Full text of "The tree book; a popular guide to a knowledge of the trees of North America and to their uses and cultivation"

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HAROLD B. LEE LIBRARY
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY

. . *A.A-4

Table of Contents

Part I — Continued

CHAPTER

LVIII The Silver Bell Tree and the Sweet Leaf .

LIX The Ashes and the Fringe Tree

^mLX The Catalpas

LXI The Viburnums and the Elders

428

43 1
445
449

PART II

FORESTRY

I Forestry in the United States .... 455

II A Lumber Camp of To-day

462

III Profitable Tree Planting

470

IV The Woodlot That Pays

481

V Transplanting Trees

486

VI How Trees Are Multiplied .

492

VII How Trees Are Measured .

501

VIII The Pruning of Trees .

•

506

IX The Enemies of Trees .

5*3

PART III

THE USES OF WOOD

I The Uses of Wood

II Wood Preservation

III The Finishing of Wood ....

IV Wooden Paper

PART IV
THE LIFE OF THE TREES

I The Work of the Leaves
II The Growth of a Tree

III The Fall of the Leaf .

IV How Trees Spend the Winter
Appendix . . . ,- .
Index ......

527
536
540

543

55*
556

562

566

573
579

LIST OF COLOURED PLATES

The Glory of Autumn Trees

White Pine Grown in Open Ground (Pinus Strobus)

Dogwood Tree in Full Bloom (Cornus florida)

Fruiting Branch of Chestnut (Castanea dentata)

Swamp Magnolia (Magnolia glauca)

Prairie Crab Apple (Malus Ioensis)

Scarlet Haw (Crataegus coccinea)

Clammy Locust (Robinia viscosa)

Scarlet Haw (Crataegus Arnoldiana)

Mountain Laurel (JKalmia latijolia)

Flowers of Silver Bell Tree (Mohrodendron tetraptera)

Fruit of Elder-leaved Mountain Ash (Sorbus sambucijolia)

Fruit and Autumn Leaves of Dogwood (Cornus florida)

Flower of Tulip Tree (Liriodendron Tulipifera)

Flower and Bud of Great Rhododendron (Rhododendron

maximum)

Big Trees in the Giant Forest of the Sequoia National Park
California (Sequoia Wellingtonia) .

Frontispiece

Facing Page
24

I24

186

250

284

304

346

390

420

430

452

480

512

542

562

LIST OF OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS

~*The

The

JThe

The

• The

4The

f^The

— ^he

The

i —The

\j- The

The

iJhe

iThe

White Pine (Pinus Strobus)

Mountain Pine (Pinus monticola)

Sugar Pine (Pinus Lambertiana)

Foxtail Pine (Pinus Balfouriana)

Table Mountain Pine (Pinus pungens)

Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida) ....

Shortleaf Pine (Pinus echinata) .

Red or. Norway Pine (Pinus resinosa)

Jersey Pine (Pinus Virginiana)

Red Spruce (Picea rubens)

Grey Pine (Pinus divaricata)

American Larch (Larix Americana) .

White Spruce (Picea Canadensis)

Black Spruce (Picea Mariana) .

Engelmann Spruce (Picea Engelmanni) .

Blue Spruce (Picea Parryana) . . . ■

Douglas Spruce (Pseudotsuga mucronata) .

Hemlock (Tsuga Canadensis) . . .

Balsam Fir (Abies balsamea)

Balsam Fir (Abies lasiocarpa) .

Balsam Fir (Abies Fraseri)

White Fir (Abies concolor)

White Fir (Abies grandis)

Big Tree (Sequoia W ellingtonia)

Arbor Vitae (Thuya occidentalis) .•

Monterey Cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa)

White Cedar (Chamcecyparis tbyoides)

Sitka Cypress (Chamacyparis Nootkatensis)

Lawson Cypress (Chamatcyparis Lawsoniand)

Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum)

Juniper (Juniperus .communis)

Red Cedar (Juniperus Virginiana) .

Facing Page
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27
27
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1 10

rxix

List of Other Illustrations

The
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The
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Facing Page

Western Juniper (Juniperus occidentalis) . . . 1 1 1
Lodge-pole Pine (Pinus contorta, var. Murrayana) . in
Desert Palm (Washingtonia filamentosa) . . . 120
Cabbage Palmetto (Sabal Palmetto) . . . 121

Butternut (Juglans cinerea) 128

Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) 129

Pignut (Hicoria glabra) 134

Pignut (Hicoria glabra) . . . . . 135

Bitternut Hickory (Hicoria minima) . . . 135

Big Shellbark (Hicoria laciniosa) . . . . 138

Shagbark Hickory (Hicoria ovata) . . . . 139

Shagbark Hickory (Hicoria ovata) . . . . 142

Pecan (Hicoria Pecan) . . . . . . 143

Water Hickory (Hicoria aquatica) . . . . 143

Cottonwood (Populus deltoidea) . . . «, 146

Silver Poplar (Populus alba) 147

Great-toothed Aspen (Populus grandidentata) . . 147

Narrow-leaved Cottonwood (Populus angustifolia) . 147

Cottonwood (Populus Fremontii) . . . . 147

Swamp Cottonwood (Populus heterophylla) . a 147

Balm of Gilead (Populus balsamifera) . . . 147

Quaking Asp (Populus tremuloides) . . . . 1 50

Quaking Asp (Populus tremuloides) . . . . 151

Golden Osier Willow (Salix alba, var. vitellina) . 156

Golden Osier (Salix alba, var. vitellina) . . . 157

Silky Willow (Salix sericea) . . . . . 157

Pussy Willow (Salix discolor) 160

Pussy Willow (Salix discolor) . . . . . 161

Hop Hornbeam (Ostrya Virginiana) . . . . 1 64

American Hornbeam (Carpinus Caroliniana) . .- 165

American Hornbeam (Carpinus Caroliniana) . . 166

American White Birch (Betula populi^&Ua) \ . . 167^

American White birch (Betula populifolia) . . 168

Canoe Birch (Betula papyriferaf) T . . . 169

Yellow Birch (Betula luted) 170

Yellow Birch (Betula luted) 171

Cherry Birch (Betula lenta) . . . • . 174

Red Birch (Betula nigra) . . . . . 175

Seaside Alder (Alnus maritima) . s , . 182

Speckled Alder (Alnus incana) , - • ife

xjy

List

The Beech {Fagus Americana)
The Beech {Fagus Americana)
The Chestnut {Castanea dentata)
T^The Chestnut {Castanea dentata)
The Chinquapin {Castanea pumila)
The California White Oak {Quercus lobata)
The Live Oak {Quercus Virginiana)
The California Live Oak {Quercus agri folia)
The White Oak {Quercus alba)
The White pak {Quercus alba)
_JThe Bur Oik {Qu^cus^macrocarpa)
The Chestnut Oak {Quercus Prinus)
The Overcup Oak {Quercus lyrata)
The Live Oak {Quercus Virginiana)
The Willow Oak {Quercus Phellos)
The Swamp White Oak {Quercus platanoides)
The Post Oal? {Quercus minor)
The Blue Jack {Quercus brevifolia)
The Cow Oak {Quercus Michauxii) .
The Black J&ckMuercus Marilandica)
The Water Oak {Quercus nigra)
The Yellow Oak {Quercus acuminata)
The Red Oak {Quercus rubra) .
The Pin Oak {Quercus palustris)
The Pin Oak {Quercus palustris)
The Red Oak {Quercus rubra) .
The Red Oak {Quercus rubra) .
The Scarlet Oak {Quercus coccinea)
The Scarlet Oak {Quercus coccinea) .
The Black Oak {Quercus velutina) .
The Black Oak {Quercus velutina) .
The Bear Oak {Quercus nana)
The Bear Oak {Quercus nana)
The Shingle Oak {Quercus imbricaria)
The Shingle Oak {Quercus imbricaria)
The Shingle Oak {Quercus imbricaria)
I The Lancaster Elm {Ulmus Americana)
^The American Elm {Ulmus Americana)
The American Elm {Ulmus Americana)
The Slippery Elm {Ulmus fulva)

of Other Illustrations

• i

Facing Pagk
I83
I84
185
l88
189*
194

'95

195
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204

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209

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Lis; of Other Illustrations

^v-

Facing Page

The
JTie
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The
fThe
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he
The
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The

Rack or Cork Elm (Ulrnus Thomasi)

Hackberry (Celtis occidentalis)

Rid Mulberry (Morus rubra) .

Os?.ge Orange (Toxylon pomiferum) .

Ear-leaved Magnolia (Magnolia Fraseri)

Large-leaved Cucumber Tree (Magnolia macropbylla)

Great Laurel Magnolia (Magnolia fcetida)

Swamp Magnolia (Magnolia glauca)

Umbrella Tree {Magnolia tripetala) .

Cucumber Tree (Magnolia acuminata)

Tulip Tree (Liriodendron Tulipifera)

Sassafras (Sassafras Sassafras)

Witch Hazel (Hamamelis Virginiana)

Sweet Gum (Liquidambar Styraciflua)

Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis)

Wild Crab Apple (Malus coronaria) .

Prairie Crab Apple (Malus Ioensis) .

Narrow-leaved Crab Apple (Malus angustifolia)

Mountain Ash (Sorbus Americana) .

Service-berry (Amelanchier Canadensis)

English rfawthorn (Crataegus Oxyacantha)

Cockspur Thorn (Crataegus Crus-galli)

Red Haw (Crataegus mollis)

Dotted Haw (Crataegus punctata)

Scarlet Haw (Crataegus pruinosa)

HsM-JjCzat&gus Boyntoni)

Haw (Crataegus apiomorpha)

Scarlet Haw (Crataegus Arnoldiana)

Parsley Haw (Crataegus apiifolia)

Scarlet Haw (Crataegus coccinea)

Red Haw (Crataegus mollis)

Haw (Crataegus coccinioides)

Washington Thorn (Crataegus cordata)

Long-spine Haw (Crataegus macracaniba)

Pear Haw (Crataegus tomentosa)

Canada Plum (Prunus nigra) .

235

238

239
244
245
245
245
256
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257

^26a
269
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278

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294

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298

299

306

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313

318

319

3*9
322

323

XVI

List of Other Illustrations

The Canada Plum (Prunus nigra) .

The Wild Red Plum (Prunus Americana)

The Wild Goose Plum (Prunus bortulana)

The Beach Plum (Prunus maritima)

The Wild-Goose Plum (Prunus horiulana)

The Alleghany Sloe (Prunus Alleghaniensis)

The Bird Cherry (Prunus Pennsylvania)
^The Choke Cherry (Prunus Virginiana)

The Canada Plum (Prunus nigra) .

The Beach Plum (Prunus maritima)
^-The Red Bud (Cercis Canadensis)
—The Honey Locust (Glediisia triacanthos)
^The Yellow Locust (Robinia Pseudacacia)

The New Mexican Locust (Robinia Neo-Mexicana)

The Clammy Locust (Robinia viscosa)

The Yellow-wood (Cladrastis luted)
^The Staghom Sumach (Rhus birta)
ft The Poison Sumach (Rhus Vernix) .

°The Dwarf Sumach (Rhus copallina)

The Smooth Sumach (Rhus glabra)

The Swamp Holly (Ilex decidua)

The Mountain Holly (Ilex monticola)

The Evergreen Holly (Ilex opaca) .

The Burning Bush (Evonymus atropurpureus)

The Red Maple (Acer rubrum) .

The Red Maple (Acer rubrum) .
JJht Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum)

The Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum)
-*>The Sugar Maple (Acer Saccharum) .

The Sugar Maple (Acer Saccharum)
-The Mountain Maple (Acer spicatum)

The Striped Maple (Acer Pennsylvanicum)

The Vine Maple (Acer circinatum) .

A Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum, var. dissectum)

The Dwarf Maple (Acer glabrum)

The Black Maple (Acer nigrum)
*=*The Box Elder (Acer Negundo)
-,-The Ohio Buckeye (/Esculus glabra) .

Facing Page
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• 384
384

. 385

XVll

List of Other Illustrations

•-The American Linden (J ilia Americana) .
The Red Mangrove (Rhifophora Mangle)
The White Mangrove (Laguncularia racemosa)
The Black Mangrove (Avicennia nitida) .
The Hercules Club (Aralia spinosa)
The Tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica) .
The Tupelo or Pepperidge (Nyssa sylvatica)
The Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida)
The Alternate-leaved Dogwood (Cornus alternifolia)
The Western Dogwood (Cornus Nuttallii)
The Sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum)
The Persimmon (Diospyros Virginiand) .
The Silver Bell Tree (Mohrodendron tetraptcra)
The White Ash (Fraxinus Americana)
The Black Ash (Fraxinus nigra)
The Red Ash (Fraxinus Pennsylvanica) .
The Blue Ash (Fraxinus quadrangulata) .
The Red Ash (Fraxinus Pennsylvanica) .
The Green Ash (Fraxinus lanceolata)
The Fringe Tree (Chionanthus Virginica)
The Sheepberry (Viburnum Lentago)
The Rusty Nannyberry (Viburnum rufidulum)
The Black Haw (Viburnum prunifolium)
The Red-berried Elder (Sambucus pubens)
The Hop Tree (Ptelea trifoliata)

"^The Catalpa (Catalpa Catalpa)
The Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus viminalis)
The Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus robusta) ,
The Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus)

Facing Page
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jrvm

GLOSSARY OF TECHNICAL TERMS

Abortive. Not developed.
Acuminate. Tapering to apex.
Acute. Pointed.

Adventitious. Out of the natural order, as
buds that are formed where the bark is
bruised, or about a stub.
Anther. The pollen-producing part of the

stamen.
Apetalous. Without petals.
Apex. The tip.

Arbourescent. Having tree form.
Arboretum. An assemblage of living trees of

many kinds.
Aril. Loose bag around the seed.
Axil. Angle between leaf and twig.
Axillary. Arising from the angle between

stem and leaf.
Baccate. Berry-like.
Bast. Inner fibrous layer of bark.
Bloom. A pale film covering some ripe

plums, grapes, etc.
Bract. Modified leaf in flower cluster.
Budding. Setting a bud upon a stock so it

shall grow fast.
Burs. Woody, irregular excrescences upon

trunks and roots. Spiny husks of

nuts.
Calyx. The outer whorl of a flower.
Cambium. The mucilaginous living layer

between wood and bark.
Capsule. A dry, dehiscent seed case of more

than one compartment.
Carpel. A single pistil, or a division of a

compound pistil.
Catkin. A slender spike of minute, crowded

flowers, as in willows.
Chlorophyll. The green colouring matter in

leaves.
Ciliate. Fringed with hairs.
Cion. See Scion.
Coalesce. To grow together.
Collar. The place where trunk and roots

meet.
Compound. Of several units on a common

stem, as the leaflets of a locust leaf.
Cone. A fruit made up of overlapping scales,

as of pines.
Coppice. Woods made up of sprouting

stumps.
Cordate. Heart-shaped.
Coriaceous. Leathery.

Corolla. The whorl of petals.
Cotyledons. Seed leaves.
Crenate. Scalloped.

Cross. To produce seed by fertilizing the
ovules of one flower with pollen from flowers
of another species.
Crustaceous. Dry; horny.
Cutting. A piece of root or twig by which
certain species are able to reproduce them-
selves.
Cyme. A flat flower cluster.
Deciduous. Falling in autumn.
Dehiscent. Opening when ripe, as the husks

of hickory nuts.
Deltoid. Triangular.
Disuse. Loosely spreading.
Dioecious. Bearing pistillate and staminate

flowers on separate trees.
Disk. Base of flower to which all floral parts

are attached.
Drupe. A stone fruit, as a plum.
Duct. A tube.
Elliptical. Evenly and narrowly oblong

with rounded ends.
Entire. Without teeth or lobes, as leaves of

magnolias.
Exotic. Not native.
Falcate. Sickle-shaped.
Fascicle. A crowded cluster, as seen in the

leaf arrangement of larches.
Fertilisation. The union of pollen grain and

ovule. The setting of seed.
Filament. The slender thread that supports

the anther.
Fungi. Low vegetable organisms, including

mushrooms, mildew, rust and decay in

wood.
Genus (PL genera). Subdivision of a family.
Germination. The sprouting of seeds.
Glabrous. Smooth.
Glaucous. Covered with a pale, powdery

film.
Grafting. Inserting a cion in a stock so it

will grow fast.
Habitat. Chosen situation of growth.
Heartwood. The dead wood in the trunk

under the sapwood.
Humus. Vegetable mould.
Hybrid. A seedling resulting from a cross.
Indehiscent. Not opening to discharge seeds

at maturity. See husks of walnuts.

XIX

Glossary of Technical Terms

Involucre. Whorl of green leaves or bracts

below flower or flower cluster.
Leader. A terminal shoot or bud.
Lateral. On the side.
Lenttcels. Corky slits or dots on bark for

admission of air.
Liber. The inner, fibrous layer of bark.
Linear. Long and narrow, like a grass blade.
Membranaceous. Thin and pliable.
Monoscious. Bearing both staminate and

pistillate flowers on one tree.
Monotypic. Having but one representative.

as the genus Cladrastis.
Nutlet. Small, hard seed case, as in haws.
Oblanceolate. Lance-shaped, but broadest

toward apex.
Obovate. Ovate, with broadest part toward

apex.
Obtuse. Blunt.
Osmosis. The passing of liquids and gases

through cell walls and other continuous

membranes.
Ovary. Base of pistil containing ovules.

Becomes the seed vessel.
Ovule. A rudimentary seed.
Palmate. With leaflets all arising from the

end of the petiole, as in the horse chestnut

leaves.
Panicle. Spreading, conical flower cluster

as in yellow-wood.
Parasite. Any organism that is supported

and nourished by another one.
Pedicel. Secondary flower-stalks; branches

of the peduncle.
Peduncle. Main flower-stalk.
Perfect. Having both stamens and pistils,

as the flowers of apple and magnolia.
Pericarp. The matured ovary.
Persistent. Remaining longer than ordinary.

Evergreen.
Petiolate. Provided with a petiole.
Petiole. Stem of a leaf.
Pinnate. Feather-like. With leaflets along

sides of main leaf-stalk, as in ash and

walnut leaves.
Pistil. Central, seed-producing part of the

flower, consisting of ovary, style and

stigma.
Pistillate. Having pistils.
Pollen. The fertilising dust formed in the

anther.
Polygamous. Bearing (i) staminate, (2)

pistillate, and (3) perfect flowers on the

same tree, as in hackberry.
Pome. Fleshy fruit with a core.
Procumbent. Sprawling.
Pubescent. Covered with fine, short hairs.
Raceme. Loose flower cluster with flowers

arranged on short pedicels along peduncle,

as wild black cherry.

Receptacle. Base to which parts of the flower

are attached.
Resin. Viscid exudation of the wood of

conifers.
Rhombic. Diamond-shaped-
Rosin. Hard, brittle substance left after

distilling turpentine from the resin of cer-
tain pines.
Rufous. Red or tawny.
Samara. Key fruit; a winged seed case, as

of elm, ash and maple.
Sapling. Any young tree.
Sapwood. The living wood near the bark.
Scion (Cion). The budded twig that is set

in the stock in grafting.
Seedling. A tree that has come from a

seed.
Serrate. Saw-toothed.
Sessile. Without a stalk.
Simple. Of one part, as the pistils and leaves

of elms and cherries.
Sinuate. Winding.
Sinus. Bay between lobes, as in black oak

leaf.
Slash. Branches and defective material

discarded in lumbering,
Species. Subdivision of a genus.
Spike. Pencil-like receptacle crowded with

small flowers.
Stamen. Pollen-producing organ of the

flower, consisting of filament and anther.
Staminate. Having stamens.
Stellate. Star-shaped in branching.
Stigma. The tip of the pistil which receives

the pollen.
Stipule. Leaf-like growth, at base of

petiole.
St ornate s. Breathing holes on under side of

leaves.
Stratified. Spread out in layers, alternating

with sand and gravel,
Strobile. A cone.
Style. Slender part of pistil between stigma

and ovary.
Subterminal. Near the tip.
Sucker. Sprout from root or stub of

branch.
Suture. A seam where parts are united

until maturity. See burs of chestnut and

beech.
Symmetrical. Well proportioned.
Terete. Cylindrical.
Tomentose. Velvety.
Umbel. Flat flower cluster in which many

pedicels rise from the end of the

peduncle.
Unisexual. Lacking either pistils or sta-
mens.
Valves. Divisions, as of a pod or husk.
Variety. Subdivision of a species.

PART I.
HOW TO KNOW THE TREES

THE TREE BOOK

CHAPTER I: HOW TO KNOW THE TREES

" And surely nobody can find anything hard in this ; even the blind must
enjoy these woods, drinking in their fragrance, listening to the music of the winds
in their groves, and fingering their flowers and plumes and cones and richly
furrowed boles. The kind of study required is as easy and natural as breathing."

— John Muir.

Occasionally I meet a person who says : "I know nothing at
all about trees." This modest disclaimer is generally sincere,
but it has always turned out to be untrue. "Oh, well, that
old sugar maple, I've always known that tree. We used to tap all
the sugar maples on the place every spring." Or again: " Every-
body knows a white birch by its bark." "Of course, anybody
who has ever been chestnutting knows a chestnut tree." Most
people know Lombardy poplars, those green exclamation points
so commonly planted in long soldierly rows on roadsides and
boundary lines in many parts of the country. Willows, too,
everybody knows are willows. The best nut trees, the shag-
bark, chestnut and butternut, need no formal introduction. The
honey locust has its striking three-pronged thorns, and its purple
pods dangling in winter and skating off over the snow. The beech
has its smooth, close bark of Quaker grey, and nobody needs to
look for further evidence to determine this tree's name.

So it is easily proved that each person has a good nucleus of
tree knowledge around which to accumulate more. If people
have the love of nature in their hearts — if things out of doors call
irresistibly, at any season — it will not really matter if their lives
are pinched and circumscribed. Ways and means of studying
trees are easily found, even if the scant ends of busy days spent
indoors are all the time at command. If there is energy to be-
gin the undertaking it will soon furnish its own motive power.
Tree students, like bird students, become enthusiasts. To
understand their enthusiasm one must follow their examples.

How to Know the Trees

The beginner doesn't know exactly how and where to begin.
There are great collections of trees here and there. The Arnold
Arboretum in Boston is the great dendrological Noah's Ark in
this country. It contains almost all the trees, American and for-
eign, which will grow in that region. The Shaw Botanical
Garden at St. Louis is the largest midland assemblage of trees.
Parks in various cities bring together as large a variety of trees
as possible, and these are often labelled with their English and
botanical names for the benefit of the public.

Yet the places for the beginner are his own dooryard, the
streets he travels four times a day tc his work, and woods for
his holiday, though they need not be forests. Arboreta are for
his delight when he has gained some acquaintance with the tree
families. But not at first. The trees may all be set out in tribes
and families and labelled with their scientific names. They will
but confuse and discourage him. There is not time to make
their acquaintance. They overwhelm with the mere number of
kinds. Great arboreta and parks are very scarce. Trees are every-
where. The acquaintance of trees is within the reach of all.

First make a pkm of the yard, locating and naming the
trees you actually know. Extend it to include the street, and
the neighbours' yards, as you get ready for them. Be very care-
ful about giving names to trees. If you think you know a tree,
ask yourself how you know it. Sift out all the guesses, and
the hearsays, and begin on a solid foundation, even if you are
sure about only the sugar maple and the white birch.

The characters to note in studying trees are: leaves, flowers,
fruits, bark, buds, bud arrangement, leaf scars and tree form.
The season of the year determines which features are most promi-
nent. Buds and leaf scars are the most unvarying of tree
characters. In winter these traits and the tree frame are most
plainly revealed. Winter often exhibits tree fruits on or under
the tree, and dead-leaf studies are very satisfactory. Leaf arrange-
ment may be made out at any season, for leaf scars tell this story
after the leaves fall.

Only three families of our large trees have opposite leaves.
This fact helps the beginner. Look first at the twigs. If the
leaves, or (in winter) the buds and leaf scars, stand opposite, the
tree (if it is of large size) belongs to the maple, ash or horse-
chestnut family. Our native horse chestnuts are buckeyes, if

How to Know the Trees

the leaves are simple the tree is a maple; if pinnately compound,
of several leaflets, it is an ash; if palmately compound, of five to
seven leaflets, it is a horse chestnut. In winter dead leaves under
the trees furnish this evidence. The winter buds of the horse
chestnut are large and waxy, and the leaf scars look like prints of
a horse's hoof. Maple buds are small, and the leaf scar is a small,
narrow crescent. Ash buds are dull and blunt, with rough,
leathery scales. Maple twigs are slender. Ash and buckeye
twigs are stout and clumsy.

Bark is a distinguishing character of many trees — of others
it is confusing. The sycamore, shedding bark in sheets from
its limbs, exposes pale, smooth under bark. The tree is recognis-
able by its mottled appearance winter or summer. The corky
ridges on limbs of sweet gum and bur oak are easily re-
membered traits. The peculiar horizontal peeling of bark on
birches designates most of the genus. The prussic-acid taste of
a twig sets the cherry tribe apart. The familiar aromatic taste of
the green twigs of sassafras is its best winter character; the
mitten-shaped leaves distinguish it in summer.

It is necessary to get some book on the subject to discover
the names of trees one studies, and to act as teacher at times. A
book makes a good staff, but a poor crutch. The eyes and the
judgment are the dependable things. In spring the way in
which the leaves open is significant; so are the flowers. Every
tree when it reaches proper age bears flowers. Not all bear fruit,
but blossoms come on every tree. In summer the leaves and
fruits are there to be examined. In autumn the ripening fruits
are the special features.

To know a tree's name is the beginning of acquaintance —
not an end in itself. There is all the rest of one's life in which to
follow it up. Tree friendships are very precious things. John Muir,
writing among his beloved trees of the Yosemite Valley, adjures
his world-weary fellow men to seek the companionship of trees.

"To learn how they live and behave in pure wildness,
to see them in their varying aspects through the seasons and
weather, rejoicing in the great storms, putting forth their new
leaves and flowers, when all the streams are in flood, and the
birds singing, and sending away their seeds in the thoughtful
Indian summer, when all the landscape is glowing in deep, calm
enthusiasm — for this you must love them and live with them, as
free from schemes and care and time as the trees themselves."

CHAPTER II: THE NAMES OF TREES

Two Latin words, written in italics, with a cabalistic abbrevia-
tion set after them, are a stumbling block on the page to the reader
unaccustomed to scientific lore. He resents botanical names,
and demands to know the tree's name "in plain English." Trees
have both common and scientific names, and each has its use.
Common names were applied to important trees by people, the
world over, before science was born. Many trees were never
noticed by anybody until botanists discovered and named them.
They may never get common names at all.

A name is a description reduced to its lowest terms. It
consists usually of a surname and a descriptive adjective : Mary
Jones, white oak, Quercus alba. Take the oaks, for example,
and let us consider how they got their names, common and
scientific. All acorn-bearing trees are oaks. They are found in
Europe, Asia and America. Their usefulness and beauty have
impressed people. The Britons called them by a word which in
our modern speech is oak, and as they came to know the dif-
ferent kinds, they added a descriptive word to the name of each.
But "plain English" is not useful to the Frenchman. Chine
is his name for the acorn trees. The German has his Eichen-
baum, the Roman had his Quercus, and who knows what the
Chinaman and the Hindoo in far Cathay or the American Indian
called these trees ? Common names made the trouble when the
Tower of Babel was building.

Latin has always been the universal language of scholars. It
is dead, so that it can be depended upon to remain unchanged in
its vocabulary and in its forms and usages. Scientific names are
exact, and remain unchanged, though an article or a book using
them may be translated into all the modern languages. The
word Quercus clears away difficulties. French, English,
German hearers know what trees are meant — or they know
just where in books of their own language to find them
described.

The abbreviation that follows a scientific name tells who

The Names of Trees

first gave the name. " Linn." is frequently noticed, for Linnaeus
is authority for thousands of plant names.

Two sources of confusion make common names of trees un-
reliable: The application of one name to several species, and the
application of several names to one species. To illustrate the
first: There are a dozen iron woods in American forests. They
belong, with two exceptions, to different genera and to at
least five different botanical families. To illustrate the second :
The familiar American elm is known by at least seven local
popular names. The bur oak has seven. Many of these are ap-
plied to other species. Three of the five native elms are called
water elm; three are called red elm; three are called rock elm.
There are seven scrub oaks. Only by mentioning the scientific
name can a writer indicate with exactness which species he is
talking about. The unscientific reader can go to the botanical
manual or cyclopedia and under this name find the species
described.

In California grows a tree called by three popular names:
leatherwood, slippery elm and silver oak. Its name is Fremontia.
It is as far removed from elms and oaks as sheep are from
cattle and horses. But the names stick. It would be as easy to
eradicate the trees, root and branch, from a region as to persuade
people to abandon names they are accustomed to, though they
may concede that you have proved these names incorrect, or
meaningless, or vulgar. Nicknames like nigger pine, he huckle-
berry, she balsam and bull bay ought to be dropped by all people
who lay claim to intelligence and taste.

With all their inaccuracies, common names have interesting
histories, and the good ones are full of helpful suggestion to the
learner. Many are literal translations of the Latin names. The
first writers on botany wrote in Latin. Plants were described
under the common name, if there was one; if not, the plant was
named. The different species of each group were distinguished
by the descriptions and the drawings that accompanied them.
Linnaeus attempted to bring the work of botanical scholars to-
gether, and to publish descriptions and names of all known
plants in a single volume. This he did, crediting each botanist
with his work. The "Species Plantarum," Linnaeus's monu-
mental work, became the foundation of the modern science oi
botany, for it included all the plants known and named up to

The Names of Trees

the time of its publication. This was about the middle of the
eighteenth century.

The vast body of information which the "Species Plantarum"
contained was systematically arranged. All the different species
in one genus were brought together. They were described,
each under a number; and an adjective word, usually descriptive
of some marked characteristic, was written in as a marginal index.

After Linnaeus's time botanists found that the genus name in
combination with this marginal word made a convenient and
exact means of designating the plant. Thus Linnaeus became
the acknowledged originator of the binomial (two-name) system
of nomenclature, now in use in all sciences. It is a delightful
coincidence that while Linnaeus was engaged on his great work,
North America, that vast new field of botanical exploration, was
being traversed by another Swedish scientist. Peter Kalm sent
his specimens and his descriptive notes to Linnaeus, who described
and named the new plants in his book. The specimens swelled
the great herbarium at the University of Upsala.

Among trees unknown to science before are the Magnolia,
named in honour of the great French botanist, Magnol. Robinia,
the locust, honours another French botanist, Robin, and his son.
Kalmia, the beautiful mountain laurel, immortalises the name of
the devoted explorer who discovered it. Linnaea, the little twin
flower of the same mountains, is the one which the great botanist
loved best.

It is inevitable that duplication of names attend the work of
the early scientists, isolated from each other, and far from li-
braries and herbaria. Anyone discovering a plant he believed to
be unknown to science published a description of it in some
scientific journal. If someone else had described it at an earlier
date, the fact became known in the course of time. The name
earliest published is retained, and the later one is dropped to the
rank of a synonym. If the name has been used before to describe
some other species in the same genus, a new name must be sup-
plied. In the "Cyclopedia of Horticulture " the sugar maple is
written : " Acer saccharum, Marsh. {Acer saccharinum, Wang.
Acer barbatum, Michx.)" This means that the earliest name given
this tree by a botanist was that of Marshall. Wangheimer and
Michaux are therefore thrown out; the names given by them are
among the synonyms.

The Names of Trees

Our cork elm was until recently called " Ulmus racemosa,
Thomas." The discovery that the name racemosa was given
long ago to the cork elm of Europe discredited it for the Ameri-
can tree. Mr. Sargent substituted the name of the author, and
it now stands "Ulmus Thomasi, Sarg." Occasionally a generic
name is changed. The old generic name becomes the specific
name. Box elder was formerly known as " Negundo aceroides,
Moench." It is changed back to "Acer Negundo, Linn." On the
other hand, the tan-bark oak, which is intermediate in character
between oaks and chestnuts, has been taken by Professor Sargent
in his Manual, 1905, out of the genus Quercus and set in a genus
by itself. From "Quercus densiflora, Hook, and Arn.," it is called
"Pasania densiflora, Sarg.," the specific name being carried over
to the new genus.

About one hundred thousand species of plants have been
named by botanists. They believe that one-half of the world's
flora is covered. Trees are better known than less conspicuous
plants. Fungi and bacteria are just coming into notice. Yet
even among trees new species are constantly being described.
Professor Sargent described 567 native species in his "Silva of
North America," published 1 892-1900. His Manual, 1905, con-
tains 630. Both books exclude Mexico. The silva of the tropics
contains many unknown trees, for there are still impenetrable
tracts of forest.

The origin of local names of trees is interesting. History
and romance, music and hard common sense are in these names
— likewise much pure foolishness. The nearness to Mexico
brought in the musical pifion and madrona in the Southwest.
Pecanier and bois d'arc came with many other French names
with the Acadians to Louisiana. The Indians had many trees
named, and we wisely kept hickory, waahoo, catalpa, persimmon
and a few others of them.

Woodsmen have generally chosen descriptive names which
are based on fact and are helpful to learners. Botanists have
done this, too. Bark gives the names to shagbark hickory,
striped maple and naked wood. The colour names white birch,
black locust, blue beech. Wood names red oak, yellow-wood
and white-heart hickory. The texture names rock elm, punk oak,
and soft pine. The uses name post oak, canoe birch and lodge-
pole pine.

The Names of Trees

The tree habit is described by dwarf juniper and weeping
spruce. The habitat by swamp maple, desert willow and sea-
side alder. The range by California white oak and Georgia pine.
Sap is characterised in sugar maple, sweet gum, balsam fir and
sweet birch. Twigs are indicated in clammy locust, cotton gum,
winged elm. Leaf linings are referred to in silver maple, white
poplar and white basswood. Colour of foliage, in grey pine,
blue oak and golden fir. Shape of leaves, in heart-leaved cu-
cumber tree and ear-leaved umbrella. Resemblance of leaves to
other species, in willow oak and parsley haw. The flowers ot
trees give names to tulip tree, silver-bell tree and fringe tree.
The fruit is described in big-cone pine, butternut, mossy-cup
oak and mock orange.

Many trees retain their classical names, which have become
the generic botanical ones, as acacia, ailanthus and viburnum.
Others modify these slightly, as pine from Pinus, and poplar from
Populus. The number of local names a species has depends
upon the notice it attracts and the range it has. The loblolly
pine, important as a lumber tree, extends along the coast from
New Jersey to Texas. It has twenty-two nicknames.

The scientific name is for use when accurate designation of
a species is required ; the common name for ordinary speech.
" What a beautiful Quercus alba /" sounds very silly and pedan-
tic, even if it falls on scientific ears. Only persons of very shal-
low scientific learning use it on such informal occasions.

Let us keep the most beautiful and fitting among common
names, and work for their general adoption. There are no hard
names once they become familiar ones. Nobody hesitates or
stumbles over chrysanthemum and rhododendron, though these
sonorous Greek derivatives have four syllables. Nobody asks
what these names are "in plain English."

CHAPTER III: THE TREE FAMILIES

It is quite possible for a person who has never had any par-
ticular interest in trees to acquire by himself a general knowledge
of the tree families represented in our American forests, and to
form an intimate and delightful acquaintance with particular
species and individual trees, as his personal preferences dictate.
And it is not to be undertaken as a herculean task, a duty to be
performed, a means of grace, or an ill-tasting medicine that does
one good. True, there are half a hundred families or more, and
over six hundred distinct species of trees, if we wander from Key
West to the far Aleutians, and from Maine to Mexico, and count
every species any botanist has discovered and named. But the
average forest contains comparatively few families. Different
families have traits in common that indicate their relationship.
Within the family closer kinship still is revealed.

The discovery of these family ties and family groups comes
easy and as naturally as breathing, once it is begun. The neces-
sary botany is unconsciously imbibed. One borrows that from
the books as need is. Every acorn-bearing tree is an oak. The
needle leaves set in scaly sheaths at the base distinguish the
pines from all other evergreens. The hickories have close rela-
tives in all the nut trees. The sycamores have no near relatives
at all. The willows and poplars are alike in catkin flowers and
fluffy seeds. All locusts bear pods.

The key that follows is a simple tool. It unlocks mysteries
that are largely imaginary as to the common tree families by
setting them forth in brief, descriptive terms, giving a bird's-eye
view of them, and emphasising their chief points of similarity
and difference. Botanical terms have been avoided, and such
characters selected as shall be obvious to the inexperienced
observer.

The plan of construction is easily grasped. A and AA are
the two grand divisions into which trees naturally fall. Being
co-ordinate, these have the same letter of the alphabet, and are
set on the extreme left margin of the page. The second has an

1 1

The Tree Families

added letter; if there were a third division it would have three
A's. The subdivisions of A are always B, BB, etc., according
to their number. B is divided into C, C into D, and so on down
the list. In every instance co-ordinate letters are set at the same
distance from the left margin, forming a vertical line down the
page. They are also grouped by their "catch words" — as will
be seen.

A includes the chief families of the evergreens. Under A
are two groups, B and BB, based upon the character of the fruit.
Under B there are two subdivisions, based upon the general
shape of the leaf. The cone-bearing evergreens, B, show two
types of foliage, described under C and CC. The former is
divided into three groups, D, DD, and DDD, on "Arrangement
of leaves." The catch word of B and BB is "Fruit"; of C and
CC, "Foliage."

D and DD each describes a family; DDD includes more, and
must be subdivided. E and EE are the headings and "Leaves"
the catch word. E contains F and FF, based on the cones and
other characters. EE, CC, and BB are undivided, as each describes
a single family.

The next step is to learn how to use the key. It is worthless
unless it unlocks closed doors and reveals hidden things worth
finding. Go out with the key and approach the first evergreen
in sight. It belongs in the group A, your common sense tells
you. Very well. Which B does it agree with ? Look for signs
of fruit on and under the tree. Are they cones or berries?
Cones ? Then this tree belongs in B. All right. Is its foliage
needle-like, etc., or scale-like — C or CC ? Needle-like. Now
you must study the arrangement of leaves on the twigs, and
decide which one of the three D's fits. Perhaps the leaves are
solitary and scattered. Still closer study of them is necessary.
If they agree with EE you know that the tree is a spruce.

Suppose at the start your tree has borne blue berries instead
of cones. You would have dropped to BB at once and found
your tree to be a juniper.

Now the beauty of a key is that you so soon outgrow the
need of it. There are seven great families of the native ever-
geens. To make it as simple as possible, the rare and local
evergreens, like the sequoias, the bald cypress and the yews,
have been omitted. It should take but a single encounter with

The Tree Families

a tree to run it down to its family in the key. The intentness of
this exercise will fix on the mind the characters that distinguish
the family. You find yourself rolling a leaf between thumb and
finger to see if it has the four sharp edges that set the spruces apart
from all the others. Or you look intently for the tiny leaf stem
of a pale-lined flat leaf, to know whether it is a hemlock or a fir.

In the grand division AA the broad-leaved trees are set in
their proper families. There are more of these than of the ever-
greens. They are best studied while leaves are to be had for
identification. Often the seeds remain in winter, and we can
get on with only the evidence of dead leaves. There are few
weeks in the year when the key may not be effectively used on
any tramp in the woods.

As in the evergreens, the local and rare families of broad-
leaved trees have been omitted, that the key may not discourage
beginners by its complexity. In all, the thirty-three families
given include between four and five hundred species, and a large
proportion of those left out are esteemed chiefly by the botanists.
Many of these will be found described later in this book.

The key to the families introduces the reader to the more
intricate distinctions between trees of various genera and species
in the family. The keys to species are made on the same plan.
Having determined that a certain tree belongs to the maple
family, the inquirer is able to turn to "The Maples," and by the
key to decide which of the various species this individual tree
represents. This is the final end of any key — to lead the student
to discover the name of the individual tree.

KEY TO THE PRINCIPAL TREE FAMILIES.

A. The Evergreens, or Conifers.
B. Fruit, a cone.

C. Foliage needle-like, conspicuous, spirally arranged.
D. Arrangement of leaves, few in sheathed bundle.

The Pines
DD. Arrangement of leaves, many in unsheathed

tufts, deciduous The Larches

DDD. Arrangement of leaves, solitary and scattered.
E. Leaves flat, blunt, pale beneath, 2-ranked
on twig.
F. Cones erect, large; branches stiff; bark
smooth, with resin blisters. The Firs
FF. Cones pendant, small ; branches sup-
ple ; bark rough ; leaves on minute
stalks. The Hemlocks

EE. Leaves 4-sided, sharp at tip, not pale be-
neath ; standing out in all directions.

The Spruces
CC. Foliage scale-like, minute, 4-ranked, close pressed

to twig; cones small. The White Cedars

BB. Fruit, a blue berry; foliage spiny or scale-like, or
both. The Junipers, or Red Cedars

AA. The Deciduous, Broad-leaved Trees.
B. Position of leaves opposite.
C. Leaves simple.

D. Fruit winged, 1 -sided keys in pairs. The Maples
DD. Fruit clustered berries.

E. Flowers 4-parted; berry 2-seeded; leaves
not saw-toothed on margins. The Dogwoods
EE. Flowers 5-parted; berry, 1 -seeded; leaves
finely saw-toothed on margins.

The Viburnums
DDD. Fruit long, rod-like pods, with thin seeds.

The Cat alp as
CC. Leaves compound.

D. Fruit slender, winged darts in thick clusters;
leaflets set along central leaf stem. The Ashes
DD. Fruit large nuts in leathery husks; leaflets

clustered on end of leaf stalk. The Buckeyes
BB. Position of leaves alternate.

Key to the Principal Tree Families

C. Leaves simple.

D. Bases of leaves symmetrical.

E. Fruit fleshy, globular, more or less edible.
F. Seeds solitary.

G. Margins of leaves saw-toothed.

The Plums and Cherries
GG. Margins of leaves not saw-toothed.

The Tupelos
FF. Seeds several in walled cells.
G. Cores papery.

H. Fruit small, berry-like.

The Juneberries
HH. Fruit large. The Apples

GG. Cores bony; fruit thin fleshed.

The Hawthorns
EE. Fruits dry.

F. Seeds borne in protecting cups or
burs.
G. Burs scaly, not opening when ripe;
nut conical. The Oaks

GG. Burs spiny, 4-valved, opening when
ripe.
H. Nuts triangular, small. The Beech
HH. Nuts conical, larger. The Chestnut
. FF. Seeds borne in swinging balls.

G. Leaves star shaped; branches corky

ridged. The Sweet Gum

GG. Leaves broad, 3 to 5-lobed, bark shed
in sheets, leaving pale, irregular
patches.

The Sycamore, or Buttonwood
FFF. Seeds borne in cone-like heads.
G. Bark in horizontal sheets.

The Birches
GG. Bark smooth; leaves large, leathery.
H. Leaves pointed at tip; seeds
scarlet, berry-like, on elastic
threads. The Magnolias

HH. Leaves truncate at apex; seeds
dry, with long, flat wing.

The Tulip Tree
FFFF. Seeds borne in 2-valved pods on elon-
gated catkins; minute and hid in cot-
tony down.
G. Leaves narrow; branches supple.

