These fantastic forms are very beautiful, and do not impress one with the idea of monstrosity, as we are affected by the sight of a Weeping Ash.  Though the Elm has many defects of foliage, and is destitute of those fine autumnal tints which are so remarkable in some other trees, it is still almost without a rival in the American forest.  It presents a variety in its forms not to be seen in any other tree,—­possessing the dignity of the Oak without its ruggedness, and uniting the grace of the slender Birch with the lofty grandeur of the Palm and the majesty of the Cedar of Lebanon.

Of the parasol-trees the North furnishes no true examples, which are witnessed only in the Palms of the tropics.  Not many of our inhabitants have seen these trees in their living beauty; but all have become so familiar with them, as they are represented in paintings and engravings, that they can easily appreciate their effect in the sunny landscapes of the South.  There they may be seen bending over fields tapestried with Passion-Flowers and verdurous with Myrtles and Orange-trees, and presenting their long shafts to the tendrils of the Trumpet Honeysuckle and the palmate foliage of the Climbing Fern.  But the slender Palms, when solitary, afford but little shade.  It is when they are standing in groups, their lofty tops meeting and forming a uniform umbrage, that they afford any important protection from the heat of the sun.

In pictures of tropical scenery we see these trees standing on the banks of a stream, or in the vicinity of the sea, near some rude hut constructed of Bamboo and thatched with the broad leaves of the Fan Palm.  In some warm countries Nature affords the inhabitants an almost gratuitous subsistence from the fruit of the different Palms,—­a plantation of Dates and Cocoa-nuts supplying the principal wants of the owner and his family, during the life of the trees.  But the Palm is not suggestive of the arts, for the South is not the region of the highest civilization.  Man’s intelligence is greatest in those countries in which he is obliged to struggle with difficulties sufficient to require the constant exercise of the mind and body to overcome them.  Science and Art have built their altars in the region of the Oak, and in valleys which are annually whitened with snow, where labor invigorates the frame, and where man’s contention with the difficulties presented by the elements sharpens his ingenuity and strengthens all his facilities.  Hence, while the Oak is the symbol of hospitality and of the arts to which it has given its aid, the Palm symbolizes the voluptuousness of a tropical clime and the indolence of its inhabitants.