The Mystery Tree

Woodman, spare that tree!

... cut not its earth-bound ties ... .

                                    --George Pope Morris

November is the best time of year

to see autumn color in southeastern Virginia.

Our growing season is long, so late October to November 

generally brings cooler temperatures and drier air

that help to bring out the color in leaves.

In the last couple of weeks, 

I've marveled at how beautiful the autumn color is this year.

It seems a cliche, but everywhere I look there is a magnificently colored tree

wearing the deepest yellow, the brightest orange, the most vibrant red.

Even the oak trees, which often just turn brown, now glow in russet tones:

But there is one tree or shrub behind our house

whose color is unparalleled as far as I'm concerned:

The soft blended orange-red-yellow color 

never fails to catch my attention.

Its beauty stirs my soul.

As George Pope Morris said:

My heart-strings round thee cling;

close as thy bark ...

I can't imagine not having it there, 

but we came close to removing it this spring.

The small wooded area on our lot

grows so thick and dense that after awhile, it encroaches on the house.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that if left untended,

it would consume our house.

So this spring my husband cleared some of the brush and lower limbs.

When it came to this tree, perfectly shaped like an umbrella,

standing alone between two oaks, he hesitated.

Should we keep it?  Should we let it go?

I said take it down; he said let's think about it.

We left it.

I'm glad.

But what is it?

We wrongly thought it was a Carolina spice bush, but it's not.

We examined the leaves, looked at field guides, searched the internet.

Our best guess is a persimmon.

But we're not sure because it's never set fruit.

So if anyone knows, please enlighten us.

Till then, our tree will remain a beautiful mystery.

And next spring:

Here shall the wild-bird sing
And still thy branches bend.
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What about Blue?

As I've noted in my most recent blog posts,

the earliest period of the English language

did not have that many words to express color, 

favoring words for light or brightness instead.

We can be relatively assured that colors in the landscape

existed back then as today, 

but the lack of hue terms does make one wonder.

Ronald Casson, whose "Color Shift: 

The Evolution of English Color Terms from Brightness to Hue" 

was published in the journal Color Categories in Thought and Language,

theorizes that perennially overcast climate may have dulled color senses.

Additionally, there were few pigments for dyeing cloth

and much of the clothing, goods, and tools would have been 

limited to the natural and rough hewn, 

resulting in more muted colors.

The several color terms English speakers did have 

suggest they came from their landscape:

green leaves and trees, the red sunrises and sunsets, 

the yellow of wax and wood.

Casson includes a few more brightness terms 

with occasional uses for hue, among them:

the values hwit 'white', blæk 'black', and grǣg 'gray'.

Not surprisingly, white primarily described reflections and shining things

such as helmets, light, or silver. As a hue, white expressed 

 the color of hair, milk, flour, alabaster, whale bone, and snow.

photo courtesy of morguefile.com

Black was also a brightness term, 

denoting something that shined, flashed, or had burned.

Black as a color: soot, coal, pitch.

Also clouds, dark nights, and ravens.

And Casson says that gray described gleaming or shining light.

It also expressed the color of hair, 

the elderly (interesting how universal and long standing that is), 

animal fur, geese, bread, wheat, and porridge.

The latter three make me think the early centuries may have offered 

a rather unappealing cuisine, especially if the bread was gray.

But then what about blue? 

I would have thought that blue, the color of the sky and water,

would have figured more prominently.

But in fact, in the Old English language period,

blue as we know it is was conspicuous by its near absence.

blue aster photo courtesy of morguefile.com

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, 

the term was originally blǣwen,

and it referred to not only pale blue, but also shades of pale gray and pale green.

Only after many years did it become associated with blue alone.

In that sense, blǣwen described cinders, indigo, and sapphire.

But the color word "blue" we owe to the French bleu

which entered the English language in the 14th century.

Blue skies, blue flowers, blue garments, the deep blue sea

now found expression in the language.

I like shiny and bright things, things that glitter and glimmer and glow.

But  I can't imagine a language that could express only those senses.

I'm glad English and other modern languages have a multi-hued vocabulary

because without one, our holidays might  be bright,

but they wouldn't be colorful.

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Color My World

The earliest existing records in the Old English period

date from about  the 7th century.

And as I mentioned yesterday, there were very few color terms

in the language that described hue in that time. 

Most color terms expressed light and luminosity,

but words to express hue were not completely absent.

Often the same words were used to describe brightness and hue.

So I thought in this season of fall color, 

it would be fun to explore the earliest color words.

Yesterday I mentioned a fascinating article by Ronald Casson,

"Color Shift: The Evolution of English Color Terms from Brightness to Hue"

published in the journal Color Categories in Thought and Language.

It is Casson's article from which most of the following information 

on color and its uses is drawn.

As one might expect, 

rede or red is one of those colors that expressed both brightness and hue.

Casson tells us that red expressed the luminosity and brightness of flame,

but also the color of the sky at sunset or sunrise.

photo courtesy of  morguefile.com

Red also described blood, complexion, hair, and roses.

photo courtesy of morguefile.com

Another color term that has been in English for centuries 

is green or in its early form, groene or grene.

It too had a brightness sense, being used to express 

the head of a falcon reflecting the sun, 

water, and flashes of light from green gemstones.

As a hue, green described fields, grass, trees, and unripe fruit.

leaf photo courtesy of morguefile.com

Yellow, originally gelu (g was once pronounced like y)

commonly expressed both brightness and, to a lesser extent, hue.

In its luminous sense, yellow described sunlight or the glint of gold.

But as a color, it described linden wood shields, wax, butter, and egg yolks. 

These are three of the original color terms. 

There are several. Does that number include blue? orange? purple?

Join me tomorrow as we explore more early colors.

There are a couple of surprises in the palette.

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