The Willows
GG. Leaves broad; leaf stalks flat,

branches stiff, angular. The Poplars

Key to the Principal Tree Families

DD. Bases of leaves unsymmetrlcal.

E. Fruit, a berry; leaves with three main
veins ; bark warty. The blackberries

EE. Fruit dry with circular wing; leaves oval

with prominent, straight veins. The Elms
EEE. Fruit a woody ball on leaf-like blade;
leaves large, distinctly one-sided.

The Lindens, or Basswoods
CC. Leaves compound.

D. Fruit, a flat pod. The Locusts- -

DD. Fruit, a nut.

E. Husk opening when ripe by four valves.

The Hickories
EE. Husk not opening when ripe. The Walnuts

CHAPTER IV: THE CONIFERS

The distinguishing feature of this great tree group is the
cone-bearing habit. The overlapping scales of the cone are at-
tached to a central stem, and each scale bears one or more naked
ovules when the time of flowering comes. Pollen from the
staminate flowers falls on the exposed ovules, fertilising them,
and thus seed is set. The fertile scales are favourably situated
near the middle of the cone. Here the best seeds are found. The
terminal scales crowd at both ends of the cone, and their seeds
usually fail utterly or are stunted in development.

The coalescence of scales to form soft berries characterises the
junipers, but the cone-like flowers indicate that the modification
in fruit is more apparent than real. The scale tips are there on
the outside of the berry to indicate the close kinship of these trees
with other conifers.

The yews are not conifers, but are set in a family by them-
selves. A single ovule stands erect in the pistillate flower, and
becomes in fruit a i -seeded drupe, or soft berry. Two genera of
yews, with two species of trees in each, constitute the family in
the United States. The conifers include thirteen genera and a
great number of species, quite overshadowing the yews in im-
portance. Together the two families form the botanical grand
division of the Gymnosperms, resinous plants (mostly trees)
whose flowers have no true pistils, but bear their ovules naked —
on a cone scale in the conifers — without even a scale to lean
upon in the yews.

The Ginkgo or Maidenhair Tree (Salisburia adiantifolia),
of Japan and China, is a tree whose botanical affinities seem to be
with the conifers on one side and the ferns on the other. The
leaves are fan-shaped, usually cleft with one deep suture to the
petiole. The venation is the strange character. Unbranched
veins extend in radiating lines to the upper border of the fan, just
as in the leaf of maidenhair fern. The texture is leathery, and the
leaves are fascicled on the ends of very short side twigs. Bright
yellow green in summer, they turn to gold, and fall in the autumn.

The Conifers

The ginkgo is a narrow, tapering tree when young, very trim
and pretty, widening to pyramidal form with years. It grows
rapidly and has been planted as a street tree, notably in Wash-
ington, D. C. A serious drawback appears in the fruit, which is
a soft, plum-like, oily drupe with an unpleasant odour. While
they are dropping they keep sidewalks in a bad state, disgusting
people with the tree. The ginkgo has had a great vogue among
planters, though until recently none have been old enough to
bear fruit.

The Chinese esteem the pits a great delicacy. They roast
the nuts as we do almonds and use them as a confection or an
appetiser at dinners and banquets.

KEY TO THE GENERA

A. Fruit a woody cone.

B. Cone scales each in axil of a bract ; seeds 2, inverted,
on each scale.
C. Foliage needle-like, fascicled.

D. Cones requiring 2 to 3 years to mature; leaves
evergreen, 1 to 5 in papery basal sheath.

Genus Pinus, The Pines
DD. Cones annual; leaves deciduous.

Genus Larix, The Larches
CC. Foliage linear, solitary, scattered.

D. Leaves flat, borne on short petioles ; cones pendant.
E. Twigs set with projecting leaf bases.

Genus Tsuga, The Hemlocks
EE. Twigs smooth.

Genus Pseudotsuga, The Douglas Spruce
DD. Leaves 4-angled, or flattened, without petioles.
E. Twigs rough; cones pendant.

Oenus Picea, The Spruces
EE. Twigs smooth; cones erect.

Genus Abies, The Firs
BB. Cone scales without bracts.

C. Leaves linear, alternate; cone scales many.
D. Seeds many under each scale; leaves evergreen.

Genus Sequoia, The Sequoias
DD. Seeds 2 under each scale; leaves 2-ranked, decidu-
ous. Genus Taxodium, The Bald Cypress
CC. Leaves scale-like, usually of two forms ; cones small.
D. Cones elongated, thin scaled, annual, with 2 seeds
under each scale.

The Conifers

E. Scales of cone 6; seed wings unsymmetrical.

Genus Libocedrus, The Incense Cedar
EE. Scales of cone 8 to 12; seed wings symmetrical.
Genus Thuya, The Arbor Vitves
DD. Cones globular, thick scaled.

E. Seeds many under each scale; cones biennial.

Genus Cupressus, The Cypresses
EE. Seeds 2 under each scale; cones annual.

Genus Chajvlecyparis, The Cypresses
AA. Fruit a berry; by union of scales of the flower; leaves
scale-like or awl shaped, 3 to 4 ranked.

Genus Juniperus, The Junipers

CHAPTER V: THE PINES

Family Conifers
Genus PINUS, Duham.

Leaves evergreen, of two forms: primary, short, broad at
base, scattered; secondary, needle-like, in sheathed bundles.
Flowers monoecious, naked; staminate, clustered; pistillate,
lateral or subterminal, with spirally arranged scales; ovules, 2 on
each scale. Fruit, a woody cone, maturing in 2 or 3 years.

" What the apple is among the fruits, what the oak is among
broad-leaved trees of the temperate zone, the pines are among
the conifers, excelling all other genera in this most important
family in number of species, in fields of distribution in extent of
area occupied, in usefulness and importance to the human race."

— B. E. Fernow.

Six hundred species and varieties have been described and
named in the genus Pinus. They are distributed in vast forests
over the northern half of the globe, reaching into the tropics by
following mountain chains. The East and West Indian Islands
have each their own pines. Out of the hundreds of named kinds
about eighty distinct species are now recognised. Half of this
number are found in North America. Forests of pine still cover
mountain slopes in the western and northern parts of the conti-
nent. Lumbering has been going on for a century in the Eastern
States; more recently the Great Lakes region and the pine forests
of the Southern States have been exploited to supply the demand
for pine.

The foremost lumber trees in this country, pines have still
other important uses. They offer a great variety of trees for pro-
tective and ornamental planting. Windbreaks from the seashore
to the semi-arid prairie, from the low seaboard plain to the
mountain's crests, may all be of pine. Arid soil or rich, cold or
warm climate, swamp and desert sand — all offer congenial con-
ditions for some native pine. In the parks of cities, in private

The Pines

grounds of the rich and the poor, pines are planted for shade and
shelter and ornament. Only in very smoky cities, St. Louis and
Pittsburg, for instance, do pines with other conifers decline after
a few years of growth. It is believed that sulphur and other
substances in the noxious gases that constantly pour from great
chimneys choke the evergreens. Nobody is able yet to give a
final answer to the question. It is now under investigation.

The by-products of pine trees include oil, pitch, turpentine,
and rosin, products of the resin that impregnates the wood of
pitch pines. Minor products are the seeds of the nut pines, used
as food; pine wool, spun from the leaves of certain species; and
pine shoots used for Christmas decoration.

All pines are evergreens and cone bearers. They are dis-
tinguished from other genera of the family Coniferse by bearing
their needle-like leaves in clusters of i to 5 leaves, each of which
is enclosed at its base by a sheath made of papery scales. No
other conifer has this sheath. The soft pines, so called from
their soft, light wood, shed their leaf sheaths as soon as the
young leaves are fully developed. The pitch pines, so called be-
cause their heavy, dark-coloured wood is full of resin, retain the
leaf sheath until the leaves are shed.

In the lumber trade there is a certain fine scorn of "techni-
cal names," and a consequent confusion in the use of local and
trade names of the kinds of pines. This is unfortunate, for
woods that resemble each other so closely as to deceive experi-
enced men have often very different ways of behaving in use.
« Lumbermen and carpenters are misled by dependence on trade
names, and so are engineers and architects, to the great disad-
vantage of those whose interests they are supposed to serve in-
telligently.

"Hard pine" is a carpenter's term applied to pines whose
wood is heavy, close and resinous. It includes everything but
soft pine among staple lumber pines.

The " hard pines " are P. palustris, P. taeda, P. echinata and
P. heterophylla in the South ; P. ponderosa, and P. ponderosa,
var. Jeffreyi, in the West, and P. resinosa in the East and North.

" Yellow pine," a very vague and general colour designa-
tion, includes the Southern hard pines named above, also P.
rigida in the East, and P. ponderosa in the West.

"Pitch pine" is a term applied to species whose wood is

The Pines

rich in resin. Chief among these is P. palustria. It includes the
other Southern lumber pines and P. rigida in the Eastern States.

" Georgia pine " is P. palustris. " North Carolina pine " is
P. echinata.

The "soft pines" have soft, light wood, with little resin,
easy to work — the carpenter's delight. The principal ones are
P. Strobus, in the North and East, P. Lambertiana, of the Pacific
coast, and two Rocky Mountain species, P. monticola and P.
flexilis.

"Jack pines," used locally for ties and timbers, but not in
the regular lumber trade, are small or medium-sized trees : P.
rigida, P. Virginiana and P. divaricata in the East and North ;
P. contorta, var. Murrayana, one in the West.

THE SOFT PINES

Leaf bundles in loose, deciduous sheaths. Cone scales
usually unarmed. Wood soft, light coloured, close grained.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Leaves 5 in a bundle.

B. Cones long stemmed; scales thin; leaves 3 to 4
inches long.
C. Leaves slender, flexible; cones 5 to 8 inches long.
D. Cone scales not recurved at maturity; leaves
bluish green. (P. Strobus) white pine^

DD. Cone scales recurved at maturity; leaves pale
green. (P. strobiformis) Arizona white pine
CC. Leaves stout, stiff.

D. Cones 5 to 12 inches long; limbs grey.

{P. monticola) mountain pine
DD. Cones 12 to 18 inches long; limbs green.

(P. Lambertiana) sugar pine
BB. Cones short stemmed; scales thick; leaves 1 to 2
inches long.
C. Leaf bundles scattered; cones 3 to 10 inches long,
opening at maturity.

(P. flexilis) rocky mountain white pine
CC. Leaf bundles in crowded clusters.

D. Leaf clusters at ends of twigs; cones not open-
ing; bark pale.

(P. albicaulis) white-bark pine

THE

Strobus)

WHITE PINE (Pjnu.

This tree has plume-like tufts of blue-green leave:; in bundles cjf fives. The twigs have five buds around the central on
3 the trunk and limbs send out whorls of five branches each springi The pistillate flowers are near the top of the twig ar
idden among the leaves. The staminate cones cluster behind the neiv shoot and are yellow when ripe. The cones are slende
arved, pendant, with thin, unarmed scales. The tree is :hief among the soft pines in the lumber trade

A-lrtf /"

Winter buds (leaves cut to show budsi

THE MOUNTAIN PINE (P/««5 monticola)
Silvery, stiff leaves in bundles of rives distinguish the white pine of the Western mountains

Winter bud.,
i, leaves cut to show buds)

THE SUGA& PINE (Pinus Lambertiana)

"The lareest. noblest and most beautiful of all the pinr rees in the world." The leaves, in bundles of fives, are stiff ar>r' very

dark green. 5 soft wood is creamy white

„ ntxtr rDnuai im hppn PRPJND ( Pinus Strobus)

The Pines

young that there are practically no big knots in the lumber. He
cuts clear, beautiful boards out of such a tree, and there is very
little waste. Or he squares the trunk for a big bridge timber
whose value and strength would be greatly lessened by large
knots.

The great pine forests of lower Canada and the Northern
States seemed inexhaustible to the early settlers. New York
and Pennsylvania had pineries that promised a lumber supply for
generations to come. But alas! for human foresight. The
avarice of lumber companies and the blindness of politicians have
squandered the heritage of the people. The virgin forests are
gone except in areas too scattered and small to tempt the lumber-
men. Second growth covers some of the territory that was
stripped, but it Will be hundreds of years before another such
crop can come to maturity. The wanton wastefulness in the
original slaughter of the pines is the greatest pity of it all. Forest
fires, once started, eagerly fed on the " slash" the loggers left
behind, and devoured untold acres of virgin woods.

The soft, white, resinous wood of P. Strobus is remarkably
easy to work. It was used in all kinds of construction — from
masts of ships to matches — it was shipped over the country for
house building, for furniture, fencing and the like. Now its
scarcity has led to the substitution of other woods, notably the
hard pines of the Southern States.

The white pine has considerable vigour, reseeding lumbered
areas, where poplars or other short-lived trees come in and
furnish shade for the young seedlings. Careful forestry will
restore pines to many tracts too broken for agricultural use. In
fact, work to this end is being carried on to a considerable extent
in the Northeastern and Middle States. Much of this work is
under the direction of the Bureau of Forestry. White pine is one
of the most profitable timber crops to plant at the present time.
Horticulturally considered, P. Strobus is one of the best of the
pines. It is quick growing, symmetrical, and handsome in its
early years ; later it becomes more irregular, but full of character,
and beautiful in clean limbs and the plume-like tufts of blue-green
leaves. The tree is picturesque, even in decrepit age, towering
in stately dignity over the heads of neighbour trees, adding
distinction to all sylvan scenery A white pine grown in the
open has a broad crown that often keeps its lower branches,

The Pines

and these are borne to the ground by their own weight. Such
a tree is a joy the whole year through to all tree lovers, including
people and birds and squirrels.

The Arizona White Pine (P. strobiformis,) Engelm., is
scattered scantly over gravelly ridges and on canon sides in the
southern part of New Mexico and Arizona, and on into Mexico.
Its pale-green leaves and glaucous, downy branchlets blend it
with the~semi-arid landscape. Its scarcity and the inaccessibility
of its habitat and range defend this tree from the lumberman,
though it occasionally reaches the height of 80 feet or more, and
a trunk diameter of 2 feet.

Mountain Pine, Silver Pine (Pinus monticola,) D. Don.
— A spreading, pyramidal tree with stout trunk and slender,
pendulous branches. Bark light grey and thin, becoming
checked into square plates, with purplish scales and cinnamon-
red under bark. Wood light brown or red, soft, fine grained,
easily split, weak. Buds pointed, scaly, large, hoary, clustered,
terminal. Leaves ij to 4 inches long, thick, stiff, blue-green
with pale bloom. Flowers similar to those of P. Strobus. Fruit
biennial, cones slender, 10 to 18 inches long; scales thin, broad,
tipped with abrupt beak; seeds winged. Preferred habitat,
sub-alpine valleys of streams. Distribution, Vancouver Island
and southern British Columbia to northern Idaho and Montana,
and south into California. Elevations 7,000 to 10,000 feet. Uses:
Not equal to P. Strobus in cultivation. Locally used for lumber
in Idaho and Montana.

The mountain white pine is the Western counterpart of P.
Strobus, which it resembles in general appearance and in the
qualities of its wood. Its foliage is denser and its cones nearly
twice as large as those of our Eastern white pine, with a beak
on each scale that the latter species lacks.

It is unusual, even in the Sierras, to find a tree of gigantic
size climbing mountains. This one at the elevation of 10,000
feet shows specimens 6 to 8 feet in diameter and 90 feet
high, apparently "growing nobler in form and size the colder
and balder the mountains about it." The tree companions of this
pine crouch at its feet; whatever they may be at lower levels,
here they are dwarfs, and only the white pine keeps its noble
proportions unmindful of the blasting winds and cold.

P. monticola surprises and delights the Eastern lover of noble

The Pines

"The old trees are as tellingly varied and picturesque as
oaks. No two are alike, and we are tempted to stop and admire
every one we come to as it stands silent in the calm, balsam-
scented sunshine or waving in accord with enthusiastic storms.
No traveller, whether he be a tree lover or not, will ever forget
his first walk in a sugar-pine forest."— John Muir.

Rocky Mountain White Pine. — (P. flexilis, James.) —
A broad, stout-trunked tree, 40 to 75 feet high, with ascending
branches in a diffuse head/ Bark very dark, furrowed and
broken into square plates; younger stems smooth, pale grey or
white. Wood light, soft, close grained, yellow to red. Buds
scaly, pointed, clustered at branch tips. J^gvesJn fivpg, thick,
rigid, ii to 3 inches long, dark green, sheathed and tufted on
end of branches; shed during fifth or sixth years. Flowers like P.
StrobuSy but rose coloured. Fruit annual, cones 3 to 10 inches
long, purple; scales rounded and abruptly beaked at apex; seeds
with narrow wings all around; ripe in September. Preferred
habitat, mountain slopes, at altitude of 7,000 to 12,000 feet.
Distribution, Rocky Mountains, Alberta (British Columbia), Mon-
tana to Mexico and California. Uses: Important timber tree of
semi-arid regions. Used in construction as P. Strobus is.

It is a fortunate region that has its own white or soft pine for
all sorts of construction. This " limber pine " is notable because
it thrives where other pines fail. It grows on the sides of the
desert ranges of mountains in Nevada and Arizona. It is the
chief dependence of builders on the eastern slopes of the Rockies
in Montana. Lacking this pine, the lumber problem in these
regions would be serious. It is true that trees growing in scat-
tered groups and open forests as these do produce knotty timber;
but the important fact is that P. flexilis does grow in these re-*
gions, and the trees are appreciated, knots and all.

The best specimens grow in New Mexico and Arizona —
sturdy trees, as broad as they are high, with trunks 5 feet
through, and limbs of exceeding length, flexibility and tough-
ness. From these characters the tree takes its specific name and
the common name given above.

The Rocky Mountain white pine grows where the wind
tests the fibre of its long arms, which reach out and up as if
eager to meet the challenge and prove themselves. The foliage
is thick and beautiful, even where the tree crouches a prostrate

The Pines

shrub at the timber line.. The tree's blossoms are its most
striking feature. The staminate clusters are tinged with
rose colour. On the tips of the branches the slim cones
glow from their first appearance like tips of flame. The summer
deepens them to purple, and as they turn down they fade to
cinnamon-brown, before the springing of the scales releases the
almost wingless seeds. In the most favourable locations the
branchlets are stout and the cones approach a foot in length.
Farther north, and at higher levels, the twigs are slim and the
cones considerably shorter.

The White-Bark Pine (P. albicaulis, Engelm.) shouts its
name at the traveller who climbs the snow-clad peaks where it
rims the forests at the timber line. The snowy bark glistens in
the sun as if it reflected the icy mantle that blankets the roots for
a large part of the year. Its range is from British Columbia to
Montana and Wyoming, south into California. It keeps near the
timber line, but goes down to 5,000 feet level, becoming a tree
40 feet high in some places. Usually it is flattened and broad
topped; its matted branches, cumbered with needles and snow,
make a platform on which one may walk with perfect safety.
Travellers sometimes spread their blankets upon the branches and
sleep as comfortably as on a spring bed. These gnarled, shrubby
trees are often astonishingly old. John Muir measured one care-
fully. It was

"Three feet high, with a stem 6 inches in diameter at the
ground, and branches that spread out horizontally as if it had
grown up against a ceiling; yet it was 426 years old, and one of
its supple branchlets, about J of an inch in diameter inside the
bark, was seventy-five years old, and so tough that I tied it into
knots. At the age of this dwarf many of the sugar and yellow
pines and sequoias are 7 feet in diameter and over 200 feet high."

The Foxtail Pines include two species whose branchlets
are clothed with crowded leaf bundles, while the branches are
bare. P. Balfouriana, M. Murr., has stiff, stout, dark-green
leaves lightened by pale linings. The tree forms an open pyra-
mid of more or less irregularity when old, but picturesque,
whether a tree of 40 to 80 feet on the higher foothills of the Cali-
fornia mountains or a straggling shrub at the timber line.

P. aristata, Engelm., the other species, has the same brush-
of-a-fox leaf distribution, and it is distinguished by the long,

The Pines

slender prickles which arm the scales of its cones, giving the tree
its common name, " prickle-cone pine." The tree is bushy,
with whorls of short branches, regular at first, but unsymmetri-
cal when old. Its range extends from western Colorado to
southern California and includes Nevada and Arizona. It keeps
as close as possible to the timber line, and varies from a stocky
tree 40 feet high to a prostrate shrub. In cultivation in the East-
ern States it is a handsome, bushy shrub.

The Nut Pine (P. quadrifolia, Sudw.) is easily distin-
guished by its leaves, which are usually in fours. No other pine
has this number of leaves in a bundle. The tree inhabits the
mountains of southern and Lower California, growing to the
height of 40 feet in favourable localities. It is a desert pine, fur-
nishing the Indians an important article of food in its rich, nut-
like seeds. Its cultivation is confined to southern California.

The Nut Pine (P. cembroides, Zucc), a bushy tree of the
canon sides in Arizona and Lower California, may also be men-
tioned as an important source of food. The nuts are sold in
most towns in northern Mexico. Its scaly bark distinguishes this
tree from other nut pines.

j The Nut Pine, or Pinon (P. edulis, Engelm.), of Colorado,

> New Mexico and Texas, is an important source of food to Mexi-
cans and Indians. The tree grows in forests on the high South-
v western table lands, and follows the mountains into Mexico. Its
leaves are very short, stiff, and in clusters of threes, its globular
cones, scarcely over an inch in length, are woody, and the wing-
less seeds, two on each scale, about the size and shape of honey-
locust seeds, are sweet and nutritious.

The one-leaved Nut Pine (<P. monophylla, Torr.) is small
and irregular, with the form of an olcf apple tree. Its single,
cylindrical leaf, pale greyish green (in a cluster evidently intended
to have two), sets it apart from other pines. Its plenteous little
coiies invest the tree with its greatest human interest.

"It is the commonest tree of the short mountain ranges of
the Great Basin. Tens of thousands of acres are covered with it,
forming bountiful orchards for the red man. Being so low and
accessible, the cones are easily beaten off with poles, and the
nuts procured by roasting until the scales open. To the tribes of
the desert and sage plains these seeds are the staff of life. They
are eaten either raw or parched, or in the form of mush or cakes

<£

r4j

The Pines

after being pounded into meal. The lime of nut harvest is the
merriest time of the year. An industrious squirrelish family can
gather fifty or sixty bushels in a single month before the snow
comes, and then their bread for the winter is sure."— J. Muir.

THE PITCH PINES

Leaf bundles in persistent sheaths. Cone scales thick, usually
armed. Wood heavy, resinous, coarse grained, usually dark
coloured.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Leaves 5 in a bundle, stout, dark green.

B. Cones 4 to 6 inches long; leaves 9 to 13 inches
long. {P. Torreyana) torrey's pine

BB. Cones 2 to 2^ inches long; leaves 5 to 7 inches S
long. (P. Ari^onica) Arizona yellow pinev

AA. Leaves 3 in a bundle.

B. Length of leaf, more than 6 inches.
C. Colour of foliage pale green.

D. Cones 6 to 14 inches long; leaves 8 to 12
inches long, bluish, stout, flexible.

(P. Sabiniana) digger >ine
DD. Cones 3 to 5 inches long; leaves 6 to 9
inches long, slender, stiff, twisted.

(P. Tee da) loblolly pine
CC. Colour of foliage dark green.

D. Cones 2 to 3 inches long; leaves 6 to 8
inches long, yellowish, slender, flexible.

(P. serotina) pond pine
DD. Cones 6 to 10 inches long; leaves 8 to 18
inches long, slender, flexible.

(P. palustris) longleaf bine
DDD. Cones 10 to 14 inches long ; leaves 6 to 12
inches long, bluish, stout, stiff.

(P. Coulter i) big-cone .pine
BB. Length of leaf less than 6 inches.

C. Leaves 3 to 5 inches long, stiff, yellow green;
cones 1 to 3 inches long, opening when ripe.

(P. rigida) pitch Vine
C. Leaves 4 to 5 inches long, slender, stiff; cones
3 to 6 inches leng, unsymmetrical, not
opening when ripe.

(P. attenuata) knob-co^ne pine
AAA. Leaves 2 or 3 in a bundle.

The Pines

B. Length of leaf more than 6 inches ; stout, dark green.
C. Leaves 8 to 12 inches long; cones 3 to 6 inches
long, lateral. (A Caribcea) cuban pine

CC. Leaves 5 to 1 1 inches long; cones 3 to 15 inches
long, terminal. (P. ponderosa) yellow pine

BB. Length of leaf less than 6 inches; slender.

C. Leaves 3 to 5 inches long, bluish green; cones
1 i to 2\ inches long, symmetrical.

(P. echinata) shortleaf pine
CC. Leaves 4 to 6 inches long, bright green ; cones 3
to 5 inches long, unsymmetrical.

(A radiaia) monterey pine
A.AAA. Leaves 2 in a bundle.

B. Length of leaf 4 to 6 inches; colour, dark green.
C. Cones about 2 inches long, scales unarmed.

(P. resinosa) red pine
CC. Cones about 3 inches long, scales armed with

stout beaks. (P.muricata) prickle-cone pine
BB. Length of leaf 1 to 3 inches; cones \ to 3 inches
long.
C. Leaves blue-green, stiff, twisted.

(P. pungens) table-mountain pine
CC. Leaves dark green, slender.

D. Cones oblique, set with stout, recurved
prickles.
E. Branches dark brown.

(P. contorta) scrub pine
EE. Branches ashy grey. (P. clausa) sand pine
DD. Cones not oblique, set with minute prickles.

(P. glabra) spruce pine
CCC. Leaves grey-green, stout, in remote clusters.

D. Cones 2 to 3 inches long; scales armed with
sharp prickles. (P. Virginiana) jersey pine
DD. Cones ij to 2 inches long; scales unequal,

unarmed. (P. divaricaid) grey pine

Torrey's Pine (P. Torreyana, Parry) grows on a strip of
territory eight miles long and less than two miles wide along the
mouth of the Soledad River in southern California, and on the
neighbouring Island of Santa Rosa. It is a nut pine with large,
thick, edible seeds upon which Indians and Mexicans formerly
subsisted, eating them raw or roasted.

The tree is distinguished by its dark-green, tufted leaves,
which are 9 to 13 inches long, and cluster in fives in close
sheaths. The cones are abundant, oval, woody and heavy, the
scales set with stout recurving beaks.

The Pines

Though driven to the wall, as it were, this pine seems dis-
posed to make the most of its chances. Seedlings are numerous
and vigorous among the elder trunks, and as there is little
demand for its wood, the species is likely to hold its own.

The Yellow Pine (P. Ari%onica, Engelm.) is the Southern
counterpart of its close relative, P. ponderosa. They are both
lumber trees of importance in the Rocky Mountain regions. The
Arizona yellow pine is often inaccessible, as it grows on steep
declivities and in deep canons from which the logs cannot be
taken, even after the trees are felled. This tree is one of the 5-
leaved pitch pines, with leaves 5 to 7 inches long, and small
spiny cones. The bulk of the forests of this tree grow across
the Mexican border, at elevations 6,000 to 8,000 feet above the
sea.

The Digger Pine (P. Sabiniana, Dougl.), growing only on
the sun-baked foothills of western California, deserves mention
here on account of its peculiar sparse foliage, pale, bluish green,
and 8 to 12 inches long, that in no wise conceals the angular
limbs, and the great cones, 6 to 10 inches long, which fairly load
the tree, and are carried for several years. The- thickened scales
protrude separately as two-edged, thick projections that end in a
beak shaped like a shark's tooth.

The Digger Indians once gathered the seeds of this pine for
food. The nuts are as big as lima beans, and rich in oils and
other food elements.

Loblolly, or Old-Field Pine (P. Tceda, Linn.)— A tall,
straight, deep-rooted tree, 80 to 100 feet high, with short, much-
branched horizontal limbs. Bark bright red-brown, broadly
ridged, scaly; branchlets smooth, yellow-brown, thickly set with
the recurved inner scales ot the branch buds. Wood resinous,
weak, coarse grained, pale brown. Buds obovate-oblong, with
pointed brown scales. Leaves in threes, slender, stiff, twisted,
pale green, glaucous, 6 to 10 inches long; sheaths close, thin,
persistent. Flowers: staminate, crowded on short spikes, in-
curved, cylindrical, in scaly involucres; pistillate, lateral, one to
three in a cluster, below apex of new shoot, with yellow scales,
oval on short, scaly stalks, April. Fruits ovate-oblong, 3 to 5
inches long, i£ to 2 inches broad; ridged, purplish knobs, with
prickles on scales; seeds, rhomboidal, with wing f inch long.
Preferred habitat, swampy lands near tidewater; low ground,

The Pines

sterile and worthless. Distribution intermittent, New Jersey
(Cape May), south along coast to Tampa Bay and Texas. Inland,
from the Carolinas to Arkansas and Louisiana. Uses : Lumber
not distinguished from longleaf or yellow pine — shipped north
in quantities. Used in heavy construction — building of docks,
ships, cars and houses. Valuable tree for reforesting waste land,
and for fuel.

There is probably no pine tree that has more nicknames than
this, nor one more variable in its habits of growth and in the
quality of its wood. " Old-field " and " meadow pine " refer to
its habit of invading land abandoned by farmers. "Sap,"
"frankincense " and "torch pine " mean that it is rich in resin.
Several local names refer to its long leaves; others to the dark
colour of its bark. Some names are meaningless.

The loblolly pine is one which Nature seems to have favoured
in the race for life. It bears seed copiously every year. It has
remarkable vitality of seed and seedlings. It chooses low, water-
soaked ground, or rolling upland terraces where soil is light and
sandy, though wet, and where there are comparatively few trees
to contend with. The young trees grow with tremendous vigour
for the first ten years, crowding so that animals cannot get in to
harm them. After that they are beyond this danger, and their
struggle is among themselves. Fires do little harm in the marshy
regions, so that these forests have a great advantage over others.
The trees are deep rooted, and in spite of fungus and insect
attacks, thrive throughout the Southern States.

In Michaux's travels he noted that three-fourths of the houses
of lower Virginia were built of loblolly pine. Giant trees grew
there, and down in the rich marsh lands that reached back from
Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds the finest specimens of these
loblolly pines furnished the navies of many countries with masts
unsurpassed in quality and size. These were of the famous
"rosemary pine," heavy, hard, fine-grained heart wood, with
a thin rind of sap wood. Now they are all gone, practically, and
there are left the slash pines, coarse grained, with half their
diameter sap wood. Virgin woods and second growth furnish
the mills with lumber which is not distinguished in the trade
from longleaf pine, though inferior to it. The third grade of
lumber, with sap wood three times as thick as heart wood, and
exceedingly coarse grained, is known to lumbermen as old-field

The Pines

pine, and is locally consumed as lumber and fuel in the coast
regions. Its poor quality is the result of very rapid growth.
' 'Kiln-drying" of the lumber has greatly improved its
quality by adding to the durability and hardness of it. Heat
kills a fungus which in ordinary seasoning turns the wood blue.
Loblolly timbers are made durable by the "creosoting" process.
Though rich in resin, the tree is not one which yields resinous
substances, such as turpentine and pitch, for when tapped there
is scarcely any flow, and contact with the air hardens the little
resin that starts. As a fuel tree the cheap loblolly pine is un-
excelled. It gives a quick, intense heat when dried, and is
used in bakeries, kilns and in charcoal burning,

The Pond, or Marsh Pine (P. serotina, Michx. ) is the
water-loving, round-headed pine, with yellow-green leaves from
6 to 8 inches long, and sturdy cones that open only after
they have hung, matured, for a year or two. In the flat, peaty
and sandy swamps from North Carolina down the coast to the
St. John's River in Florida, the traveller finds this pine with the
longleaf. It supplies some turpentine and some lumber in
North Carolina, but is not an important commercial tree.

Longleaf Pine (P. palustris, Mill.) — A tall, slender trunk,
90 to 120 feet high, with deep tap root and short, stout, twisted
limbs, which form an elongated open head. Bark furrowed,
and crossed by deep fissures into thin, scaly plates; colour red-
dish brown, with blue tinge. Wood heavy, strong, yellowish
brown, resinous, durable. Excels that of all other pines. Buds
elongated, large, silvery, with linear scales. Leaves in threes, in
long, pale sheaths, tufted on ends of branches, 12 to 18 inches
long, pendant, flexible, dark green, shining, persistent 2 years.
Flowers', staminate, 2 inches long, cylindrical, crowded at base
of new shoot, anthers purplish ; pistillate, subterminal, clustered,
oval, with broad purple scales. Fruits narrow, tapering, reddish
brown; scales thickened, and keeled crosswise at tip, and set
with small recurved spine; seed triangular, with long, lustrous
wing. Preferred habitats: (1) low coast sands, imperfectly
drained; (2) uplands, rocky and well drained, with marl and
limestone deposits; (3) upland pine barrens. Distribution, Vir-
ginia to Florida (Tampa Bay), west to Mississippi River; a belt
about 125 miles wide somewhat back from coast; isolated
forests in northern Alabama, in Louisiana and Texas.

The Pines

The average Northerner probably first sees this Southern yel-
low pine as lumber in the woodwork and floors of a dwelling
house or in the arches that support the roof of a church. The
rich orange wood, with its pale, soft spring wood and the darker,
harder summer wood in alternating bands, produces patterns of
exquisite beauty and variety, to which the " natural finish" is
generally given. A coat of oil is all sufficient, and time deepens
and enriches the colour of this wood. The " curly pine " — high-
est in value because of finest and most intricately waved grain —
grows slowly in hard, sandy soils, on the damp, flat plains of the
Gulf coast.

Within the past few years this Southern pine has come North
in another form. The seedling trees just tall enough to show
themselves above the forest floor are cut by thousands and
shipped North for Christmas greens. No palm or Ficus elasticus
is more effective in formal decoration than these tufted stems,
standing erect with all their long, flexible leaves bending out-
ward like a fountain of shining green. The enthusiasm with
which the longleaf pine has been received by florists and the
general public has already become a menace to the life of the
species in sections of the South. Lumbering is going on at a ter-
rible rate, taking the trees of merchantable size for an infinite
range of uses. Now that the saplings 2 feet high have a price set
on their heads, wherewithal shall the forests be renewed ? It is
a momentous problem, for a great part of the wealth of the South
is in these hard-pine tracts.

The longleaf pine is second to none in the qualities that adapt
lumber to building. Masts and spars, great timbers for trestles
of bridges and aqueducts are made by simply squaring or dressing
the slender, tall trunks. There are few knots, for the limbs are
small and clustered at the top. In European dockyards there is
an ever-increasing demand for these great timbers. Smaller
"sticks," squared iox 12 inches and 36 to 42 feet long, free from
blemish, are used in the building of railroad cars. Great quan-
tities of small timber are used every year for railroad ties all over
the country. Their durability in soil also commends these young
trees for posts. Building and manufacture consume billions of
board feet every year.

Quite independent of the lumber industry, the resinous prod-
ucts of the longleaf pine are of momentous importance to the

The Pines

United States and to foreign countries. The colonists tapped
these trees for resin (crude turpentine), and boiled it down for
tar and pitch. Out of these beginnings grew the industries that
supply naval stores to the world. The "orcharding" of long-
leaf pines is reducing to a science the wasteful processes of earlier
years. "Naval stores " include all the products of the resin of
coniferous trees. The consumption of these is greatest in ship-
yards and on shipboard. The products include turpentine,
rosin, pine tar and pitch. Turpentine is extensively used in the
arts and industries. The methods of " orcharding" the longleaf
pine and preparing its products for market are described in the
chapter, "The Uses of Woody**"

Proper tapping does noj/fnjure the lumber nor shorten the life
of the tree; but the resin-covered wounds feed the fires that so
easily and frequently break out where careless workmen are deal-
ing with inflammable substances. The terrible destructiveness
of these fires raises one of the gravest problems of the forester. It
is common to set fires to rubbish on the beginning of work
among the pines so as to obviate dangers of later conflagrations.
Fires often get beyond control, and sv/eep on till Nature puts
them out. Settlers, burning underbrush to start the grass for
their cattle, damage the woods irreparably in early spring.
Seedlings and young growth which escape fire are injured by
trampling, browsing cattle, sheep and goats. Squirrels gnaw
the green cones and eat the unripe seeds. So between the care-
less wastefulness of men and the inconsiderateness of lower ani-
mals, the vast forests of longleaf pine dwindle.

The leaves of Pinus palustris yield by distillation an essential
oil of balsamic odour that closely resembles oil of turpentine.
The weaving of florists' baskets from the long, shining needles is
just beginning, and is an industry that ought profitably to
employ women and children in neighbourhoods. " Pine wool " is
made by boiling the leaves in strong alkali, and then carding the
fibres thus released. It is woven into a brown carpet somewhat
like cocoa matting, and into other textile fabrics. It is an im-
portant stuffing for upholstery, and is a natural antiseptic dress-
ing for wounds.

The most conspicuous character of the longleaf pines is the
great length of its flexible leaves. Next to this is the great sil-
very "bud" at the tip of each shoot. This is the cluster c:

Winter buds (leaves cut away to show bu«i> )

THE TABLE MOUNTAIN PINE (Pinus pungens)
The leaves are in x's, short, stout, twisted and blue green. The tree makes a scraggly growth on the barren slopes of the

Appalachian mountains

This picturesque pine of the swamps

Winter buds (leaves cut away to show buds)

THE PITCH PINE (Pinus rigida)
and arid coast plains of the East has leaves in 3's in persistent black sheaths. The bark
is in reddish-brown plates

The Pines

young leaves enclosed in their subtending scales, before these
crowded scales fall.

Of late a new and profitable industry has sprung up in the
wake of lumbering. Stumps are cut into small sticks for kindling
wood, and sold in small bundles. These sticks are rich in resin,
and bring good prices. Roots, branches and other waste pieces
are gathered and converted into tar or into charcoal. The profits
that come from gathering up the fragments after the lumbermen
and turpentine distillers give one an idea of what enormous
values are being squandered by wantonness and ignorance. The
South is rich in natural resources, but its noblest patrimony, the
pine forests, seems doomed soon to be spent.

The Big-Cone Pine (P. Conlteri, D, Don.) is chiefly remark-
able for the size and weight of its cones, which are the heaviest
of all the fruits of the pines. They hang like old-fashioned
"sugar loaves" on the stout branches, which carry them with
apparent ease, though they reach 15 to 20 inches long, and
weigh 5 to 8 pounds. The scales are so thickened as to stand
out from the central axis; the stout, curved beak and the thick
part which it surmounts remind one strongly of the head of an
eagle. The seeds, which reach -J inch in length, not counting
the thin wing, are rich in oil and sugar. They are gathered for
food by the Indians in southern California.

The leaves of this pine match the cones. They are stout
and stiff, with saw-tooth edges, dark blue-green, and 6 to 16
inches long. The sheaths at the bases of the leaves are an inch
or more long, and persistent. They are tufted on the twigs and
are not shed for three or four years. This fact gives the tree a
luxuriant crown, and though it does not grow over medium
height, it is always a striking and picturesque figure on the
western slopes of the California coast mountains.

The wood is indifferent in quality, and the tree is cut only
for fuel. It is planted for its great golden-brown cones. In
Europe it makes rapid growth, and fruiting trees of good size are
not uncommon in France and Germany.

Pitch Pine (P. rigida, Mill.) — A gnarled, irregular tree 50
to 75 feet high, with short trunk and rigid, rough branches.
Bark thick, broken into plates by deep, irregular fissures ; scales
thin ; bark red or purple. Wood light red, soft, durable, brittle,
coarse. Buds % to f inch long, reddish, with fringed scales.

The Pines

Leaves in threes, rigid, stout, 3 to 5 inches long, dark yellow-
green; sheaths becoming black, persistent. Flowers monoe-
cious; staminate short, densely clustered at base of season's
shoot; pistillate lateral, in clusters, rosy tinged, oval, short
stalked. Fruits biennial, 1 to $\ inches long, ovate, scales
with sharp, recurving beaks. Preferred habitat, sandy uplands
and cold swamps. Distribution, New Brunswick to Georgia;
west to Ontario and Kentucky. Uses : Fuel and charcoal mak-
ing. Reforesting worthless land. Sparingly used as lumber.

The pitch pine carries picturesqueness to extremes, and be-
comes in old age grotesque, even absolutely ugly. It has the
look of a tree that has been hounded by untoward circum-
stances. In youth the tree has a rounded, symmetrical head,
formed of successive whorls of branches. In its subsequent
struggles symmetry is lost, and the contorted limbs, tufted with
scant, sickly-looking foliage, and studded with the squat, black,
prickly cones of many years, reach out with an expression of
mute appeal that tempts one to cut the tree down and end its
sufferings. If it is cut, however, it sends up suckers from the
roots, a strange habit among the pines; and its winged seeds
spread the species over barren and shifting sand dunes, and
otherwise hopelessly treeless areas. This work is so well done
on the island of Nantucket and the desert soil of Cape Cod, even
those areas which are washed by the spring tides, that the pitch
pines have earned the regard ot men. The inferior lumber is
forgiven.

Pitch pines are rich in resin; the knots especially accummu-
late it, and "pine knots" and "candlewood" are useful and
familiar household words in the regions where this pine grows.
Kindling wood and torches for midnight coon hunts are never
lacking. The " pitchie kinde of substance" which makes hand-
ling of these sticks unpleasant business for tidy folks, gums the
saws and makes trouble in the mills. Sills and beams of houses
were formerly got of pitch-pine logs, but now other kinds are
preferred, and these trees go into charcoal and fuel. The turpen-
tine gatherer, too, has left these trees to seek the richer pineries
of the South and West. There is small excuse for the pitch pine to
stay on, were it not for the one thing it does better than any
other — it makes glad the wilderness and the solitary place.

The Knob-Cone Pine (P. attenuata, Lemm.) is another

The Pines

tree of striking habit. Its cones are woody, armed with stout
beaks, and from 3 to 5 inches long. There is nothing peculiar
in these cones, nor in the pale yellow-green foliage in its 3-leaved
clusters. The tree is slim and tall, and grows on the hot, dry
fire-swept foothills of California mountains. A stranger notes
how dense and uniform in size is the growth of these trees, and
how thickly studded are the limbs with clusters of cones. Close
examination shows them sealed up tight — not a scale sprung on
the oldest cone, though the branch that bears it may have actu-
ally swallowed the cone by the increase of its diameter.

A fire sweeps over the slope, and every tree gives up its
cones. The scales are unsealed at last and the seeds, whose
vitality has been preserved, apparently, in anticipation of this
day, germinate at once, and soon a new forest takes the place of
the old one. With such an abundance of seed, is it wonderful
that the trees stand close and even like wheat in a field ?

