![[Illustration: Fig. 35. Morello cherry.]](images%5Cfig035.png)
![[Illustration: Fig. 36. May Duke cherry.]](images%5Cfig036.png)
It
will not be long before the observer learns that many of the tree and
shrub characters are most marked in winter; and he will begin
unconsciously to add the winter to his year.
Before one attains to great sensitiveness in the appreciation of gardens, he learns to distinguish plants by their forms. This is particularly true for trees and shrubs. Each species has its own "expression," which is determined by the size that is natural to it, mode of branching, form of top, twig characters, bark characters, foliage characters, and to some extent its flower and fruit characters. It is a useful practice for one to train his eye by learning the difference in expression of the trees of different varieties of cherries or pears or apples or other fruits, if he has access to a plantation of them. The differences in cherries and pears are very marked (Figs. 34-36). He may also contrast and compare carefully the kinds of any tree or shrub of which there are two or three species in the neighborhood, learning to distinguish them without close examination; as the sugar maple, red maple, soft maple, and Norway maple (if it is planted); the white or American elm, the cork elm, the slippery elm, the planted European elms; the aspen, large-toothed poplar, cottonwood, balm of gilead, Carolina poplar, Lombardy poplar; the main species of oaks; the hickories; and the like.
It
will not be long before the observer learns that many of the tree and
shrub characters are most marked in winter; and he will begin
unconsciously to add the winter to his year.