Pine woods possess attractions of a peculiar kind: all lovers of Nature are enraptured with them, and there is a grandeur about them which is felt at once, when we enter them. Their dark verdure, their deep shade, their lofty height, and their branches which are ever mysteriously murmuring, as they are swayed by the wind, render them singularly solemn and sublime. This expression is increased by the hollow reverberating interior of the wood, caused by its clearness and freedom from underbrush. The ground beneath is covered by a matting of fallen leaves, making a smooth brown carpet, that renders a walk within its precincts as comfortable as in a garden. The foliage of the Pine is so hard and durable that in summer we always find the last autumn's crop lying upon the ground in a state of perfect soundness, and under it that of the preceding year only partially decayed. The foliage of two summers, therefore, lies upon the surface, checking the growth of humble vegetation, and permitting only certain species of plants to flourish with vigor.
Mushrooms of various forms and sizes spring out of these decayed leaves, often rivalling the flowers in elegance. Monotropas, uniting some of the habits of the Fungi with the botanical characters of the flowering plants, flourish side by side with the snowy Cypripedium and the singular Coral-Weed. The evergreen Dewberry, a delicate species of Rubus, trails its glossy leaves over the turfs, and mingles its beaded fruit with the scarlet berries of the Mitchella. The Pyrola, named by the Indians Pipsissewa, and regarded by them as a specific for consumption, suspends its pale purple flowers in beautiful umbels, as if to invite the feeble invalid to accept its proffered remedies. Variety, indeed, may be found in these deep shades; but it exists without that profusion which in more favored situations often benumbs our susceptibility to the charms of Nature.
The edging of a Pine wood depends on the character of the soil. The Pitch-Pine, that delights in sandy plains, is embroidered at the North by White Birches; and if a road be cut through a wood of this kind, these graceful trees immediately spring up in abundance by the wayside. If a pond occurs in the middle of a Pine wood, its margin is covered first with low bushes, such as the Andromeda, the Myrica, and the sweet-scented Azalea, then Alders and Willows rise between them and the forest. On the side of the pond that is bounded by high gravelly banks, the margin will be covered by Poplars and Birches. The White Pine, the most noble and the most beautiful tree of the whole coniferous tribe, predominates in the New-England forest; though some wide tracts are covered with the more homely Pitch-Pines, which are the trees that scent the atmosphere on damp still days with their delightful terebinthine odors. The woods in the vicinity of Concord, N.H., on the banks of the Merrimack, known by the poetic appellation of "The Dark Plains", are of this description. In still higher latitudes the dark, majestic Firs become the prevailing timber, and are regarded as typical of sub-arctic regions, where they are accompanied, as if to form a striking and cheerful contrast with their melancholy grandeur, by groups of graceful Birches, and lively, tremulous Poplars.
The Pine-Barrens of the Southern States are celebrated as healthful retreats for the inhabitants of seaport towns, whither they resort in summer for security from the prevailing fevers. They are of a mixed character, consisting of the Northern Pitch-Pine, the Broom-Pine, and the Cypress, intermixed with Red Maples, Sweet Gums, and other deciduous trees. The Pines, however, are the dominant growth: but here they do not grow so compactly as in colder regions, standing widely apart, with a frequent intervening growth of Willows and shrubbery. The sparseness of these woods may be in part attributed to the practice of tapping the trees for their turpentine, which has caused them for a century past to be gradually thinned by consequent decay. Their tall, gaunt forms and almost branchless trunks show that they obtained their principal growth in a dense wood.
The first time I entered one of these Pine-Barrens was some years since, in the month of June, when vegetation was in its prime, before the summer droughts had seared the green herbage, and when the flowering trees and shrubs were in all their glory. During my botanical rambles in the wood, I was struck with the multitude of beautiful flowers in its shady retreats,seeming the more numerous to me, as I had previously confined my researches to Northern woods. The Phlox grew here in all its native grace and delicacy, where it had never known the fostering hand of Art. Crimson Rhexias, called by the inhabitants Deer-Weed, were distributed among the grassy knolls, like clusters of Picotees. Variegated Passion-Flowers were conspicuous on the bare white sand that checkered the ground, displaying their emblematic forms on their low repent vines, and reminding the wanderer in these almost trackless solitudes of that Faith which was founded on humility and crowned with martyrdom. Here, too, the Spiderwort of our gardens, in a meeker form of beauty and with a paler radiance, luxuriated under the protection of the wood. Already I observed the predominance of luxuriant vines, indicating our nearness to the tropic, wreathed gayly over the tall and branchless trunks of the trees: some, like the Bignonia, in a full blaze of crimson; others, like the Climbing Fern, draping the trees in continual verdure.