Cuban Pine, Swamp Pine {P. Caribcea, Morelet.) — Tree,
100 to 120 feet, with tapering trunk and dense, round crown,
above large horizontal limbs. Bark in broad, scaly, irregular
plates, reddish brown, showing orange in the shallow fissures.
Wood heavy, very hard, strong, tough, durable, coarse, dark
orange, with thick, nearly white sap wood. Buds, elongated,
scaly, J to i^ inches long, light brown; lateral buds smaller.
Leaves in clusters of twos and threes; stout, dark green, 8 to 12
inches long, persistent 2 years; sheaths thin, brown. Flowers in
January, before new leaves, subterminal; staminate clustered,
incurving, purplish, 1 to i^ inches long; pistillate oval, 2 to 3
in cluster, pinkish, J inch long. Fruits elongated, 3 to 7
inches long, narrowing to blunt apex, pendant, with beaked,
thickened scales and winged seeds. Preferred habitat, damp,
sandy soil of swamp borders, with even moisture supply. Dis-
tribution, coast region, South Carolina to Florida and Louisiana.
Also Bahamas, Cuba and other islands, and Central America.

No more beautiful pine grows in the Southern States than
this stately tree that skirts the swampy coast land, forming great
forests and casting a goodly shadow under its thick, dark, lustrous
foliage mass. Beside it the other pines seem to have very ragged
and loose crowns. Here in the humid air that flows from sea or
gulf, the Cuban pine promises to replenish our depleted forest
areas even as the shortleaf does back from the coast. The same

The Pines

vigour characterises thousands which endure the shade and soon
spring to a height that resists the fires that menace them.

The wood of the Cuban pine is not distinguished in the
markets from longleaf pine, and it serves the same uses. Spars
of the largest dimensions, straight and free from blemish, come
out of these coast pineries. The wide, porous sap wood and the
coarse grain once counted against this tree, but they are now con-
sidered distinct advantages, for this kind of wood more readily
absorbs creosote and other preservatives by infiltration, and kiln-
drying converts the sap wood into good lumber.

Turpentine of higher quality than that of longleaf pine is
derived from these trees, which also abound in other resinous
matters. Young trees are ready for tapping at forty years; and
in this time a new forest has replaced the one stripped by lum-
bermen. A large part of the turpentine exported by Georgia and
South Carolina to-day is from land thus spontaneously reforested.
The future of our naval stores depends to a large extent on the
perpetuity of the forests of Cuban pine.

Western Yellow Pine (P. ponder osa, Laws.) — Spire-like
tree with stout, short horizontal branches; ioo to 230 feet high,
with trunk 5 to 8 feet thick. Bark thick, cinnamon-red, some-
times black, becoming furrowed and broken into large plates.
Wood light red, strong, hard, very heavy, not durable, fine
grained. Buds ovate, brown, scaly, terminal the largest. Leaves
in threes, or in twos and threes, stout, rigid, shiny, 3 to 15
inches long, yellow-green, tufted on ends of naked branches;
last till third season; sheath persistent. Flower s\ staminate
yellow, in crowded spikes; pistillate dark red, oval, subterminal,
clustered or paired. Fruits green or purple when full grown;
scales conspicuously beaked, with recurved point. Preferred
habitat, deep, well-drained soil on mountain slopes or elevated
plains. Distribution, British Columbia and Black Hills south
through Rocky Mountains and coast ranges to Texas and Mexico.
Uses: Principal lumber tree of Northwestern and Southwestern
states. Used in building, for railroad ties, fencing and fuel.

The most extensive pine forests in the world are those of the
yellow pine in the mountainous West of our own country. Th&
hardihood of this tree is the wonder of foresters and botanists,
and the admiration of everybody who knows anything about it.'
Pines are particular trees, as a rule. They like one type of soil

The Pines

and climate, and out of their chosen range are unhappy and
unhealthy. But here is a species which seems to have forgotten
family traditions, and become a citizen of the world, as far as that
is possible. It grows to great size in the arid foothills of southern
Oregon, where the soil is volcanic in origin. In the Black Hills
it roots itself solidly in sterile rocky soil, and is the dominant tree
of these mountain forests. In the arid Southwest, on mountain
and mesa, this tree is the principal source of lumber. It is the
only pine tree native to Nebraska that thrives in the droughty
western counties. This is the tree that inhabits the western
slopes of the coast mountains from British Columbia to Lower
California, as if the moisture-laden winds from the Pacific were
the very breath of life to it. Finally, the same tree is found
wading into swamps on the slopes of the Cascades, Its elevation
ranges from 2,500 feet to the timber line.

A tree that clambers over mountains and meets so much
variety of soil, elevation and climate must show variations in
character to adapt it to its life. In the old lake basins on the
Sierra slopes it reaches the height of 200 feet and more — with a
trunk diameter up to 8 feet. These are the giants of the
species, var. Jeffreyi. In swamps, and near the timber line the
trees are stunted, and have black bark, in distinct contrast with
the bright-red rind of the typical tree. Several species have
already been made out of the forms this tree assumes in various
situations. Closer study will doubtless lead to still finer distinc-
tions. The common origin of these forms is not doubted; they
are all P. ponder osa.

Knowing something of the extensive range of this tree, we
are ready to appreciate the beauty of a single specimen. The
central shaft rises like a spire, rugged if old, and massive at the
base, lifting its head far into the blue and clothing itself with
short, leafy branches most of the way down, if there is room.
The young trees, under 190 feet high, are pictures of tree vigour,
still "having the dew of their youth and the beauty thereof,"
waving their arms, that catch and reflect the light upon burnished
needles. Against the dark-green mantle the ruddy flowers and
purple cones glow in their season, and new leaves lighten the
whole tree throughout the summer.

The habit of breaking off its cones and leaving the stem and
the first few scales still hanging is one of the characteristics of

The Pines

the various forms of P. ponder osa. On this the botanists leaned
content, until, alack! somebody breaks the reed by announcing
an exception ! The wood is so heavy that the logs have to dry for
a while before they can be floated down stream to the mills.
Hence, ponder osa.

The name is not the point of greatest interest. If there is to
be a re-christening by the botanists we shall hear of it in good
season. Let us take a hand, though, in blotting out the name,
" bull pine," absurd and meaningless as it is misleading. It has
been given variously by ignorant frontiersmen to any pine that
attains large dimensions.

The yellow pine was first discovered by the members of the
Lewis and Clark expedition, in 1804, while they were going up
the Missouri River. Twenty-two later, David Douglas found the
trees growing near the Spokane River. He suggested then the
name they now bear, because of their ponderous bulk, and sent
seeds and young plants to European gardeners.

In cultivation the tree does fairly well in the Eastern States
and in Europe, though slow of growth and liable to disease.
The best form in cultivation is var. Jeffreyi.

The Indians of the West long ago discovered that though
the seeds of the yellow pine are inedible, yet the inner bark in
spring is sweet and nutritious. So they stripped and scraped
the bark for its mucilaginous living layer. The branchlets are
fragrant, giving out when crushed an odour as of orange peel.

Shortleaf Pine (P. echinata, Mill.) — A slender trunk,
with loose, round or pyramidal head, 80 to 120 feet high. Bark
thick, cleft into square plates, with cinnamon-red scales. Young
shoots violet. Wood orange or yellow-brown, hard, heavy,
durable, strong, coarse grained, with broad bands of small sum-
mer cells in each annual layer. Buds plump, blunt, scaly.
Leaves in clusters of twos or threes; cfark blue-green; acute,
slender, soft and flexible, 3 to 5 inches long, in silvery white
sheath which turns brownish. Flowers: staminate crowded,
subterminal, purplish; pistillate 2 to 4, stalked, subterminal or
terminal on adventitious spurs; purplish or rose pink. Fruit
biennial, abundant, i-J to 2\ inches long, ovate, tapering,
scales thickened, 4-angied at tip, with or without short, recurved
prickle, seeds winged. Old cones persist several years. Pre-
ferred habitat, well drained, gravelly soil with clay intermixed;

-■■vwum— IIIMIII r.- ^ ,«»■

u _ .

THE RED OR NORWAY PINE (Pinus resinosa)

The leaves are slender and long, dark green and lustrous, in 2's, rising out 01 long sheaths. The cones have thick, woody scalesr
destitute of prickles. The pale-red wood is used for masts and bridge timbers

The Pines

uplands of scant fertility. Distribution, Connecticut to Florida;
west to Illinois, Kansas and Texas. Not continuous. Uses:
Lumber used as P. palustris is. Young trees yield turpentine
and pitch. Rarely planted. Reforests adjacent fields and lum-
bered areas by copious seeds and vigorous suckers.

The shortleaf pine is short leaved only in comparison with
the exceedingly long needles of P. palustris. The leaves are
about the length of those of the Austrian pine, so familiar in cul-
tivation, and beside which the Scotch and white pines are
short-leaved species.

Next to the longleaf in rank, the shortleaf pine is one of
the most important lumber trees in the Eastern and Southern
states. Just a shade inferior to the former in quality, this species
is likely by its vigour and wide range to become greatest of them
all in economic importance as the exploitation of the timber
lands of the South progresses. Against the destructive agencies
at work the longleaf cannot hold its own. Its ultimate extinc-
tion must follow present methods of lumbering and orcharding.
But the shortleaf pine, less sensitive to injuries, more prolific of
seeds, able to renew itself indefinitely by throwing up suckers
from the stump, and to survive shading of its saplings better
than the longleaf and Cuban pines, has a distinct advantage over
these, its compeers in the South and East The distribution of the
species is over a vaster area, and each grove is the centre of a
growing and widening territory. It industriously colonises adja-
cent land abandoned by the farmer or the lumberman. In a free
fight with hardwood trees this pine is the winner, and the
young forests it is planting will be marketable in 80 to 100 years.

The forest centre of this species is west of the Mississippi
and below the Arkansas River. This great tract was practically
untouched at the time the tenth Census Report, issued in 1880,
estimated its merchantable timber then standing at 87,000,000,000
feet, board measure. This counted only the area in Texas,
Louisiana and Arkansas, and left out the forests in Missouri and
Oklahoma. There is little of the vast Eastern territory once covered
by the shortleaf pine that has not been worked to some extent
by lumbermen, especially where railroads make possible the dis-
tribution of the lumber. In the past twenty-five years astonishing
inroads have been made upon the Southwestern forests.

While inferior to P. palustris, lumber of P. echinata is often

The Pines

preferred, because it is less resinous and softer and so more easily
worked. Doors, sash and blinds are made of it and interior finish
of houses. It is the common "yellow pine" of the Middle
West, brought north on the river. It is the "North Carolina
pine " which the kiln-drying process cured of its " black sap " and
made a beautiful finishing lumber.

The Monterey Pine (P. radiata, D. Don.), like its com-
panion, Torrey's pine, is restricted to a very narrow range.
They occur together in Santa Rosa Island, and each has a narrow
strip of territory on the mainland of southern California. On
Point Pinos, south of Monterey Bay, P. radiata is most abundant
and grows to ioo feet in height, with trunks occasionally 5 or 6
feet in diameter. Its wood is soft and weak.

The bright rich green of the leaves, which never linger
more than 3 years to dull the freshness of the new ones, and
a silvery sheen the young growth wears, make this tree one of
the handsome pines. Its quick growth also destines it for pop-
ularity with landscape gardeners wherever the climate is mild
enough in winter. It is a favourite park tree from Vancouver
Island down the coast to its natural range. It has long been
planted in pleasure grounds of western and southern Europe,
and occasionally in our Southeastern States.

Red or Norway Pine (P. resinosa, Ait.) — Large, broadly
pyramidal tree, 75 to 120 feet high, branched to the ground,
with stout twigs. Bark shallowly furrowed into flat, scaly
ridges, reddish brown, rich in tannin ; branches rough, glabrous.
Wood pale red, light, hard, resinous; sap wood yellow or white.
Buds conical, tapering, with loose, red scales. Leaves in clusters
of twos, from close, persistent sheaths, \ inch long; needle-
like, dark green, 6 inches long, sharp pointed, flexible semi-
circular in cross section, toothed near tip, with rows of pale dots
lengthwise. Flowers: staminate red, abundant, clustered at base
of season's shoot; pistillate 1 to 3, terminal, peduncled, red-
dish, oval. Fruits ovate, 1 to 3 inches long, standing at right
angles with stem; biennial; scales thickened, 4-angled at apex,
unarmed; seeds winged. Preferred habitat, dry, sandy plains
and rocky ridges. Distribution, southern Canada, Northern
States from Maine to Minnesota; south to Pennsylvania. Uses:
Most picturesque and desirabie of pitch pines for ornamental
planting in the North; grows rapidly from seed; free from insect

The Pines

and fungous injuries. Lumber used in heavy construction ; for
bridges, piles, docks, buildings, masts and spars.

The red pine is the only American member of a group of Old-
World pines of which P. sylvestris, the Scotch pine of Europe, is
a familiar example. The paired leaves and red bark are signs of
kinship. Both are common in cultivation in America, and we
shall distinguish the native tree by its longer leaf and the heavy
tufting of its twigs; the short leaves of P. sylvestris are thinly
and evenly scattered along its branches.

An early Spanish explorer erroneously described this tree as
identical with the variety of the Scotch pine that grows in
Norway. In this way it came by its second name.

There is a lustiness and symmetry of growth and an expres-
sion of hardiness and health in the red pine which makes the
other pitch pines look ragged and discouraged, and the graceful
white pines delicate and unequal to the struggle of life. No
handsomer pine than this one is found in the Northeastern
States.

The wood of red pine is not what we might expect from
such a tree. Rich in resin and fine grained, yet its durability is
not to be depended upon. Its height gave masts and spars of
great size and free of blemishes. It was once shipped in quan-
tities to England out of the Canadian woods to be used at the
dockyards, and for piles and bridge timbers. Of late years
better pine has been substituted. Turpentine and tar are not
derived from this tree, despite its name, resinosa, "full of resin."
Less pitchy than P. rigida, soft like P. Strobus, the wood seems
intermediate between the two.

The living tree is more valuable than its log; when the lum-
berman scoffs at the red pine the landscape gardener takes it up.
It grows on exposed and sterile coasts, where it rapidly forms
effective windbreaks and beautiful groves. It adds a distinct type
of beauty to parks and private grounds. Its hardiness and ra-
pidity of growth commend it to the colder states. Not the least
of its good points in the home grounds is that its two leaves in
their close, deep sheaths furnish children exactly the right ma-
terial for chains, the making of which is one of the most absorb-
ing pleasures of childhood.

The Prickle-Cone Pine (P. muricata, D. Don.) is a
handsome round-topped evergreen, covered with dense tufts of

The Pines

stiff, yellow-green leaves. It is the dominant pine of the coast
of Mendocino County, and follows down in sight of the ocean
into Lower California. The oblique cones, whose thickened
scales are armed with sharp, strong beaks, are conspicuous by
their persistence for years unopened on the branch. It is rare for
them to fall, even after they open and discharge the seed. They
usually remain throughout the lifetime of the tree, but strangely
are never swallowed up by the growth of the branch that bears
them.

The Table -Mountain Pine (P. pungens, Michx.), with
cones quite as formidable as those of the preceding species, and
closely resembling them in appearance, has the same tardy habit
of opening and casting its cones that marks P. muricata. But P.
pungens is Eastern, growing on gravelly ridges o* \he Appalachian
Mountains from Pennsylvania and New Jersey to North Carolina
and Tennessee. It has clustered blue-green foliage of sombre
hue, and forms a flattened, irregular head, its long, horizontal
branches often drooping, but the twigs erect. The wood is
used for fuel and for charcoal in some localities. Its dingy colour,
barren habitat and scraggly growth earn it the name, "poverty
pine." The thin bark, breaking into loose, scaly plates, is
probably responsible for the name, "hickory pine." There is no
quality of the brittle, coarse-gained wood to account for it.

It is interesting to note in Bulletin 10 of the Kansas Agricul-
tural College, which is located at Manhattan in the western part
of the state, that P. pungens is one of the hardiest and best pines
for that region. The leaves are a decided yellow-green there, a
cheerful contrast to the sombre Austrian pines so generally planted.
The waywardness of the tree's habit is made a virtue. The
terminal shoot bends strongly out of the vertical, producing a
grotesque leaning tree, which breaks the monotony of the prim
and formal European species with which it is successfully grouped
in grounds of considerable extent. The following Western
species and varieties were tried and failed on the college grounds:
P. contorta, edulis, Jeffreyi and ponderosa. Besides P. pungens,
other Eastern pines that were successfully grown were rigida and
echinata. P. Strobus grew often into handsome, shapely speci-
mens, but died young in the hot winds.

The Scrub Pine (P. contorta, Lond.) is one of four stunted,
gnarly, round-shouldered trees that are prostrated by exposure to

The Pines

the ocean winds. They are the beach pines. This one grows
from northern California into Alaska in bogs and sand dunes,
bearing its cones when only a few inches high in the bleakest
situations. These trees form a windbreak behind which many
sorts of tender plants thrive in quiet security. The bark is thin
and pale and gummy on these dwarfs, and once a fire is started
it devours all within reach. Now a very interesting habit of the
tree comes into prominence. The cones hang on the trees for
years without opening, but their seeds are safely sealed up and
retain their vitality. The burned trees drop their cones, which,
opening, free the seeds. From them young trees spring up to
take the places of those wiped out by the fire.

It is hard to believe that the tall, slim lodge pole, or
tamarack pine is but a variety — Murrayana — of P. contorta, but
so it is considered on good authority. The mountains of
Wyoming, Colorado and the states further west are clothed with
dense forests of this tree. They grow as thick as wheat in a
field, and so are all delicately tall, but in favoured situations iso-
lated trees reach the height of ioo feet, and a trunk diameter
of ij feet. An average forest specimen is 5 inches through
and 40 to 50 feet high. The Indians cut poles for their lodges or
tepees. These pines, flexible, slender and always abundant,
seemed designed by Nature to serve this need. The name re-
mains, though the lodge of the Indian is rapidly disappearing.

There is great variation in this species and its variety,
Murrayana, as the trees meet very different conditions. The
leaves are in twos, and 1 to 3 inches long, dark green in contorta,
yellow-green and quite wide in the variety. The wood of
contorta is hard, brownish red, and strong; of Murrayana, soft,
pale yellow, and weak. The latter is used for lumber to a
limited extent, and both are cut for fuel. While it is not a promi-
nent commercial tree, it is the main reliance of the pioneer in
many regions. It supplies mines with supporting beams, fences
the settler's homestead, and furnishes ties for the pioneer railroads.

The Indians cut the trees down and strip out the inner bark.
This is broken into pieces by the patient squaws, who mash it
in water into a pulp which they mould into large cakes. Then
a hole is dug in the ground and lined with stones, and a fire
kindled. When the stones are hot the embers are removed, and
the cakes packed in with leaves of the Western skunk cabbage

The Pines

between. A fire of damp moss is built on top, and the baking
takes an hour or more. Then the cakes are laid on slat frames
and smoked for a week in a close tent. Now they are ready to
put away for future use, or to carry in canoes or on ponies to
distant places.

This "hard bread" is prepared for use by breaking it in
pieces and boiling them until soft. The pieces are skimmed out
and laid on the snow to cool. " Ulikou" fat is used on this
strange Alaskan bread as we use butter.

The Indians make berry baskets out of the bark of the lodge-
pole pine. Nuttall, in his extension of Michaux's "Sylva of
North America," calls this the twisted-branched pine. I well
recall tne curious rustic chairs and seats at the Dome Lake Club
House in the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming, made of the
extravagantly twisted branches of this tree. They called it
"screw pine," I remember. The name contorta may allude to
this characteristic, too, although it is not constant in the species.
It may rather be regarded as a freak of nature, the cause of which
is not understood. However, the hard life of the species on
the bleak, wind-swept coast and unprotected sand dunes may
easily earn it the name there.

The Sand Pine (P. clausa, Sarg. ) has a striking habit of
swallowing its persistent woody cones by the growth of the
stems that bear them. Chopping frequently reveals cones in the
solid wood — a peculiar kind of modified knot. The tree is unim-
portant to the lumber trade, being inferior in quality and scant in
quantity. It grows near the coast on either side of northern
Florida and west into Alabama. It is used locally as masts for
small vessels.

The Spruce Pine (P. glabra, Walt.) is a close relative of
the shortleaf, P. echinata. It grows from South Carolina to
Louisiana, in lowlands, solitary or in considerable groves. It
attains the height of 120 feet, and spreads over a considerable
territory in northwestern Florida. Little use is made of its light,
soft wood beyond the local fuel supply. It is known as "cedar
pine" in Mississippi. Its foliage is soft, and bright, dark green,
being shed when but two years old.

The Jersey or Scrub Pine (P. Virginiana, Mill.) is another
of those unfortunate trees whose lot seems to be to extort a
meagre and miserable living out of worthless soil. A tortuous

A. Winter bud (some leaves cut away to show bud)

THE JERSEY PINE (Pinus Virginiana)

is also is a scrub pine; it grows on the pine barrens of New Jersey, a pendulous, discouraged tree. Its grey-green leaves
undies of twos. It does as well as a tree can on worthless soil. In Indiana it becomes a pyramidal tree forty feet high,
es are dark-red, curved, and armed with sharp prickles

THE RED SPRUCE {Picea rubens)

Bright red downy twigs, red wood and reddish bark give this tree its name. Short, stiff, pointed, 4-angled leaves set all around
the twig prove this tree a spruce. The wood is used for the sounding boards of musical instruments

Winter b.id (some leaves cut away to show bud)

THE GREY PINE {Finns divaricata)

Its flat, grey-green leaves r.re in clusters of 2 's on the yellow twigs. The cones are strongly curved and taper to a long point.
Among the pines this is a straggling good-for-little species, that clothes barren sand dunes and arctic bogs with straggling
tree growth

The Pines

low tree, pendulous and discouraged looking, with grey-green
leaves, that are yellowish as they first appear, stubby, i to 3
'nches long, in clusters of twos. This is the tree of the jersey
pine barrens — the tree that clothes these waste places and gets
little credit for it.

Peter Kalm observed that cattle, in the heat of the day,
choose the shade of this tree rather than of any other, though its
foliage be much thicker. He judges that this strange choice
arises "from the gratefulness of the fragrance" of this tree.
Another author comments on the delightful fragrance exhaled by
the exuding balsam of the despised Jersey pine. The oppor-
tunity to point a moral here is almost irresistible. But I stay my
pointer. The range of P. Virginiana is wide; from Long Island to
Georgia and Alabama, and west to Indiana, where it rises to the
height of 100 feet. Its average height is one-third of this maxi-
mum limit, with a trunk diameter rarely over 18 inches.

The wood has been locally used for making tar, and for
pump logs, water pipes, for fencing and fuel. It is not an
economic tree, unless considered so in its work of covering
quickly large areas of sterile soils in the Eastern States.

The Grey or Scrub Pine (P. divaricata, Sudw.) is an out-
cast, strangely spurned and superstitiously feared in many places
where it grows. It ventures farther north than any other pine.
From the northern tier of states it ranges into the cold of frigid
regions, following the Mackenzie River even to the Arctic circle.
It grows only on barren ground — rocky slopes and in cold,
boggy stretches. In Michigan it dips down to the southern
point of the lake, scattering over the sand dunes, and clothing
the barren stretches of the lower peninsula, which are known as
the "Jack Pine Plains/' The grey-green leaves, scant, stubby,
in twos, and the crouching, sprawling habit of the tree, which
-wears its old cones for a dozen years or more — all tend to preju-
dice the casual observer against this pine. Only the thoughtful
will consider what the desert and the cold North would be with-
out it. North of Lake Superior it rises to the stature of a tree,
reaching 70 feet in height, and spreading along the valley of the
Mackenzie River, the only pine, it forms forests of considerable
area, an immeasurable boon to the scant population of that
region. The wood makes fuel and lumber, frames for the
Indian's canoe, posts and railroad ties.

The Pines

From Michigan to Minnesota the grey pine acts as a nurse
tree to the seedlings of P. resinosa on denuded lands. Later the
scrub "cleans" the young trees of lower limbs, greatly adding
to their timber value.

Strange notions prevail in certain sections concerning tnis
weird-looking pine tree. Women dare not pass within ten feet
of a tree, and men also give it a wide berth. Cattle browsing
near it are fatally .stricken; the tree is believed to poison the
ground it shadows. One who believes current reports of this tree
will destroy every one growing on his land; but he dare not
chop them down. Each must be burned like a witch, by making
a funeral pyre all around it. Every misfortune that overtakes a
family is laid at the foot of the grey pine, as long as there is one
left on the place.

EXOTIC PINES

We are all European immigrants, once Or twice removed.
Our craving for things imported is an appetite inherited from our
Colonial ancestors. Our horticulture owns its European paren-
tage. The early settlers brought trees and flowers from the old
country. They transplanted the old home, as far as could be, to
the New World. European evergreens came in as a matter of
course. Even species native to our west coast were brought
into Eastern gardens first by way of European nurseries.

Oriental pines are coining in, making valuable contributions
to the list in cultivation from Europe. Our native pines are be-
ing "discovered," horticulturally, and dissemination of species
is widening the range of all. It is a small and unpretentious park
indeed that does not show pines from every northern continent.
The European pines most widely planted in the eastern
United States are the Scotch and Austrian pines. They are de-
pendable trees, hardy, vigorous, not particular as to soil and ex-
posure— good for protective and ornamental planting even on
the prairies where hot, dry winds blow and for weeks no rain
may fall.

The Austrian Pine is a hardy variety, Austriaca, of the
Corsican pine (P. Laricto, Poir.), of southern Europe. It is a
sombre tree, darker green than any other evergreen except tne

The Pines

red cedar. In youth it is a compact cone or globe, resting on
the ground. The leaves, two in a sheath, are 6 inches long, and
inclined to twist stiffly. They persist several years. Cones
ripen in the second autumn, and do not open until another crop is
ripe. Large trees are transplanted safely, even in the height of
jthe growing season.

The Scotch Pine (P. sylvestris, Linn.) is one of the most
important timber trees of Europe. In this country it was fre-
quently planted about homes, where it has grown to great size.
By no means as handsome a tree as our own white pine, it has
certain advantages over its companion, the Austrian variety. Its
habit is less compact and formal, and its foliage (also in bundles
of twos) is shorter, looser and more cheerful looking in spite of
its blue tinge. It grows more rapidly, and neatly sheds its
cones as soon as ripe, while the Austrian pine shows its bare
limbs laden for years with empty cones.

The Swiss Pines (P. Cembra and montana) are all pictur-
esque and hardy, as if they crouched under Alpine blasts, even in
the most comfortable situations. Any flat-topped, irregular ever-
green growing wild is attractive to the eye of the nurseryman
who has a landscape-gardening department and facilities for
moving large trees. He is able to get the tree at a bargain from
the farmer in whose woodlot or pasture it stands. There is very
little cordwood in it. The new owner cuts a big circle around
the tree the depth of a spade, severing the roots outside this
boundary. A year later a thick mat of rootlets has resulted from
this root pruning, and in the winter the tree is easily taken up

and planted in just the right place on Mr. 's new country

place. He points out to his friends the striking "Swiss-pine
effect " of this tree etched against the sky. It is a good thing,
and worth the price, even if he never heard of a Swiss pine
before in his life.

The Mugho Pine has a shrubby habit, spreading twice its
leight. It is one of several dwarf varieties of the Swiss moun-
:ain pine (P. montana, Mill.), and is very effective as a speci-
men tree or grouped with others to cover rocky hillsides.

The Stone Pine (P. Pined) and the Aleppo Pine (P. Hale-
bensis) are natives of southern Europe and- so not hardy. The
Macedonian Pine (P. Pence') and the Cluster Pine {P. Pin-
zster) have the same climatic limitations in this country, though

The Pines

hardy in England, where the Aleppo and cluster pines are much
used for seaside planting.

China and Japan and Korea have furnished some excep-
tionally handsome pines that are hardy and vigorous in American
parks and gardens. The Korean Pine (P. Koraiensis), is a
handsome, narrowly pyramidal tree when young, becoming very
picturesque when old. It is a slow-growing pine, well adapted to
small gardens. The foliage is thick, and dark green with pale
linings. From China comes the Lacebark Pine (P. Bungeana),
with light-green foliage and white, intricately netted bark, slow of
growth and hardy north.

From Japan we have three species. The little P. parviflora,
often dwarfed by potting at home, is charming in its abundance
of red cones in the dense pyramid of bluish-green leaves. It is
one of Japan's forest trees, growing to 80 feet in height. The
Red Pine (P. denstflora), also a great tree at home, attains a
goodly size in cultivation, grows rapidly, with long branches
spreading into a broad head. The foliage is bluish green. Many
forms with variegated leaves have been derived from this species.
The Black Pine (P. Thunbergi), another large tree from Japan,
has bright green foliage, and grows in a handsome broad
pyramid.

Himalayan Pines, two in number, both large trees at
home, are cultivated here. Their other points of beauty are all
secondary to the charm of their long, drooping leaves. The
Bhotan Pine, P. excelsa, has blue-green leaves, 6 to 8 inches long,
and cylindrical stalked cones of about equal length. It is hardy
to the neighbourhood of Boston. P. longifolia is a tender species
cultivated in California. Its leaves are pale green, 8 to 12 inches
long, slender and pendulous. No more beautiful pine can be im-
agined than a young and vigorous Himalayan longleaf with the
wind playing among its drooping leaf clusters.

The Mexican White Pine (P. Ayacahuite), a near relative
of our Northern white pine, and resembling the Himalayan species
in the pendulous leaf habit, is unknown to any but a few spe-
cialists. But it is sure to be recognised and widely planted
where it is hardy. The tree is graceful and symmetrical, its
whorls of slender branches held well apart and horizontal. The
droop is in the leaves themselves, pale green, bluish and 4 to 6
inches long. The handsome cones are 9 to 15 inches long,

The Pines

tapering, often curved, and brownish yellow. Though not
counted hardy in the North, this Mexican species grows behind
the protecting Scotch pines on Mr. Dana's place, Dosoris, on
Long Island.

The Umbrella Pine (Sciadopitys verticillata) is a Japanese
conifer, a beautiful conical evergreen, whose glossy green leaves are
needle-like, } to 6 inches long, and set in umbrella-like whorls of
15 to 35 leaves at the ends of all the twigs. The tree is a puzzle
to botanists and a delight to horticulturists. It is hardy to
Portland, Maine, grows slowly, but is thrifty in many soils, and
is strikingly decorative at any age. A dwarf variety and one
with variegated foliage are offered by 'dealers. The normal type
of this species grows to the height of 100 feet, losing gradually
its compact, spire-like form, -its limbs becoming pendulous and
more spreading.

NATIVE PINES VALUABLE AS ORNAMENTALS

Hardy

White

Mountain

Sugar

Rocky Mountain White

Pitch

Shortleaf

Norway or Red

Foxtail

Digger -

Big-cone

Jeffrey's

Yellow

Cuban

Monterey . -

Prickle-cone -

Not Hardy

P. Strobus and vars,

1 monticola

1 Lambertiana

1 flexilis .

' rigida

1 echinata

' resinosa

P. Balfouriana

1 ' Sabiniana

1 ' Coulteri

" Jeffreyi

' ' ponder osa

" Caribcea

11 radiata

'* muricata

EXOTIC PINES VALUABLE AS ORNAMENTALS

Swiss Stone
Austrian
Scotch -
Swiss Mountain
Mugho -

H ardy — European

P. Cembra

" Laricio,v2iX.Austriaca

" sylvestris

" montana

" " var. Mughus

The Pines

Korean

Chinese Lace-bark
Himalayan White
Japanese Black -

Red

Small-flowered

t«

Hardy — Asiatic

-P. Koraiensis

" Bungeana

" excelsa

" Thunbergi

" densiflora

" parviflora

Cluster
Stone
Aleppo
Macedonian

White

Himalayan Longleaf

Not Hardy — European

-P. Pinaster

Mexican

Asiatic

Pinea

Halepensis

Peuce

P. Ayacahuite
P. longifolia

PINES PICTURESQUE WHEN OLD

Native
Red

Monterey -

White

Big Cone -

Pitch

Nut - •

Table Mountain -

P. resinosa

" radiata

" Strobus

" Coulteri

" rigid a

" quadrifolia

11 pungens

European

Stone -
Swiss Stone
Scotch -
Corsican

Japanese Red -

" Small-flowered

Asiatic

P. Pinea
" Cembra
" sylvestris
" Laricio

P. densiflora
" parviflora

PINES VALUABLE FOR COVERING STERILE GROUND

P. montana, var. Mughus

Mugho -

Swiss Mountain

Grey

Pitch

Scrub

Foxtail

divaricata
rigida
Virginiana
aristata

The Pines

FOR SEASIDE PLANTING

Cluster
Aleppo
Pitch
Monterey

P. Pinaster

1 ' Halepensis
" rigida
" radiata

SLOW-GROWING HARDY PINES ADAPTED
TO SMALL GARDENS

Exotic

Korean
Macedonian
Lace-bark -
Small-flowered
Swiss Stone

Nut -

Foxtail

Rocky Mountain White

Native

P. Koraiensis

' ' Pence

" Bungeana

* ' parviflora

" Cembra

P. edulis
" Balfouriana
tl aristata
" flexilis

CHAPTER VI : THE LARCHES

Family Conifers
Genus LARIX Adans.

Tall pyramidal trees, with few horizontal branches. Leaves
linear, deciduous ; fascicled except on new shoots. Flowers
solitary, monoecious, naked. Fruit annual, woody cones, soli-
tary, erect and sessile on the twig. Wood hard, heavy, resinous.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Cones less than i inch long, almost globular ; smooth;
leaves, 3-angled ; bracts not visible between scales.

(L. Americana) tamarack
AA. Cones more than 6 inches long, oblong, with prominent
pointed bracts between scales.
B. Leaves 3-angled ; twigs downy at first.

(L. occidentalis) western larch
BB. Leaves 4-angled, blue-green ; twigs hairy.

(L. Lyallii) alpine larch

The distinction of the genus Larix is its deciduous habit. One
other conifer sheds its leaves every autumn. The clustering of
the leaves in fascicles on short lateral spurs is unique also. Only
the terminal shoots bear scattered leaves.

Beside the three North American species there are six Old-
World larches — all in the colder latitudes of the Northern Hemi-
sphere, except a single Himalayan species. The native species
are inferior to exotics in cultivation. The handsomest larch for
lawns is L. leptolepis, Murr. (L. Kcempferi, Sarg.), a Japanese
species with pale blue-green, white-lined leaves. The common
larch of Europe, L. decidua, Mill., is most frequently met with in
cultivation here. It is a graceful, pyramidal tree, slender and
supple limbed, with a fresh cover of feathery leaves every spring.
In autumn the foliage turns yellow before it is shed. The Hima-
layan L. Griffithi is not hardy in the North. It is cultivated in
its handsome pendulous forms.

The Larches

Larches are cultivated as timber trees in Europe and to some
extent in America. The European species is chosen for this pur-
pose. Larch wood is very durable, heavy and hard. Rich in
resin, yet not easily ignited. It does not splinter, and hence was
preferred for the building of battleships before the day when
steel came in to replace wood. Larch timbers built into the old-
est of French castles are sound when the stones that support
them are crumbling. It is believed that larch will outlast oak.
The wood of L. occidentalis ranks higher than any other coni-
ferous kind.

Larches are readily grown from seed and easily transplanted,
even when quite large, if the work is done while the trees are
dormant. They are. admirable for windbreaks and shelter belts,
to which uses they are put in the Middle West and along the
coast in Massachusetts. They grow rapidly and profitably for
posts, railroad ties and telegraph poles, as they are straight and
free from large knots, being pruned by close contact with neigh-
bours in the plantation rows.

In the fine arts larch wood has had its place. Raphael
painted many of his earliest pictures on larch boards. Other
painters of his time followed his example. Canvas had not then
been generally adopted as a safe foundation for a painting. Old,
dry larch wood from trees growing on the high Alps and
Apennines looked almost transparent when polished. It was
made into tables arid cabinets of rare workmanship, and brought
extravagant prices. From those superb larch forests it was not
unusual to take out a ship's mast 120 feet high!"

Minor products of larches are turpentine and an extract of
tannin obtained from the European species.

Tamarack (Larix Americana, Michx.) — A slender, pyra-
midal tree, 50 to 60 feet high, with feeble horizontal branches,
becoming pendulous. Bark thin, broken into reddish scales.
Wood heavy, hard, light brown, strong, coarse grained, resin-
ous, durable in wet soil. Buds small, globular, red, shining.
Leaves soft, deciduous, fascicled on side spurs, scattered on
terminal shoots ; linear, triangular, J to 1 inch long ; autumn
color, yellow. Flowers: monoecious, .sessile, borne on short
branchlets ; pistillate rosy, ovate, with conspicuous finger-like
points on bracts ; staminate yellow, squat. Fruit small cones
with concave, plain scales, bearing winged seeds ; annual. Pre-

The Larches

f erred habitat, cold swamps and northern slopes of mountains.
Distribution, Newfoundland and Hudson Bay west across the
Rocky Mountains ; south into Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and
Pennsylvania. Uses: Posts, telegraph poles, railroad ties and
ships' timbers.

The tamarack loves the Northern mountain slopes and the
cold swamps of Labrador and Canada and our Northern States.
It is the bravest of all the conifers, standing erect, a pitiful minia-
ture of its true self, on the very edge of the Arctic tundras, a
line that no tree dares overstep. Its companions, the black
spruce, Balm of Gilead and an Arctic willow, are prostrate at its
feet. In American lawns trees 60 feet high are often seen. But
compared with the European tree this one is not a horticultural
success. The mark of its life struggle with adversity is on the
species. Even seedlings coddled in nursery rows have sparse
crowns of unsymmetrical growth. In rich soil and among lux-
uriant oaks and pines and thick-leaved maples the tamarack
looks ragged and forlorn. It is homesick for the cold, wet soil
and the bleak wind and the valiant company of its kinsmen. It
is an artistic and an ethical mistake to set one of these trees by
itself. Plantations of it are justifiable.

Mountain bogs too deep to measure are covered with tama-
rack. The fibrous roots were the Indian's thread ; tough and
fine as a shoemaker's " waxed end," it sewed the canoe of birch,
making a seam that scarcely needed the wax of the balsam to
make it water tight. Hiawatha sang :

"Give me of your roots, O Tamarack !
Of your fibrous roots, O Larch Tree !
My canoe to bind together
So to bind the ends together
That the water may not enter
That the water may not wet me."

The flowers of the tamarack are not conspicuous, but they
repay the one who looks for them. The yellow staminate clus-
ters, like little powdery knobs, soon fall, but the pistillate ones,
conical, with green bracts alternating with rosy scales, are beau-
tiful along the twig against the lettuce green of the opening
foliage clusters. Erect and with, scales spread, they catch the
flying pollen; then close their scales and "hang their heads"
throughout the summer. Under the rosy scales the seeds are

THE WHITE SPRUCE (Picea Canadensis)
Dark blue-green or pale blue foliage, leaves crowded on smooth twigs, cone slenderly cylindrical, 2 inches long, with thin,
flexible, entire scales — these traits belong to this species. The white wood is now much in demand for making paper. The
pale leaves and bark give the tree its name

THE BLACK SPRUCE (Picea Mariana)
This tree has pubescent twigs and spiny, blue-green foiUge. The little oval cones, which become globose as their stiff
scales spiead, cling for vears. There seems to be little justification for the word "black" in its name, for bark is greyish-brown,
and the wood pale yellow. Yet a Northern bog clothed with acres of this growth is a sombre, monotonous stretch

The Larches

growing. In autumn they wake up, turn themselves about
(which seems quite unnecessary), and sitting quite erect
on the twigs, part their brown scales, daring the wind to
capture and carry off the winged seeds. There is plenty
of time, for the ripe cones remain where they are untii the
second year.

Western Larch {Larix occidentalis, Nutt.)— A pyramidal
tree, with naked trunk and sparse foliage at the top, 100 to 250
feet high. Bark cinnamon-red, broken into thick plates, with
thin, scaly surface. Wood heavy, hard, strong, close grained,
red, durable. Buds small, globose, brown, hoary. Leaves
stiff, sharp, keeled below, triangular, pale green, turning yellow
in autumn. Flowers : pistillate sessile, oblong ; bracts needle
pointed ; staminate stalked, yellow, globose^ Fruits large,
oval cones ; scales hoary at base ; bract needle pointed,
shorter than scale. Preferred habitat, low, wet soil, at 2,000 to
3,000 feet elevation. Distribution, sou,thej"n British Columbia in
Cascade Mountains to Columbia RJver; in Blue Mountains of
Washington and Oregon; to western Montana. Uses: Best
wood among conifers. Used for furniture and interior finish,
railroad ties, fence posts.

The Western larch holds an enviable rank among American
forest trees. It is counted superior to all other conifers in the
value of its wood, which seems to have all good qualities. Its
hardness, fine colour and brilliant polish commend it to the maker
of furniture. As fence posts and railroad ties it lasts indefinitely,
compared with other timber. Trees 6 feet in diameter and 200
feet high are quite common in this species. Of such mighty
trunks a very small outer layer is sap wood.

For the first fifty years this larch is pyramidal, but thinly
branched. From this age on the lower limbs die, and the tree
at length presents a bare trunk with a mere wisp of a top.
What wonder that growth is slow! One log 18 inches in
diameter showed 267 rings. In its fiftieth year it was but 9
inches in diameter. The last inch of wood was eighty years in
forming. No other tree has so inconsiderable a foliage mass to
maintain so large a body.

The brown gum that exudes from wounds in the bark of
this tree seems not to be resinous, though it smells like turpen-
tine. It is sweet and resembles dextrine. As dextrine is a

The Larches

soluble form of starch, the Indians find this wax a very nutritious
article of food.

The Western larch shows little merit as an ornamental tree
on the eastern side of the continent. In Europe it does better,
and is planted for timber as well as for ornament. I cannot
grieve that this magnificent wild tree scorns to adapt itself, or
even its seedlings, to the compass of a sunny suburban lawn in
the East. People who truly wish to know it must go to the
wild forest parks we own in the great Northwest. There waits
for us with infinite patience (and an indifference quite as large),
the grandest larch tree in the world!

The Alpine Larch (Larix Lyallii, Pari.) is a slender tree of
the high tablelands of the Northwest, balancing itself on rocky
ledges, and seeming to choose the most exposed and forbidding
situations. It climbs to the very limit of tree growth, and pre-
sents a more irregular form than either of its relatives. The
tough limbs divide at intervals, throwing out several branches
at the same point. These differ in strength and size. The twigs
are covered with white, hairy fuzz which is shed at the end of the
second winter. The bark of the twigs then darkens for a period
of several years and becomes almost black. On the trunk the
bark is reddish and loosely scaly. The leaves are stiff and sharp,
blue-green and distinctly 4-angled. The cones have their scales
far surpassed in length by the tip of the bract. The hairiness of
the cones is conspicuous.

The Alpine larch never grows below an altitude of 4,000
feet. It ranges from Montana west to the coast and north into
the British possessions.

CHAPTER VII: THE SPRUCES

Family Conifers
Genus PICEA, Link.

Pyramidal cone-bearing evergreens, with tall, tapering
trunks and slender horizontal branches ending in stout twigs.
Roots long, tough, fibrous. Leaves 4-angled, stiff, pointed,
solitary, spirally arranged, each set on a prominent, woody pro-
jection. Flowers monoecious, solitary, in conical aments on
new shoots. Fruits pendant, woody, annual cones. Wood
soft, straight grained, valuable.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Leaves distinctly 4-angled.
B. Branchlets pubescent.

