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Page 36
And speaking again of the Jud�an palms, I must here say a word of those
which we associate with Palm Sunday--the willow palms--for which we used
to hunt when we were children.
It is hardly necessary to state that these willow branches, with their
soft silvery catkins, the crown of the earliest spring nosegays which
the hedges afford, are not even distantly related to the Princes of
Vegetation, though we call them palms. They are called palms simply from
having taken the place of real palm-branches in the ceremonies of the
Sunday of our Lord's Entry into Jerusalem, where these do not grow.
A very old writer, speaking of the Jews strewing palm-branches before
Christ, says: "And thus we take palm and flowers in procession as they
did ... in the worship and mind of Him that was done on the cross,
worshipping and welcoming Him with song into the Church, as the people
did our Lord into the city of Jerusalem. It is called Palm Sunday for
because the palm betokeneth victory; wherefore all Christian people
should bear palm in procession, in token that He hath foughten with the
fiend our enemy, and hath the victory of hym."
A curious old Scotch custom is recorded in Lanark, as "kept by the boys
of the Grammar-school, beyond all memory in regard to date, on the
Saturday before Palm Sunday. They then parade the streets with a palm,
or its substitute, a large tree of the willow kind (_Salix caprea_), in
blossom, ornamented with daffodils, mezereon, and box-tree. This day is
called Palm Saturday, and the custom is certainly a popish relic of very
ancient standing."
But to return to palms proper. Before taking leave of them, there is one
more word to be said in their praise which may endear this noble race to
eyes which will never be permitted to see the wonders of tropical
forests.
As pot-plants they are not less remarkable for the picturesqueness of
their forms, than for the patience with which they endure those
vicissitudes of stuffiness and chill, dryness, dust, and gas, which
prove fatal to so many inmates of the flower-stand or the window-sill.
Pot-palms may be bought of any good nurseryman at prices varying from
two or three shillings to two or three pounds. _Latania borbonica_ and
_Phoenix reclinata_ are good and cheap. Sandy-peaty soil, with a
little leaf-mould, is what they like, and this should be renewed (with a
larger pot) every second year. Thus, with the most moderate care, and an
occasional sponging, or a stand-out in a soft shower, the exiled Princes
of Vegetation, whose shoots in their native forests would have been of
giant luxuriance, will live for years, patiently adapting themselves by
slow growth to the rooms which they adorn, easier of management than the
next fern you dig up on your rambles, and, in the incomparable beauty of
their forms, the perpetual delight of an artistic eye.
LITTLE WOODS.
By little woods are here meant--not woods of small extent, but--woods in
which the trees never grow big, woods that are to grown-up woods as
children to grown-up people, woods that seem made on purpose for
children, and dwarfs, and dolls, and fairies.
These little woods have many names, varying with the trees of which they
are composed, or the districts in which they are found. One of the
best-known names is that of copse or coppice, and it brings with it
remembrances of the fresh beauty of spring days, on which--sheltered by
the light copse-wood from winds that are still keen--we have revelled in
sunshine warm enough to persuade us that summer was come "for good," as
we picked violets and primroses to the tolling of the cuckoo.
Things "in miniature" have a natural charm for little people, and most
of my young readers have probably been familiar with favourite copses,
or miniature pine-forests. Perhaps some of them would like to know why
these little woods never grow into big ones, and something also of the
history and uses of those trees of which little woods are composed.
They are not made of dwarf trees. There are little woods, as well as big
woods, of oak, elm, ash, pine, willow, birch, beech, and larch. In some
cases the little woods are composed of the growth which shoots up when
the principal trunk of the tree has been cut down, but they are
generally little merely because they are young, and are cut down for use
before they have time to grow into forest-trees. The object of this
little paper is to give some account of their growth and uses. It will
be convenient to take them alphabetically, by their English names.
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