By those who have observed them as landscape
ornaments, trees have been classified according to their shape and
manner of growth. They are round-headed or hemispherical, like the Oak
and the Plane; pyramidal, like the Pine and the Fir; obeliscal, like the
Arbor-Vitae and Lombardy Poplar; drooping, like the White Elm and the
Weeping Willow; and umbrella-shaped, like the Palm. These are the
natural or normal varieties in the forms of trees. There are others
which may be considered accidental: such are the tall and irregularly
shaped trees which have been cramped by growing in a dense forest that
does not permit the extension of their lateral branches; such also are
the pollards which have been repeatedly cut down or dwarfed by the axe
of the woodman.
Of the round-headed trees, that extend their branches more or less at
wide angles from their trunk, the Oak is the most conspicuous and the
most celebrated. To the mind of an American, however, the Oak is far
less familiar than the Elm, as a way-side tree; but in England, where
many
"a cottage-chimney smokes
From betwixt two aged Oaks,"
this tree, which formerly received divine honors in that country, is now
hardly less sacred in the eyes of the inhabitants, on account of their
familiarity with its shelter and its shade, and their ideas of its
usefulness to the human family. The history of the British Isles is
closely interwoven with circumstances connected with the Oak, and the
poetry of Great Britain has derived from it many a theme of inspiration.
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