C. Leaves blue-green, short.

D. Cones ovate, % to ii inches long, persistent,

foliage spiny. (Picea Mariana) black spruce
DD. Cones oblong, 1 to 3 inches long, deciduous;
foliage soft and flexible.

(Picea Engelmanni) engelmann spruce
fcC. Leaves yellow-green, spiny," cones 1 to 2J inches

long, early deciduous. {Picea rubens) red spruce
IBB. Branchlets smooth ; leaves spiny, incurving, blue-
green.
C. Cones slender; scales entire, flexible, blunt; leaves
strong smelling, i to f inch long.

( Picea Canadensis) white spruce^
CC. Cones stout, scales, ridged, pointed; leaves £ to
ij inches long.

(Picea Parryana) Colorado blue spruce
AA. Leaves more or less flattened; cones 2 to 5 inches long.
B. Branchlets pubescent, pendulous; leaves blunt; cone
scales entire, rounded.

(Picea Breweriana) weeping spruce
BB. Branchlets smooth, erect; leaves pointed;, cone scales

toothed, pointed. (Picea Sitchensis) sitka spruce

The Spruces

The genus Picea includes some of the most useful as well as
ornamental of the conifers. There are eighteen species, seven
of them American, distributed over the Northern Heimsphere.
The Norway spruce (P. excelsa, Link.) is_the commonest spe-
cies in cultivation. It is the familiar spruce of dooryards, grow-
ing to great size in this country, and evidently more comfortable
m domestication than our native species. The long cones hang
on the topmost branches, and the lower limbs droop to the
ground. It is planted for windbreaks, hedges and shelter belts,
often with white pine. The species is strongly recommended
for plantations of trees for timber.

— The Caucasian Spruce (P. orientalis, Carr.), graceful and
slow of growth, with lustrous, dark-green foliage, is well adapted
to small gardens. It retains its lower limbs until quite old. Two
or three Japanese species have been introduced.

Black Spruce {Picea Mariana, B. S. & P.) — Pyramidal
evergreen, with short, drooping branches, usually 30 to 40 feet
high, occasionally 80 feet high. Twigs downy. Bark thin, scaly,
brownish grey. Wood light, weak, soft, yellow. Buds brownish
red, downy, ovate. Leaves blue-green, with pale bloom above,
linear, sharp, stiff, J to f inch long, set around twig. Flowers
cone-like, monoecious, solitary, axillary. Fruit oval cones, J to
\\ inches long, pendant, persistent for many years; scales thin,
entire. Preferred habitat, dry lowlands, rocky slopes and bogs.
Distribution, Labrador to Alaska; south to Wisconsin, Pennsyl-
vania and northern Virginia. Uses: . Locally as lumber and fuel.
Wood made into paper pulp. Resin used as chewing gum. Sap
made into beer.

The least of all spruce cones grow on the black spruce trees,
and the tree is burdened with the empty husks of twenty or more
crops before it lets the oldest ones drop. It is a peculiar habit,
and gives the tree an unkempt, dingy appearance that the grey
bark intensifies. The habit of the tree is ragged and uneven, and
the foliage dull bluish grey. Altogether it is not to be won-
dered at that the black spruce is ignored by planters. The tree
has always proved short lived in gardens.

The vast forests of this timber will be converted into paper.
Wherever spruce timber grows to-day there are fortunes awaiting
the owners. This wood that lumbermen reject exactly suits the
pulp man's needs. Thousands of acres are consumed every year.

The Spruces

Black as its name is, the wood is almost white, and the paper
needs little or no bleaching.

The Engelmann Spruce (P. Engeltnanni, Engeim.) is
thje white spruce of the Rocky Mountains and the Cascade range
in Washington and Oregon. It crowns the lower and higher
peaks, climbing to altitudes between one and two miles above
the level of the sea. In the rocky sides of glacier-polished ravines
these hardy trees find foothold, and set their spires like serried
ranks of spearsmen to cover the bare cliffs. Snow loads them
down for many months of the year ; they can survive that, but
their destruction comes when a fire sweeps over them, killing
all it touches, for the cambium of these trees is protected by a
very thin bark. The seeds and seedlings go. There is no repro-
duction of forests thus destroyed. They give way to the lodge-
pole pine and other more fortunate species.

The Engelmann spruce is planted in the Eastern States,
where it thrives. The disagreeable odour of the leaves counts
against it. But the finest trees cannot be seen unless a journey
be taken by the northernmost route to the Canadian Rocky
Mountains, where snows protect the forests from devastating
fires, and these spruce trees grow to 150 feet high, with diameters
of 4 or 5 feet. In late spring the blue-green foliage is jewelled
with the flowers, purple and scarlet. In autumn the showy
cones, with their shining brown, pointed scales hang out on
the highest twigs and fling down their black, winged seeds.
Here is a vastly different tree from the tame little seedling that
began life in a nursery row.

The lumber value of the Engelmann spruce is high. It is
used for general building purposes, for fuel and charcoal. The
'bark is sometimes used in tanning.
V The Red Spruce (P. rubens, Sarg.) is the most cheerful of

our Eastern species, because its foliage is yellowish green and
shining, the others blue-green. The colour in this tree's name
is derived from the wood, so the lumberman gave it, without
doubt. The slender, downy twigs are also bright red during
their first winter, and there is a distinct tinge of red in the tree's
brown bark. The flowers are rich purple and the cones glossy
reddish brown. It wears its colour in plain sight the year round.

This tree forms considerable forests from Newfoundland
through New England, and follows the Alleghany Mountains

The Spruces

into North Carolina. It has the spruce habit, but it rarely sacri-
fices its lower limbs even when crowded. In height these trees
* range from 75 to 100 feet, with trunks 2 to 3 feet in diameter.
The wood is used for lumber and paper pulp. It is peculiarly
adapted for sounding boards of musical instruments, and makes
excellent flooring. It is occasionally cultivated, but other species
are usually preferred. Its twigs are boiled to* make spruce .beer.
V White Spruce (Picea Canadensis, B. S. & P.) — Broadly

pyramidal tree, 60 to 1 50 feet high, with stout branches, smooth
twigs and bad-smelling foliage. Bark greyish brown, break-
ing into scaly plates. Wood light, soft, yellow, brittle. Buds
ovate, scaly. Leaves spread on upper side of twig, bluish,
sharp, hoary when young, J to J inch long. Flowers both
kinds cone -like, pale red, turning yellow. Fruit oblong-
cylindrical, stalked cones, blunt ; scales blunt or notched at broad
apex, shiny, thin, falling soon after seeds ripen. Preferred habi-
tat, rocky slopes, banks of rivers or lakes. Distribution, Labra-
dor to Bering Strait ; south to Montana, northern Dakota,
Michigan and. Wisconsin, New York and New England. Uses :
Lumber for building and interior finishing, and for paper pulp.
Tree planted for ornament and shade. Variety ccerulea most
common in cultivation.

The pale bark and pea-green foliage of the white spruce en-
able one to account for its name without difficulty and to identify
it in the woods. The whitish wood is not distinctly paler than
that of the black spruce. The ill-smelling foliage and the smooth
twigs better distinguish it, and the cones, which are twice as
long as the black spruce's. They are shed almost as soon as
they open, a tree habit that keeps the branches clean and thrifty
in appearance.

White spruce is the pulp manufacturer's delight. He owns
thousands of acres of it. As lumber the wood is used only in
Alaska and Canada in lieu of better kinds. The inferiority of
spruce lumber has saved it for the comparatively new enterprise
of pulp manufacture.
/ Blue Spruce {Picea Parry ana, Sarg.) — Handsome tree, 80

to 125 fee\ high, broadly pyramidal; branches rigid, horizontal,
in remote whorls. Bark grey, thick, broken into rounded,
scaJy ridges ; on young trees often reddish, in oblong plates.
Wood light, fine grained, soft, weak, pale. Buds stout, Hunt,

THE ENGELMANN SPRUCE (Picea Engelmanni)

secies has blue-green foliage, soft and flexible, but sharp at the tips. Tbo wood is pale and soft, a valuable lumWr for
building in the Western mountains. The bark is cinnamon red and breaks into loose scales

W
P

«
a

The Spruces

rge, with reflexed scales. Leaves dull blue-green to silvery
'hite, variable ; rigid, stout, curving, horny pointed, striped on
Dth sides with white, | to ij inches long, shorter on fruiting
vigs. Flowers: staminate reddish yellow ; pistillate green, the
ales square at end, and bracts pointed. Fruit, stalked cones,
jndant on upper limbs, 2 to 3 inches long, oblong, brown,
lining ; scales flat, narrowing to finger-like blunt point ; seeds
inged. Preferred habitat, elevation 6,000 to 10,000 feet, banks
streams. Distribution, Qolorado, Utah and Wyoming. Uses:
Tiamental tree planted in Europe and United States. Hardy,
d grows well in Middle West ; conspicuous in the East.

We have come to feel well acquainted with the blue spruce
Colorado through the beautiful blue or silver-leaved specimen
;es so common on lawns everywhere we go. It is a cool,
sp-looking tree, of perfect symmetry, the whorls of branches
ill apart, insuring the full development of leaves and branch-
s. It is a disappointment to its owner that the growing tree
es at length its lower limbs and the symmetry of its top. Yet
s is a far-off event, and there are years of satisfaction ahead
the buyer of a handsome little blue spruce for his garden,
rubbery can be tucked in around the tree when it begins to
;, and other trees so placed as to hide its shortcomings.

Weeping Spruce (Picea Breweriana, Wats.) — Tree 75 to
; feet high, with swollen base and tapering shaft; branches
oping and crowded, to the ground; twigs remarkably long
I slender. Bark brick red, thin, scaly.. Wood soft, close
ined, satiny, pale brown, heaviest of native spruces.
is conical, small, scaly, brown. Leaves flattened on the
>er side only, blunt, pale above, dark green and lustrous
eath, I to ij inches long. Flowers: staminate rich purple;
illate oblong; scales broad, rounded, turning out at edge,
h cut-toothed bract under each. Fruit slender cones, 2 to 4
les long, tapering, stalked, purple turning to orange-brown,
ning in autumn, but hanging a year empty; scales broad,
re, thin, turning backward; seeds winged. Preferred habi-
dry ridges on mountains near timber line. Distribution,
ation 4,000 to 7,000 feet, California and Oregon. In isolated
res in coast ranges.

It is somewhat embarrassing to the hard-working horticul-
;t in the East to be asked his opinion of the weeping spruce.

The Spruces

He regards it as one of the most distinct of the spruces, admirable
in habit and beautiful in foliage — an ideal tree for ornamental
planting — but he cannot make it grow! His most careful efforts
have brought only failure. A tree that belongs to "dry mountain
ridges and peaks near the timber line " has a good excuse for
languishing in gardens on the wrong side of the continent. And
such a range puts the species out of reach of lumbermen for a
decade or two yet. The uses of this tree must be put down with-
out reference to man's ineffectual yearnings to claim it for his
own. It fulfils Nature's plan, lifting its graceful spire into the
clouds and hanging out its purple flowers where there is no
human eye to see.

Tideland Spruce, Sitka Spruce {Picea Sitchensis, Carr.) —
Tree with tapering trunk and enlarged base, ioo to 200 feet high,
with broadly pyramidal head of drooping branches. Bark red-
dish brown, thin, scaly. Wood light, soft, straight grained,
satiny, light reddish brown. Buds lustrous, scaly, conical, \
to \ inch long. Leaves silvery white above, green beneath, \
to 1 inch long, flattened, twisted, pointed, horny tipped, all
around the twig. Flowers : staminate on side twigs, abundant,
dark red, conical, f to ij inches long; pistillate on terminal
twigs of upper branches, smaller, oblong. Cones annual, stalked,
pendant, 3 to 5 inches long, with elongated scales toothed at
tips, fall in winter. Preferred habitat, moist, sandy soil; swamps.
Distribution, coast region, Alaska to Cape Mendocino in Cali-
fornia. Uses: Important lumber for interior woodwork in
buildings, boat building, woodenwares, cooperage and fencing.
Ornamental tree in Europe, and in the warmer parts of the
eastern United States. Most important lumber in Alaska. Used
for fuel, construction of buildings, boats, and fencing, wooden
utensils and boxing.

The swamps of the tidewater regions of the Northwest, the
rocky slopes (if well watered) of the Alaskan ranges of moun-
tains facing the sea, are clothed with forests of this remarkable
tree. Like the bald cypress of the Southeast and the pump-
kin ash of the valley of the Arkansas, this lover of swamp
is buttressed and much enlarged at its base. The indomitabi
hardihood of the species is shown where it climbs from sea Ieve
to an altitude of 3,000 feet, and follows the coast to the northern-
most point reached by any conifer. The tree dwindles to a

The Spruces

tarveling shrub when the limits of its range are reached, but in
he coast regions of Oregon and Washington it is one of the
argest and most beautiful of the Western conifers. ,The graceful
weep of its wide-spreading lower limbs gives a constant and
lelightful play of light and shadow, owing to the lustrous sheen
>n the upper sides of the leaves.

In spite of all efforts to grow it in the East, it seems to
uffer from summer heat and drought and winter cold. It grows
n Boston if protected, but needs a great deal of coddling there.

Genus PSEUDOTSUGA, Carr.

Pyramidal trees with thick bark and hard, strong, durable
wood. Leaves linear, flat, spreading at right angles from the
wig; evergreen. Flowers solitary, cone-like, bright coloured.
tyuit heavy, drooping annual cones, with thin unarmed scales.

KEY TO SPECIES ,pr^

A. Leaves blunt, dark green; cones small, with long bracts.

(P. mucronata) douglas spruce
\A. Leaves sharp, blue-grey, cones large, with shorter bracts.

(P. macrocarpa) big cone spruce

The genus Pseudotsuga stands intermediate between the
lemlocks and firs, but the common name, as well as family traits,
ink it with the spruces, hence I have joined it to Picea under the
:ommon name spruce. The genus has two representatives in
America and one in Japan. The name is a startling combination
3f the Japanese word Tsuga with a Greek prefix.

Douglas Spruce, Red Fir {Pseudotsuga mucronata, Sudw.)
—Pyramidal or flat-topped tree, 150 to 250 feet high, with long,
bare trunk in. forest; in the open, a broad-based pyramid.
Branches slender, crowded, long, drooping. Spray finely divided.
Bark thick, deeply furrowed, with rounded irregular ridges coated
with red scales. Wood pale red or yellow, durable in water and
soil; variable in quality, usually tough and hard. Buds scaly,
acute. Leaves straight, linear, blunt at apex, 1 to 1 J inches lon£,
yellowish or bluish green, shed in eighth year. Flowers cone-
like, staminate orange-red, pistillate red. Fruit a long-stemmed
cone, 2 to 4 inches long, drooping, scales thin, v/ith entire margins;

■V

The Spruces

bracts ending in recurved, whip-like points. Preferred habitat,
moist soil of coast plain. Distribution, Rocky Mountains from
British America into Mexico; west to Pacific coast, except in the
Great Basin (between Wasatch and Sierra Nevada Mountains).
Uses: Valuable lumber tree for shipbuilding, piles, posts and rail-
road ties. Bark used to some extent for tanning.

He who would see for himself the most magnificent forests
this continent holds to-day must go to the redwoods in California.
When these groves have awed him with the tremendous bulk of
timber in board feet they can yield in a single acre, let him move
up the coast to where the moist Japan current breathes upon the
evergreen forests of the Cascade's western slope. There are giant
cedars and firs and hemlocks; and dominating all of them is the
Douglas spruce.

" It is not only a large tree, the tallest in America next to the
redwood, but a very beautiful one with bright green, drooping
foliage, handsome jfendant cones, and a shaft, exquisitely straight
and round and regular."

The trees make a very even growth and stand together as
closely as the stalks in a well-tilled field of grain. Excluding
other kinds, these trees stand with their heads together, making
the forest dark as night below. Far up the Alaskan coast the
Douglas spruce extends, and eastward across mountain ranges,
where it mingles with yellow pines in sunny, open forests, where
the trees have opportunity to show the grace of their pendant
limbs and the beauty of their red cone flowers and the ruddy cones
adorned with pale green bracts. A small cone it is for so large a
tree, yet one to remember for its beauty.

The Douglas spruce is known as "Oregon pine" in the lum-
ber markets of the coast. The Puget Sound region furnishes
spars of it to every great shipyard in the world. They are used
as piles in wharves in Western harbours. Shipbuilders, bridge-
builders— everybody who needs heavy timbers of great durability,
toughness and hardness — desire this kind if it can be had. The
best grades of it are stronger than the wood of any other large
conifer in America. Its faults for general lumber purposes are
it»hardness and its tendency to warp in boards.

The Douglas spruce as seen in nurseries is the quickest-
growing evergreen of all. Immense quantities of seed are sent
to Europe, where the tree is grown both for ornament and for tim-

The Spruces

ber. The seed produces a large percentage of vigorous seedlings,
and they transplant well. In the eastern and northern parts of
the United States the trees do well from seed gathered in the
Rocky Mountains. Failures in seedlings imported from European
nurseries are traceable to the fact that seeds came from the
Pacific coast plain, and the seedlings therefore are not hardy in
the more rigorous climate of the East and North. In the seeds
furnished by high mountain trees this difficulty is overcome.
Even in the droughty regions of Kansas and Nebraska these trees
planted in sheltered situations and in clumps grow into trees of
exceeding beauty. Exposed in windbreaks the foliage is damaged,
the trees lose their " leaders," and acquire bad shapes thereafter.
Big- Cone Spruce (Pseudotsuga macrocarpa, Mayr.) — A
broadly pyramidal tree, 40 to 80 feet high, with stout trunk, pen-
dulous lower limbs, and erect upper cones. Branchlets slender.
Bark scaly, thick, reddish brown, furrowed, with rounded ridges.
Wood brown, hard, heavy, strong, not duftble. Buds ovate,
small, scaly. Leaves linear, sharp pointed, spreading or 2-ranked,
dark bluish grey, } to 1 \ inches long. Flowers cone-like, staminate
yellow in shining, scaly involucre; pistillate green tinged with
red. Fruit usually on upper branches, 4 to 7 inches long, oblong-
cylindrical, scales often 2 inches across, thin, entire; bracts
scarcely as long as scales. Preferred .habitat, mountain slopes.
Distribution, southern California, in San Bernardino Mountains,
at altitude of 3,000 to 5,000 feet. Uses: Wood used for fuel;
sparingly for lumber.

CHAPTER VIII: THE HEMLOCKS

Genus TSUGA, Carr.

Tall, graceful trees of pyramidal form, with flexible tip

shoots and pendulous, much-divided horizontal limbs. Leaves

evergreen, perilled, flat and 2-ranked (except one). Flowers

0 monoecious, solitary, in early spring. Fruit annual cones, small

and oval (except one), with thin, entire scales. Wood soft, pale,
cross-grained, stiff.

* KEY TO SPECIES

A. Leaves flat, 2-ranked, pale beneath; cones about i inch
long, oval.
B. Cones stalked.

C. Scales as wide as long, not flaring at maturity.

(T. Canadensis) hemlock
CC. Scales longer than wide, flaring at maturity.

(T. Caroliniana) Carolina hemlock
BB. Cones sessile, scales constricted in middle.

(7\ heterophylla) western hemlock
AA. Leaves 3-angled, whorled, pale blue-green; cones 2 to 3
inches long, oblong-cylindrical.

(T . Mertensiana) mountain hemlock

Hemlocks are distinctly graceful and symmetrical trees.
Japan has two native species, the Himalayas one, our Eastern
States one, the Western States three — seven in all — and Tsuga
is the Japanese name for hemlock. The prostrate, shrubby
"ground hemlock," familiar to many of us who have eaten its
aromatic scarlet berry, is not a hemlock but a yew. The hem-
lock that Socrates drank was the deadly infusion cf an herb,
Conium maculatum, related to our wild carrot.

The best character by which to recognise the hemlocks is
the tiny petiole of the leaf. No other cone bearer has leaf stalks/
Of our native species, all have white lines on the under side of each
leaf: the mountain hemlock has them above and below. The

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B. C. Staminate flowers in two stages a. Pistillate flower cone

THE HEMLOCK {Tsuga Canadensis)

This is the only conifer whose leaves are provided with petioles. The flat, blunt blades, have narrow lines of white
beneath The pistillate flowers are erect on the tips of twigs. The staminate flowers are many in the axils of leaves. Each is
a yellow ball made up of globular anthers. The cones are purplish and small. Hemlock bark and wood are both important.
H^mlnck woods are sombre, but wonderfully lightened when seen from below. The leafy spray is light and graceful

The li-nilocks

first three species have leaves 2-ranked and flat and cones under
an inch in length; the fourth has leaves 3-angled, whorled on the
twigs, and cones 2 to 3 inches long. Cones are pendant, and thin
scaled in all the species, and are borne annually.

Hemlocks are important ornamental trees. They come
readily from seed, if shaded, and transplant safely, owing to
their dense fibrous root system. They submit to severe pruning
of roots or tops. They are not particular in regard to soil, if only
it be moist. The two Japanese species are propagated from cut-
tings, or are grafted on our Eastern hemlock. All hemlocks have
Dark rich in tannin. The west American species are all large
frees, except at high altitudes.

Hemlock (Tsuga Canadensis, Carr.) — A broadly pyramidal
:ree, 60 to 100 feet high, with tapering leading shoot and pen-
dulous horizontal limbs. Bark cinnamon red to grey, thin, fur-
"owed, scaly. Wood light, soft, coarse, cross-grained, not durable.
Buds small, obtuse. Leaves flat, blunt, pale beneath, dark,
;hining above, on short petioles jointed to projecting bases,
2-ranked, shed in third year. Flowers in May, monoecious, soli-
:ary; pistillate terminal on short shoots. Fruit small, annual
zones, falling in spring, oval, thin scaled, red-brown, turning to
*rey. Preferred habitat, rocky uplands near streams. Dis-
ribuiion, Nova Scotia to southern Michigan, central Wisconsin
md Minnesota; southward to Delaware, and along Appalachian
fountains to Alabama. Uses: Wood, in building and for rail-
oad ties; bark, in dyeing and in tanning leather. Cultivated as
in ornamental tree and hedge plant.

" Hemlock Hill" in the Arnold Arboretum is a shrine at which
he true tree-loving Bostonian worships at least once a year. It is
t remnant of the forest primeval that clothes a steep promontory
ust inside one of the gates. In winter the hemlocks look black
n contrast with the snow that hides the paths and smothers the
>rook into silence. It is awesome — this solitude of winter on the
all. But in summer all is different., The severity of its winter
spect is gone. Every twig waves in welcome a yellow-green
>lume, the new growth of the year, and up the hillside climb the
/ell-remembered paths. The brook goes singing along between
•orders of laurel and rhododendron. The gloom of the hemlocks
s wonderfully lightened, when one is actually under them, by
he pale linings of the individual leaves. Just two parallel lines

The Hemlocks

of white on each narrow blade, but the aggregate makes a mighty
difference in the atmosphere of the place.

Throughout New England one finds generous appreciation
of this native hemlock. The slender terminal shoot, "the leader,"
lifted into the sky is a weather vane that never gets out of order.
Where hemlocks of considerable size are scattered among pines or
other trees, they are guideposts to the "timber cruiser" or the
hunter in trackless woods. Each treetop has its own individuality
— the scars of storms outridden, or other modifying influences at
work.

The specimens of hemlock to be seen in parks and on private
grounds exhibit the fitness of this species for ornamental planting.
The symmetry and grace of the "dark green layers of shade,"
spreading into intricate sprays of remarkable delicacy, are familiar
in forest and lawn. The pale bloom on the under sides of the
leaves is punctuated by the little violet cones, pendant from, every
spray. There are many horticultural forms of this species, but,
to my mind, none are as handsome as the wild species.

In winter the red squirrel finds a stable base of supplies in
every fruitful hemlock tree. The litter of cone scales on the snow
will convince any doubter, if, indeed, the squirrel does not him-
self appear and scold the intruder.

In hedges the young trees are thrifty, and even the shears
cannot subdue the grace that renews every spring the delicate,
flexible new shoots. They seem more like wavering tendrils of
a vine than branches of a sturdy conifer.

The seeds of hemlock are slow to germinate on burned-over
ground, but in the leaf mould, overshadowed by larger trees, they
start in great numbers. For four or five years they average
scarcely an inch a year, but they produce a good root system.
After this they rapidly mount upward to independence. They
supply a valuable protective cover for seedling white pines. The
two species grow together often in large forests. Canada offers
the best soil and climate for hemlock. It requires cool air with
rich, loamy soil, moist but well drained. It is found plentifully
in our Northern and Eastern States, and follows the mountains

to Alabama.

Hemlock wood is coarse and splintery, likely to be cross-
grained and full of knots. It warps in seasoning, and wears rough ;
moreover, it is brittle and weak. It has two cardinal virtues that

The Hemlocks

adapt it for railroad ties and the large beams used in the frames
of houses and barns. Hemlock timbers are stiff, and the wood
has a firm grip on nails and spikes. The wood never loosens its
hold upon the nail, nor does it split in nailing. Hemlock is used
for the outside of cheap buildings, but it finds its greatest useful-
ness as the unseen props of a house, its faults covered up by woods
of more uniform and attractive appearance.

The bark of hemlock abounds in tannin, which makes it a
standard tan bark. It is not uncommon to see young hemlock
woods felled and stripped for the bark alone. The waste of the
wood is very bad forestry, but as hemlock is poor fuel, and ugly to
saw and split, sometimes cordwood costs more to cut and haul
than it brings in market. If the trees were left to attain proper
age for mill stuff, the lumber would be salable, and there would be
a much larger crop of bark.

The logs are cut for tan bark only in the summer. The bark
"slips" from May until August. After that, peeling is impos-
sible. The logs are girdled every four feet from the butt well
up into the tops. Two or three cuts are made at equal distances
apart, lengthwise of the trunk. This makes of each four-foot
cylinder of bark two or three rectangular sheets, easily removed
with a special bark-peeling tool. The sheets are stacked on end
to dry, and are later laid in solid four-foot piles to be measured
by the cord. The hemlock bark is usually mixed with some oak
bark at the tanneries. A side of sole leather tanned with hemlock
alone is a brighter red than is desired. The oak darkens it. Dye
works consume some hemlock bark in making certain shades of
brown.

Oil of hemlock is distilled from the leaves. "Canada pitch/'
formerly much used as a drug, is extracted from leaves and knots.
In the practice of the Indians, the bark of young hemlocks, boiled
and pounded to a paste, made a poultice for sores and wounds.
Josselyn noted also: "The turpentine thereof is singularly good to
heal wounds and to draw out the malice of any Ach, rubbing the
place therewith." The antiseptic action of the oil and resin was
recognised then as now.

The Carolina Hemlock (Tsuga Caroliniana, Engelm.)
occurs most abundantly about the headwaters of the Savannah
River in South Carolina. It grows on the mountains from Vir-
ginia into Georgia, and was long confused with the ^common

75 * i

The Hemlocks

Northern hemlock by botanists and other observers. It has found
favour with landscape gardeners, because it is more graceful
though more compact than T. Canadensis. Its leaves are longer,
darker green above, and a more pronounced white underneath.
It rarely grows over 70 feet high, but has a better head when
old than its Northern relative. It is a hardy, handsome tree in
New England parks, and its popularity is growing.

Western Hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla, Sarg.) — Noble
pyramidal tree, 100 to 200 feet high, 6 to 10 feet in diameter, with
drooping, horizontal branches and feathery tip. Bark reddish
brown, with broad, scaly, interrupted ridges and shallow fissures.
Wood tough, durable, hard, light, strong, brown. Buds brown,
ovate, small. Leaves grooved on top, lustrous, pale below, rounded
at tip; petioles slender. Flowers : monoecious, terminal, solitary;
staminate yellow; pistillate purple. Fruit oval, pointed cones
1 inch long; scales often constricted in the middle, broad, thin.
Preferred habitat, moist valleys and uplands from tidewater to
6,000 feet elevation. Distribution, southeastern Alaska to Cape
Mendocino in California; east to Montana and Idaho. Uses:
Wood used chiefly in building; bark for tanning. Indians eat a
cake made from the inner bark. Successfully used for ornamental
planting in Europe. Not hardy in our Eastern States.

This greatest of all the hemlocks dominates the magnificent
forests of the Pacific coast plain, in size as well as in numbers.
It extends east into Idaho and Montana, and north into British
Columbia. The tideland spruce is its companion in the lowlands.
Superb trees are found on the mountains at an altitude of 6,000
feet, but only in moist situations. On dry, high ridges, the tree
is stunted. But in the rich river valleys, with the breath of the
]apan current to make the air humid, this hemlock is a giant —
handsome, graceful, the delight of the artist and the lumberman;
the most superb and the most useful of the hemlocks.

The root system of this tree is remarkably copious and
aggressive. Mosses often a foot in thickness and saturated with
moisture clothe the fallen trunks and other rubbish in those
deep forests in the neighbourhood of Vancouver. The light
seeds of the hemlocks often germinate on some elevated arm of a
giant tree long dead. Such a mistake will first be discovered by
the roots which go down until they anchor the tree in the earth.
The dead trunk rots away, and the growing tree stands on stilts

\* 76

The Hemlocks

)f its own sturdy roots, as confident and thrifty as any of its neigh-
bours.

The little cones of the Western hemlock have scales like
>callop shells, marked with radiating lines. This is before they
oosen. Afterward each scale shows a narrow neck behind this
'shell," and a long blade extending backward.

This tree has the strongest and most durable wood of all the
lemlocks. It is a staple commercial lumber on the coast, lum-
3er authorities claiming that it is harder, heavier and otherwise
mperior to the Eastern hemlock.

Mountain Hemlock (Tsuga Mertensiana, Sarg.) — A broad,
Dpen pyramidal tree, 75 to 100 feet high, with much-branched,
3ften prostrate limbs. Bark cinnamon red, furrowed, scaly.
Wood light, soft, brownish red, close grained, weak. Buds brown,
small, pointed. Leaves not 2-ranked, rounded below, flat, often
grooved above, petioles set on prominent bases, colour, blue-green.
Flowers : staminate blue, pendant on stalk; pistillate erect, with
purplish or yellow bracts. Fruit oblong cones 1 to 3 inches long,
borne on upper branches; scales broad, entire, striate, yellow or
purple, turning out and back at maturity. Preferred habitat,
high, rocky ridges in exposed situations. Distribution, south-
eastern Alaska to British Columbia; south to central California,
Montana and Idaho. Uses: Wood occasionally used in building
and bark in tanning.

This hemlock, which has been variously called a spruce, a fir
and a pine by botanical explorers, is not likely to be exterminated
by lumber companies, for it grows in inaccessible mountain fast-
nesses, and battles with storms to the very timber line. " Between
5,000 and 7,000 feet above the sea on ridges and along the
margins of alpine meadows in groves of exquisite beauty,
and pushing the advance guard of the forest to the edge
of living glaciers" — thus Sargent describes the habitat of the
tree which he considers "the loveliest cone-bearing tree of the
American forest."

During the larger half of each year the mountain hemlocks
are buried in snow, their tough limbs cramped beneath their
burden; but with summer comes freedom, and these limbs are
flung out again with singular grace to brave the lashing of the
winds. A tall tree in the humid lowlands, the trunk diminishes
with the ascent of the mountains. At an altitudMojIblmost

••

The Hemlocks

10,000 feet the treetop rests upon the ground, a flattened mass
of graceful limbs, the trunk practically eliminated by natural
selection.

John Muir, describing the forests of the Yosemite Park, tells
how the young trees of the lower levels receive the light burden
of the first snow in the early autumn, and gradually bending under
the load left by succeeding storms, at length form graceful arches,
and are buried from sight for five or six months. He has ridden
for miles over a smooth snow bank that covered in this fashion
trees 40 feet high. They return to their normal position, un-
harmed, when the snow goes off.

The blue-green foliage, the whorled leaf arrangement, the
triangular leaf itself, pencilled with white on all sides, and the
large cones — all set this hemlock in a class by itself. The spray,
exceedingly beautiful, even for a hemlock, bears flowers that are
unusual in their rich colouring. The pistillate blossomsxare
royal purple; the staminate, blue as forget-me-nots — "of so pure
a tone that the best azure of the high sky seems to be condensed
in them." — Muir.

Seeds of this alpine hemlock planted in England and in our
Eastern States grow slowly, and show none of the grace and vigour
of the wild sapling trees. It is the old story of the hardy moun-
taineer, languishing in luxury, dying of homesickness for the life
of abstinence and struggle to which its race is born.

CHAPTER IX: THE FIRS

Genus ABIES, Link.

Trees of pyramidal habit with wide-spreading horizontal
lbs bearing thick foliage masses. Wood weak, coarse grained.
irk smooth until quite old, pale, thin and blistered with over-
wing resin vescicles; later, deeply and irregularly furrowed.
aves usually flat, blunt, 2-ranked, persistent for 8 to 10 years,
iving circular scars. Flowers in axillary, scaly cones, pistillate
ict on upper branches; staminate on under side of branches
ver down on^the tree. Fruit annual, erect cones whose scales
1 off at maturity; seed resinous.

KEY TO SPECIES

V. Leaves flat and grooved down the middle.

B. Colour of leaves dark green, shining, with pale linings.
C. Scales concealing the bracts of the cones.
D. Cones purple.

E. Leaves straight, 2-ranked, not crowded;
bark smooth, brown.

{A. balsamea) balsam fir
EE. Leaves curved, erect on twigs, crowded;
bark rough, grey. (A. amabilis) white fir
DD. Cones green; leaves about 2 inches long.

(A. grandis) white fir
CC. Scales not concealing the pale green, reflexed bracts

of the purple cones. {A. Fraseri) balsam fir
BB. Colour of leaves pale blue-green.

C. Cones purple. {A. lasiocarpa) balsam fir -

CC. Cones purple, green or yellow.

D. Bracts of cone scales concealed; leaves uniformly
glaucous. (A. concolor) white fir

DD. Bracts of cone scales extending into long, whip-
like projections; leaves yellow-green, pale
below. (A. venusta) silver fir

\.. Leaves mostly 4-angled, thick, blue-green; cones purple.
B. Cone scales covered by pale green, reflexed bracts.

(A. nobilis)^&p fir
BB. Cone scales covering bracts. (A. masnificc^m^m. fir

racts.

*•

The Firs

Twenty-five species of Abies are widely distributed over
the Northern Hemisphere, including the northern highlands of
Africa. Nordmann's fir {A. Nordmanniana) has come from the
Caucasus into extensive cultivation in our Eastern and Northern
' States. It is supplemented by four European and two Japanese
species of recognised merit for ornamental planting. The beauty
of our native firs has been pointed out in the names botanists gave
them. But they do not thrive, as a rule, in cultivation. For
the lawn, we wisely choose exotic species.

Balsam Fir {Abies balsamea, Mill.) — A broad, pyramidal
tree, 50 to 60 feet high, with slender pubescent branchlets. Bark
brown, thin, broken into scaly plates with dried balsam in white
blisters. Wood soft, weak, coarse, brown with yellow streaks,
not durable. Leaves blunt, dark green, lustrous above, with pale
linings, \ to 1 \ inches long, spreading in 2-ranked order. Flowers
axiliary, staminate, yellow shaded to purplish; pistillate purple.
Fruit erect, rich purple, oblong-cylindrical, 2 to 4 inches long,
blunt at ends; scales broad, entire, closely overlapping. Pre-
ferred habitat, swamps or hilly slopes. Distribution, Labrador
through Canada and New England, to Minnesota; south along
mountains to southwestern Virginia. Uses: Wood used for
box material; bark furnishes oil and Canada balsam, used in
# medicine and in the arts. Fresh leaves cut for balsam pillows.

In the North Woods the hunter cuts the fragrant boughs of
the fir balsam to make his bed, and the ladies of every camping
party industriously shear balsam twigs in order to fill sofa pillows
later with the leaves. The native finds it profitable to collect the
limpid balsam by draining the white resin blisters that occur plen-
tifully on the smooth bark of young trees, and on the limbs of older
ones. Wounding the tree produces increased flow. Whole ^
families are often employed in this enterprise. The resin thus
obtained is the "Canada balsam" employed in every laboratory
for the mounting of microscopic specimens. It is used also in the
practise of medicine and in other useful arts. "Oil of fir" is also
obtained from the bark.

The erect cones of this tree distinguish it from the spruces,
with which it grows, and the hemlocks whose leaves are also pale
beneath and 2-ranked in arrangement. Balsam fir leaves are
blunt and s.temless. Hemlock leaves have minute petioles.

Itivation of balsam fir has been rather stupidly con-

*t.'*£^

THE BALSAM FIR (Abies bahamea)

flat leaves, pale beneath and 2-ranked on the twig, characterise this species. On the old branches the leaves
se and scattered. The oblong cones are erect on the stem. The bark of young trunks and branches are marked
dch discharge clear balsam when tapped

THE BALSAM FIR (Abies bdsamea)

The leaves persist for eight years. Hence the twigs are covered. The blunt leaves are 2-ranked by the twj
of their bases. The lower figure shows leaves all around the twigs. It is so on fertile shoots. This picture
shows young, leafy shoots coming out below. A pistillate cone-flower is held erect

The Firs

tinued in the Northeastern States, despite the fact that the tree
is short lived and early loses its lower limbs. There are other
firs that may be as easily obtained and grown, and these are
chosen by wise planters for their greater beauty and longer life.

The White or Lovely Fir (A. amdbilis, Forbes), of the
high mountain slopes of British Columbia, Washington and
Oregon, comes to its greatest estate in the Olympic range. Here
it dominates other fir trees, a giant 1 50 to 250 feet high, with a
trunk 4 to 6 feet through. The spiry pyramid is formed of limbs
that strike downward and outward in curves of remarkable grace
and symmetry. In open groves the trees are clothed to the ground.
In dense forests the trunks are bare except for a tufted crown.
The bark is thick and broken into irregular plates on very old
trees; on younger ones it is silwBgrey and smooth. The wood
is light brown or white, weak, jflfflrand close grained. It is occa-
sionally used in interior fmisjJJR houses. In cultivation the tree
forgets its wild beauty and becomes commonplace. It grows in
Europe, but not in our Atlantic States. Only in its natural range
is it truly the "lovely fir" of the mountains.

The White Fir {A. grandis, Lindl.) earns its name by the
silvery linings of its leaves. It grows from Vancouver Island
south to middle California, and eastward into Idaho. It climbs
from the sea to elevations of 4,000 to 7,000 feet, mingled with other
:onifers, but keeping along the borders of streams. This white
fir is grand indeed in the coast region, where it mounts upward
with slender trunk to the height of 200 to 300 feet. Its limbs,
sweep outward in curves of thejutmost-grase, and the contrast of
dark green with silvery white in the foliage makes the tree cheerful
n the extreme. The flowers are yellow and the cones brilliant
ipreen, the broad, entire scales quite concealing the bracts.

The wood of this fir is pale brown, soft, light and coarse, used
0 a limited extent in interior house finishing, cooperage and.
)oxing and for woodenwares. The tree grows rapidly in European
>arks.

The Balsam Fir {A. Fraseri, Poir.) is a tree 40 to 60 feet
ligh which grows in forests at an altitude of 4,000 to 6,060 feet on
he Appalachian Mountains from southwestern Virginia into Ten-
lessee and North Carolina. It forms an open pyramid of rather
tiff limbs, ending in twigs crowded with dark, lustrous foliage,
"he purple cones are ornamented by pale yellow-green, bracts with

81 '

The Firs

toothed margins which turn back over the scales. The wood of
this tree is rarely used as lumber. It has the faults of fir wood in
general, and the trees are inaccessible to lumbermen. The tree
is short lived and has little ornamental value.

The Balsam Fir (A. lasiocarpa, Nutt.) grows in the high,
mountainous regions from Alaska south along the Cascades of
Washington and Oregon, and follows the Rocky Mountains from
Idaho to Arizona. The trees are tall, narrow spires with thickly
crowded branches, the oldest of which droop slightly. They range
from 80 to 1 80 feet high, with trunks 2 to 5 feet in diameter. The
bark of the limbs changes from the reddish pubescence of the twigs
to pale grey or almost white. Aged trees have shallow-fissured
bark covered with cinnamon-coloured scales.

The blue-green of the lfl k is intensified by the striking
indigo colour of both kinds oH^^rs in their season. The cones
are rich, deep purple, and plain, Wf abroad scales quite concealing
the ruddy bracts.

White Fir (Abies concolor, Lindl. & Gord.) — A narrow
pyramidal tree, 125 to 250 feet high, with trunk 3 to 6 feet through;
branches short, stout with long, stout, much-divided side branches
extending forward; twigs stout, smooth. Bark 3 to 6 inches
thick, broken into rounded ridges by deep, irregular furrows, and
the surface into plate-like scales. Wood soft, light, pale brown to
white, coarse and weak. Buds globular, \ inch thick. Leaves
2-ranked by crowding; erect, pale blue to whitish, becoming dull
green when old ; on fruiting branches often thickened into a keel
above, curved and short; on lower branches flat, straight, 2 to 3
inches long. Flowers : pistillate on upper branches, with striking
greenish bracts; staminate dark red, on middle limbs. Fruit
erect oblong-cylindrical cones, 5 to 6 inches long, green, purple or
yellow; scales broad, rounded at apex, concealing bracts; seeds
J to J inch long with shining red wings. Preferred habitat, moun-
tain slopes. Distribution, Colorado west to Oregon and California,
south to New Mexico and Arizona, including the Great Basin.
Uses: Wood for butter tubs and boxing. Best of Western firs for
planting in the Eastern States. A favourite ornamental in
Europe.

This white fir is known as a silver fir, from the pale foliage
and from the grey bark of its branches. The forests of A . magnifica
coming down the high slopes meet those of A. concolor coming up.

The Firs

The trees are gigantic in the Sierras; scarcely of more than medium
height and girth among the Rockies. The leaves are unusually
long for a fir tree, on lower limbs often 2 to 3 inches. The flowers
are conspicuous, the staminate rich red, the pistillate ornamented
with backward-turning, finger-lobed bracts. The cones are stout,
various in colours, with broad, short scales that quite cover the
bracts. The seed wings are rose coloured and lustrous.

The tree is often planted in Europe; it is the most vigorous
native fir tree met in cultivation on the Atlantic side of this con-
tinent. The best trees in Eastern nurseries come from seeds col-
lected in the Rocky Mountains.

Another Silver Fir (A.venusta, K. Koch.) has leaves almost
willow-like in form, so broad are^ttflat, pointed blades. They
are 1 to 2J inches long, yellow-gagJPnth silvery linings, especially
bright on the newest snoots.^BPspray is flat by reason of the
2-ranked arrangement of thS^aves, which stand out at right
angles to the twig. The tree habit is peculiar. A slender trunk
100 to 150 feet high bears a broad pyramid of pendulous limbs,
which is surmounted by a narrow spire for the last 20 feet of the
tree's height. The cones are 3 to 4 inches long, and striking in
ornamentation. The long, stiff whip of a pale yellowish brown
bract extends an inch or two beyond each purple scale.

This fir is confined to elevated canon sides in the mountains
of Monterey County, California, and has no commercial signifi-
cance. Seeds sent to Europe produce handsome ornamental trees
in North Italy and in warmer sections of England.