These Pines constitute a great part of the timber of the flat country between the mountains and the coast, and render a journey through that region singularly monotonous and gloomy. In the low grounds, a considerable proportion of the wood consists of the Southern Cypress, a graceful and magnificent tree, whose appearance would be very lively and cheerful, were it not for the abundance of long trailing "moss" (usnea) that hangs, like funereal drapery, from its branches, and darkens the whole forest. This parasitic appendant wreathes the woods sometimes almost in darkness, especially in those immense tracts on the borders of the Mexican Gulf that consist entirely of Cypress. There it has been poetically styled the "Garlands of Death," as significant of the fevers that prevail wherever it is abundant.
It is remarkable that the two extremes of climate are distinguished by the predominance of evergreens in their vegetation. Thus, the acicular-leaved trees, consisting of Pines and their congeners, mark the cold-temperate and sub-arctic zones, in north latitude,while Myrtles, Magnolias, and other broad-leaved evergreens, mark the equatorial and tropical regions. The deciduous trees belong properly to the temperate zones, and constitute, indeed, the most interesting of all arborescent vegetation.
With regard to the age of forests, it may be affirmed that there are some undoubtedly in existence which are coeval with the earliest history of nations; but no individual trees are of such antiquity. Like nations, the assemblage may be perpetual, while the members that compose it are constantly perishing, and leaving their places to be supplied by others of more recent origin. Probably the earth does not contain forests in which any tree exceeds a thousand years of age, though the oldest forest extant may be as ancient as the Chinese Empire; for the oldest trees are not found in dense assemblages, but are probably such as have grown singly in isolated situations. As soon as a tree in a forest begins to feel the infirmities of age, its place is usurped by some young and more vigorous neighbor, and it is gradually deprived of subsistence in this unequal contest. The tempests and tornadoes, it may be added, which occasionally sweep over a country, commonly make the oldest and tallest trees their victims; for events seem to follow the same course in a forest as in human society. The most vigorous growers at any period continue to flourish a certain length of time at the expense of others; but when they have risen above the common level, they become marks for destruction,they fall before certain inimical forces that do not reach their more humble companions.
It was the opinion of Humboldt, that, if any tract of wooded country deserves to be considered a part of the great "primeval forest", it is "that boundless district which, in the torrid zone of South America, connects the river-basins of the Amazon and the Orinoco." This tract, unequalled in extent by any other forest in the world, occupies an area of more than a thousand miles square. In this vast chaos of teeming vegetation, trees of the largest dimensions are connected by an undergrowth of vines and shrubbery which is almost impenetrable. Immense rivers and their tributaries intersect the forest in all directions, and constitute the only avenues of commercial intercourse. This impervious thicket is like a huge wall, separating near neighbors, rendering them, as it were, inhabitants of distant regions, and obliging them to make long and circuitous river journeys before they can hold communication.
Here the leaves of the trees are always green, and flowers appear in constant succession; but the surface of the ground is without herbage, for the darkness of the wood is fatal to all humble vegetation. The small plants are mostly parasites, thousands inserting their roots into the bark of trees and garlanding them with beauty. Those that take root in the ground show but few leaves or flowers, until they have clambered upwards, through the underwood, into the light of heaven. Almost the only relief afforded the sight, in this vast solitude, comes from the rivers and other collections of water, over whose expanse the eye revels with the delight we feel on emerging from the gloom of a cavern. Every object seems to be struggling to get outside of this chaotic growth, where it can obtain the genial influence of the sun: for near the surface of the ground are perpetual shade and hideous entanglement.
In this primeval forest we must not expect to realize any of our poetical ideas of the primitive residence of the first human family. Here are no Arcadian scenes of peace and rural felicity. On all sides we behold an undying competition for light and life, among both plants and animals. We are reminded here of life in a crowded city, where the excessive abundance of supplies for human wants imported from the surrounding country causes a still greater superfluity of population, and produces a struggle for a livelihood more severe than in a rural district of gravel and boulders. The oases of this great wilderness are those places in which there is an absence of the general fertility: barrenness in such circumstances is a relief,because it allows both freedom and repose.
