Hence, in a work like the present, which professes to be a general history of the trees already in, or suitable for being introduced into, Great Britain, it seems desirable to commence with a general view of all other countries with reference to those trees which they contain which have been already introduced, or which, though we do not yet possess, we may expect to obtain and establish. This, therefore, will form PART I. of our Work; and we trust it will be found of considerable interest, by directing the attention of botanical collectors, travellers, and persons resident abroad, to specific objects of research.

In carrying this intention into effect, we shall commence by taking a general view of the trees and shrubs which were known to the ancients; we shall next give an enumeration of those which are indigenous to the British Islands; after which we shall treat of the introduction of foreign trees and shrubs into Britain, from the earliest records up to the end of the year 1834, the period at which this Work was commenced.

Having thus discussed the history of the trees and shrubs, native and foreign, of the British Islands, we shall next give a similar view of the indigenous and introduced trees and shrubs of all those other countries which possess, either by geography or altitude, climates in any degree analogous to that of Britain. This part of the Work will be concluded by a chapter on the literature of the trees and shrubs of temperate climates; in which the principal works which have appeared on the subject, both in Europe and America, will be enumerated.

The next division of our Work, PART II., will be devoted to the science of the study of trees. In this part, trees will be considered in all their various relations to nature and art. They will be considered as component parts of the general scenery of a country; in regard to the expression and character of particular kinds; in regard to the mode of delineating them pictorially, and of describing them popularly and botanically. They will also be considered with reference to uncultivated nature, to cultivated nature, and to man. This part will conclude with a summary of particulars to be taken into consideration, in preparing the description and natural and economical history of trees and shrubs, which are to follow as the third part of this Work.

PART III., which will form our next division, and that, indeed, which will comprise by far the greater part of the Work, will be the history and description of the different species and varieties of trees and shrubs, whether native or indigenous, useful or ornamental, at present cultivated in Britain.

We shall add to the perfectly hardy species the names, and short descriptive paragraphs, of some ligneous plants, which have been found by cultivators to be half-hardy in the climate of London; and of others, which, from their native countries and habits, we think not unlikely to prove so. We make this addition to the Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum for two purposes: in the first place, because, by trying species from all countries in the open air, some hitherto kept in hot-houses or green-houses may be found quite hardy; such having been the case with Kérria japónica, Cydònia japónica, Hydrangea Hortensia, Aúcuba japónica, and a number of others. We may add, also, that, though the nature of a species cannot be so far altered as to fit an inhabitant of a very hot climate for a cold one, yet that the habits of individuals admit of considerable variation, and that some plants of warm climates are found to adapt themselves much more readily to cold climates than others. Thus, the common passion flower, according to Dr. Walker, when first introduced into the Edinburgh Botanic Garden, lost its leaves during winter; but, in the course of a few years, the same plant retained the greater part of them at that season. The same author relates that plants of the common yew, sent from Paris to Stockholm to plant certain designs by Le Nôtre, laid out there for the king of Sweden, all died, though the yew is a native of the latter country, as well as of France.

Every gardener must have observed that the common weeds which have sprung up in pots, in hot-beds or in hot-houses, when these pots happen to be set out in the open air during winter or spring are killed, or have their leaves injured; whilst the same species, which have sprung up in the open ground, are growing around them in a flourishing condition.

The obvious conclusions from these facts are, that the habits of plants admit of a certain degree of change with regard to the climate which they will bear; that the degree in which this power exists in any plant is only to be ascertained by experiment; and that the only mode of making these experiments is, by trying in the open air plants usually kept under glass. There is reason to believe, from trials already made, that many of the trees and shrubs of Australia, and particularly those of New Zealand and Van Diemen's Land, will ultimately become so habituated to the climate of London, as to live through the winter against a wall, with scarcely any protection.