Red Fir {Abies nobilis, Lindl.) — A broad, round-headed
tree 1 50 to 250 feet high, with trunk 6 to 8 feet through; branches
stiff; twigs red velvety. Bark 1 to 2 inches thick, irregularly
furrowed, red-brown. Wood hard, pale brown, streaked with
red, light, strong, moderately close in texture; sap wood darker.
Buds small, blunt, reddish. Leaves blue-green, often glaucous
when young, flat, grooved above, crowded to upper side of twigs,
and curved backward, 1 to ij inches long, on fertile shoots,
4-angled, sharp. Flowers: staminate reddish purple; pistillate
scattered on upper limbs, bracts ornate with recurved tips. Fruit
oblong, thick, biunt at apex and base, 4 to 5 inches long, purplish
or brown, pubescent; scales covered with thin toothed bracts
which end in recurving, pencil-like projections. Preferred habitat,
mountain slopes at 2,500 to 5,000 feet elevation. Distribution,

The Firs

mountains of western Washington, Oregon and California. Uses:
Lumber for interior finish of houses and for boxing. Rarely
planted in Eastern States. Needs shelter at Boston. Cultivated
in Europe.

The red fir, another giant of the Northwest, attains its best
development in the Cascade Mountains of Washington and Oregon
on elevated slopes facing the sea. An old tree is often 200 to 250
feet high, with a trunk 6 to 8 feet in diameter, crowned with a
broad, round head, quite distinct from the spire form usual among
firs. There are forests of this tree which furnish, at present in
limited quantities, wood for boxing and house finishing. The
wood is brownish red, with sap wood of a darker colour. The
lumber dealer calls it "lar&foAs long as better lumber is to be
had, these forests will be aw$wl to wait.

The distinctive features^Hfcs tree are its glaucous, blue-
green foliage and the stout brcv^^or purple cones, 4 to 5 inches
long, and richly ornamented by the bracts which turn back like
little pale green scallop shells over each scale.

Red Fir {Abies magnified, A. Murr.) — A pyramidal tree
which becomes round-topped with age, 1 50 to 200 feet high; trunk
6 to 8 feet through; limbs pendulous, Bark red-brown, 4 to 6
inches thigk, scaly and broken into ridges and deep fissures that
cross and join; twigs reddish, becoming silvery white. Wood
soft, light, weak, durable, red. Buds scaly, ovate, red, lustrous.
Leaves 4-angled, pale at first, then blue-green, crowded to erect
position on the twig. Flowers : conspicuous ; staminate reddish
purple; pistillate green with red tips on scales. Fruit oblong-
cylindrical cones, 6 to 9 inches long, purplish brown ; scales plain,
1 inch broad at apex, closely overlapping and concealing the
bracts. Preferred habitat, mountain slopes, at 5,000 to 7,000 feet
elevation. Distribution, Cascade range in southern Oregon,
throughout the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Uses: Wood makes packing cases and cheap buildings. Tree
planted as an ornamental in western Europe. Scarcely hardy in
our Eastern States.

"The magnificent silver fir," as John Muir calls it, is one of
the noblest trees of the Northwest, a lover of the mountain slopes,
which it climbs to two miles above sea level before it reaches its
limit. On moraines, at an elevation of 7,000 to 8,000 feet, it
grows to a height of 200 to 250 feet and a diameter of 5 to 7 feet

Winter buds (some leaves cut away to show buds)

THE BALSAM FIR (Abies lasiocarpa)

e-green leaves and the pale or white bark of twigs give this tree a spectral expression. The leaves are long, blunt and
red so as to stand erect. This giant tree of the Northwestern mountains is comparatively worthless, except for fuel,

Winter buds (some leaves cut away to show the buds)

THE BALSAM FIR (Abies Fraseri)
The lustrous dark leaves are pale beneath. They are blunt, even notched, at the tips. This is the fir of the Appalachian Mountains

Winter bud (some leaves removed)

THE WHITE FIR (Abies concolor)

This Colorado tree is often seen in Eastern gardens as a beautiful pale, bluish
evergreen tree. In the mountains of California it becomes a mighty tree over
zoo feet high. Its bark on old trunks is very thick and broken into broad ridges.
The foliage is sometimes silvery white

Bark and wood of another Western white fir
(Abies grandis)

The Firs

Vith these noble dimensions there is a richness and symmetry
nd perfection of finish not to be found in any other tree in the
.ierras. The branches are whorled, in fives mostly, and stand
ut from the straight red-purple bole in level, or on old trees, in
Irooping collars, every branch regularly pinnated like a fern
rond, and clad with silvery needles, making broad and singularly
ich and sumptuous plumes.

The flowers are in their prime about the middle of June; the
taminate, red, growing in crowded profusion on the under side
f the branchlets, giving a rich colour to nearly all the tree; the
'istillate, greenish yellow tinged with pink, standing erect on the
pper side of the topmost branches; while the tufts of young
iaves, about as brightly coloured as those of the Douglas spruce,
ush out their fragrant brown buds a few weeks later, making
nother grand show.

"The cones mature in a single season from the flowers,
/hen full grown they are about 6 to 8 inches long, 3 to 4 inches
1 diameter, blunt, massive, cylindrical, greenish grey in colour,
Dvered with a fine silvery down, and beaded with transparent
alsam, very rich and precious looking, standing erect like casks
n the topmost branches. If possible, the inside of the cones
still more beautiful. The scales and bracts are tinged with
id and the seed wings are purple with bright iridescence/ ' —
ohn Muir.

A variety, Shastensis, Lemm., of A. magnified, is distinguished
om the type species only by the yellow bracts that protrude and
artially cover the scales of the cones. This form inhabits high
evations in the region of Mount Shasta and also occurs at the
»wer end of the Sierra Nevada range.

EwJfl.ten —

CHAPTER X: THE BIG TREE AND THE

REDWOOD

Genus SEQUOIA, Endl.

Trees of great size and age, resinous, aromatic. Leaves
evergreen, alternate, of two shapes. Flowers in solitary cones,
minute, monoecious, axillary. Fruit a pendant woody cone;
seeds 5 to 7 under each scale.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Leaves minute, ovate, usually compressed, buds naked;
fruit biennial. (S. W ellingtonia) big tree

AA. Leaves mostly linear, or lanceolate, spreading, 2-ranked;
buds scaly; fruit annual. (S. sempervirens) redwood

The Big Tree {Sequoia W ellingtonia, Seem.) — A pyramidal
tree when young, becoming round- topped ; 275 to 325 feet high;
diameter 20 to 35 feet; fluted trunk. Bark reddish brown,
fibrous, fluted; 1 to 2 feet thick. Wood red, soft, coarse, light,
weak, durable. Buds naked. Leaves ovate, acuminate, spreading
at tips, i inch long. Flowers: monoecious, terminal, conical, scaly,
profuse in late winter; staminate with broad scales and abundant
pollen; pistillate with 25 to 40 needle-tipped scales, with 3 to 7
ovules under each. Fruit dark red-brown woody cone, biennial,
2 to 3^ inches long, with thickened tips ; seeds 3 to 7 under each
scale, each 2-winged, small, light, eaten by squirrels. Preferred
habitat, rich woodlands. Distribution, narrow area on western
slope of Sierras in California. Uses: Most majestic tree in the
world. Rare and dwarfed in cultivation. Lumber used for
shingles, fencing and in general construction.

Sir Joseph Hooker and Asa Gray sat with John Muir around
a campfire on Mount Shasta, and talked about the great forests
of the Sierras they had just visited. Comparing them with Old-
World forests, they agreed upon this statement: "In the beauty
and grandeur of individual trees, and in number and variety of

The Big Tree and the Redwood

>ecies, the Sierra forests surpass all others." Conifers are supreme
these forests and among conifers Sequoia is king. Of the two
>ecies, the Big Tree, S. Wellinglonia, stands first, and the
dwood second.

The Old World has some trees of surprising girth and indefinite
je — oaks, chestnuts, sycamores, and cedars of Lebanon — each
ith its history, the pride of the country it grows in. But these
ees are derelicts — throwing out a wisp of foliage here and there,
truce to death, with each returning spring. The lime tree of
urnberg and the chestnut at the foot of Mount /Etna are each
mous; but these trees, with their tops dead and gone years before
ey were pronounced dead, their trunks honeycombed with decay,
id leaning upon props and pillars, are scarcely to be compared
ith trees, hale, lusty-crowned, whose fluted trunks are a unit,
id sound as a nut from the heart out. Granting a greater girth,
you please, to a few of these senile trees, and a greater height to
le Eucalyptus that grows in Australia, we can truthfully declare
at, excepting these, the Sequoias lead the world, past and
esent, in height and calibre. No other tree combines such
assiveness of trunk with such height. And there is no doubt
it that in age they can take rank with the oldest, for competent
ithorities estimate the age limit to be above 5,000 years. Muir *

inks that some living trees have reached that age. Stumps now
anding show 4,000 annual rings.

It would be great good fortune to visit one of the ten groves
Big Trees once a month and so get the story of the tree's life as
e year roils around. In the late winter the flowers appear,
owering the whole region with their golden dust, and tipping
e sprays with the pale green fertile flowers by thousands. The
nes that follow are small for such a tree, and each scale bears
Dm four to eight seeds at its base. Millions of them are scattered
ch year, thin, little winged discs, no larger than a baby's
umbnail, looking like half-grown elm seeds. It is incredible
at such a tree should have come from such a seed. Not only
.ve they vitality, but some store of nutriment, for the squirrels
urney up the trees and cut off the cones in order to put away for
nter the little seeds they contain. If fresh cones are falling,
>u may be sure the squirrels are at work, for the trees hold their
lpty cones for years.

It. is strange that with such profuse seed production young

The Big Tree and the Redwood

trees are so scarce in the Big Tree groves. Only in the southern
range of this species do seedling trees appear to reassure us that
the race will preserve itself, if only the three agencies of destruc-
tion, the axe, the saw and the forest fire, can be curbed.

The tourist, hurrying through the Sequoia National Park, gets
very little but an awed sense of the magnificence of these trees.
It is worth while to have had the glimpse his limited ticket per-
mits. Big stories told by friends who had been there before,
actual dimensions of noted trees, and all the guide-book extrava-
gance of description, have not prepared him for the things he
sees. He is speechless with astonishment. He walks across an
ample platform which is the flat top of a Sequoia stump. He
sleeps, perchance, in a house which is a hollow log. He rides in a
coach and four through a tunnel over which a standing trunk
arches, like a mighty occidental Colossus of Rhodes. He lifts a
fragment of bark, and it is 2 feet thick. It took three long weeks
of steady labour for two men to cut down one tree!

The living trees are green topped, but bare of limbs for two-
thirds of their great fluted trunks. Our tallest Eastern oak, with
the tallest sycamore or walnut atop of it, would not equal the
height of one of these giants. Spruces and pines of majestic port
standing around look like saplings. They are dwarfed by the
company they keep. They look up, but the Sequoias look — not
down but out, indifferent to all that is transpiring below them.
They see only the limitless reaches of the eternal sky; their meat
and drink, the sunshine and the leaf mould; their breath of life,
the unwearying winds of heaven.

There were great forests of Sequoias once in central and
northern Europe and in mid-continental North America. They
stretched away, even to the Arctic circle. This was just before
the great climatic Reconstruction Period, when magnolias flour-
ished in Greenland and all the plants and animals of the tem-
perate zone found congenial habitation in near proximity to the
North Pole. Then came the Age of Ice, and only those species
survived which were able to keep ahead of the glaciers, and estab-
lish themselves in regions not overwhelmed by the ice. The rocks
of the Tertiary Period preserve the story of these times, and in the
pages opened by the geologist's hammer, five distinct species of
Sequoia are recorded. "Pressed specimens" indeed, these fossil
trees are, two of which are identical with the California trees.

The Big Tree and the Redwood

The other three species are extinct, and America has the only sur-
vivors of the noblest race of plants the world has ever produced.
Trenches and ridges in the ground within the Sequoia belt contain
the prostrate bodies of former generations of Big Trees. They
are not found outside the range. This fact leads John Muir to
believe that the area covered by these trees has not shrunken any
since the Glacial Period — that Sequoia has held its own for 5,000
to 10,000 years.

The devastation of the Big Tree groves by lumbermen is now
checked in a few locations by Government purchase and reserva-
tion. The lumber is put to such base uses as shingles and clap-
boards and fencing which lesser trees might better supply. It is
the vast size and height of these trees, not the market value of
the lumber per board foot, that make an acre yield such enormous
profit.

Seedling Big Trees grow slowly, and do poorly in the Eastern
States. In Europe they are more successful, and are popular
everywhere. Weeping forms, which are much grown, originated
in a French nursery.

The genus takes its name from Sequoiah, a wise Cherokee
Indian, who made an alphabet of his tribal language by means
of which the New Testament and a newspaper were published for
his people.

Redwood {Sequoia sempervirens, Endl.) —Resinous, aromatic
trees, with tall, fluted trunks and short, horizontal branches;
200 to 300 feet high, 12 to 28 feet in diameter. Head small, irreg-
ular. Bark thick, red, 6 to 12 inches thick, in ridges 2 to 4 feet
wide, checked crosswise, showing brighter, close, inner layer.
Wood light, soft, brittle, close, red, easily split, durable, satiny
lustre. Buds oval, small, loosely scaly. Leaves of two forms:
lanceolate and spreading, or awl shaped and shorter; evergreen,
J to J inch long. Flowers : monoecious, in late winter, cone shaped,
scaly; staminate on erect stems, scales 3-anthered, pollen copious;
pistillate with 7 ovules on each scale. Fruit oblong, woody cone,
f to 1 inch long, scales thick and grooved at tip; 3 to 5-winged
seeds on each. Preferred habitat, moist, sandy soil. Distribution,
southern Oregon on coast range slopes to Monterey County,
California. Uses: Most valuable timber tree of Pacific coast;
successful in European gardens.

In many characters, the redwood is not different from the

The Big Tree and the Redwood

Big Tree. Its spreading leaves on the terminal twigs give it a
more graceful, feathery spray than do the awl-like blades of the
other. The pistillate flowers have fewer scales, and the buds are
scaly. The cones are smaller, and the seeds have more vitality.
The redwood is only a trifle under the Big Tree in size, sometimes
overtopping the highest of them, and reaching 400 feet. But the
trunks are not so massive, and these trees average smaller than
their cousins. In beauty the redwood is first; the lustrous leaves,
the ruddy bark, and the gracefully curving branches of trees still
in their prime will halt the passing stranger and compel his wonder
and admiration. The forests throng with young trees in every
stage of growth, showing that Nature left to herself would mul-
tiply and extend the range of this species. But the wood is beau-
tiful, and light and easily worked. It is admirable in building,
and durable beyond most woods. It receives a satiny polish,
and it lasts indefinitely in the ground.

Curly grain is common in Sequoia lumber, and this, as in
other species, is eagerly sought after by the makers of fancy fur-
niture and bric-a-brac. People want redwood, so the lumberman
is stripping the redwood forests as fast as possible. "They'll
come on again !" And it is true to some extent. The trees send
up suckers from the stumps, which the Big Trees cannot do. But
lumbering is wasteful and greedy in its methods, and more is
wasted than saved. Forest fires lick up the kindling the lum-
berman leaves, and young trees and old fall victims to this dis-
aster.

Redwoods are more easily accessible than Big Trees. They
come down to the coast and thus tempt the avarice of lumbermen.
The extent of these woods seemed great, at first. But on the map
the region is very small indeed, and immediate protective meas-
ures are demanded if any groves of big redwoods are to be saved
from the sawmill.

In cultivation the redwood has followed the Big Tree into
European gardens, and at length it has shown itself hardy and
fairly content in the Southeastern States. Near Charleston,
South Carolina, it is growing successfully.

THE BIG TREE {Sequoia Wellingtonia)

nd pines of majestic port are dwarfed to saplings by the company they keep. They look up, but the sequoias look-
owtty but out — indifferent to all that transpires below them. They regard only the limitless reaches of the eternal sky

CHAPTER XI: THE ARBOR VH7ES

Genus THUYA, Linn.

Evergreen resinous ornamental trees of slender, pyramidal
labit, with intricately branched limbs, and flat, open spray.
leaves scale-like, 4-ranked, minute, closely appressed to twigs.
^lowers solitary, terminal, small aments, monoecious, scaly.
^ruits erect, loose, ovoid cones, of few thin scales; seeds few,
isually two. Uses: trees especially adapted for formal gardens,
:lipj3ed hedges and shelter belts. Wood variously employed.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Cone with 4 fertile scales, as a rule; bark orange red.

(T. occidentalis) arbor vyvm
\A. Cone with 6 fertile scales, as a rule; bark cinnamon red.

(T. plicata) giant arbor vitve

Four distinct species of Thuya are recognised. Two are
lative to Japan and China. The Chinese T. orientalis, one of the
nost popular decorative evergreens, is cultivated especially in
iouthern gardens. It is offered in several varieties. T. Japonica
s a hardy species of lusty growth with white spots on the dark
;reen of its leaf linings. A Japanese genus, Thuyopis, with one
pecies, is one of the handsomest of Oriental evergreens introduced
nto cultivation here. It is hardy to Massachusetts, but suffers
rom drought. Its flat, frond-like spray resembles arbor vitae,
rom which the genus is distinguished by having 4 to 5 ovules
snder each scale of the cone.

Arbor Vitae {Thuya occidentalis, Linn.) — A conical, com-
>act, resinous evergreen, 25 to 65 feet high, with short, ascending
•ranches and flat, frond-like spray. BarK fight brown, thin,
racking into ridges with frayed-out, stringy edges; branches
mooth, red, shining. Wood soft, brittle, coarse, durable in the
oil, light brown, fragrant. Buds naked, very small; Leaves,
oth keeled and flat, 4-ranked, to fit the flat twig^ecale-like, blunt,

The Arbor Vitaes

or pointed, glandular, aromatic. Flowers, May, monoecious on tips
of side twigs, but separate; staminate, a globose cluster of stamens;
pistillate, a red cone of 8 to 12 scales with ovules on lower or central
ones only. Fruit oval, pale brown, erect cone, annual, with
6 to 12 oblong scales. Preferred habitat, low, swampy ground
near streams. Distribution, New Brunswick to Manitoba; Min-
nesota, Michigan and northern Illinois; south along Atlantic
States into New Jersey, along Alleghanies to North Carolina and
eastern Tennessee. Uses: Valuable ornamental and hedge tree.
Wood used for telegraph poles, posts, railroad ties and shingles.
Bark rich in tannin.

The flat leaf spray of the arbor vitae of the Northern States
sets it apart from other evergreens, and its use in hedges makes it
familiar to most people. Children as well as grown people gen-
erally know it. Unfortunately the name, white cedar, has become
attached to this tree, confusing it with another genus, Chamae-
cyparis, in which this name reappears.

Through years of cultivation this arbor vitae has produced a
great number of garden varieties. Their slow growth and com-
pact habit adapt them to use in formal gardens. They are hardy,
they submit to severe pruning and late transplanting, and they
are easily propagated from seed — these traits of character com-
mend them to nurserymen and planters. They are planted with
profit for telegraph poles and posts, as the wood, though soft, is
very durable in soil. As windbreaks they do good service, and
have unique ornamental value when massed on stream borders or
grouped on rocky slopes.

Giant Arbor Vitae, or Red Cedar {Thuya plicata, D.
Don.) — A pyramidal tree, 150 to 200 feet high, with a stout,
often corrugated and buttressed trunk. Bark scaly in narrow
strips, thin. Wood light, brittle, reddish brown, soft, coarse,
durable. Leaves minute, close, blunt, scale-like, with pale mark-
ings, longer on leading shoots. Flowers dark brown, monoecious,
very small. Fruit erect clustered cones, with 6 fertile scales, each
bearing 2 to 3 winged seeds. Preferred habitat, rocky stream
banks and rich bottomlands. Distribution, coast regions from
Cape Mendocino in California north into Alaska; mountains east
into Idaho and Montana. Uses: A handsome ornamental tree,
grown in Europe and occasionally in the Middle and North Atlantic
States. Wood used for interior finish of houses, sashes, doors,

The Arbor Vitses

furniture and cooperage. Indians use it for totem poles, frame-
work of lodges and war canoes. Inner bark furnishes fibre for
blankets, ropes and nets; sheets of it thatch their cabins.

Beside this giant of the Northwest, our Eastern arbor vitae is
a pygmy. Solitary, or in small groves, it climbs the mountains
to k level more than a mile higher than the rich river bottoms at
se%kvel, where, thg noblest specimens and the greatest number are
assembled. c The Indian cuts the biggest specimen he can find foi
the totem pole that he carves into his family tree. The war canoes
are^dugouts made of the enormous butts which often measure 1 5
feet in diameter. Inside of the cabins the great rough-hewn
rafters and joist of these primitive dwellings are of this arbor vitas,
whose soft wood the crude implements of the tribes can work with
comparative ease. The walls that enclose the Indian's house, the
blankets that keep him warm, and the ropes, indispensable in
fishing, in the harnessing of his dog teams, and in various other
enterprises — all come from the fibrous inner bark of this tree.
Truly it is a "tree of life" to the Alaskan aborigines.

In cultivation, this species far exceeds the other native in
beauty and rapidity of growth. It is coming into popularity in
the United States.

**•

CHAPTER XII; THE INCENSE CEDAR

Genus LIBOCEDRUS, Endl.

Tall, aromatic, resinous trees. Leaves scale-like, 4-ranked,
in flat sprays; Flowers monoecious, solitary, minute, terminal.
Fruit an annual cone, oblong, few-scaled.

(L. decurrens) incense cedar

This single representative of its genus in America has seven
sister species, chiefly in the Southern Hemisphere. Formosa and
southwestern China, New Zealand, New Guinea, and South Amer-
ica from Chili to Patagonia — these have their incense cedars, dis-
tinguished by the flat, frond-like spray of bright green scale
leaves. Our species is grown in parks in the neighbourhood of
Philadelphia and New York, and in protected situations about
Boston. In Europe it is often planted for ornament.

It is native to the slopes of the Cascade and other coast ranges
and the Sierra Nevada. It extends from Oregon into Lower Cali-
fornia, and reaches its best estate and greatest numbers in the
central part of California, between 5,000 and 7,000 feet above the
sea. Its lumber resembles that of arbor vitae, and is used for
furniture, fencing, lath and shingles, for interior woodwork, and
for flume building.

John Muir's description of it is most illuminating:

"The incense cedar, when full grown, is a magnificent tree,
120 to nearly 200 feet high, 5 to 8 and occasionally 12 feet in
diameter, with cinnamon-coloured bark and warm, yellow-green
foliage, and in general appearance like an arbor vitae. It is dis-
tributed through the main forest from an elevation of 3,000 to
6,000 feet, and in sheltered portions of canons on the warm sides
to 7,500 feet. In midwinter, when most trees are asleep, it puts
forth its flowers. The pistillate are pale green and inconspicuous,
but the staminate are yellow, about one-fourth of an inch long,
and are in myriads, tingeing all the branches with gold, and
making the tree as it stands in the snow look like a gigantic golden-
rod. Though scattered rather sparsely amongst its companions
in the open woods, it is seldom out of sight, and its bright brown
shaft and warm masses of plumy foliage make a striking feature

The Incense Cedar

of the landscape. While young and growing fast in an open
situation, no other tree of its size in the park forms so exactly
tapered a pyramid. The branches, outspread in flat plumes and
beautifully fronded, sweep gracefully downward and outward,
except those near the top, which aspire; the lowest droop to the
ground, overlapping one another, shedding rain and snow, and
making fine tents for storm-bound mountaineers and birds. I n old
age it becomes irregular and picturesque, mostly from accidents —
running fires, heavy wet snow breaking the branches, lightning
shattering the top, compelling it to try to make new summits out
of side branches, etc. Still it frequently lives more than a thousand
years, invincibly beautiful, and worthy its place beside the Douglas
spruce and the great pines."

CHAPTER XIII: THE CYPRESSES

Coniferous trees having pyramidal habit. Very popular
for ornamental planting. Some species have considerable lumber
value. All have light, graceful leaf spray and small, globular,
woody cones. Wood usually soft.

KEY TO GENERA

A. Leaves, minute, scaly, thick, evergreen.
B. Seeds under each cone scale many.

i. Genus Cupressus, Linn.
BB. Seeds under each cone scale i to 5.

2. Genus Cham/ECYPAris, Spach.
AA. Leaves linear, deciduous. 3. Genus Taxodium, Rich.

1. Genus CUPRESSUS, Linn.

Resinous trees with naked buds, stout, ascending branches,
which become horizontal. Leaves minute, scale-like, 4-ranked.
Flowers minute, monoecious, yellowish. Fruit biennial, globular,
woody cones.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Branchlets stout.

B. Foliage dark green. (C. macrocarpa) Monterey cypress
BB. Foliage pale green; twigs glaucous.

(C. Ari^onica) Arizona cypress
AA. Branchlets slender; foliage dark green.

B. Leaves obscurely glandular. (C. Goveniana) cypress
BB. Leaves plainly glandular. (C. Macnabiana) cypress

Monterey Cypress {Cupressus macrocarpa, Gord.) — A broad
pyramidal tree when young, 40 to 75 feet high, becoming gnarled
and flat topped when old. Trunk short, 3 to 6 feet thick. Bark
brown to pale grey, broken into irregular ridges, covered with elon-
gated, persistent scales. Wood brown, hard, strong, heavy,
durable, fine grained. Leaves ovate, minute, closely appressed
to twigs. Flowers minute, monoecious, separated, terminal, yel-
low. Fruit clustered, erect, globular cones, of few woody scales,

The Cypresses

seeds 1 8 to 20 under each middle scale. Preferred habitat, exposed
coast bluffs. Distribution, around Bay of Monterey, California.
Uses: Planted for windbreaks and hedges, and for ornament.

The Pacific coast forests thrill the heart of the Easterner,
unless that heart be petrified by commercialism. Even then, the
thrill is there, though it be a materialistic vibration, accompanied
by a mental estimate in terms of board feet. The thrill changes
from wonder to pity as the tree lover looks upon that small remnant
of its race, the Monterey cypresses, that cling to the wind-beaten
promontories about Monterey Bay. They look like battle-scarred
veterans making a stubborn though hopeless stand in the last
ditch. And that, literally, is the state of their fortunes. Wide
as their gnarled roots range for foothold, the crumbling bluffs are
gradually undermined by the waves, and one by one those in the
front rank go down. The hungry waves will never give up the
siege, and the last of the trees in their native soil will in time be
swept out of existence.

Fortunately the species is hardy and happy in cultivation
ar from its native land. It is known in several horticultural
brms as well as the type species in temperate South America,
Australia and New Zealand. In southern and western Europe
t is in great favour, and at home it is planted very generally for
trnament and for hedges up and down the Pacific coast. Lately
t is coming into use in the Southeastern States. Hence, the tree
5 saved to a larger life by man's intervention, although Nature
uthlessly lets extermination overtake it in the struggle for exist-
nce. It is to be hoped that age will bring these cultivated
vpresses to something like the picturesque habit that distin-
uishes the trees that grow wild. No pine of the Alps ever took
1 such grotesqueness as marks the Monterey cypresses.

The Cypresses of Monterey

Staunch derelicts adrift on Time's wide sea,

Undaunted exiles from an age pristine!
Your loneliness in tortured limb we see;

Your courage in your crown of living green;
Your strength unyielding, in your grappling knee;

Your patience in the calmness of your mien.
Enrapt, you stand in mighty reverie,

While centuries come and go, unheard, unseen.

— Anna Botsjord Comstock,

The Cypresses

The Arizona Cypress (C. Ari%onica, Greene) extends as a
small or medium-sized tree of pyramidal habit from Arizona into
California and Mexico. Forests of it are found at 5,000 to 6,000
feet elevation. The trees are occasionally broad with flattened
tops. The leaves are pale green, and a glaucous bloom covers
them after the first year of growth. The cones are also glaucous,
and each thick scale has a sharp beak at the top. The tree is rare
in cultivation, and as yet has no importance in the lumber trade.

The Cypress (C. Goveniana, Gord.), of central and southern
California coast mountains, has dark green foliage on spreading
branches that form a loose, open head. The tree is not at all rare
within its range, but varies from a shrub to a tree 50 feet high.
Horticultural forms, usually dwarfs, are cultivated.

The Macnab Cypress (C. Macndbiana, Murr.), also a Cali-
fornian limited to the northern mountainous part of the state, is a
small spreading tree, rarely 30 feet high, often with many stems.
Its leaves are dark green, sometimes whitened by a glaucous
bloom, always distinctly set with glands. In cultivation the tree
is the hardiest of the genus, although restricted to California and
the Gulf States in this country and to the warmer parts of Europe.

The classic Cypress (C. sempervirens, Linn.) of the Old
World gives distinction to Italian gardens to-day, and as the
symbol of mourning has been planted in the burial places of Europe
from the earliest recorded times. It is mentioned more fre-
quently in classical literature than any other conifer.* Its som-
bre foliage was the badge of grief. It is one of the trees noted for
longevity; its age limit is estimated at 3,000 years. Not hardy
in our Northern States, it is cultivated in the South and in Cali-
fornia. The species submits to severe pruning, so it is often
planted for hedges.

2. Genus CHAMiECYPARIS, Spach.

Trees of tall, narrow pyramidal habit, with short, spreading
side branches, and flat branchlets spray. Wood pale, fragrant,
durable. Leaves scale-like, sharp, opposite in pairs. Flowers
monoecious, minute, globular, lateral. Fruit annual, erect,
globular cones of few woody scales; seeds 1 to 5 under each fertile
scale.

*" Nor, when you die, shall any of the trees you have planted, save only the mournful cypresses,
follow their master." — Horace.

THE MONTEREY CYPRESS (Cupressus macrocarpa)

:mnant of their race are the aged, flat-topped veteran cypresses that cling with gnarled and far-reaching roots

lg soil of rocky promontories about Monterey Bay in California. The leaves are minute, but the foliage mass is

a sombre shade. In cultivation the species thrives, and makes a beautiful hedge tree and ornamental evergreen

The Cypresses

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Bark of tree thin; ridges flat; leaves blue-green.
B. Twigs slender; leaves dull, glandular.

(C. ihyoides) white cedar
BB. Twigs stout; leaves bright, not glandular.

(C. Nootkatensis) sitka cypress
AA. Bark of tree thick; ridges rounded, leaves bright green,
glandular. (C. Lawsoniana) lawson cypress

This genus of six species is distributed in North America and
Japan and on the Island of Formosa.

White Cedar (Chamcecyparis ihyoides, Britt.) — A fast-
growing, pyramidal tree, 40 to 80 feet high, with flat, graceful spray
on erect, spreading branches. Bark pale, reddish brown, furrowed,
stringy, often terminal. Wood light reddish brown, soft, light,
weak^ aromatic, close grained, easily worked, very durable in soil.
Buds naked, very small. Leaves dull blue-green, minute, scale-
like, opposite, 4-ranked, lateral pairs keeled, others concave, fitting
compressed twigs. Flowers, April, monoecious, small, terminal,
made of 4 to 6 scales; staminate red or yellow, abundant; pistil-
late few, greenish. Fruit woody, spherical cone, \ inch in diame-
ter, annual, glaucous, blue-green, becoming brown; scales with
beak in centre; seeds winged, 1 to 2 under each scale. Preferred
habitat, deep swamps near seacoast. Distribution, seaboard states,
Maine to Mississippi. Uses: Important ornamental evergreen.
Wood used for interior finish of houses, for boats, fence posts, rail-
road ties, buckets, barrels, shingles, and small woodenware.

The Atlantic seaboard from Massachusetts Bay south has a
cypress whose common name, "white cedar/' is unfortunate.
There ought to be distinct names enough to go around. All the
species of a genus ought to have the same generic name in English
as well as in Latin or Greek. However, white cedar is the trade
name of the lumber, and there is little chance that the cedar mud-
dle will be cleared by calling this tree a cypress.

The tree is a lover of swamps and doesn't get far back from
the coast. In cultivation it thrives in any sandy loam, if not too
dry. It is lumbered to some extent and devoted to uses that test
its durability in contact with water and exposure to sun and wind.

The Sitka Cypress (C Nootkatensis, Lamb.) grows over
100 feet tall, with a trunk over 5 feet through, near the coast of
Alaska. Its yellow branchlets lighten the gloom of its blue-green

The Cypresses

foliage, and the treetop is warmed by the ruddy colour of the
oldest leaves, which remain for some time on the tree after they
are dead. The range of the species is from Alaska into Oregon,
climbing the mountains to the altitude of 3,000 feet, where the
tree is reduced to a shrub.

The hard wood is very close of texture and pale yellow. It
is durable and pleasantly aromatic. Carpenters employ it in the
interior finishing of houses. It is made into furniture, and used
in boat building.

Horticultural forms of this species are astonishingly numerous.
Sudworth gives sixty-eight varieties in his "Check List."

Lawson Cypress (Chamcecyparis Lawsoniana, A. Murr.) —
A spire-like tree, 1 50 to 200 feet high, with short horizontal branches
ending in a flat spray. Bark very thick, with rounded scaly
ridges, dark red. Wood hard, light, strong, pale yellow, close
grained, resinous, fragrant, easily worked. Leaves minute, bright
green, in opposite pairs. Flowers: minute, numerous; staminate
bright red; pistillate dark coloured. Fruit clustered cones, pea
sized, of few scales; seeds 2 to 4 under each scale. Preferred
habitat, mountain slopes. Distribution, coast mountains of Oregon
and California. Uses: A valuable ornamental tree. Wood used
in house finishing, flooring, and in boat building and for railroad
ties and fence posts. Matches are made of it.

Somewhat of the beauty of those Western cypresses can be
appreciated by looking in gardens and nurseries at the multitude
of varieties of each of them in cultivation in this country and
abroad. In their own country the parents of these precocious
ornamental offspring are to be seen. No horticultural substitute
for the original will suffice the tree lover. To go to Oregon is his
fondly cherished plan. To see that twenty-mile forest belt of
Lawson cypresses that stretches from Point Gregory to the mouth
of the Coquille River — only this will satisfy. There are men who
name as "the handsomest of the conifers" trees outside of this
genus, but the visitor to this splendid grove of Lawson cypresses
will be inclined to deny it. It is hard to keep to a sliding scale
and avoid superlatives in judging those Western trees.

The Japanese Retinosporas, beautiful evergreen of this type,
widely cultivated in many horticultural forms, were assigned to a
separate genus by Siebold and Zuccarini, but other authorities
consider them all to be juvenile forms of the genus Chamsecyparis,

100

The Cypresses

Thuya. These evergreens have in youth different foliage from
at of the adult trees — a sufficient reason for confusion, especially
fore the trees bear cones. Whatever botanical affinities are
entually established, the trade name will probably remain
;tinospora, and people will plant these handsome evergreens in
:reasirig numbers. In his Manual, 1905, Professor Sargent
:ludes two Japanese Retinosporas in the genus Chamaecyparis.

3. Genus TAXODIUM, Rich.

The bald cypress has two sister species in the genus Taxodium.
le, a shrub, is native to China; the other, a large tree, to Mexico,
•rests of bald cypresses covered large areas of Europe and central
)rth America during the Tertiary Period, but they perished in
2 Glacial Era. The rocks tell the story.

Bald cypresses rank among the oldest and largest trees in the
>rld. The Mexican species, T. mucronatum, is estimated to live
>oo years. The far-famed "Cypress of Montezuma/' in Che-
Itepec, is nearly 200 feet high and its trunk has a diameter of 1 5
:t. It is believed to be less than 800 years old — a tree still in
1 vigour of youth. The largest trunk known in this species is
feet in diameter at base. Beside this giant our own bald
press seems small and short lived, but among our native trees
ranks high in size and age.

Bald Cypress {Taxodium distichum, Rich.) — A tall pyra-
dal tree, 75 to 1 50 feet high, with pendulous branches, becoming
)ad and round headed when old. Trunk lcbed above, strongly
ttressed and usually hollow at the base. Roots long, horizontal,
:h vertical anchor roots. Bark pale reddish grey, scaly, divided
shallow fissures. Wood soft, light, brown, easily worked,
rable. Buds minute, globular, scaly, silvery. Leaves decid-
es with the branchlets linear, i to J inch long, 2-ranked,
eading or scale-like, closely appressed. Flowers: monoecious,
all; staminate in loose, drooping panicles, 4 to 6 inches long;
tillate globose, scaly, scattered near ends of twigs. Fruit
lual, globular, woody cones, in pairs or solitary, 1 inch in
meter; seeds winged, 2 under each scale. Preferred habitat,
imps of coast or river bottoms. Distribution, Delaware to
>rida; west into Texas; north along Mississippi to Missouri,
iiana and Illinois. Uses: Lumber for buildings, doors, shingles.

101

The Cypresses

cooperage, fencing and railroad ties. Planted as an ornamental
tree in Northern States and in Europe.

Familiar to the traveller through our Eastern and South-
ern seaboard regions are the cypress swamps, dismal, but pic-
turesque withal, and exhibiting characteristics that set this tree
quite apart from others. A conifer is ordinarily an evergreen
tree. This one establishes its family claims by the brave array of
button-like cones it ripens every autumn. But it is deciduous,
shedding not only its yew-like leaves, but, surprisingly, most of
the little twigs also that bear the leaves. So the winter finds the
trees bare and dead looking, the tall, corrugated trunks of old ones
often supporting heads as broad as the height, and hopelessly
unsymmetrical. In the soft muck of deep swamps the trees
spread out abruptly at the base into flying buttresses, each becom-
ing hollow in course of time, as the base of the trunk is long before.
Out on all sides stretch long, thick roots whose branches go down
and anchor the tree, while the main ones seem designed to balance
it on its uncertain foundation. The "knees" that rise up at inter-
vals from the main roots and are distinguished from stumps by
their smooth, conical shapes, are still a physiological puzzle.
Many people believe that they gather air for the submerged root
system. Others declare that they strengthen it. The cypresses
keep their secrets from the prying investigator, and the solemn
cormorants that build in the treetops will never tell.

I shall not forget an excursion on foot into one of the large
bald cypress swamps of southern Florida in May. The dangerous
part of the jaunt was the passage forced through a jungle of young
pines, palmettoes and scrubby live oaks interlaced with wiry vines
and creepers. Here rattlesnakes hide, and show fight when dis-
turbed. Emerging at length into comparatively open timber,
we stood surrounded by young cypresses with pale grey trunks,
smooth, slender, and flaring widely at the bases. Among the
trunks were stumps, and also knees, the latter smooth, as if the
fibres went up one side and on down the other. Overhead was a
feathery canopy of pale sage-green leaves. On rugged old trunks
air plants found ample roothold. Orchids of sorts I had admired
afar off in florists' windows held out great cataracts of bloom which
were ours for the plucking. Vivid amaryllis flowers were similarly
growing out of the trunks of these trees, with delicate ferns to
keep them company. Under foot, the dry, sandy soil bore a crop

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THE BALD CYPRESS {Taxodium distichum)
The base of the trunk flares abruptly into lobed buttresses. Pointed "knees" rise from the long horizontal rootej

trees. They are supposed to be means of aeration to the inundated roots,
swamps are found in the maritime regions of the Southeastern states

The leafy, lateral twigs are deciduous. Cypi|

The Cypresses

rf unfamiliar flowers. The rainy season which opens in May
nundates this land for fully half of the year.

The wood of bald cypress is very important in the lumber
rade, being soft, handsome, easily worked and durable in water
nd in the soil. Buckets and bowls are made by hollowing out
nees of suitable sizes.

Lover though it be of Southern swamps, yet there is no hand-
omer spire of living green in any Northern upland park than this
ame bald cypress. In its early years the tree is perfectly sym-
letrical, trim and beautiful in the feathery lightness of its leafy
pray. The roots keep out of sight and there is no hint of the out-
mdish hollow buttresses and bare knees that characterise the
ree at home. Among strangers, the bald cypress puts on its best
lanners; there is no more conventional and fastidious tree in the
ark. The tree is cultivated also in a number of varieties, some
warfs, some weeping forms, others of stricter spire forms that
:nd themselves to formal effects in gardens. The heads of cypress
ees grow broad in moist soil, and assume narrower form in soil
ith scant moisture supply.

103

CHAPTER XIV: THE JUNIPERS

Genus JUNIPERUS, Linn.

Evergreen trees or shrubs with pungent sap, thin, ragged
bark", and short, much-divided ascending branches. Leaves usually
of two kinds, linear, spiny, free, in whorls of 3 at each joint, or
scale-like, blunt, in pairs, 2-ranked, opposite, and closely appressed
to twigs. Flowers in small, inconspicuous aments, dioecious or
rarely monoecious. Fruit berry-like, by coalescence of fleshy
scales; seeds 1 to 6, wingless, bony. Wood soft, close grained,
durable.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Leaves free, 3 in a whorl, awl shaped, spiny ; flowers axillary;
berry bright blue with pale bloom; seeds 3.

(/. communis) dwarf juniper
AA. Leaves appressed to twig, in threes or opposite, scale-like,
minute; flowers terminal; berry brown or dark blue;
seeds 1 to 12.
B. Berry large, brownish red, with dry, sweet flesh.
C. Seeds few or solitary.

D. Fruit oblong, 1 to 2-seeded; leaves in threes;
twigs stout. (/. Calif ornica) California juniper
DD. Fruit round, 1 -seeded; leaves in twos or threes;

twigs slender. (/. Utahensis) utah juniper
CC. Seeds 4 to 12; berry with tubercles projecting.
D. Bark shed in thin, red, papery scales.

(J. fiaccida) drooping juniper
DD. Bark shed in squarish plates.

(y. pachyphlcea) checker-barked juniper
BB. Berry small (except occidentalis) , dark blue or black,
resinous, juicy; seeds 1 to 4.
C. Twigs slender, pendulous.

D. Seed solitary, dark ashy grey.

(J. monosperma) one-seeded juniper
DD. Seeds 2; berry flattened, f inch in diameier;
bark light reddish brown; twigs 4-angled.

(J. Barbadewsis) southern red juniper
DDD. Seeds 1 to 4; berry round: bark brownish red, of
loose scales. (J. sabmoides) mountain juniper
104

The Junipers

CC. Twigs slender, stiff, erect; berry bright blue.

(/. scopulorum) rocky mountain juniper
CCC. Twigs stout; berry dark blue with pale bloom;
seeds 2 to 3.
D. Leaves in threes, grey-green ; tree a broad, low
crown of large horizontal branches.

(/. occidentalis) western juniper
DD. Leaves in twos, blue-green; tree a tall, narrow
pyramid.

(/• Virginiana) red juniper — red cedar

The junipers are distinguished from most other evergreens
by the fact that they are not cone bearers. The flowers are incon-
spicuous, and similar to a true conifer's, but in course of develop-
ment the scales thicken and grow together, forming a sweet,
berry-like fruit. On many of these berries the tips of the cone
scales may be distinctly seen on the outer surface. Junipers
usually show two kinds of leaves: (1) stiff, spiny, narrow ones,
channelled and free; (2) minute, scale-like ones, opposite in
pairs and pressed close to the twig. The sap is resinous and
aromatic. The wood is hard, reddish, durable and light — in
certain species pleasantly fragrant.