This wood is the nursery of all descriptions of monsters, living chiefly in trees. On their branches and in their tangled recesses, adorned with all sorts of foliage and flowers, creatures the most terrible and the most loathsome are seen crowding and crouching in close proximity to the most beautiful forms of living things. They fill the air with their discordant utterances, and allow no permanent silence or tranquillity. Hours of periodical stillness and repose, occurring mostly at noonday, and affecting one with a sensation of awful grandeur, by contrast with the preceding disturbances, are followed, especially in the night, by a tumultuous roar from the legions of contending animals.
"A universal hubbub wild
Of stunning sounds and voices all confused,
Borne through the hollow dark, assaults the ear
With loudest vehemence."
Even the notes of insects are a deafening crash, like the rattling of machinery in a cotton-mill. Except in the hush of noonday, the notes of singing-birds are drowned amidst the howling of monkeys, the whining of sapajous, the roar of the jaguar, and the dismal hooting of thousands of wild animals that riot in these awful solitudes. The sight of the fairest flowers and the most beautiful insects and birds only renders one more keenly sensitive to the frightful discords that startle and the perils that surround him.
Similar contrasts are observed in the vegetation of this region, where the giant trees of the forest are chained in the embraces of vines that contend with them for existence and finally strangle them. Trees and other plants are crowded together so promiscuously, that Nature seems to be striving to collect into one space every possible variety of species. Trees of the most poisonous and deadly qualities grow side by side with the Bread-Fruit, the Cocoa-Nut, and the beneficent Cinchona. Here are the poison and its antidote,the monster tree and its miniature epiphyte,the plant that astonishes by its magnitude, and the one that delights us by its minuteness. Here, if anywhere on the face of the earth, may we form some conception of the state of our planet during the Eocene period, before the world had come under the dominion of the human race.
But if Nature in this region has manifested an exuberance of animal and vegetable life, thereby rendering her bounties almost unavailable to man, there are other parts in which she seems to have provided for his particular benefit. In these favored regions, we find the Banana, the Cocoa, and the Date Palm, and other special gifts of Providence to the inhabitants of the equator. Palms are generally found only in small groups and plantations, but there are certain species of this family which are associated in extensive woods, and constitute, in some respects, one of the most charming descriptions of forest-scenery. The Dwarf Palms of the sub-tropical regions are chiefly assembled in masses, of which the Palmetto of Florida and the Chaemerops of the South of Europe are conspicuous examples. The true Palms are likewise sometimes associated in forests, though not generally of a social habit. In one of the most celebrated of these, at the mouth of the Orinoco, composed chiefly of the Mauritian Palms, the wild Guaranos have established a national existence. Like monkeys, they live almost wholly in trees, having their habitations supported either by wooden pillars or by a matting suspended from tree to tree. In the wet season, when the ground is inundated, the inhabitants travel about their village in canoes.
The beauty of a grove of Palms has been a favorite theme of travellers. Humboldt, who saw Nature with the eye of a painter and the feelings of a poet, amidst all the dry details of science, regards them as the most beautiful of vegetable productions. It has always seemed to me, however, that travellers in general have been led to exaggerate the charms of Nature in the tropics, by observing the remarkable beauty of a few individual objects. Their susceptibility to be affected by the scenes presented to their view is likewise exalted by the confinement of their voyage; they are enraptured with the novelty of everything about them, by the voluptuousness of the climate and the abundance of delicious fruits, and always afterwards recur to the scenes of their tropical visit with an excited imagination.
In countries near the equator, many plants which are herbs in our latitude assume arborescent forms. Such are the Tree-Grasses, which form impenetrable forests, equalling some of the Fir woods of the North in extent, if not in beauty and grandeur. In this part of the world we know the Ferns only as a low herbaceous tribe of plants, consisting of mere fronds rising out of the ground. We admire them for their beautifully compounded leaves, and their colors of red, orange, and russet that variegate our meadows in June, their garlands of verdure upon the rocky hills in winter, and the profusion of their frondage in the shady glens in summer. But in certain parts of the equatorial zone the Ferns put off the humble guise in which they appear at the North. They no longer associate with the lowly Violet, allowing themselves to be crowded by the Hellebore and overtopped by the Meadow Rue; but they rear their branches aloft and assume the dignity and stature of trees. Man, who looks down upon them in our own latitude, and tramples them under his feet, looks in that region far above his head, and beholds their magnificent fronds spread out like a great tent between him and the heavens.