gone-melted in the pervading and final hue-the fiery colour of the brown is still striking and beauful in the mass, especially when thrown out in strong relief against either the still green leaves which may chance to clothe the stems of neighbouring Beeches or against the more persistent verdancy of adjoining Oaks.

Though amongst the earliest of trees which impart their beauty to the spring, the Lime is the first to show symptoms of change. All the stages of this change are beautiful-for the colouring which indicates the coming fall and the final departure from the twigs, though more rapid, by comparison with leaves of other trees, in spreading over the leafy surface than the ordinary progress of autumnal discolouration, advances, at first, with sufficient slowness to permit of the fullest appreciation of the contrasts afforded by the association of varying tints. The Lime leaf is usually supported by a rather long stalk and is more or less heart-shaped at the base and sharply pointed at the apex, whilst the body of the leaf is rounded in form. These general features vary in different

individuals. Sometimes the depression at the base, which makes the heart-shape, is deep and at other times so shallow as to be scarcely perceptible. One of the two lobes which make the heart-shape ordinarily descends lower than the other, sometimes on one side, the right or the left, and sometimes on the other; and the edges of both lobes, in what may be called the bay of the depression lying between them, are unindented; but the whole of the remainder of the leaf-margin is finely and regularly serrated. When the base of the leaf is but slightly depressed it is still free from serratures. The venation is very beautiful, and consists of a mid-vein and branch veins which fork from it to the margin, the two larger of these diverging at an acute angle-one on each side-from the base of the mid-vein and traversing nearly the entire length of the leaf: the others diverging at acute angles from the mid-vein, higher up, and making for the top of the leaf. All the principal veins are again forked once or twice and give origin to a very elaborate and beautiful ramification-veinlets running across the longitudinal veins in

roughly parallel lines which take a general crescent-shaped direction from side to side of the leaf-forming an appearance, which can be plainly seen by the unassisted eye, like the meshes of a net.

The peculiar, and exceptionally beautiful, goldengreen hue of the Lime foliage in spring changes in the height of summer to a deeper and more sober shade of verdancy: and the change is one that serves to withdraw from particular attention a tree which is conspicuous in the earlier season by the luxurious softness of tint of its leafy clothing. But its withdrawal from notice is for a short period only. It soon claims a renewal of attention by the speedy arrival of the period of its autumn painting. It has, in fact, an early Autumn of its own; for before the end of summer a slight russet tint begins to overspread the tree. The general effect of the commencement of autumnal colouring is expressed in this tint. But if individual Lime leaves be examined, the general hue will be seen to arise from the presence of small, yellowish blotches which cannot easily be individualized, but appear to spread over and

blend with the normal green of the leafy surface. Along the course of the veins and veinlets the green retains its darker hue-darker, no doubt, in appearance, by contrast with the suffusing yellow. This colour (which ultimately becomes the final hue of the Lime) like spots of subdued sunlight, commences in the spaces-each in form like the figure of a rough parallelogram-lying between the veinlets which traverse the leafy surface inside the lines of the principal veins that branch from the mid-stem of the leaf. Here and there are blotches of withered tissue dead brown in colour, and these contrast effectively with the yellow and green of the leaf.

As decay advances the colouring is intensified. The spots of brown increase in size and in number. The yellow merges from an indistinct hue into concentrated and independent blotches and patches of colour which, in conjunction with the darker brown, are picturesquely disposed over the surface of the leaf-sometimes occurring upon the margin at the sides, apex or base-and sometimes in mid-leaf. At times the yellow blotches occur independently of the brown ones.

At other times they are merged into them; and sometimes this merging is very picturesque, as when a patch of brown occurs in the centre of a patch of yellow-the dead surrounded by the dying portion. Occasionally a mottled appearance is occasioned by the blending of brown, yellow and green in alternate blotches, and then the effect, so far as the individual leaf is concerned, is strikingly picturesque.

But the assemblage of leaves on a Lime tree, in this the season of its early autumnal colouring, produces an effect to which the individual markings of each leaf contribute. If on different trees only were shown the differences of colouring the effects of contrast would only be manifest in the grove. But it is not so. An individual tree will oftentimes show nearly all the stages of decay, and all the gradations of colouring. Why the leafy covering of one branch should give symptoms of decline before that of another on the same tree it would be extremely difficult to explain: and why particular twigs on the same branch or particular leaves on the same twig should proclaim the advance of Autumn some time before their fellows