Thirty-five species of junipers are distributed over the North-
ern Hemisphere, contributing to the wealth of the world valuable
wools and ornamental trees and shrubs. Our own red juniper
has over thirty cultivated varieties. The narrow, tapering spire,
the globe of compact green and the pigmy forms — all are well
adapted to formal gardening. The effects produced by the
classic cypress in warmer climates may be reproduced in Northern
gardens by the use of junipers.

The junipers are hardy over wide stretches of territory, and
will grow on sterile soil. They resist unfavourable climates and
thrive, as a rule, when transplanted. They love the sun and the
wind. Better trees could not be provided for windbreaks against
sea breezes, on a barren, exposed coast. They are multiplied by
seeds, cuttings and layers, as well as by grafting. Seeds take
two or three years to germinate.

Several Asiatic and European junipers are cultivated in
America in various horticultural forms. Naturally, a tribe so
submissive to the gardener's shears has long been under his care.
Our native-Species are often seen in European gardens, and J. com-
munis, Linn., of Europe is often planted here in its narrow, spiny

105

The Junipers

form. A much-prized Himalayan species, J. recurva, D. Don.,
is a dwarf with long, spreading or trailing limbs. Of similar habit
is y. Sabina, Linn., native of Europe and Asia, parent of many
horticultural forms.

Dwarf Juniper (Juniperus communis, Linn.) — Shrub of
sprawling habit, or small tree 20 to 30 feet, with short trunk and
irregular, open head of erect branches. Bark loosely scaly, thin,
reddish brown. Wood hard, fine textured, light brown, durable
in soil. Buds loosely scaly, small, pointed. Leaves in threes,
boat shaped, lined with a white bloom on the concave (upper)
side, spiny, spreading, dark green, shiny below; J to \ inch long;
in winter, bronze green; persistent for many years. Flowers
monoecious, axillary, in cone-like aments. Fruits ripe third
autumn; berries bright blue with pale bloom, flesh mealy, soft;
seeds 1 to 3. Prejerred habitat, dry limestone hills; waste land.
Distribution, Greenland to Alaska; south to Pennsylvania and
Nebraska, in Rocky Mountains as far south as Texas, New Mexico
and Arizona; Alaska to northern California. Uses: Planted for
hedges, windbreaks and as a cover for waste land on seashore.
Berries used to flavour gin.

This indefatigable little tree colonist has not only settled in
most of the colder parts of this country, but it is found in the
Eastern Hemisphere from the broad stretches of the North even
to the mountains of southern Europe, northern Africa and the
Himalayas. In America it assumes a definite tree habit only in
southern Illinois. It would seem as if the limestone of these
uplands gave the procumbent, incapable sprawler backbone
enough to stand up and take its place among trees. In another
particular this species lacks energy; it requires three years to ripen
a crop of berries.

Out of /. communis has sprung a race of low junipers — impor-
tant horticultural varieties, including graceful weeping forms,
compact globose ones, some spire-like and some with golden foliage.
The Irish juniper, one of the most popular varieties, has a tapering
habit, very narrow, like a miniature Lombardy poplar. J. com-
munis is the only species whose leaves are spreading throughout.
On the remaining ten native species the leaves are minute and
closely appressed to the stem, except a few whose new shoots
imitate the dwarf juniper. In Europe, much more than in Amer-
ica, the berries are gathered and consumed in the making of gin.

106

The Junipers

rom time immemorial the flavour of the juniper berry has been
le sine qua non to quality in this beverage.

California Juniper (juniperus Californica, Carr.) — Conical
r broad and open-headed tree, 20 to 40 feet high, with irregular,
uted trunk and twisted limbs. Bark thin, pale grey, hanging
1 loose plate-like scales. Wood soft, fine grained, reddish brown,
urable in soil. Leaves in threes, on older twigs, thick keeled,
it close to twig, pale yellow-green; on new shoots, linear, pale
ned, spiny, spreading. Flowers, January to March, monoecious,
1 scaly aments. Fruits ripe second season, oblong or round, \ to f
ich long, brown, with pale bloom; seeds 1 to 2, large. Preferred
abitat, dry plains and slopes of mountains. Distribution, coast
lountains from the lower Sacramento Valley to Lower California;
ast into Sierra Nevada. Uses: Wood for posts and for fuel,
ruit eaten by Indians. Locally planted to some extent on semi-
rid land.

The Utah Juniper {Juniper Utqhensis. Lemm.) takes the
lace of the California species in the arid regions between the Sierra
levada and the Rocky Mountains. It is called the desert juniper,
: gnarled like its Western relative, and has much the same habit,
lough its round berry, with a solitary seed, and its slender twigs
istinguish it. This little tree serves the settler and the Indian
1st as the California species does.

The Drooping Juniper (Juniperus flaccida, Schlecht.) has
)ng, flexible branchlets that give it grace beyond the portion
Hotted to its kindred. The bark of this little tree is bright cin-
amon and is shed in papery scales. It is a pity that this dainty
jniper, which is met in gardens of Algiers and in the south of
ranee, should be unknown to horticulture in its own country,
t wastes its beauty on uninhabited slopes of the Chisos Mountains
1 southwestern Texas, and is common at high altitudes across
ie Mexican border.

The Checker-barked Juniper (Juniperus pachyphlcea, Torr.)
Iso inhabits southwestern Texas, following arid slopes between
,000 and 6,000 feet in altitude, and invading New Mexico, Arizona,
nd Mexico. It is a considerable tree, 40 to 60 feet high, with
hort, stout trunk and broad, horizontal spread of limb — a lusty
ree to be produced on arid soil. The peculiar checkered bark
ives it distinction in the genus. It is often 3 to 4 inches in thick-
ess, and the regularity of the deep, vertical furrowing seems

107

The Junipers

strikingly artificial. The tree is called "alligator juniper" in Ari-
zona. The thickness of the bark is exceptional among junipers.

The Indians gather the fruits, which are large and copiously
borne by mature trees, and put them away for winter. Though
resinous in taste, the cake made out of these berries ground into
meal is by no means unpalatable to white folks. Baked in the
sun, it is light, sweet and easily digested. The large and plentiful
berries of the other mountain junipers are used in the same way.

The One-seeded Juniper (Juniperus monosperma, Sarg.) is
easily distinguished by its ashy grey bark in seasons where the
berry is not there to tell the tale. This thin bark is stripped into
its fibres and woven into cloth and mats by Indians. Girths of
their saddles are woven of it. The berries also furnish food.

The tree grows to 50 feet high, with a strongly buttressed
trunk 8 or 10 feet in girth. The limbs are short, with clustering
grey-green foliage of the minute, scale-like sort. This is a tree of
the mountain slope or the high plateau, ranging from Colorado
to Texas, and west to Arizona, forming forests in southern Colorado
and Utah. Fencing and fuel consume some wood each year.

The Rock Cedar (Juniperus sabinoides, Nees.) is a consider-
able tree in the lowlands of the central counties of Texas, but
dwindles in size as it ascends the mountains and arid regions to
the west and south. This tree has distinctly quadrangular twigs
by the paired, opposite arrangement of its strongly keeled leaves.
The foliage mass is loose and irregular, with a dark blue-green cast.
Young shoots bear linear, free, spiny leaves J inch long. The
bark is reticulated by an intricate network of furrows leaving flat
plates between. This juniper furnishes much fuel as well as a
considerable supply of fence posts, railroad ties and telegraph poles
in a region where wood is not plenty.

^^Red Juniper, Red Cedar (Juniperus Virginiana, Linn.) —
Conical tree, compact when young, becoming loose and cylindrical
or irregular when old; from a shrub to a tree 100 feet high and 5
feet trunk diameter; branches short, slender, ascending, becoming
horizontal. Bark red, stringy, persistent; branches smooth.
Wood soft, weak, close grained, red, fragrant. Buds minute,
green. Leaves opposite, on old stems, 4-ranked; scale-like, blue-
green, closely appressed to twigs, which seem 4-angled; on new
shoots, scattered, spiny, loose, awLshaged, \ to f inch long, pale
yellow-green. Flowers in April, May; terminal on side twigs,

108

The Junipers

dioecious, rarely monoecious ; staminate of 4 to 6 scales, each bear-
ing several pollen sacs; pistillate of minute, paired, bluish, fleshy
scales, bearing two ovules. Fruit a blue, glaucous berry, the size
of a pea, ripening the first or second season and containing 1 to 4
seeds; flesh sweet, resinous. Preferred habitat, dry soil or peaty
swamps. Distribution, east of the Rocky Mountains. Uses:
Wood used largely for pails, pencils, chests and closets, sills and
interior finishing, railroad ties and fence posts.

It is unfortunate that, whereas the true cedars are all in the
Old- World genus Cedrus, the American genera, Thuya, Libocedrus,
Chamaecyparis and Juniperus, each have one or more species to
which the name is loosely applied. It would take a long while
to unlearn the name "red cedar" for this familiar tree — to write
with a juniper pencil; to put furs and woollens away in moth-
discouraging juniper chests. So hard it is to break a habit. The
logical tning is to call this tree a juniper, as well as the other
species of Juniperus, and so far reduce the confusion involved now
every time the word cedar is mentioned.

This vagabond tree, familiar in abandoned farms and ragged
fence rows of New England, is the same that grows from Nova
Scotia to Georgia, and west to where the hills lift and the arid ridges
become the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. A stunted tree
covering the limestone plateaus of Tennessee, it is a towering
pyramid of luxuriant green in the lower Mississippi Valley. Sea-
snores of the East and South, and sterile soil on foothills of
Eastern mountains, all show these scattered trees, small and
bushy, or tall and compact. The berries are borne in profusion
and are distributed by birds.

The leaves are 2-ranked, spiny, channelled, lined with white
on new shoots and on young trees. The older parts of twigs
show closely appressed scale-like leaves. Both types are found
on every tree. In winter a rusty brown comes over the dark blue-
green of the foliage mass, but spring revivifies it.

The trunks are columnar and corrugated; they bare them-
selves by shedding the stringy brown bark in longitudinal strips.
In lower Pennsylvania this is a shade tree of considerable popular-
ity. It forms windbreaks in exposed situations, on the coast or
inland, where most trees fail. The tree is planted profitably for
posts and railroad ties in the Mississippi Valley States. Where
trees can be had large enough for telegraph or telephone poles

109

The Junipers

they command the highest prices, for the wood is one of the most
durable. The Fabers have for generations maintained their own
forests of this species in Germany to supply their pencil factories.
An interesting "fruit" of the red juniper, much larger and
more luscious looking than the diminutive berries, is familiar to
boys and girls under the name "cedar apple." A remarkable
thing about these pulpy, jelly-like masses, with their yellow spurs,
is that they come out on the twigs as suddenly as mushrooms.
Still more astonishing is the fact that this parasitic fungus that
makes itself at home on the red cedar utterly ignores all red cedars
when its spores are germinating to produce the next generation.
Only those that fall on apple trees live. They do not produce
"apples" of any sort, but patches of yellow "apple rust" on leaves
and fruit. Spores wafted away from these blotches germinate
only when they fall on twigs of red cedar. They grow inside, and
at fruiting time throw out the gelatinous cedar-apple mass whose
spurs contain the spores.
0 This capricious "alternation of generations" is interestingly

seen in wheat rust, whose alternate host is the common barberry.
A third rust goes from birches to poplars and back again to birches
each alternate year.

The Red Juniper of the South (Juniperus Barbadensis,
Linn.) has long been considered by good authorities a variety of the
preceding species. It furnishes the highest grade of "red cedar"
for pencils. Western Florida has many swampy forests of these
trees. The Fabers, of pencil fame, own vast tracts here. The
West Indies and the Gulf States all contribute a considerable
quantity to commerce each year. Growing naturally in swamps
like the bald cypress, yet it thrives when planted in parks and
cemeteries. It is the most beautiful of the junipers in cultivation.
Its slender, spreading branches clothed with pendulous twigs,
give unusual grace to the tree habit. The berries are silvery white
and abundant. Its susceptibility to frost confines this tree's range
to the Southern States.

/^The Rocky Mountain Juniper (Juniperus scopulorum, Sarg.)
has stout twigs and limbs, usually a short trunk with several
main limbs carrying the top. Its foliage is often pale grey-green
— a fashionable colour on the Western plains and foothills. It
climbs to elevations of over 5,000 feet, and few soils are too poor
and too arid to support it. It follows the Rocky Mountains from

The Junipers

lberta to Texas on the eastern slopes; on the western slopes it
iters Washington, Oregon and California.

The larger fruit, requiring two years to ripen, the broader
*ad, the stouter branches and twigs, the paler foliage, and the
ireddy bark distinguish this species from the true red juniper,
hich meets it on the hither boundaries of the Rockies, and from
hich it was but recently separated by botanists.

Western Juniper (Juniperus occidentalis, Hook.) — Low,
•oad-headed tree, 20 to 65 feet high, with unusually thick trunk
id stout, horizontal branches. Bark J inch thick, bright crimson-
d, in broad, scaly ridges, with shallow irregular interlacing fur-
ws. Wood soft, light, pale reddish brown, fine grained, very
irable in the soil. Leaves in threes, minute, closely appressed
twigs, grey-green, tapering, sharp pointed. Flowers cone-like,
bnoecious, inconspicuous. Fruit a blue-black berry with pale
00m, J to J inch long; seeds 2 to 3. Preferred habitat, mountain
ies and elevated plains, 6,000 to 10,000 feet. Distribution,
astern Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California, following the
erra Nevada Mountains to the San Bernardino range. Uses: m

bod for fencing and fuel. Bark woven into mats and cloth by
dians. Fruit an important article of food among California
ibes.

Here is one of the patriarchal trees of America — one whose
;e ranks it with the Sequoias, dating the birth of the oldest back,
suredly, more than 2,000 years. It is impossible to find a giant
th trunk sound to the core and telling the whole story in its
nual rings. John Muir is probably the only man who has made
rious inquiry into this matter. On the bleak ridges of the
srras, with no soil but crumbs of disintegrating granite, these
ies make scarcely any gain from year to year. Two of Muir's
iasurements are given below, the years being determined by the
mber of annual rings.

Diameter of Trunk Age

feet 1 1 inches 1 ,140 years

:oot 7$ inches . 834 years

ing a poet as well as a scientist, John Muir was deterred from
* killing of one of the elders, merely to appease his curiosity,
side, dry rot and scars of ancient hurts confuse the reader of
:e rings, and throw him upon estimates, after all. The difficulties

The Junipers

of chopping down a tree i o feet in diameter would discourage the
most ardent searcher after treasures of fact hid in a tree trunk. A
chip a foot deep chopped out of a medium-sized tree — 6 feet in
diameter — showed an average of fifty-seven years of growth
required to make an inch of wood. On soil deposited in the high
valleys by glacial rivers these junipers grow about as fast as oaks.
They are the well-fed, commonplace members of the family,
growing tall and straight under favouring skies.

I cannot forbear a quotation from John Muir's "Forests of
the Yosemite Park/' for he knows these mountain trees person-
ally, and has interpreted them to the world as no other man
has done:

"The sturdy storm-enduring red cedar (Juniperus occi-
dentals) delights to dwell on the tops of granite domes and ridges
and glacier pavements of the upper pine belt, at an elevation of
7,000 to 10,000 feet, where it can get plenty of sunshine and
snow and elbow room, without encountering quick-growing,
overshadowing rivals. They never make anything like a forest,
seldom come together even in groves, but stand out separate
and independent in the wind, clinging by slight joints to the
rock, living chiefly on snow and thin air, and maintaining tough
health on this diet for 2,000 years or more, every feature and
gesture expressing steadfast, dogged endurance. . . . Many
are mere stumps as broad as high, broken by avalanches and
lightning, picturesquely tufted with dense grey scale-like foliage,
and giving no hint of aying. . . . Barring accidents, for all I
can see, they would live forever. When killed, they waste out of
existence about as slowly as granite. Even when overthrown
by avalanches, after standing so long, they refuse to lie at rest,
leaning stubbornly on their big elbows as if anxious to rise, and
while a single root holds to the rocks, putting forth fresh leaves
with a grim never-say-die and never-lie-down expression."

112

CHAPTER XV: THE TORREYAS

Family Taxace/E

Genus TUMION, Raf.

Ornamental evergreens, with spreading, usually whorled
ches and ill-smelling sap. Leaves 2-ranked, linear, with paler
*s. .Flowers dioecious (rarely monoecious), scaly at base.
t like a plum; seed large, solitary. Wood hard, durable,
g, close grained.

KEY TO SPECIES

Leaves linear; branches spreading, pendulous.

B. Length of leaves J to ij inches, bark brown, tinged
with orange; fruit dark purple, obovate, i to \\
inches long. (T. taxi folium) Florida torreya

B. Length of leaves J to \ inch, bark brownish grey;
fruit pale green, streaked with purple, oval, i to \\
inches long. (7\ Californica) California torreya

Leaves lanceolate, spiny pointed; branches spreading,
compact; bark bright red; fruit ovoid, less than i inch
long. (Exotic.) (7\ nucifera) Japanese torreya

The Torreyas, close relatives of the yews, are yet little known
de their native ranges, though they are coming into cultiva-
ln the warmer parts of the country. They are objectionable
on account of the bad odour of their leaves when bruised,
tree habit is symmetrically pyramidal, the whorled limbs
ulous, and the foliage handsome. The trees furnish some
posts. The wood is very durable in wet soil, which is their
>n habitat.

Torreyas are propagated from seeds and by cuttings. The
- grow slowly, producing plants that remain low and bushy
ears. The Florida species has proved hardy in sheltered
tions as far north as Boston, but the Californian cannot sur-
the cold of this high latitude.

113

The Tcrreyas

The Japanese Torreya promises more hardiness than our
native species, and more beauty in cultivation. In habit it is
compact with erect limbs, quite different from the pendulous-
limbed natives. The bright red bark adds to its beauty, as also
does the breadth and fine shape of the lanceolate leaves. In Japan
this tree is highly prized for its wood, which is used in cabinet
work and building. A Chinese species, T. grandis, resembling the
Japanese, is said to lack the disagreeable odour of the other
species.

The Florida Torreya (7\ taxi folium, Greene) is very local in
the northwestern part of that state, growing on bluffs along the
Appalachicola River. It is rarely 40 feet high, and is called the
"stinking cedar."

The California Nutmeg (T. Californicum, Greene) is a
larger tree, handsome in its youthful vigour, in age losing its
pyramidal form and becoming round- topped. It is a striking
evergreen at any age, with its pale grey bark and its fruits hanging
like half-ripe plums among the sprays of prickly, sickle-shaped,
linear leaves. The pit of the fruit resembles a nutmeg. A fine
grove of these trees is within the borders of the Yosemite Park.
Nowhere common, they occur on slopes of the Sierras and Santa
Cruz Mountains between 3,000 and 5,000 feet above sea level.

114

CHAPTER XVI: THE YEWS

Family Taxace/e
Genus TAXUS, Linn.

Evergreen trees and shrubs, with spreading, horizontal
anches, and purple, scaly bark. Leaves linear, spiny, 2-ranked,
le beneath. Flowers minute, dioecious, in axillary heads.
'uit berry-like, fleshy, sweet, scarlet.

KEY TO SPECIES

K. Foliage yellow-green, short. (T. brevijolia) pacific yew

V. Foliage dark green, long. (T. Floridana) Florida yew

There are six known species of yew, all confined to the North-
1 Hemisphere. The fruit is farther away from the coniferous
pe than that of any true member of the Family Coniferae. Yet
reful analysis of flowers and fruit show that the parts are
=re — the scales and the naked ovules — though development
literates the signs of relationship to the pines and hemlocks.

The Old-World Yew (T. baccata, Linn.) is native to Europe,
ia and Africa. Its history is interwoven with the growth of
'ilisation. In the folk lore of the English cottagers the yew
s saddest of all trees except the cypress. Branches of yew were
thered to deck the house where a body lay awaiting burial,
e heads of mourners were bound with chaplets of yew. The
nbre yew tree drooping over a grave was a favourite symbol in
r great-grandmother's samplers, even so late as a century ago.

"Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens,
Dusk, O dusk the hall with yew!
Weep, and wring
Every hand? and every head
Bind with cypress ancf sad yew
For him that was of men most true."

i*5

The Yews

Yews were planted in churchyards, especially in the south
of England. Could any dirge be sadder than the lines above
quoted, or any tree a better symbol of inarticulate grief? There
was another idea that probably was considered to lighten the
gloom of funereal thoughts. The yew is one of the long-lived
trees. It was regarded in some quarters as the emblem of immor^
tality. The name, yew, is believed to come from the same root as
ewig, the German word meaning "everlasting/'

In the early wars the yeoman drew a long bow made of the
tough wood of his native yew. Spenser called the tree "the
shooter eugh." The English soldier bent his bow; the Frenchman
drew his. The former was too heavy to lift. Bishop Latimer
describes its use by the soldier on the battlefield:

" Keeping his right hand at rest upon the nerve, he pressed
the whole weight of his body into the horns of his bow."

Beside its toughness and elasticity, the wood has other
admirable qualities. It lasts indefinitely in soil and exposed to
the weather. Its grain is often as handsome as mahogany. The
roots often show wavy areas, which when polished and made into
tables vied in beauty with the ancient and precious citron wood.
Burs of yew were a favourite veneer for tea caddies.

The best soil for yew trees is chalk, hence the tree grows its
best in the Channel counties of England. Yet even in Scotland
famous trees of remarkable age are recorded. The Fotheringal
(Fortingall) Yew, 57 feet in circumference, proved by the rings of
its stump that it had lived almost 3,000 years — "a world-old yew
tree/' "Addison's Walk," at Glasnevin, Ireland, lies between two
rows of ancient yews. A close-bodied, compact tree, and tonsile
beyond any other, the yew has always been a tree to cut into gro-
tesque and geometrical forms for the adornment of gardens in
England and on the Continent. In the United States it is similarly
employed where formal effects are desired. The tree is also grown
and allowed to take its normal shape and reach what size it will
It is offered by nurserymen in many varieties.

The Pacific Yew (Taxus brevifolia, Nutt.) — A tree with
broad head, of long, horizontal, pendulous limbs, and trunk irreg-
ularly lobed and flattened. Bark thin, covered with purplish
scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, red. Leaves short, linear,
2-ranked, pale beneath, yellowish. Flowers dioecious, minute,
in leaf axils. Fruit a translucent, scarlet berry. Preferred

116

The Yews

hitat, ravines and stream banks. Distribution, mountains of
ast, from Alaska to southern California, east to Montana.
;es: Wood for posts, paddles and bows.

The cheerful green of its foliage relieves this yew of any
lereal suggestion. It is a beautiful, if rarely a symmetrical
ergreen tree, surprising tourists and delighting the birds with its
illiant berries in autumn. The Indian of Alaska cuts spear
afts, bows, paddles and other articles out of its wood. The
:tler uses it for fencing.

The Florida Yew (T. Floridana, Chapm.) is a small tree of
shy habit, often of many stems not 20 feet high. It has the
rk green of its European relative, and the same mournful
pression. It is found only along the east bank of the Appa-
:hicola River in the northwestern corner of the state.

Our Eastern yew (Taxus minor, Britt.), commonly, butincor-
:tly, called ground hemlock, never assumes tree form, but is a
-awling shrub, its dense foliage forming in autumn a rich back-
>und for the bright scarlet berries. In cultivation this species
:omes less straggling in growth. It is oftenest planted where
undercover is desired on irregular wooded ground. Its foliage
ces on a warm tinge of red in winter. The berries are the delight
birds and boys. This is the hardiest yew.

117

CHAPTER XVII: THE PALMS AND THE

PALMETTOS

Family Palame

The Palm family is a large group of tropical flowering plants,
related to lilies on one side and grasses on the other. Like both
of these, palms have but one cotyledon (seed leaf) in the embryo,
and the stem is composed of a hardened outer layer within which
is a mass of felt-like tissue in which longitudinal bundles of tough
wood cells are irregularly distributed. Growth is internal, about
these bundles as centres — not external, from a cambium. The
parts of the flowers are regularly in threes, as in the lilies. The
leaves are parallel veined, and they sheathe the stem, as in the
grasses. . They are fan shaped or feather shaped.

Palms are allied closely to the Arums, of which our jack-in-
the-pulpit is a familiar representative. Both families have
monoecious flowers borne separately on different parts of
a central spadix, surrounded by a conspicuous spathe, or
sheath. Both families have berry-like fruit, sometimes hard-
ened outside.

Of palms there are now recognised over one hundred genera
and about one thousand species. Botanically, the family is an
old one, and on the decline. Fossils of Tertiary rocks show what
it was in its prime. Three hundred and sixty distinct and impor-
tant uses are credited to palms by Evelyn. No human need but
they supply in the primitive life of tropical people. In the com-
merce of the world they play no mean part. In the tropics, houses
are built and furnished throughout from the native palms. Their
leaves thatch the walls and roofs. They supply thread for weaving
cloth, ropes, fish nets and lines, mats, fans, shields and hats.
Spines furnish needles and barbed fishhooks. Sap gives wine,
sugar and wax. Stems give fresh salads and sago for food, and
wands for basketwork and furniture. Fruits of palms include
cocoanuts, dates, and some of these yield chocolate and valuable
oils.

118

The Palms and the Palmettos

KEY TO GENERA

u Leaves long, feather shaped.
B. Fruit blue, below leaf cluster.

i. Genus Roystonea, Cook
BB. Fruit orange-scarlet, among leaves.

2. Genus Pseudophcenix, H. Wendl.
*.. Leaves round, fan shaped.

B. Leaf stalks spiny.

C. Leaves 5 to 6 feet long ; petioles 4 to 6 feet long.

3. Genus Washingtonia, H. Wendl.
CC. Leaves 2 feet long; petioles i^ to 2 feet long.

4. Genus Serenoa, Hook.
BB. Leaf stalks not spiny.
C. Fruit white.

5. Genus Thrinax, Sw.
CC. Fruit black.

D. Calyx and corolla united into a cup.

6. Genus Coccothrinax, Sarg.
DD. Calyx and corolla separate.

7. Genus Sabal, Adans.

1. Genus ROYSTONEA, Cook

The Royal Palm {Roystonea regia, Cook) is one of the
blest of tropical trees, bearing its abundant crown of foliage,
:h leaf 10 to 12 feet long, and bending gradually outward and
vvnward, with a grace peculiarly its own. The tall trunks,
to 100 feet in height, rise from abruptly flaring bases, and are
arged in the middle. The rind is pale grey tinged with orange,
:ept for the upper 10 feet or more, which is always green,
e flowers of this tree are borne in branched spikes, about 2
t long, and clustered at the base of the leafy crown. They
10m in January and February, and are succeeded by oblong
*ries, violet in colour and J inch long.

The trees grow from Bay Biscayne around the southern
tnt of Florida and on Long's Key, the vanguard of a host that
labits Central America and the West Indies. They are also
ind on hummock lands up the Rogers River, east of Collier's
y. A famous avenue tree in tropical cities, the trunks are
id for piles of wharves, and walking sticks are made from the
:ise outer rind.

119

The Palms and the Palmettos

2. Genus PSEUDOPHCENIX, H. Wendl.

The Sargent Palm (Pseudophcenix Sargenti, H. Wendl.)
is found only on Key Largo and Elliott Key. A slender tree
with white rind tapering from the middle to the leafy top and
the flaring base, it is distinguished from the royal palm by the
shorter leaves which stand erect, and the orange-coloured fruits
that hang ripe among the leaves in May and June. The tree
is found in a considerable grove on Key Largo. The flowers
have not been described. Young trees are sometimes met with
now in Florida gardens.

3. Genus WASHINGTONIA, H. Wendl.

The Desert Palm of California (JVasbingtonia filatnentosa,
O. Kuntze) is a striking feature of the Colorado desert and of
canon sides in the neighbouring mountains. It is found in groves
or in isolated clumps in wet alkali soil, where it rises to the height
of 50 to 75 feet, a crown of spreading, fan-like leaves above a
stout trunk clothed almost to the ground with a dense thatch
of the dead leaves, which, bending back upon each other in
succession, form a broad basal cone. The black berries are pro-
fusely borne on the branching spikes in September. They are
dry and thin fleshed, but Indians use them for food. The Wash-
ington palm has come into extensive cultivation in California
and southern Europe.

4. Genus SERENOA, Hook.

Serenoa arborescens, Sarg., grows on hummocks in swampy
lands along the southwestern coast of Florida. It is a slender tree
30 to 40 feet high, often with more than one arching or prostrate
stem. The fan-like leaves are pale yellow-green above, blue-
green below, and about 2 feet across. The flower stems are
branched and about a yard long, thickly set with minute yellowish
flowers, which are followed by resinous black drupes.

5. Genus THRINAX, Sw.

The Thatch, or Silk-top Palmetto (Thrtnax Floridana,
Sarg.) has a silver lining in its glossy green fan leaves, making

120

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ff^ ':

w- ■,/■■

TFT 'r ■'- 3M

k rv v .-. v-.V 1

I \ .

<^"}J>

THE DESERT PALM (JVashingtonia filamentosa,

; '"#-•■ -22311

, *

venty-five feet above the ground is the fountain of fan-shaped leaves. Dead leaves turn back and hang in an over-
hatch upon the upper part of the trunk. This clothes short trees to the ground. Indians use as food the dry, black ber-

ripen in September. Native to the Colorado desert, this palm has come into extensive cultivation in California and

Europe

THE CABBAGE PALMETTO (SabaJ Palmetto)
A elobular crown of fan-like leaves surmounts a columnar stem, which is bare and smooth only when old The average
tree fiYteen fe hlgh has its trunk covered with a basket work, which is the natural interlacmg of leaf bases whose fans have fallen
^ay The -cabbage'' is the crown bud which is chopped out of the end of the stem. The trunks are used as pie,
for wharves

The Palms and the Palmettos

a beautiful and showy tree. It mounts its leaf crown 20 or
feet high on a slender white stem which is clothed half way
»wn in the sheaths of dead leaf stalks. The branched flower
sms are pendant from among the leaves; the fruit is a white
rry with bitter juice. The tree inhabits coral reefs and the
ainland coast between Cape Romano and Cape Sable.

Another silver-leaved Thatch (T. Keyensts, Sarg.) rises on a
pporting framework of its own roots 2 or 3 feet above the
ach sand of the Marquesas Keys, Crab Key and the Bahamas.
The Silver- top Palmetto (7\ microcarpa, Sarg.)- has its
ives coated when they unfold with dense white down. Flowers
id fruit are abundant but minute. The tree rarely exceeds
feet in height. It inhabits No Name and Bahia Hondo Keys,
uth of Florida. The leaves of the three species are used for
saving hats, baskets and ropes. The trunks are used as piles
r wharves.

6. Genus COCCOTHRINAX, Sarg.

The Brittle Thatch (Coccoihrtnax jucunda, Sarg.) is a
mder tree, 20 to 30 feet high, with a gradually tapering blue
link. It inhabits the shores of Bay Biscayne, and follows the
eys to the Marquesas group. The round leaves furnish fibre
r baskets and hats. The stems are used in construction, chiefly
r wharves.

7. Genus SABAL, Adans.

The Cabbage Palmetto (Sabal Palmetto, R. & S.) is one

the characteristic features of the southeastern coast. It

tains its largest size on the west coast of Florida. Its western

nit on the Gulf is the mouth of the Appalachicola River. It

:tends north to the Cape Fear River in North Carolina.

A crown of spreading, fan-like leaves surmounts a stout
em which is covered for a considerable distance from the top
ith the broad concave petioles of the leaves. These are finally
'lit by the enlargement of the growing stem, giving the trunk
e appearance of being encased in a kind of regular basketwork.
rees 20 feet high are common along sandy shores. Less frequently
orth, but often in Florida, one sees these trees 30 to 40 feet tall,

121

The Palms and the Palmettos

with bare, slender stems crowned with round, leafy heads, looking
almost like the royal palms. The great clusters of small yellow
flowers followed by black berries hang from among the leaves,
ripe in autumn but persisting into the following summer.

The cabbage palmetto grows, as do all palms, from a central
terminal bud. This bud is the ''cabbage" in this genus, a tender,
succulent vegetable which is cut out of the middle of the stem,
cooked and eaten. It is said to be "the very quintescence of
cabbage." It is, of course, the death of the tree to lose this
growing point.

The fibrous roots are matted in an intricate fashion under
these trees, and long, tough rootlets go out on all sides for twenty
feet or more. The wood is soft and spongy, with many hard
fibro-vascular bundles running lengthwise of the stem. The outer
rind is thick and much lighter than the centre. The trunks are
used as piles and manufactured into canes and other small
articles. The fibrous bark in cross section is made into cheap
scrubbing brushes, and fibres of leaf sheaths make the bristles
of more permanent ones. Houses are thatched with the adult
leaves. Baskets, hats and mats are made from strips of the
white, immature leaves. In Southeastern cities palmettos are
used as a street and ornamental tree to a considerable extent.
"Palmetto scrub" is the bane of hunters, surveyors and others
who are obliged to go on foot through regions covered with the
tough young growth of these trees.

The Mexican Palmetto (Sahal Mexicana, Mart.) grows in
the valley of the Rio Grande in Texas and down the coast to
Mexico. Its height somewhat exceeds that of the cabbage
palmetto, which it strongly resembles. The trunks are used
for wharf piles, and leaves for the thatching of houses. It is a
favourite street tree in many Texas towns.

122

CHAPTER XVIII: THE YUCCAS

Family Liliace/E

The traveller who is a close observer of trees will be astonished
d find the lily family well represented in our Southern silva.
low, a lily is formed by the rule of three, as shown in the flower
rid in the seed pod. It has parallel-veined leaves and a stem
4th bundles of fibres distributed through its softer substance,
mch like the stems of corn or bamboo.

The yuccas are our arborescent lilies. There are nine species
lat attain the form and stature of trees. They are beautiful
owering trees, especially prized in countries of scant rainfall,
hey are planted for hedges. The fibrous leaves furnish material
>r ropes, mattings and baskets. The fleshy roots are used as a
ibstitute for soap.

The Spanish Bayonet (Yucca aloifolia, Linn.) grows
long the coast from North Carolina to Louisiana, preferring the
orders of swamps or sand dunes, and moving inland on sandy
)il. It is a low tree, rarely 25 feet high, with three or four main
ranches above the short, thick trunk. The leaves clothe the
"ank until it is quite well grown, when they are found only on the
ranches, the newest ones clustered in rosettes at the ends,
hese bayonet-shaped leaves are smooth, dark green, about
feet long, stiff pointed, and saw toothed on each edge,
he base of each widens into a crescent. Large panicles
f flowers, leathery, white, purple tinged, are followed
1 autumn by green, soft, cucumber-like fruits, 3 to 4
iches long, which turn black and dry up on the stem,
hey are eaten by birds and occasionally by people. This
ucca is very common in gardens. It is a fairly hardy
)ecies.

The Spanish Bayonet, or Spanish Dagger (Yucca Trecu-
ana, Carr.), of Texas, has blue-green leaves, which are lanceolate
ad rough on the under side. The flowers of this species are
rightly flushed with purple. It grows wild in considerable

123

The Yuccas

areas, a striking feature of the landscape, and is common in
Texas gardens.

By these two species the characters of the genus are exem-
plified, and the remaining seven species will readily be referred
to the genus. There are no other trees likely to be confused
with yuccas.

THE CACTI

Allied to the mangroves and the myrtles, but like the yuccas
in some particulars, and in choosing desert regions to live in, are
the cacti, two genera of which have tree-like species in the United
States. The soft stems of these trees are storehouses of moisture,
as are also the fleshy branches. All green surfaces perform the
functions of leaves. The spiny processes are the character by
which most people recognise a cactus. The flowers are large and
showy, formed into a tube by many overlapping sepals and petals.
The fruit is a fleshy, many-seeded berry. The tree cacti are
found in desert regions near the boundary between the United
States and Mexico.

124

t, 1905, by Doubieday. Page & Company

DOGWOOD TREE IN FULL BLOOM ( Cornus florid a\

CHAPTER XIX: THE WALNUTS AND
THE HICKORIES

Family Juglandace/e

Genera, JUGLANS and HICORIA

Resinous, aromatic trees with hard wood. Leaves deciduous
ilternate, pinnately compound. Flowers monoecious: staminate
ateral, in catkins; pistillate terminal, in spikes, or solitary.
Fruit, a bony nut enclosed in a spongy husk.

KEY TO GENERA AND SPECIES

A. Pith of twigs chambered; husk not opening at maturity;
nuts not smooth.

I. Genus JUGLANS, Linn.
B. Fruit elongated, clammy, in racemes; heart wood light
brown. (/. cinerea) butternut

BB. Fruit globular, not clammy; solitary or paired; heart
wood dark brown.
C. Nuts deeply and irregularly ridged, large.

(/. nigra) black walnut
CC. Nuts deeply furrowed, small, thick shelled.

(/. rupestris) Mexican walnut
CCC. Nuts faintly furrowed, small, thin shelled.

(J. Cali] '■ arnica) California walnut
\A. Pith of twigs solid; husk opening by 4 valves; nuts smooth.

2. Genus HICORIA, Raf.
B. Bud scales many, overlapping, leaflets 3 to 9.
C. Buds small, \ to -| inch long; husk of nut thin.

D. Twigs and leaf stalks smooth. (H. glabra) pignut
DD. Twigs and leaf stalks silvery pubescent.

(H. villosa) PALE-LEAF HICKORY

CC. Buds large, \ to 1 inch long, husk of nut thick.
D. Bark shaggy; twigs smooth.

E. Branchlets stout, orange red; nuts large,
thick shelled. (H. laciniosa) big shellbark
EE. Branchlets stout, grey; nuts small, usually

thick shelled. (H. avata) little shellbark
125

The Walnuts and the Hickories

EEE. Branchlets slender, reddish; nuts 4-angled,
thin shelled.
(H. Carolinae-septentrionalis) shagbark hickory
DD. Bark not shaggy; twigs downy.

(//. alba) MOCKERNUT
BB. Bud scales few, not overlapping; leaflets 7 to 13.
C. Nuts elongated.
D. Kernel sweet.

E. Leaves silvery and lustrous beneath; nuts
solitary, or few in a cluster; leaflets 7 to 11.
(H. myristiccejormis) nutmeg hickory
EE. Leaves not silvery beneath; nuts 3 to 10 in

cluster; leaflets 13 to 15. (H. Pecan) pecan
DD. Kernel bitter; leaflets 7 to 11, twigs and husks
hairy. (H. Texana) bitter pecan

CC. Nuts not elongated; bitter.

D. Buds yellow; nuts smooth; leaflets 7 to 9.

(H. mimina) bitternui
DD. Buds red; nut angled; leaflets 9 to 13.

(H. aquatica) water hickory

THE WALNUTS

The walnuts (genus Juglans) form a noble family of ten
species, in which there are no "black sheep" — and this is remark-
able in any family. Each species yields valuable wood, and
sweet, edible nuts. Each one deserves planting as an ornamental
and shade tree.

Our American forests show four species — two spread over the
eastern half of the continent, one grows in the Southwest, and
one in California. To these have been added valuable exotic
species. The English or Persian walnut {Juglans regia) is grown
in the Southern States and in California; and two Japanese
species, /. Sieboldiana and /. cordiformis, both of the butternut
type but vastly superior to it, thrive in the regions where the
English walnut is not hardy. There is also a Manchurian species
in cultivation here. One or more walnuts belong in the West
Indies and South America.

Butternut, Oil Nut, White Walnut (/. cinerea, Linn.)—
A short-trunked, spreading tree, 50 to 75 feet high, with broad,
rounded dome. Bark grey, rough, with broad furrows and
narrow ridges, showing paler under bark. Shoots covered with
clammy down. Wood light brown, light, soft, coarse grained, with

126

The Walnuts and the Hickories

;atiny lustre. Buds often one above another in axils, hairy,
lattened, terminal largest; inner scales later becoming leaf-like;
lower buds naked. Leaves alternate, compound, of 1 1 to 19
eaflets, hairy, taper pointed, serrate, sessile, except terminal
eaflet, 15 to 30 inches long, yellow-green, turning yellow in
lutumn; leaflets 3 to 5 inches long; petioles and veins pubescent
md clammy. Flowers, May, with leaves, staminate in catkins,
3 to 5 inches long, yellow-green with copious pollen; pistillate in
5 to 8-flowered racemes, covered with glandular hairs; stigmas
2, bright red, spreading; ovule solitary at base of pistil. Fruit,
October, an oblong nut in spongy, clammy, sticky, indehiscent
husk, with pungent odour; shell thick, deeply sculptured; nut
Dily, sweet, edible. Preferred habitat, deep, rich loam of river
valleys, or well-drained hillsides. Distribution, New Brunswick
to Delaware, and along mountains to Georgia and Alabama;
westward through Ontario to Dakota, south to Arkansas. Uses:
Planted for shade and for nuts. Wood used for interior finish
)f houses and for cabinet work. Inner bark and husks yield
/ellow dye and medicinal substances. Sap sweet, sometimes
idded to maple sap in making sugar. Nuts pickled when green;
ocally sold when ripe.

The butternut is a short-trunked, low-headed tree, with far-
reaching arms that make a crown wider than it is high. There
s a tendency to develop the under buds on each twig. This
*ives a horizontal rather than an upward trend to the limbs.
The foliage, trunk and wood are lighter in colour than those of the
Dlack walnut. It is a cheerful tree, but unfortunately short lived,
md it is rare to see a tree of considerable size that is not diseased
:>y fungi and blemished by insects. The wind breaks the long
imbs, whereupon enemies enter and take possession. The
winter buds of the butternut are full of character. The leaf scars
ire prominent, and two or three buds stand in a vertical row
ibove each one. The first bud, just above the hairy "beetling
Drow" of the leaf scar, is to produce the leafy shoot next spring.
Those higher up at the same joint are bare little green pineapples —
:he staminate catkins in an immature state. The grey-green
downy twigs are clammy to the touch, and inside is the wonderful
:hambered pith that distinguishes all the walnuts.

One need only crush a twig or leaf of a walnut tree to have
'evived the memory of long-forgotten experiences in brown

127

The Walnuts and the Hickories

October's woods. O the smell of those juicy brown husks as we
cracked the green nuts on a convenient stone, and wiped our
damp fingers ineffectually on the grass! The stains wore off at
length, but the memories are indelible. The Shakers of Lebanon,
Massachusetts, got a rich purple dye by adding something to
the brown extract of those husks.

The wood of butternut is not so hard nor so strong as black
walnut, but for the interior finish of houses it has a distinct ad-
vantage. Black walnut is sombre compared with the cheerful
browns and fawn colours which this wood shows. The "natural
wood finish" brings out these quiet tones and imparts a soft
lustre to the grain. It is a pity that this wood is not more common
and more widely employed for this particular purpose. It is
made into wooden bowls, and used for veneering bureaus, for
carriage panels, and for coffins, posts, rails and fuel.

The frugal housewife in the country looks with interest upon
the butternut when it is half grown — when the pale green, clammy,
fuzzy fruit hangs in clusters, surrounded by its umbrella of leaves.
If a knitting needle goes through husk and nut without hindrance,
it is not too late to make "pickled oil nuts," which are a delectable
relish with meats in winter. The husk and all are put down
in vinegar, sugar and spices. The unpleasant part of this process
is the rubbing off of the "fur," after scalding the nuts. This
task usually falls to the children.

Butternut husks and bark have long been used in home
remedies, and in dyeing woollen cloth. The backwoods regiments
in the Civil War were clad in "butternut" jeans, a home-made,
home-dyed uniform that worthily stood the hardest service.

I/Black Walnut (Juglans nigra, Linn.) — A majestic, spread-
ing tree, 80 to 150 feet high, with tall trunk, 4 to 6 feet through.
Bark dark brown, furrowed, scaly. Wood dark purplish brown,
with silvery lustre; hard, fine grained, heavy, strong, durable
in contact with soil. Buds: terminal, flattened, silky, tomentose;
axillary, small, globose, silky; flower buds naked. Leaves alter-
nate, 12 to 24 inches long, odd pinnate of 13 to 25 leaflets, ovate-
lanceolate, serrate, pubescent beneath, 3 to 3^ inches long, sessile
on leaf stem; yellow-green, becoming yellow in autumn; petioles
downy. Flowers, May, with leaves, greenish, monoecious, stam-
inate in catkins 3 to 6 inches long on wood of preceding year;
pistillate on new shoots, in axillary few-flowered clusters, or

128

tillate flowers

B. Pitch chambers Winter buds

THE BUTTERNUT {Guglans Cinera)

mina-e flower

-lammv down covers new shoots and leaf stalks. Aromatic sap and chambered pith characterise all walnuts The winter
"and leaf scars are peculiar. The flowers appear in May with the leaves. The staimnate are m pendulous catkins;
distillate in terminal racemes. The wood is brown with a satiny lustre

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The Walnuts and the Hickories

solitary; stigmas red, prominent. Fruit i to 2 in almost sessile
clusters, globose ij to 2 inches in diameter; husk yellow-green,
pitted, strongly aromatic, spongy, indehiscent; shell hard, deeply
sculptured, kernel convoluted, oily, sweet, edible. Preferred
habitat, rich woods. Distribution, southern Ontario to Florida,
west to Nebraska and Texas. Uses: Fine shade and park tree;
lumber valuable for veneering furniture, interior finish of houses,
gun stocks and coffins, and for boat and shipbuilding. Nuts
locally commercial. Husks occasionally used for dyeing and
tanning.

The early settlers did not realise the folly they committed by
chopping down black walnut trees, rolling them together and
burning them. They were clearing the land to make farms, and
trees were weeds they had to conquer. They did not discriminate
between species in the general holocaust. They knew that
black walnut was durable, so made fence posts and rails of it.
Besides, this wood split easily.

The peculiar fitness of black walnut wood for gun stocks and
for furniture was realised later. Trees were sacrificed by thousands
to supply the home and foreign markets, and only Nature planted
for the generations to come. The result is the present shortage
of walnut lumber, and its excessive price. Enterprising individ-
uals go into cleared ground and pull the stumps of trees long
dead. They are still sound, and there is valuable veneering
stuff in the most of them. Old and worn furniture of solid black
walnut is bought and sawed thin for the same purpose. Do we
realise yet the usefulness and the beauty of black walnut wood?
The silvery grain, the rich, violet-purple tones in the brown heart
wood, the exquisite shading of its curly veinings, and the lasting
qualities of the wood? If we did, we would plant groves of it.
As a fruit tree the black walnut has limitations. The oil
in the kernel soon becomes rancid, so that there can be but a
local market for the nuts, though they are very good for a time,
when carefully dried.

The black walnut is majestic as a shade tree — a noble orna-
ment to parks and pleasure grounds. It needs room and distance „
to show its luxuriant crown and stately trunk to advantage.
Then no tree excels it. " It unites almost all the qualities desirable
in a tree: beauty, gracefulness and richness of foliage in every
period of its growth." The bark and husks may be employed in

129

The Walnuts and the Hickories

the important arts of dyeing and tanning. The fruit is a food, and
yields a valuable oil. The wood is one of the most useful and
most elegant.

The growth of the black walnut is rapid and sure from the
seed. Nuts gathered in the autumn should be stratified in gravel
over winter, and planted next spring. The way to restore what
we have lost is to plant walnuts wherever there is a place suitable
for such a tree.

The Walnut (/. rupestris, Engelm.) of the far Southwest
grows on canon sides and stream borders, climbing the mountains
to an elevation of 6,000 feet — a shrub in the high semi-arid
regions, a spreading tree where its thirsty roots can find water in
unfailing supply. The limbs are covered with white bark, and
the twigs are cottony. This makes the leafless tree a striking
and beautiful feature of winter landscapes, especially where there
is a dark background.

The little nuts have deeply grooved and very thick shells, but
the Indians and Mexicans are glad to take trouble to get at the
sweet kernels within. The hard shell is, however, a commercial
impediment. The wood is rich dark brown in colour and takes a
satiny polish; but it is weak and coarse grained, and is not im-
portant in the lumber trade.

The California Walnut (J. California, Wats.) has small,
sweet, thin-shelled nuts, faintly creased and somewhat flattened
at each end. The tree is graceful and symmetrical, with luxuriant
foliage, of cheerful light green. It grows to medium height on the
bottom lands of the coast region from the lower course of the
Sacramento River to the foothills of the San Bernardino Moun-
tains, where it climbs to an elevation of 3,000 feet and becomes
a stunted shrub.

The chief value of this tree is that it serves as a hardy stock
for the cultivated /. regia, and as such has extended nut culture
north to central California. Seedlings of the native tree are root
grafted with cions of French varieties, and old trees are success-
fully top grafted. Independent of this signal service to horti-
culture, the California walnut is a fine ornamental and nut tree.

The English or Persian Walnut (Juglans regia, Linn.) — a
royal tree and nut indeed! — is the walnut of classical literature,
beloved of gods and men. From the hillsides of Persia and the
regions far East this species was carried into southern Europe,

130

The Walnuts and the Hickorien

nee it spread to Enginid and finally to America. The tree

pwn for lumber, for o tiament, and for its fruit in the countries

t feel the warm breath of the Japan Current and the Gulf

:am. The best nves come from France and Italy. In England

nuts are genera';y pickled green, as the season is too short to

ire their ripening. The English walnut, like the English elm,

ie to us via Kngland, and got its name en route. Neither

:ies is a native of that island. Importations of the nuts came

is also through England until recent years.

The weal ta of Europe has been increased by the enforced

iting of walnut trees. In the seventeenth century in certain

atries there was a law requiring a young man to produce a

ificate of his having planted a certain number of walnut trees

>re he coul .! obtain permission to marry! The names of this

are full or tradition and poetry. The English had the nuts

>re they introduced the trees. "Walnut" means "a nut

jght from a foreign country." "Juglans" is a contraction of

is glans, 'the acorn of Jove" — for so the Greeks and Romans

emed it To extend its culture through allied countries was a

k that rulers busied themselves about. Nux regia was the

vers' name for the new tree, "because these nuts were brought

hem b- kings."

Through centuries of cultivation, many improved varieties
these Persian walnuts have arisen. Parkinson describes in

0 a kind of "French wallnuts, which are the greatest of any,
lin whose shell are often put a paire of fme gloves neatly
ded up together." Another variety he knew "whose shell
d tender that it may easily be broken between one's fingers,

th e nut itself is very sweete."

Tlhe culture of /. regia in southern California is highly special-

1 and very profitable. Irrigation and tillage are practised in
se orchards. Frost and walnut blight are the nut-growers'
if enemies — unless the brokers who control prices may be
*d ..as a third. The nut crop of 1901 in four counties was about
00 tons, worth more than a million dollars. The tree grows
the Southern States, and has proved hardy even in Massachu-
t^, but it is not cultivated commercially outside of California.

Walnut lumber (of /. regia) has had a variable and interesting
tory in Europe* The brown heart wood, ajways^beautiful,
en waved and watere^jn_lo^ydy__patterns and shadings, yet

'3*

The Walnuts and the Hickories

suffered long in comparison with oak, as it had not the strength
and durability of the latter, and its gi^yish sap wood was com-
monly "subject to the worm" — liable r> become worm eaten.
The best lumber came from Italy, the next best from the Black
Sea regions, next from France, and the poorest grew in England.

In the early part of the eighteenth century a craving for
walnut furniture struck the fashionable wodd. Oak became
second in popularity. Then came a cold winter which killed
the walnut trees. The Dutch Government bought the dead
trees and cornered the market for a time. France prohibited the
exportation of walnut; then mahogany began to be imported
from tropical America and became the popular wood for fine
furniture.

In the turmoil of international wars, each country wanted
walnut for gun stocks. In 1806 France used 12,000 trees. The
English Government is said to have paid before the battle of
Waterloo ^600 for a single walnut tree! In the height of the
walnut vogue, cabinetmakers paid as high as £60 per ton for
roots and burs, which were sawed very thin and used for veneering
pianos and other elegant furniture. No wood exce.s this curly
walnut in beauty.

In later years the importation of black walnut from America
relieved the stress in the lumber trade. This tree grows well in
Europe, and is an important species in the government forests
of various countries. It has doubled in price in the past fifty
years, and American walnut is now in greater demand abroad
than the native species.

THE HICKORIES

Hickories are North American trees — none now inhabit any
other part of the world. There are twelve known species., one of
which is Mexican; the remaining eleven are restricted to thf- states
east of the Rocky Mountains. Arkansas assembles the wnoiL
group within her borders and offers a great opportunity to the
student of the genus Hicoria.

Once Europe had numerous species of this genus, and there
were others in Greenland and in the west*of North America.
The ice cap wiped them all off the face of the earth; the on!)

132

The Walnuts and the Hickories

ecord of them is in the Tertiary rocks. After a century of
ffort, only a few good specimen trees are to be found growing
1 Europe. The species thrive only in their natural range,
here are reasons for believing that these trees will grow well in
apan and eastern China.

No group of trees has higher qualities than the hickories,
he wood of most species is tough, strong and flexible — especially
aluable for farm implements, tool handles and the like. There
no other fuel that excels dry hickory for heat and brilliancy of
ame. No other of our trees bear such valuable nuts. No finer
ibe of shade and ornamental trees is to be found. With all their
Dsitive good qualities, the hickories have scarcely a bad one.
he worst thing you can say of any hickory is that it is not quite
D to the family standard.

The Indians knew the value of these trees before the white
an came. "Hickory" is an Indian name. The Creeks and
Igonquins gathered the nuts into their storehouses in the autumn,
tie squaws pounded shells and all in water, until the latter became
milky emulsion. This became the Indian drink," powcohickora,"
ter it had fermented. Added fresh to venison broth it made a
;h food, very agreeable to European palates. (Of course the
ells went to the bottom of the pot.) The "hickory milk,"
rained of its shell fragments and thickened with meal, made
rncakesfit for a king! It was used also in cooking hominy. An
; pressed from these nuts was staple in early cookery in the
lonies. The Virginians learned its use from their Indian
ighbours. It was considered equal to olive oil in flavour,
ough no attempt was made to refine it.

Many insects prey on hickory trees. None of these unfit
em for dooryard planting, if one keeps close watch to poke out
rly the nests of fall web-worm and kindred pests. Many of its
emies are borers which work in the wood. The twig pruners are
interesting tribe; and some of our most beautiful silk spinners
d underwing moths live their youthful days out on the foliage
hickory.

What can that sound be that comes out of the backlog, like
: creaking of the old rocking chair in the chimney corner?
has been heard every night when the family gather around the
:, and it has ti weird, ghostly sound. A plump young hickory
*er, deep in the wood, is whetting his teeth on the walls of his

'33

The Walnuts and the Hickories

burrow. He is safe, for hickory burns very slowy, and the back-
log is good for many a day yet. Probably before the stronghold
of the youngster is reached he will have ceased his gnawing, and
fallen asleep in a chrysalis. Then of a sudden, some March night
in the midst of a thrilling tale told by the firelight, a strange
visitant will appear, startling the whole company, and interrupt
the story. It is an elegant grey beetle, with horns of surprising
length, made of jointed rods. After a long and arduous youth
spent in the dark channel of his own making, he has come forth
into the light equipped with wings, and ready to mingle with his
kind in a life of which he has probably not dreamed before. Who
would be so inconsiderate, so inhuman, as to cast this handsome
creature into the fire! Certainly nobody who knows anything
about the old life he has left behind him, and the new life that
lies before. Take him, rather, to the window, and as he flies
forth into the night take up the story where it was broken off.

Pignut, White Hickory (Hicoria glabra, Britt.) — A stately,
round-headed tree, 50 to 100 feet high, with narrow head of pen-
dulous contorted branches. Bark grey, coarse, rough, not scaling
off in plates. Wood brown, tough, elastic, hard, heavy. Buds
terminal ones, globular, blunt, shedding outer scales early in win-
ter; inner scales expand, and recurve as leaves unfold; lateral
buds small, pointed. Leaves alternate, 8 to 12 inches long, odd-
pinnate, of 5 to 7 leaflets, oblong or obovate-lanceolate, smooth,
dark yellow-green; lighter and sometimes tufted with hairs in
axils of veins beneath; upper leaflets much larger than lower ones.
Flowers: staminate catkins, axillary, 4 to 7 inches long, in threes;
pistillate spikes, 3 to 5-flowered, terminal, greenish. Fruit pear
shaped, or globose; variable, thick or thin shelled, reddish brown,
somewhat hairy, cleft into 4 valves, partially or wholly opening;
nut obscurely 4-angled, smooth; kernel sweet or slightly bitter,
small. Preferred habitat, dry ridges and hillsides. Distribution,
Maine to Florida; west through Ontario and Michigan to Nebraska,
south to eastern Texas. Uses: Wood used as that of shagbark is.
A valuable ornamental and shade tree.

The pignut is unfortunate in its common name. A fine park
and shade tree is under a severe handicap. For who would wish a
"pignut" planted in his front yard? A "smooth hickory" will
rather be chosen, every time — though it is the* very same tree,
H. glabra. In the early days pigs turned into the autumn woods

134

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i i

)<»«£'•

> (51 -

3 ft -. '

If* ;£ ■ -

A. Sterile flowers B. Fertile flower

THE PIGNUT (Hicoria glabra)
■ is draped with green fringe-the stammate catkins-in May. The first leaves usually have but five leaflets
jve seven rarely nine. They are smooth and turn yellow in autumn. The buds are plumpfand small for a S£
les are shed early m wrote,. The bark is furrowed and gray. This twig has no pistillate flowers ^

THE PIGNUT (Hicoria glabra)

The nuts are variable in form and size. They are often obovate or pear-shaped — the thin husk opens but part way down. The
nut is smooth and round or angled. The yellowish kernel is insipid. The leaves and shoots are smooth from the first

THE BITTERNUT HICKORY (Hicoria minima)

The bright, yellow, angled buds are the best identification sign. The bark is greyish brown. The leaves are thin and ha^
an apple-like fragrance when crushed. The leaflets are often narrow and small

The Walnuts and the Hickories

runched these hickory nuts which nutters, looking for shellbarks,
:ornfully left under the trees. The insipid meats were distasteful
) human palates — fit only for pigs.

Yet here is one of the finest of the hickories. Its bark is close
ixtured like that of a white ash. Its leaves and shoots soon lose
leir down and become smooth and lustrous. The small winter
uds are ovate, and during autumn their outer scales drop. The
uts are roundish and smooth shelled. The thin husks split but
alf way down, and are there grown fast to the shell. These
laracters mark the typical Eastern pignut. West of the Allegha-
ies is a form that sheds its husks, and has angled, ovoid nuts,
he bark of this variety — odorata — is rough, like an American
m, but not shaggy.

Variety microcarpa is a pignut with bark of the H. ovata type,
Tipping into narrow, thin, springy sheets. The roundish nut is
hite or grey, and thin shelled. The kernel is sweet. There are
masons for believing this to be a natural hybrid between H. ovata
tid H. glabra. Its branches are likely to be pendulous, and the
ead more oblong than the ordinary pignut. It is commonly
ailed "false shagbark."

The extreme variability of the species glabra, and the good
uality of fruit in var. microcarpa make horticulturists believe
lat the pignut is worthy of cultivation. Experiments are now
1 progress looking toward the improvement of the fruit for com-
lercial purposes. The signs are hopeful.

With wood equal to the best in its genus, exceptional merits
3 a shade and ornamental tree, and promise of developing orchard
arieties that will rival the shagbarks as nut trees, the pignuts
tern to be one of the "coming trees" in the Eastern States. It is
) be hoped that the popular name will be abandoned and the
lore suitable one, "smooth hickory," substituted. This is a
teral translation of its scientific name.

The Pale-leaf Hickory (H. villosa, Ashe) has tomentose
ender twigs, with silvery scales, and very pale leaf linings. The
uts are thick shelled and faintly angled like the mockernut, and
le bark is very deeply furrowed and rough, but not shaggy. It
rows, a small, narrow-headed tree, in barren soil from New
ersey to Florida, west to Missouri and Texas.

Big Shellbark (H. laciniosa, Sarg.) — A tall tree ioo to 120
jet high, with narrow, oblong head. Branches small, spreading.

135

The Walnuts and the Hickories

Bark thick, grey, shedding in long thick plates that hang on for
years. Twigs orange yellow. Wood heavy, hard, strong, tough,
very flexible, dark brown, close grained. Buds terminal, very
large, ovate, obtuse; scales silky, outer ones, brown, keeled and
pointed; inner ones grow to 3 inches long and 1 inch wide and
recurve as leaves appear, turning rosy or yellow on inner, lustrous
face; lateral buds small. Leaves 15 to 22 inches long, of 5 to 9
obovate or oblong-lanceolate leaflets, dark green and lustrous
above, pale yellow-green or bronzy pubescent below; petioles
stout, enlarged at base, recurved and persistent during winter.
Flowers: staminate in catkins 5 to 8 inches long, smooth, or rufous
pubescent ; pistillate in spikes, terminal, 2 to 5-flowered, pale
tomentose, angled, green. Fruit solitary or paired, in woody,
4-valved husk, sutures opening half way at maturity, downy,
orange brown, 1} to 2 J inches long; nut compressed, with 4 to 6
ridges, 1 J to 2\ inches long; hard, bony, thick, enclosing sweet,
fine-flavoured kernel. Preferred habitat, rich, deep bottom lands.
Distribution, Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas, eastern Kansas and
Oklahoma; Illinois and Indiana to Tennessee, New York and
Pennsylvania. Uses: Nuts commercially valuable. Wood not
distinguished from that of H. ovata. A worthy ornamental tree.

In the markets we often see nuts of large size — more flattened
than English walnuts and fully as large — which the dealer calls
" shellbarks." They look like a larger form of the little shellbarks ;
but we hesitate. They are strangers, and their flavour is an
unknown quantity. These are the "king nuts" — not equal to
the little shellbarks in quality, yet sweet, edible nuts, though in
thick shells. They are distributed from the cities along the
Mississippi, and are appearing in increasing quantities in Eastern
markets.

In winter the tree may be recognised by its dead petioles,
curving back on the twigs which bore leaves the past summer.
The very large terminal buds are another winter trait. At any
season the orange-coloured twigs are the best distinguishing feature
of the species. This tree has shaggy bark, though this character
is less pronounced than in H. ovata. It is hardy in the Arnold
Arboretum, near Boston, and seems to grow more rapidly than
other hickories in cultivation. In the wild it grows in bottom
lands, out does well on dryer, sloping ground.

A hybrid between the pecan and laciniosa is reported by Dr.

136

The Walnuts and the Hickories

Trelease, and named for its discoverer the "Nussbaumer Hybrid."
It is not especially promising,

Shagbark Hickory, Little Shellbark Hickory (Hicoria

ovata, Britt.) — A ruggedly picturesque, stately tree, 75 to 120

feet high, with long tap root, straight trunk and angular, short

branches, forming an irregular, oblong head. Bark light grey,

shedding in thin, vertical strips, or plates. Branches smooth,

twigs shining, grey. Wood brown, close grained, tough, hard,

elastic, heavy. Buds terminal ones, large, broadly ovate, with

dark, narrow-pointed pair of outer scales persisting through the

winter; inner scales silky, elongating to 5 to 6 inches and curving

back in spring; lateral buds small, globular. Leaves alternate,

deciduous, 1 2 to 20 inches long, compound, of 5 (rarely 7) leaflets,

all sessile but terminal one, smooth, leathery; smallest leaflets

at base; all serrate, broadly obovate, abruptly acuminate, dark

yellow-green above, paler beneath, becoming brownish yellow in

lutumn; petioles stout, smooth, swollen at base, and grooved.

** lowers, May, with leaves; monoecious, greenish; staminate in

;lender, hairy, flexible catkins 4 to 6 inches long, in threes from

:ommon stem, at base of new shoots; pistillate single or few in

erminal cluster, hairy, greenish with spreading, divided stigmas.

7ruits solitary or paired; husk smooth, leathery, dividing to base

nto 4 valves, J inch thick, and separating from nut at maturity;

hell hard, 4-angled, flattened, pale, smooth; kernel large, sweet,

dible. Preferred habitat, deep, rich, moist soil. Distribution,

laine and Quebec to Delaware and along mountains to Florida,

orthern Alabama and Mississippi; west to Minnesota and Ne-

raska; south to Texas. Uses: Lumber used extensively in the

manufacture of vehicles, agricultural implements, wheels, sled

unners, axe handles, baskets, chairs and for fuel. Nuts valuable

l commerce. Tree planted for ornament and shade.

The vertical sheets of shaggy bark give this tree its name,
he springiness and toughness of the wood is prophesied in these
lin, narrow flakes, so obstinately clinging to the trunks for years,
rom the close-knit covering of the utmost twig down to the
'ound the gradual evolution of this bark is a fascinating study,
he character of the shagbark is also expressed in the angular
vigs and the lithe arms of the tree, etched with perfect distinct-
>ss against the sky of winter. Strength, symmetry and grace
*e there, but never a look of heaviness.

137

The Walnuts and the Hickories

As a fruit tree the shagbark deserves our best attention, No
other hardy nut tree compares with it in commercial importance.
The value of its lumber has led to the sacrifice of the large trees
in the woods. The nuts are diminishing as a wild crop, but the
demand is ever increasing. Hickory-nut orchards are being
planted. Nurserymen are studying how best to propagate the
trees, and to improve the varieties. "Hales' paper-shell hickory
nut" was discovered on a single tree in New Jersey. The nuts
are unusually large and plump, with thin shells. The kernels
have superior delicacy and richness of flavour, and remarkable
keeping qualities. A shrewd man began to propagate this excep-
tional strain. Grafted trees of this variety are beginning to be
sold by nurserymen. Several other choice kinds from selected
seed are offered. As transplanting is attended by con-
siderable loss, it is best to plant the nuts where the orchard is
to stand.

Hickory flowers are not conspicuous in colour or size, but
the tree is a wonderful spectacle throughout the spring. First,
the buds drop their two black outer scales, and the silky inner
ones glisten like lighted tapers on every upturned twig. They
grow in breadth and length as they loosen, and a cluster of leaves,
small but perfect, and clothed in the softest velvet stand revealed.
Then the great scales turn back like sepals of an iris, displaying
rich yellows and orange tones, softened and blended by their silky
coverings. The opening leaves, delicate in texture and colouring,
may easily be mistaken for parts of a great flower.

But the leaves soon declare themselves, and the scales fall.
The tree is then draped in long chenille fringes of green. The wind
shakes the pollen out of these staminate catkins, and the incon-
spicuous green nut flowers, clustered in the tips of leafy shoots,
spread their stigmas wide to catch the vitalising golden dust.
The fringes now strew the grass under the tree; the bloom is past.
Summer matures the crop of nuts.

The first frost hastens the opening of the thick husks. The
nuts fall, and schoolboys, who have marked the tree for their own
weeks before, are on hand to bag the crop to the last sweet nut, if
squirrels do not thwart them. In the open space in the barn loft
alongside of the bin where pears are spread out to mellow, the nuts
dry and sweeten. In the dead cold of winter evenings the story
of "Snow Bound/' in modern settings, perhaps, but still the same

138

i Fertile flowers i leaves cutoff!

3 Fruit

THE SHAGBARK HICKORY (Hicoria ovata)

The bark springs away from the trunk in thin, narrow strips. The thick husk parts and falls away from the angled nuj
October. In June the nuts and next spring's buds may be seen. This hickory leaf has five leaflets, the basal pair small

The Walnuts and the Hickories

in spirit, will be re-enacted in farm homes in widely distant parts
of the country. Nuts and apples and cider in the firelight!

We have been setting fuel down as the last of a tree's uses.
Naturally, burning is the end of things, and it is often an ignoble
end. But fire is one of the great elemental forces in nature. A
great conflagration is magnificent; a smouldering rubbish heap is
not. Some kinds of wood sputter peevishly in burning. The
most splendid wood fire is made of seasoned hickory. Wake up
the old backlog, charred by half a hundred fires. Lay in the
kindling and feed the growing flames at last with shagbark cord-
wood. There is no flame so brilliant as this; no wood burns with
a more fervent heat. No wonder " the great throat of the chimney
laughs." The passing of hickory wood in flames back to its primal
elements is the fitting end of a noble tree.

The North Carolina Shagbark (H. Carolince-septentrionalis,
Ashe) differs from the preceding species in its smaller size and slen-
derer habit throughout. The twigs are dark red and slender and
the leaflets are small, lanceolate, with long, tapering points. The
buds are scarcely J inch long, thin inner scales lengthening to i to 2
inches and becoming bright yellow as they unfold. The little nuts
have thin shells and the kernels are sweet. The bark of this tree
is much like its more burly cousins. The strips are equally tough
and persistent, but not quite so large.

The range of this shagbark covers the limestone uplands of
eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, and extends south
along river bottoms into Georgia and central Alabama.

Mockernut, Big Bud Hickory (Hicoria alba, Britt.) — A
slender, tall, pyramidal tree, 50 to 80 feet high. Bark grey, thick,
hard, close, rough, scaly; twigs pubescent, resinous, dotted.
Wood dark brown (sap wood white), heavy, hard, strong, elastic,
close. Buds: terminal ones large, ovate; outer scales ovate,
acute, often keeled, falling in autumn; lateral buds small, yellow-
ish brown. Leaves alternate, 1 5 to 20 inches long, of 7 to 9 leaflets,
sessile, except end one, serrate, oblong-lanceolate, downy, yellow-
green, russet or yellow in fall; petiole downy, swollen, large.
Flowers: staminate in catkins 4 to 8 inches long, hairy; pistillate
2 to 3 on terminal spike, May. Fruit, October, 1 to 3 nuts, globose
or oblong, often long-pointed: ij to 2 inches long, red-brown,
strong scented; sutures opening to middle or nearly to base; nut
globular, 4-ridged near top, thick shelled; kernel small, sweet

139

The Walnuts and the Hickories

edible; often replaced by spongy mass. Preferred habitat, rich
soil, on hillsides, North; near bogs and swamps South. Dis-
tribution, Ontario to Florida; west to Kansas and Texas. Uses:
Lumber confused with shelibark hickory; nuts edible, but small,
and very thick shelled. Tree planted for ornament and shade.

The mockernut has downy buds in winter — this alone will
distinguish it from the two smooth-budded shellbarks, which have
buds even larger than this species. The outer scales are almost
black on the buds of H. ovata and H. laciniosa; on H. alba they
are yellowish, for the darker outer scales fall early in autumn.
The bark of the mockernut looks more like that of an ash than a
hickory. It is broken by shallow fissures into intersecting ridges,
and is coated with silvery scales. The branches are stout and
curved, giving the tree in winter an expression of strength and
grace.

The heart wood is dark brown, but the white sap wood largely
predominates, to the advantage of the lumber. The elasticity of
hickory wood is somewhat lost in the mature heart wood, so sap
wood is best. For this reason second-growth hickory, which is
almost all sap wood, is especially valuable. The names alba and
white heart both refer to the colour of the sap wood.

The nut is truly a mockery to anyone who considers his
thumbs. The husk is thick and stubbornly adherent at the base.
The shell is almost invulnerable. When at last it is shattered by
a blow, the kernel, though sweet, is small, and poorly repays the
trouble. Oftentimes there is no kernel at all.

The mockernut is the commonest hickory tree in the South.
It is believed to hybridise with the pecan, possibly with H. ovata
and some varieties of H. glabra. The parentage of trees inter-
mediate between one species and another can only be surmised;
never proved. If artificial crossing produces duplicates of the
questionable trees, then surmises may be considered well founded.

Nutmeg Hickory (H. myristiccejormis, Britt.) — A tall,
straight tree, with narrow, open head, 80 to 100 feet high; branches
stout, spreading. Bark reddish brown, broken into small, scaly
plates; branchlets with golden scales. Wood heavy, hard, tough,
light brown. Buds brownish, silky, hairy, small. Leaves 7 to 1 1
inches long, odd pinnate, of 5 to 1 1 leaflets, ovate-lanceolate to
oblong-obovate, thin, firm, dark green, lustrous, silvery white
beneath, sometimes pubescent; change to bronze in autumn.

140

The Walnuts and the Hickories

'lowers: staminate in catkins, 3 to 4 inches long, brownish pubes-
ent, densely flowered, in threes; pistillate terminal, greenish,
ulitary or few, scurfy pubescent. Fruit small, with sweet kernel,
1 very thick shell, smooth, rounded, pointed at both ends, in thin,
:urfy, hairy, 4-valved husk, with winged sutures that open almost
) base at maturity. Preferred habitat, rich, moist soil of swamps,
r river banks; sometimes dryer hillsides. Distribution, coast
jgions of South Carolina, central Carolina, central Alabama and
lississippi, southern Arkansas. Uses: Cultivated sparingly in
Eastern States. Beautiful ornamental tree. Locally used as
lei and lumber.

It is the lustrous foliage that makes this tree the most beauti-
il of all the hickories. The deep, perpendicular roots that make
ansplanting a difficult matter among all the hickories have prob-
o\y kept this one from the full recognition it deserves at the hands
: nurserymen and planters. Its narrow range in sections that
3 not lack beautiful trees is another cause. In fact, the tree
self was not really discovered by a competent observer until
390, although the nuts were seen by Michaux as early as 1802.
he tree is rare in the Southeast, but is common in southern
rkansas. The fine specimen in the garden of the Department
' Agriculture at Washington proves its hardiness in that latitude,
id brings its good qualities to the attention of the public.

Since we have all the hickories here in our Eastern States, it
Ttainly behooves us to foster them, and share them with the
:st of the world. The first step is to learn how best to propagate
id transplant the various species. The next is to plant them
eely, and so set forth their superior merits to all who see these
lantations. There are few species which do not repay the cost
1 returns substantial as well as aesthetic. Hickory nuts and lum-
ar are in constant demand, so each year adds to the value of the
ees.

Pecan (Hicoria Pecan, Britt.) — Large, thick-trunked tree
ith broad top; 100 to 170 feet high, 4 to 6 feet in diameter at
ase. Bark light reddish brown, broken into small, scaly plates;
ranches smooth, twigs pubescent, with orange-coloured lenticels.
'ood light brown, compact, heavy, hard, not strong. Buds small,
sllow, pointed, pubescent, with narrow scales that elongate
ightly in spring. Leaves 12 to 20 inches long, of 9 to 17 leaflets,
lort petioled, often falcate, lanceolate, serrate, bright yellow-

141

The Walnuts and the Hickories

green above, paler below; petioles yellow. Flowers: staminate
in catkins, profuse; pistillate terminal, in spikes; each flower
greenish, scurfy, 4-angled, tapering. Fruit 3 to 11 in cluster,
pointed at both ends, elongated, husk thin, 4-angled, winged at
sutures which open at maturity; nut smooth, reddish, cylindrical,
thin shelled; kernel sweet, with red, astringent, granular coat.
Preferred habitat, low, rich ground near streams. Distribution,
southern Iowa, Illinois and Indiana, and Southern States bordering
the Mississippi River to central Alabama. Range extended by
cultivation into all Southern States. Uses: Most valuable native
nut tree. Wood not much used in construction; excellent for
fuel. Fine shade and ornamental tree.

One of the things that solaced Evangeline's people, homesick
for their lost Acadia, and wandering in a new and unknown region,
was the wealth of sweet, nutritious nuts that grew on trees the
Indians called pecans. The "Cajons" called the trees, Pecanier,
translating the name into their own language. Twice it stood
between them and famine before they became established along
the lower courses of the Great River.

The salvation of the pecan tree is the inferiority of its wood.
Being brittle, it does not commend itself to the makers of wagon
tongues and axe handles. Many a superb specimen adorns the
roadside and more than pays its way at nut harvest, while other
hickories have all been felled and dragged off to the factory. No
finer tree adorns the avenues of Southern cities than the pecan.
Furthermore, the value and importance of the nut crop is an ever-
increasing quantity. Orchards of pecans are being planted, large
thin-shelled nuts being chosen for seed. Grafting and budding
have been attempted, but usually failed. Success in this is
coming and will quickly improve the character of the nuts, only
the trees with the best nuts being used for propagation by enter-
prising growers. Good seed cannot be depended upon to repro-
duce itself in the fruit of the seedling trees. Cions and buds produce
the same sort of nuts, when they come to bear, as the parent tree.

Pecans are, 95 per cent, of them, still gathered in the woods.
Buyers pay nut gatherers from 3 cents to 5 cents per pound for
them at the railroad. The retailer gets 1 5 cents to 75 cents per
pound. The yield varies with the years, and quantities are kept
over in cold storage against a nut famine. The prices fluctuate
surprisingly, and offer great opportunities for speculation.

142

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THE PECAN {Iliona Pecan)

The crown spreads into a broad dome in open situations. The foliage mass is of graceful, lustrous, sickle-shaped leanets i
variable numbers. The wood is of little value, compared with other hickories The bark b furrowed but not si

The Walnuts and the Hickories

The shiny red pecans in the grocer's box owe their polish and
esh colour to rapid friction with other nuts in revolving barrels,
nfortunately this process restores the bloom of youth to the shells

stale nuts which are commonly mingled with the fresh ones. In
any places the nuts are cracked and shelled, the meats sold at
) cents to 60 cents per pound. There is economy of time, at
ast, in this for the confectioner and the cook.

The "get-rich-quick" man is sure to be interested in pecans
id pecan culture. Large, thin-shelled nuts, for seed, bring from
> cents to $2.50 per pound. Budded and grafted trees, one or two
;ars old, cost from 50 cents to $1.50 each at the nursery. An
chard of thrifty, prolific trees, whose nuts have thin-shelled,
ump kernels, with delicate flavour and the minimum of the
tringent red shell lining, is certainly as good as a gold mine on
ly farm.

Of the seventy and more varieties that have been described,
>t twenty are worth considering. Anyone interested in the
bject should get the Report on Nut Culture, Division of Pomol-
j, Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.

Bitternut, Swamp Hickory (Hicoria minima, Britt.) —

tall, handsome tree, 60 to 100 feet high, with straight trunk,
out branches and slender twigs, forming a broad, symmetrical
:ad. Bark greyish brown, smooth, close; branches smooth;
rigs yellowish brown, pale, dotted. Wood brown, heavy, hard,
3se grained, tough. Buds slender, pointed, yellow, granular.
'.aves alternate, compound, 6 to 10 inches long, of 7 to 1 1 narrow,
most willow-like leaflets, bright green, paler beneath, leathery;
:llow in autumn; petioles downy, slender. Flowers in May, with
ives; monoecious, staminate catkins, 3 to 4 inches long, in threes,
alked; pistillate on terminal peduncles, 1 to 3 flowers, f inch
ng, with spreading stigmas, green. Fruit globular, or pear
aped, f to 1 inch long, wider; husk thin, with 4 prominent
nged sutures, reaching half way to base; sometimes 2 go to
ise, never 4. Golden scurf on husk. Nut thin shelled, conf-
essed, marked with dark lines; kernel bitter, white. Preferred
bitat, low wet woods; swamps. Distribution, Maine and Ontario
Florida; west to Minnesota, Nebraska and Texas. Uses:
iluable ornamental and shade tree, not yet appreciated,
bod used for ox yokes, hoops and for fuel.

The bitternut is known among the hickories by its flattened

*43

The Walnuts and the Hickories

tapering, yellow buds, which it always carries, no matter what the
season. There are always dormant buds in spring, even when
growth is at its height. One needs only to follow along any
twig to discover several of such lateral ones of the previous year.
Very soon the new buds thrust their little yellow noses up from
the axils of the leaves, and you have there the sign which remains
until growth begins next spring.

The bark of H. minima is close and thin; the habit of the
tree is like a hard maple's; its leaflets are the smallest among
hickories, and the twigs are the slenderest.

One need not depend on the fruit as an identification sign.
The smooth, round nut comes easily out of the thin shell. But
the kernel, white and plump, is bitter as gall. No woodland
creatures eat it. This is one of the reasons why the trees are so
numerous. Nuts roll away from the parent tree, and are privileged
to grow, while edible nuts are devoured.

The bitternut has all the good qualities of an ideal park tree,
and excels the other hickories in rapidity of growth. The land-
scape gardener of the coming generation will know and appreciate
it, for the native trees are receiving more and more consideration,
and their names are appearing, in increasing numbers, in nursery-
men's catalogues.

The Bitter Pecan, or Water Hickory (H. aquatica, Britt.),
is least in size and value among the hickories, though it shoots up
occasionally to the height of ioo feet. It grows in inundated
districts — in swamps of the coast region from Virginia to Texas,
and along the Mississippi River to southern Illinois. There is
little to regret in its comparative uselessness, for the trees are
practically inaccessible. The bitter little nut is roughly sculptured
and ridged, reminding one of the butternut shell. This probably
led Michaux to call it a walnut. The kernel is thickly coated
with a bitter red powder, like that of the pecan.

144

CHAPTER XX: THE POPLARS

Family Salicace/e
Genus POPULUS

Quick-growing trees with angled or round twigs, set with
caly buds, soft, light wood, and bitter bark. Leaves deciduous,
imple, alternate, usually broad, on long petioles. Flowers
lioecious, both kinds in crowded, pendulous catkins; each flower
ubtended by a bract with deeply cut, hairy margin. Fruit
'endulous racemes of 2 to 4-valved pods^seeds minute, with dense,
ilky float attached. ^^>

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Leaf stalks flattened.

^ B. Buds smooth, resinous.

C. Leaves triangular, coarsely serrate.*^
D. Blades of leaves 3 to 5 inches long.

(P. deltoidea) cottonwood
DD. Blades of leaves 2 to i\ inches long.
E. Twigs slender, pubescent, yellow.

(P. Fremontii) cottonwood
EE. Twigs stout, smooth, orange.

(P. Wisliieni) cottonwood
CC. Leaves roundish, finely serrate.

(P. tremuloides) quaking asp#:
BB. J .s downy; leaved ovate .coarsely toothed.

(P. grandidctdata) great-toothed aspen
V. Le £ stalks round; buds resinous.
B. Foliage green on both sides.
C. Shape of leaves lanceolate.

(P. angustijolia) narrow-leaved cottonwood IS-
CC. Shape of leaves rhombic or deltoid, with long-
pointed apex.
D. Margins finely serrate.

(P. acuminata) lance-leaved cottonwood
DD. Margins coarsely and crenately toothed.

(P. Mexicana) Mexican cottonwood

145

The Poplars

BB. Foliage pale, silvery or rusty below; margins finely
serrate.
C. Buds thickly covered with yellow resin.

(P. balsamijera) balm of gilead
CC. Buds somewhat resinous.
D. Bark pale grey.

(P. trichocarpa) black cottonwood
DD. Bark reddish brown.

(P. heteropbylla) swamp cottonwood

Trees of the genus Populus form extensive forests in low,
rich land and on high slopes of mountains. They attain large
size, are quick of growth, and have exceeding tenacity of life,
striking roots from twigs and sending up suckers from under-
ground. Seeds are also a reliable means of reproduction, as
they are produced in great numbers, and are widely scattered
by the wind. The wood is one of the best materials for pjjl£
making, and for amultitu4e-X)f cheap wares forwhich a woodeasy
to wor\js_demanikd. The trees are largely planted for shadeTand
ornament, for windbreaks, and to hold the banks of streams.

There are twenty-five species of Populus known, eleven of
which are native to America. European species are often planted
in this country, where they usually thrive as if at home. Some
Russian varieties are successful on the Western prairies. China
and Japan each have representative poplars here.)

Cottonwood (Populus deltoidea, Marsh.) — Much-branched
tree, 60 to 150 feet in height; diameter 5 to 7J feet. Bark deeply
furrowed, grey-brown, becoming greenish; often ashen grey
on old trees. Wood dark brown; sap wood white; weak, compact,
light. Buds large, pointed, resinous. Leaves broadly ovate,
I taper pointed, 3 to 5 inches long, rnargin wavy and coarsely
toothed, thick, shining, ppje beneath, yellow in till; petiole
long, slender, flat, red or yellow. Flowers, March, Li pendant
catkins, 3 to 5 inches long, loosely flowered; stamii. ate red,
numerous; pistillate green, sparse on trees. Fruits, May, aments
6 to 12 inches long; capsules ovate, often curved, 2-valved;
seeds in white, cottony mass.- Preferred habitat, moist soil along
streams. Distribution, Quebec to Northwest Territory; south to
Florida; west to Colorado and New Mexico. Uses: !>5n6h
planted for shade and windbreaks in the prairie states. Wc *
has recently come into use in making packing cases.

146

The Poplars

leaves have flattened stems. The round-stemmed ones are
poplars, proper. The Russian adage: "There is a tree that
trembles without even a breath of wind," might well fit this
most apprehensive of all the aspen trees. Its dainty round
leaf blades twinkle in the sun, a grove of the trees together pro-
ducing at a little distance the appearance as well as the sound of
rippling water. It is the gayest of trees. That was a lugubrious
wight who imagined it accursed by being the tree on which Judas
Iscariot hanged himself, and doomed "ever afterward to shudder
and tremble on account of its connection with the tragedy of
Calvary." The same legend attaches to the pretty little redbud,
the Judas tree.

"The green wood moved, and the light poplar shook
Its silver pyramid of leaves."

We might easily adapt these graceful lines to our quaking asp,
but that the word "silver" will not apply accurately. The
English poet, Barry Cornwall, was describing the white poplar
with white leaf linings.

There is no mystery in the trembling of these aspen leaves.
Examine one. The stem is long and flexible. It is flattened in a
plane at right angles with the blade of the leaf. Now, given a
leaf that is dangling from its twig, and has four flat surfaces
exposed, it is a cautious breeze indeed that is able to get by
without disturbing the leafs unstable equilibrium. Given, a
treetop of leaves similarly made and hung, and you have a
quaking asp. It waves you an invitation to examine, and see
if the explanation above is not correct.

Homer's famous simile based on the leaves of poplar trees is
not ungallant as that of Gerarde, who compares them to "women's
tongues which seldom cease wagging."

The most delicate colouring is found in this aspen tree.
The pale bark takes on a cool, greenish tinge in earliest spring.
The furry catkins flush pink with their silvery grey silk. The
opening leaves unroll, soft and white, like flannel — "ju' luk a
kitten's ear," each one of them, to quote Uncle Eb. They pass
through various tones of rose and olive on^ie way to their lustrous
adult stage. Every day from early March tlTliMa/r it is worth
while to go by a copse of trembling aspen and look up to see
what new phase of the trees' life history has opened since last we
passed that way.

149

The Poplars

Large-toothed Aspen (Populus grandidentata, Michx.) —
Narrow, round-headed tree, 50 to 75 feet high, with stout, angular
branchlets, roughened by leaf scars. Bark dark brown and deeply
fissured between broad ridges on old trunks; grey-green on limbs.
Twigs smooth, pubescent at first. Wood soft, weak, pale brown ;
sap wood white. Buds ovate, pointed, scaly, waxed. Leaves
ovate to roundish, heart shaped at base, acute, with sparse,
irregular-rounded teeth; 3 to 4 inches long, 2 to 3 inches wide,
thick, green, with pale somewhat tomentose linings; petioles
slender, laterally flattened, 2 to 3 inches long. Flowers, April,
dioecious, in pendulous catkins, 2 to 3 inches long; staminate
red from anthers; pistillate green from spreading stigmas; bracts
deeply cleft. Fruits, hairy capsules, 2-valved, thin walled, slender,
crooked, filled with minute seeds, each with white, hairy float;
May. Preferred habitat, rich, sandy loam, on borders of streams.
Distribution, Nova Scotia to Minnesota; south to New Jersey, and
on Alleghanies to North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky.

The coarse, thick leaves with large, rounded teeth on the
margins, distinguished this great-toothed aspen from its dainty
cousin, the quaking asp, with which it is often associated in the
woods. In fact, the tree is coarser throughout, the branchlets
stout and the buds downy, so no one who is interested and ob-
servant will have any trouble to tell them apart.

The Narrow-leaved Cottonwood (P. angustifolia, James)
has lanceolate leaves, more like a willow's than a poplar's. The
margins are finely saw toothed, the petioles short, and the texture
thin and firm. It is easy to see that the tree is a poplar, the
flattened petiole alone being a sufficient clue. The tree lines the
banks of mountain streams of the Rockies, 5,000 to 10,000 feet
in elevation. It grows from 40 to 60 feet high, a narrow pyramid
of slender limbs.

The Lance-leaved Cottonwood (P. acuminata, Rydb.), with
scarcely wider leaves than the preceding species, is a compact,
round-headed little tree that grows on stream borders and arid
foothills of the Rocky Mountains from British Columbia to
southern Nebraska and Colorado. Its distribution is not fully
ascertained. .It is use^Hbr fuel and planted for shade in com-
munities within its natural range.

The Mexican Cottonwood (P. Mexicana, Wesm.) grows,
a -graceful, wide-spreading tree of medium size, along mountain

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The Poplars

streams near the Mexican border of Arizona and New Mexico.
Its rhombic, long-pointed leaves are very coarsely toothed, and
when they first unfold are dark red, soon becoming yellow-green
and leathery. The bark is grey or almost white.

Balm of Gilead (Populus balsamijera, Linn.) — Large tree
with stout trunk, 75 to 100 feet high. Bark grey, broken into
broad ridges; branches greenish, smooth or with warty out-
growths. Wood pale, soft, compact, weak, light brown. Buds
long, slender, shining with yellow wax. Leaves broadly ovate,
acute, finely and bluntly toothed, thick, shining, dark green, pale,
often rusty beneath, 3 to 5 inches long; petioles slender; autumn
colour yellow. Flowers, March, before leaves; aments drooping,
hairy; stamens 18 to 30, crowded on disc; anthers pale red;
pistils green with spreading stigmas; flowers scattered. Fruits,
May, capsules scattered on stems 4 to 6 inches long; seed brown,
buried in cottony float. Preferred habitat, moist or dry soil near
water. Distribution, Newfoundland to Hudson Bay and Alaska;
south to Maine, New York, Michigan, Nebraska, Idaho and
British Columbia. Uses: Well worthy of planting for shade,
ornament and shelter.

The fragrant wax that saturates the winter buds and coats
the yo'mg leaves in spring gives this tree its name. The bees
find k uS soon as the sap stirs and the wax softens. Quantities
o* 'it are collected and stored in hives "against a rainy day"; for
'this is what bees use to seal up weather cracks in their hives.
It is known to bee keepers as "propolis." The service this wax
renders the tree is to prevent the loss of water from the buds, and
the absorption of more, after they are ready for winter. It is
not "to keep the buds from freezing," as some people fondly
imagine. The buds freeze solid, but it does them no harm. They
are adjusted to it. In the far North the Indian uses the balsam
of Balm of Gilead trees to seal up the seams of his birch-bark
canoe, and of dishes and other utensils made of the same material.
The forests of Balm of Gilead stretch away over the lake
margins and bottom lands of upper Canada, the largest and
most prominent feature of vegetation in the vast regions that
approach the Arctic circle, and extend down into the northern
tier of states, from ocean to ocean.

IThe chief interest that centres about the tree is its good
record when planted as a shade and ornamental tree, and in

*5*

The Poplars

shelter belts. It is a hardy tree of excellent habit, compact
and erect, but not too narrow for shade. It is easily propagated
and transplanted, and grows rapidly. The tree is handsome,
winter and summer. It has all the good points of the Carolina
poplar, and lacks its fault of becoming so soon an unsightly
cripple.

The Black Cottonwood (P. trichocarpa, Hook.) is the giant
of the genus, reaching 200 feet in height and 7 to 8 feet in trunk
diameter. It is tall and stately, with a broad, rounded crown
supported upon heavy upright limbs. One of the beautiful
sights of the Yosemite Park is the autumnal gold of black cotton-
wood groves whose abundant foliage embowers the stream borders
at the altitude of about 4,000 to 5,000 feet. The tree's range
covers the coast plain and western slopes of mountains from
Alaska to southern California. The largest trees are on the
lowest levels. The dark rich green of the leaves gives this tree its
name. They are ovoid, 3 to 4 inches long, with the finest of saw-
toothed margins. The wood has come into extensive use for
the manufacture of various woodenwares and for staves of sugar
barrels.

Swamp Cottonwood (Populus heterophylla %) — Round-
topped tree, 50 to 90 feet high. Bark red-br r narrow,
loose plates; twigs red or grey, containing orai Wood
brown, light, compact. Buds resinous, ovate, wiu red scales.
Leaves broadly ovate, 4 to 7 inches long, serrate, dark green wi.tn
pale lining, when mature, covered with white tomentum as the)'
unfold; petioles round, slender; yellow or brown in autumn.
Flowers, March or April; staminate aments crowded, erect until
blossoms open; anthers deep red; pistillate aments few-flowered,
drooping. Fruit, May, aments 4 to 6 inches long; capsules few,
2 to 3-valved, $ inch long, bell shaped. Preferred habitat, wet soil.
Distribution, swamps from southern Connecticut to Georgia and
Louisiana; north along Mississippi to Arkansas and Indiana.

The swamp cottonwood is variable in the base, apex and
margin of its leaf. It may exhibit coarse or fine saw teeth, a
blunt or sharp-pointed apex, a square or heart-shaped base.
The conspicuous netted veins are always present, and the leaves
are always large and broadly ovate, with slim, round petioles.
The orange-coloured pith of the branchlets best distinguishes the
tree from other poplars. The new shoots and the unfolding

152

The Poplars

aves are coated with white down. It often takes a whole
immer to get rid of it.

The Acadians (probably) are responsible for the name
'.ngues de femmes, by which the tree is known in Louisiana,
he mild calumny of Gerarde is thus perpetuated and extended
> a species whose leaf stems are merely flexible, not flat at all!
1 the lumber trade the wood is known as "black poplar." It is
ark brown in colour.

THREE EUROPEAN POPLARS IN CULTIVATION IN

AMERICA

A. Leaves bright green, lined with white down, irregularly
lobed and toothed.

(Populus alba) abele or silver-leaved poplar
A. Leaves dark green on both sides, smooth, broad as long,
finely and regularly toothed; apex tapering.
B. Shape broadly pyramidal. {Populus nigra) black poplar
BB. Shape narrowly pyramidal.

(P. nigra, var. Italica) lombardy poplar

The Ab White Poplar (Populus alba, Linn.) is much

anted about /vierican homes, its downy-leaved and "maple-
aved" varieties having the preference. The silvery velvet
the leaf linings is in sharp contrast to the dark, shining upper
rfaces of the leaves. The flexible stems give the wind much
sedom in the treetops, and the sunlight is reflected from the
aves much as it is on rippling water. \he pale outer bark
eaks in streaks and spots, showing the dark under layers, much
the palest trunks of cottonwoods do. The tree is distinctly
poplar in flowers and fruits.

Two bad habits have these silvery poplars: (i) their roots
nd up suckers, to the distress of owners and neighbours;
) their leaves accumulate and hold dust and coal soot until
ey are filthy before the summer is half done. Moral: Plant
>ur silver poplar in the background, where its sprouting can
controlled without damage to the lawn and where distance
ids enchantment to the view of its foliage.

The Black Poplar (P. nigra, Linn.), of Europe and Asia,

s become established in certain parts of the Eastern States, but

is now chiefly met with in its cultivated forms. Variety

*53

The Poplars

elegans is a dainty tree with small, bright, twinkling leaves and
ruddy twigs and petioles. The following variety is much more
extensively known, though it has less horticultural merit.

i/The Lrombardy Poplar (Populus nigra, var. Iialica) is the
exclamation point that marks by its soldierly rows so many
familiar boundary lines of farms and village properties. It has
the merit of infringing but slightly even by its shade on the rights
and premises of others. Indeed, that such a tree should be
planted for the shade it gives is scarcely probable. The pencil-
like form and the twinkling of the green leaves are attractive.
Italian villas were punctuated with thern, and any piece of planting
may well be diversified and accented by a group of these trees.
But they need to be flanked by trees of diffuse habit — never set
alone or in rows! Thg^eat fault of these poplars-is the _eariy
dying of their limbs, because of much crowding. The tree retains
these dead hmbsT^uid so loses its youthful beauty and becomes
scraggy topped. As the scientific name points out, these trees are
an Italian variety of the black poplar.

CHAPTER XXI: THE WILLOWS

Family Salicace^

Genus SALIX

Chiefly quick-growing, water-loving trees and shrubs, with
slender, supple twigs, and buds with a single protective cap or
scale of two coats. Wood light, soft. Leaves simple, alternate,
narrow o.nd pointed, deciduous. Flowers dioecious, in loose
catkins, each flower subtended by a bract having an entire hairy
margin. Fruit a 2-valved pod with papery walls; seeds minute,
in copious hairy floats.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Shape of leaves linear-lanceolate, taper pointed.
B. Leaves green on both sides.

C. Stipules persistent. (S. nigra) black willow

CC. Stipules deciduous. (S. fluviatilis) sandbar willow
BB. Leaves pale and silky, hairy below.
^- (S. sessili folia) willow

< AA. Shape of leaves lanceolate, sharp pointed.

B. Stamens more than 2 on each scale of catkin.
C. Petioles without glands.
D. Leaves silvery beneath.

(5. longipes)' black willow
DD. Leaves glaucous beneath.

E. Petioles slender; leaves thin, pale green.

(S. amygdaloides) peach willow
EE. Petioles stout; leaves leathery, dark green.

(5. laevigata) black willow
CC. Petioles with glands at apex; leaves dark green,
lustrous, pale beneath.
D. Leaves leathery. (S. lucida) shining willow
DD. Leaves not leathery. (S. lasiandra) black willow
BB. Stamens 2 on each scale of catkin.

C. Leaves pubescent and silvery beneath.

(S. Missouri ensis) Missouri willow
CC. Leaves smooth, with pale linings.

155

The Willows

D. Leaf linings silvery; blades broad.

(S. discolor) pussy willow
DD. Leaf linings pale; blades narrow.

(S. cordata, var. Macken^ieana) heart willow
AAA. Shape of leaves oblong or ovate.
B. Leaf linings pubescent, white.

C. Apex blunt. (S. Hookeriana) willow

CC. Apex short pointed. (S. Bebbiana) willow

BB. Leaf linings smooth, pale; apex blunt.

(S. balsamijera) willow

The genus Salix is distributed from the equator to the Arctic
circle. It embraces 170 species, beside numbers of natural
hybrids between closely related species. Most of them prefer
moist soil; a few prefer dry. They ascend from sea level to the
tops of mountain chains. They vary from great trees to prostrate
shrubs. No climate or soil but can show its native willows.
Among woody plants they are comparable to grass among the
herbs.

The wood of willow is uniformly light and weak. The
trees are likely to get less than their due of credit, when compared
with the average large genus of hardwoods or conifers. But
uses have been found for them from time immemorial. Their
soft, light wood makes superior charcoal for gunpowder and
other uses, and is largely used for summer fuel where a quick,
hot fire is desirable. The tough, flexible twigs of several species
form the basis of the wickerware industry. Tannin is obtained
from the bitter bark. In Holland and other countries willows are
planted to hold the banks of streams and ditches. Willow
branches formed the original jetties that opened and kept open to
navigation the channel of the Mississippi. Willows are among
our best trees for quick-growing shelter belts, in the newer parts
of the country. They furnish ornamental and shade trees of
value — pretty when young, dignified in age.

The cultivation of willows is very easy. A twig stuck into
moist soil grows into a tree. Willow posts set out green soon
grow into roadside trees, thus serving a double purpose. In
damp situations their roots drain and greatly improve the land.
Many species have twigs that snap off at the base. These twigs
strike root if they fall on damp ground; many waterside willows
cast their twigs in this way, and the stream carries them down,
lodging them on shoals and bars, which soon become clothed with

156

£ C/3

The Willows

3es. It is an unmeasured advantage to a region to have its
ifting sands and mud banks established thus, and covered with
een.

There are comparatively few willows that grow into large
±es. The rank and file of trees even in these species are small,
om Europe we have naturalised two large species, S. alba and
fragilis. The golden osier, whose yellow limbs are bright in
rly spring in many a fence row, is called var. vitellina of S. alba,
e white willow of Europe. The Babylonian willow, Salix
lbylonica, is the much-planted weeping willow of the Eastern
ates. Var. dolorosa is the popular "Wisconsin Weeping Willow."
ne of the best ornamental willows is S. pentandra, the laurel
illow, whose crown of glossy, broad, green leaves adorns many
irks. This species is coming into well-deserved popular favour,
le Kilmarnock Willow is a weeping horticultural variety,
•ndula, of S. Caprea, Linn., the European goat willow. The
aminate tree is loaded in spring with catkins which are coarse
id ugly compared with those of our own pussy willow, S. discolor.
Black Wi\\ovf(Salix nigra, Marsh.) — Medium-sized tree,
> to ioo feet high, but usually smaller. Twigs slender, brittle at
ase. Bark dark brown, flaky, deeply furrowed, often shaggy.
'ood light reddish brown, weak, soft" fine grained. Buds small,
;ute, red-brown. Leaves narrowly lanceolafe, acuminate at
;>ex? finely and evenly serrate, green on both sides; petioles
lort, 2 J to 5 inches long; stipules leaf-like, semi heart shaped or
•escent shaped, deciduous or persistent. Flowers with leaves,
i short lateral twigs, dioecious; catkins i to 3 inches long, pencil-
ke, erect; ovaries short, distinct, smooth; stamens 3 to 7; scales
val, hairy, deciduous. Fruit loose racemed capsules, ovoid,
ipering; seeds minute. Preferred habitat, borders of lakes and
.reams. Distribution, Newfoundland to Florida, west to Rocky
lountains, reappearing in California.

The black willow earns its name by the black bark of old trees.
,n interesting feature of the foliage is the pair of leaf-like, heart-
laped stipules that persist throughout the summer, as a rule, at
tie base of each leaf. Among narrow-leaved willows this is the
nly one with foliage uniformly green on both sides. The leaves
re often curved like a sickle. No willow has a wider distribution
han this intrepid species, which takes possession of stream
orders, climbs mountains and crosse* arid plains to plant itself

157

The Willows

in new territory. It is one of the largest of our native species
when it comes to maturity.

The Black Willow (S. longipes, Anders.) differs from
*S. nigra in the wider, more typically lanceolate leaf and the
silvery lining which lightens the foliage mass wonderfully as
the wind plays among the leaves. The two heart-shaped stipules
are usually persistent; they can always be found near the tips
of growing shoots, even in midsummer.

The centre of this tree's distribution is in the Ozark Mountains.
Rocky banks of streams are its preferred habitat. It grows, a
small tree, from Washington, D. C, to Florida, and west to
Missouri and New Mexico.

J Sandbar Willow (Salix fluviatilis, Nutt.) — Slender tree, 20
to 30 feet high, or much-branched shrub. Leaves silky, becoming
smooth, linear-lanceolate, coarsely toothed, tapering at both ends,
often falcate, 2 to 4 inches long, thin yellow-green, paler beneath;
petioles short; midrib raised, prominent; stipules minute, leafy,
deciduous. Flowers in slender, silky aments on leafy side twigs.
Fruits ovoid-conic, sessile, scales smooth. Preferred habitat, moist
soil along streams. Distribution, Quebec to Northwest Territory;
south to Virginia, Kentucky and New Mexico.

The sandbar Willow, like S. nigra, does a good work
in holding in place a body of drift which without them would be
moved by floods. The beautifying of rivers by embowering the
mud flats and sandy shoals in billowy green is a distinct claim
this tree has to the gratitude of communities. A little tree, indeed,
but widely distributed, it is one of the most useful. A variety,
argyrophylla, with silky, downy leaf, is found from Texas west to
California and north to British Columbia.

The Silver - leaved Willow (Salix sessilifolia, Nutt.),
with scarcely any stem for its narrow silky-lined leaves, is a
little tree that follows stream borders from Puget Sound south
to the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. It is one of the
commonest willows of the coast region of southern California.
The hoary tomentum that clothes the opening leaves is never
quite lost from the under sides of the leaves. They are pale
yellow-green on the upper sides at maturity.

Peach-leaf Willow (Salix amygdaloides, Anders.) — Erect,
straight-branched tree, 30 to 40 feet high, rarely 70 feet high.
Bark brown, scaly, on thick plates. Wood soft, weak, pale brown.

158

The Willows

ds ovate, lustrous, brown. Leaves broadly lanceolate or ovate,
rate, taper pointed, 3 to 5 inches long, 1 inch wide, glabrous,
ler, and glaucous beneath; petioles slender, compressed; stipules
Iney shaped, broad, serrate, soon dropping. Flowers with the
ves; catkins loosely flowered, 1 to 2 inches long. Fruits narrowly
oid capsules, taper pointed, smooth on stem of equal length.
ejerred habitat, borders of streams and lakes. Distribution,
tebec to British Columbia, south through New York, Missouri
d New Mexico.

The resemblance of the foliage of this tree to that of peach
:es is striking. The leaves curl slightly, and hang pendant on
sir slender, flexible stems. It is one of our few willow trees that
e above medium height. Rare in the East, it is common in
e valley of the Ohio, and along streams that flow down the
stern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. It is often met in cultiva-
>n in the Middle West.

The Black Willow (S. laevigata, Bebb.) is recognisable by

; pale blue-green, leathery leaves, which are pale and glaucous

neath and finely serrate or almost entire on the margins. It is

native of California, following streams on the western slopes of

e Sierras. It is rarely more than 40 feet high, averaging a little

er half that height.

The Shining Willow (S. lucida, Muehl.) is an inhabitant

the North. From Newfoundland it ranges westward to

udson Bay and the Rockies, and southward only as far as

mnsylvania and Nebraska. A small, round-headed tree, its

stinction is the lustre of its ruddy twigs and the beautiful sheen

its dark green, leathery leaves. It is coming to be recognised

/ landscape gardeners and nurserymen as a- species of cOxisider-

)le horticultural value.

The Western Black Willow (S. lasiandra, Benth.) grows
> be a tree 60 feet high on river banks and lake shores from
ritish Columbia to California and east into Montana, Colorado
id New Mexico. The type becomes modified in the remote
nits of its range. The leaves are 4 or 5 inches long, lanceolate
id finely cut-toothed; they are a dark, lustrous green above,
iler or glaucous below.

Missouri Willow (Salix Missouriensis, Bebb.) — Tree, to
) feet high, with trunk to ij feet thick. Twigs pubescent.
ark grey, thin, with small scales. Wood dark brown. Leaves

159

The Willows

lanceolate, acuminate, finely serrate, with rounded bases, 3 to 6
inches long, J to ii inches wide; pubescent at first, becoming
smooth, green above, pale and glaucous below; stipules leaf-like
in pairs, often persistent; petioles about £ inch long. Flowers
before leaves; aments slender, long; scales persistent, hairy;
stamens 2; style short. Fruit capsules, stalked, narrowly
ovoid, smooth, above hairy oval scale. Preferred habitat, river
banks. Distribution, northern Missouri, northeastern Kansas,
Nebraska and western Iowa.

I^Fussy Willow (Salix discolor, Muehl.) — Shrub, or small
tree, to 25 feet high, with stout branchlets, purplish red with
pubescent coating. . Buds reddish, flattened, pointed. Leaves
oblong-lanceolate, acute at both ends, irregularly serrate, often
crenate, thick, 3 to 5 inches long, bright green, with pale or silvery
lining; midribs broad, yellow; stipules leaf-like, half-moon shaped;
petioles slender. Flowers, March, often showing earlier, before
the leaves; aments silky, oval, grey, turning yellow as flowers open.
Fruits aments of beaked capsules, each long pointed, on long
stem, with broad, hairy scale. Preferred habitat, swamps and moist
hillsides. Distribution, Nova Scotia to Manitoba; south to
Delaware and Missouri.

This is the familiar bog willow which we rarely recognise in
leaf. The twigs are usually cut when the little furry catkins peep
out in late winter. Florists in Eastern cities buy large quantities
of these twigs in winter, and force them out for the early spring
trade.

The Heart "Willow (S. cordata), a shrub in the East, has
a Western variety, Macken^ieana, Hook., that assumes the tree
habit and size. It extends from the far North to th^,. Rocky
Mountains in Idaho and west into California. Tfre; .narrow
leaves are acute at the apex and bear minute kidney-shaped
stipules throughout the summer. It is an extremely variab: >;
willow.

The Hooker Willow (S. Hookeriana, Hook.) has broad,
oblong leaves, blunt at apex, and white below, with hoary tomen-
tum. It is the little willow of sand dunes and salt marshes from
Vancouver Island to southern Oregon. Its hoary twigs further
identify it. It rarely grows above 30 feet in height.

Bebb's "Willow (Salix Bebbiana, *Sarg.) — Small tree, with
short trunk, 10 to 20 feet high, with downy twigs and smooth.

160

THE PUSSY WILLOW (Salix discolor)
familiar bog willow whose grey, silky catkins appear in earliest spring. People rarely see this tree in summer

'•*V i

it;

i Mature staminate flower

2 Immature staminate flower

3 Mature pistillate flower

''.■i?iSft'-'*,*<lH

f*Jm&*:

J^' ^

"3SS -

| *WktM

4 Fruit unrip*

Fruit

ripe

THE PUSSY WILLOW (&j//* discolor)

On staminate trees the catkins turn yellow by the ripening of the pollen in the anthers. On pistillate trees the catkin?
are made up of pistils, each on a silky, entire scale. In late spring these matured pistils form beaked, 2-valved pods. The seed,
are minute, and each has a silky float

The Willows

reddish bark. Leaves i to 3 inches long, oblong-obovate, acute
or blunt at apex, sparingly toothed or entire, dull green and
downy above, distinctly veined and pale blue or silvery, hairy
beneath; petioles short; stipules semi-cordate, acute, deciduous.
Flowers with leaves, sessile, erect, terminal; staminate silky
white, becoming golden; pistillate silky, with yellow stigmas
which spread in pairs. Fruits pubescent, beaked capsules;
stalk much longer than scale. Preferred habitat, dry soil or stream
borders. Distribution, throughout British America and south
to New Jersey, Nebraska and Utah.

The Balsam Willow (S. balsamijera, Barr.) is dressed in
spring, like the Balm of Gilead, in young shoots that glisten in a
coating of balsam. The broad, ovate leaves are blunt at the
apex, and look scarcely willow-like, but the flowers and seed pods
maintain the family traditions and leave us no doubts. The
tree is found in the northern tier of states and ranges far north,
becoming a prostrate shrub. In its best estate it grows into a
long stem crowned with a small clump of branches bearing the
foliage. It is an inhabitant of cold bogs, and extends no farther
west than Minnesota.

Golden Osier (Salix alba, Linn., var. vitellina) — Venerable-
looking tree, with short trunk and regular, spreading top, 40 to
60 feet high. Twigs golden yellow. Bark grey, rough. Leaves
elliptical, sparingly serrate, tapering at both ends, 2 to 4 inches
long, silky hairy, becoming smooth; lining white and somewhat
hairy; stipules ovate-lanceolate, deciduous; petioles short.
Flowers with leaves; scales deciduous; stamens 2; stigmas sessile.
Fruits flask shaped, sessile, smooth capsules. Preferred habitat,
noist, rich soil. Distribution, eastern North America.

This American derivative of the white willow of Europe
deserves mention among native trees. It is truly naturalised.
Its yellow twigs are its best identification. It is far more common
n cultivation than its parent, although the latter is occasionally
>een. This variety is one of the most vigorous and useful of all
:he willows grown in this country.

i6t

CHAPTER XXII: THE HORNBEAMS

Family Betulace/e

i. Genus OSTRYA Scop.

Small trees with very hard wood and scaly bark. Leaves
simple, alternate, ovate, deciduous. Flowers small, monoecious,
both in catkins. Fruits conical, hop-like, of many nuts, each one
in an inflated sac.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Leaves 3 to 5 inches long, tapering to point.

(0. Virginiana) hop hornbeam
AA. Leaves 1 to 2 inches long, rounded at point.

(0. Knowlioni) iron wood

2. Genus CARPINUS, Linn.

Small tree, with smooth, grey bark, showing swellings like
veins. Leaves simple, alternate, oblong-lanceolate. Flowers, both
sorts in aments, monoecious. Fruit, paired nutlets, each with a
3-lobed wing. (C. Caroliniana) Hornbeam

The hornbeams, or ironwoods, are little trees hiding in the
shadows of the forest. They are of slow growth; their wood is
very hard. They bear their flowers in catkins, the two sorts
upon the same tree: the staminate axillary, the pistillate terminal.
The seeds are formed for wind distribution. Birches, alders, and
that shrubby genus Corylus, the hazels, are associated by family
characters. America has five of the six genera that compose the
family.

As a rule the hardest woods come from tropical forests.
Witness the lignum vitae, hardest of woods, which grows in
Florida, the West Indies, and northern South America; the
mahogany of Central America; the rosewood from Brazil; and

162

The Hornbeams

the ebony from Ceylon, tropical Africa and Cuba. Northern
forests, too, furnish some species with exceptionally hard wood.
The hornbeams are the best proof of this statement; the strength,
hardness and flexibility of their wood rival steel. In durability
they excel the best oak.

The name, ironwood, is locally given to any tree whose wood
is hard.

i. Genus Ostrya, Scop.

Hop Hornbeam, Ironwood (Ostrya Virginiana, Willd.) —
Small, slender tree, with round head of stiff, wiry branches.
Bark greyish brown, furrowed into narrow, scaly ridges, which
break into small, oblong plates. Wood reddish brown, heavy,
cross grained, tough, strong and hard to work. Buds lateral,
ovate, acute, small, brown. Leaves ovate, acuminate, sharply
and doubly serrate, 3 to 5 inches, thin, tough, dull yellow-green
above, paler beneath; yellow in autumn; petioles short, hairy.
Flowers with leaves, April and May, monoecious; staminate in
catkins formed previous season ; pistillate erect, loose catkins, each
flower surrounded by three united bracts. Fruit a hop-like cluster
of inflated bags, formed of bracts, each containing a hard little
seed. Preferred habitat, shady forest ground. Distribution, Nova
Scotia to Black Hills; south to Florida and Texas. Uses: Wood
used for mallets, levers and tool handles. Desirable for orna-
mental planting, but rarely used.

The hop hornbeam looks like a relative of the birches. Its
leaves convey this impression, and slender limbs in winter bear
green catkins that cluster in threes on the ends of twigs and wait
for spring, just as the birch catkins do.

The bark of this hornbeam is thin and scales off in narrow
strips whose surfaces are covered with squarish scales. The
pale colour and the stripping of the bark reminds us of the shell-
bark — its shaggy strips reduced to a small scale. Among the
branches the bark is smooth and close, and the twigs look like
fine wires, springing out at right angles from the stem.

In spring the staminate catkins swing out, even as the birch
flowers do, but the pistillate clusters have to be looked for. The
red, forked tongues thrust out for pollen may be seen at the
ends of leafy side shoots. Here the midsummer shows a hop-

163

The Hornbeams

like cluster of little pale green sacs, each with a shining seed
inside.

The hop hornbeam is of a retiring disposition, preferring to
hide in the shadows of taller trees. But there is nothing dark or
funereal about it. The leaves, bright and green, are held out in
level platforms where they can get the sunbeams that trickle
down to them. Then comes summer, and the pale green "hops"
make the tree a centre that seems to shed light into dark places.
The little hop tree, Ptelea trijoliata, is shining in its corner, and at
a short distance the two trees might be confused. Each one is a
blessed sight on a hot day, for pale green against dark green is
always a cool colour scheme.

In the late autumn, after the leaves turn yellow and fall, the
hops still hang, grudgingly giving up one little seed balloon after
another to the insistent wind. There is likely to be a long sail
for each one, and perhaps more than one, for until the bag is
punctured and the seed covered, the wind gives it no rest.

The wood of the hop hornbeam is vexatious stuff for the
turner, and whoever else tries tool upon it. But once it takes
shape it lasts indefinitely. Sled stakes, levers, rake teeth,
tool handles, wedges, do not soon need replacing if made
of this material. It is equally satisfactory when used for
fence posts.

The parks about Boston have beautiful specimens of the
hop hornbeam, showing that its merits as an ornamental tree
are being recognised by the best judges. The next step will be
its increasing popularity for private grounds.

The "Western Iron wood (O. Knowltoni), which was dis-
covered in Arizona but a few years ago, is smaller in every way
than the Eastern species, but every trait proclaims it a hop
hornbeam. The leaves, catkins and hops are short and blunt
pointed. The protective pubescence which belongs to desert
plants is on the young shoots and the leaves and fruits of this
tree. Its limbs are often gnarled, but it forms a rounded sym-
metrical top, and is sometimes 30 feet high.

The tree is probably one of the rarest in the country, for as
far as known it has not been found except in one locality, where
it has formed a considerable grove. How this species has been
cut off from its near relative in the East is a problem worthy
of investigation.

164

CHAPTER XXIV: THE ALDERS

Family Betulace^
Genus ALNUS, Linn.

Small water-loving trees of rapid growth. Leaves simple,
deciduous, alternate, short stemmed. Flowers apetalous, monoe-
cious, in catkins. Fruit woody, cone-like, oval, with 2 seeds
on each scale.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Flowers in autumn. {A. maritima) seaside alder «

AA. Flowers before leaves in winter or early spring.

B. Staminate catkins becoming 4 to 6 inches long.

C. Bark smooth, pale grey or white; tree with nar-
rowly pyramidal head. {A. Oregona) red alder
CC. Bark ridged, dark brown; tree with wide, open

head. (A. rhombijolia) white alder

BB. Staminate catkins becoming 2 to 3 inches long.
C. Leaves narrow, tapering to base and apex.

(A. oblongijolia) lanceleaf alder
CC. Leaves broad, oval, papery.

(A. tenuifolia) paperleaf alder
AAA. Flowers after the leaves in spring or summer.

(A. Sitcbensis) Alaska alder

The genus Alnus includes twenty species of shrubs and trees,
nine in North America, six of which are trees in habit and size.
The largest and most important timber tree is the black alder
of the Old World. Widely distributed by Nature and by man,
this genus is the source of many hardy ornamentals adapted to
damp soils.

"Alder, the owner of all water ish ground.**

Seaside Alder {Alnus maritima, Nutt.) — A round-topped
tree 15 to 30 feet, with slender branches. Bark thin, smooth,
hght brown ; twigs greyish. Wood soft, light brown, close grained,

177

The Alders

Buds acute, dark red, \ inch long, with silky pubescence. Leaves
3 to 4 inches long, oblong, ovate or obovate, acute at both ends,
shining dark green above, pale green and dull beneath, edges
set with fine incurving teeth; petioles short. Flowers autumnal,
from buds of previous spring; monoecious; staminate catkirs,
golden, i to 2 inches long; pistillate, oblong, §- inch long, with red
tips of stigmas protruding from scales. Fruit, a woody, ovd
strobile, ripe a year after blooming; scales thick, shiny, eaci
bears two flat, obovate, pointed nuts or seeds. Preferred habitat,
borders of streams and ponds, near, but not actually on, seacoast.
Distribution, eastern Delaware and Maryland, Indian Territory.
Uses: Rarely planted, but deserving of cultivation for its
glossy foliage and the beauty and unusualness of its golden catkins,
appearing in September.

The seaside alder divides with the witch hazel the distinction
of bearing flowers and ripening fruit simultaneously in the fall
of the year. They do not compete for popular favour, because
the alder comes first, hanging out its golden catkins in clusters
on the ends of the season's shoots in August and September.
Nothing is left of them when the witch hazel scatters its dainty
stars along the twigs in October and November. The tiny
pistillate cones of the alder are scarcely larger than the buds that
keep them company.

The seaside alder grows well in the Arnold Arboretum, at
Boston, flowering profusely, thus proving itself hardy in New
England, and comfortable in dryer soil than it naturally chooses.
It is quite worthy of the attention of those who seek for beauty
and novelty of habit among little native trees.

The Oregon, or Red Alder {A. Oregona, Nutt.), is a large
tree for an alder, sometimes 80 feet in height, with a narrow
pyramid of drooping branches about a trunk that may exceed 3
feet in diameter. The smooth, pale grey bark of this tree sets it
apart from other alders. \ The flowers and strobiles are large to
match the tree; the_oy-ate leaves are crenately lobed and finely
cut toothed. They are lined with rusty pubescence, and ar^
usually smooth and dark green abeve/r

This is the alder of the Western coast that climbs mountains
until it leaves the spruces behind, but reaches its greatest size
about Puget Sound. From Sitka south through Washington and
Oregon it lines the stream borders, and along the mountains it

178

The Alders

reaches as far as Santa Barbara in California. It loves also the
canon sides in the coast range.

The reddish-brown wood is beautifully satiny when polished.
It is light and easily worked, and though weak and brittle is made
into furniture. The Indians make "dug-outs" of the butts of
large trees.

The White Alder (A. rhombi folia, Nutt.), equal in size to
the preceding species, grows along the mountain streams from
northern Idaho to southern California. It has a white scurf on its
new shoots and the opening leaves are clothed with white hairs.
Its wide sap wood is also white. The tree's spring appearance
probably justifies its name. The irregularly diamond-shaped
leaves are sharply and finely cut on thin wavy margins.

The wonderful thing about this tree is its blooming in January
or February, hanging its conspicuous yellow catkins out while
yet all other trees are asleep. Even in California this is a striking
phenomenon along the mountain streams fringed with these trees.

The bark of the trunks of white alder is furrowed and dark
brown. The trees need not be confused with the Oregon alder,
if the trunk be examined.

The Lanceleaf Alder (A. oblongijolia, Torr.), whose name
describes it well, comes up from the Peruvian Arises through
Mexico, and is found at high altitudes along canon sides in New
Mexico and Arizona.

The Paperleaf Alder {A. tenuifolia, Nutt.) — A small tree
with thin, firm-textured leaves, ovate in shape with laciniate
lobes, twice saw toothed, one of the prettiest of the alders, is
abundant in thickets along the headwaters of streams that rise
in the Western mountains. It follows the various ranges from
British Columbia to Lower California, Colorado and northern
New Mexico.

Poets do not always realise their responsibility. The one
who characterised the trees that fringed the sluggish streams and
cover the "water galls" in England as " the water spungie alder,
good for naught," put into rhythmic form, too easy to remember,
a stigma that brands a really picturesque and useful tree. The
alder's primary virtue is that it will thrive in places so boggy
that even willows and poplars cannot grow there. Can any lover
of English landscapes spare the alders from unsightly places whose
lines they sdften and whose baldness they conceal with billows of

179

The Alders

living green? "He who would see the alder in perfection must
follow the banks of the Mole, in Surrey, through the sweet vales
of Dorking and Wickleham, into the groves of Esher."

The English people cherish an affectionate regard for their
native black alder, a description of which follows. The hawthorns
of their hedgerows are not more a part of the life of the people.
John Evelyn expresses the sentiment when, after recounting the
many practical uses of the tree and its wood, he adds two more:
"The fresh leaves alone applied to the naked sole of the foot,
infinitely refresh the surbated traveller"; and "The very shadow
of this tree doth feed and nourish the grass that grows under it."

The Black Alder (Alnus glutinosa, Gaertn.), native of Europe,
Asia and North Africa, is the most picturesque of water-loving
trees, J with its dark green, round or oblong leaves glutinous
when they unfold in the spring. The trees are tall and erect, with
dark trunks. The tallest sometimes reach 70 feet and have a
trunk diameter of 3 feet. These giant alders are dignified, indeed,
but the rank and file of the species are smaller trees. They hang out
their long yellow catkin fringe on the bare twigs in earliest spring, a
sight to repay a visit, even if it involved the wearing of rubber
boots; and the little green knobs on the branching side stems grow
by autumn^nto ripe cones, out of whose slits fall the little flat seeds.

Compared with oak and ash timber, alder is indifferent in
quality and does not interest the lumberman, but there are
special uses to which alder is always put. Growing in waterf it
seems to recognise its element; alder piles, water pipes, pumps
and watering troughs kept always saturated last indefinitely.
The piles of the Rialto in Venice and those of Amsterdam, ac-
cording to ancient authorities, are of alder. Expo^edjto conditions
of alternate wet and dry, the wood soorTrots. It was a canny
Scot who buried alder boards in a peat bog, in which lime was
also thrown. This prevented the invasion of destructive insects,
and turned the pinkish brown wood to the colour and hardness of
mahogany. The grain of alder is smooth, fine and lustrous.
It does not warp nor splinterl In the old days it was a wood
for the boatbuilder. "Excepting Noah's Ark, the first vessels
we read of were made of alder." Virgil gives a pretty glimpse of
northern Italy in one of his Georgics:

"And down the rapid Po light alders glide."

180

The Oaks

of the Rocky Mountains, have no indigenous oaks. No Pacific
coast species is distributed also in the Eastern States, and vice
versa. No European, Asiatic or American species is found outside
its own continent, except as it is introduced by man.

The acorn distinguishes oaks from all other trees. It is the
characteristic fruit of the family, and is found nowhere outside of
it. All oaks bear acorns when they are old enough. Few begin
bearing under twenty years of age.

The leaf of an oak is also characteristic. People usually
learn to know an oak leaf from those of other trees without realis-
ing exactly how or why. There is great variety in the lobing of the
leaves, but they are all simple, alternate and almost always oval
in outline, leathery, and cut by deep bays, called sinuses.

The flowers of oaks are separate, but near together on the
new shoots. The staminate are in fringe-like catkins; the pis-
tillate few-Fowered clusters in the axils of leaves; except in the
genus Pasania. The acorns are either one or two years in ripening.
It happens that annual-fruited species have rounded lobes and
sinuses in their leaves. Quercus alba is the type of this class, and
as these trees generally have pale bark, they are known as the
white oak group. Biennial-fruited species have dark-coloured
bark and the lobes of their leaves end in angles tipped with bristly
points. They form the black oak group. Their type is Quercus
velutina.

i. Genus PASANIA, Orst.

The Tan-bark or Chestnut Oak of California (Pasania den-
siflora, Orst.), formerly included in the ge::us Quercus, is now set
apart as our sole representative of an Asiatic genus of trees that
stand half way between oaks and chestnuts. It is a handsome
oak, decked the year round in evergreen foliage, similar in form
to the chestnut. The leaves are coated, when young, with
yellow pubescence, which lights up the tree as if with golden
blossoms.

In summer the crown of the tree shines again with gold. The
profuse staminate spikes stand erect with greenish pistillate flowers
at their bases. The latter are scaly, but the nut finally rises out
of a densely fringed cup, declaring itself an acorn, which takes two
years to mature.

191

The Oaks

The wood of the tan-bark oak is used for fuel, but has little
lumber value. Its bark, however, is more valuable to the tanner
than any other. So the tree is threatened with extinction by the
irresponsible bark peelers, and by forest fires carelessly set.

This tree grows along dry hillsides and in mountain ravines
in California and Oregon, keeping along the coast range, and
flourishing especially among the redwoods. Government pro-
tection of the latter would save from utter annihilation another
remnant of former times, for the tan-bark oak is scarcely less
interesting to the botanist than the redwood itself.

2. Genus QUERCUS, Linn.

I. THE WHITE OAK GROUP

Acorns annual; leaf lobes rounded; bark usually pale.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Pacific coast species. Deciduous.

B. Foliage blue with silvery lining. (Q. Douglasii) blue oak
BB. Foliage green.

C. Acorns slenderly conical ; branchlets slender, pendu-
lous; leaves white lined.

(Q. lobata) California white oak
CC. Acorns oval; branchlets stout, erect; leaves not
white lined. (Q. Garryana) pacific post oak

A A. Eastern species.

B. Foliage evergreen. (Q. Virginiana) live oak

BB. Foliage semi-persistent, blue. (Q. brevuoba) durand oak
BBB. Foliage deciduous.

C. Leaves pinnately lobed by deep sinuses.

D. Undersides of leaves smooth. {Q. alba) white oak
DD. Under sides of leaves downy.

E. Branches corky; acorn large, in fringed cup.

(Q. macrocarpa) bur oak
EE. Branches not corky; acorn medium in size.
F. Acorn globose, enclosed by scaly cup.

(Q. lyrata) overcup oak
FF. Acorn ovoid, half hid in scaly cup; leaf
lobes and sinuses broad, squarish.

(Q. minor) post oak
CC. Leaves sinuately dentate with shallow sinuses;
linings pale, downy.
192

The Oaks

D. Lobes of leaves acute. (Q. acuminata) yellow oak
DD. Lobes of leaves rounded.

E. Bark dark brown, deeply furrowed.

(Q. Prinus) chestnut oak
EE. Bark light grey, scaly.

F. Limbs shedding bark in large flakes;
acorns on long stalks.

(Q. platanoides) swamp white oak
FF. Limbs not shedding bark in flakes; acorns
sessile or on short stalks.

(Q. Michauxii) basket oak

The Blue Oak, or Mountain White Oak (Quercus Doug-
lasti, Hook, and Arm), is a striking and beautiful feature of the
landscape of northern and central California. Silvery grey bark
and pale blue foliage, deepened by greenish leaf linings, and
lightened by their silvery pubescence! No wonder the blue oak
attracts attention whether it stands among the scattered groves
of California white oak in the broad valleys — a fine, round-headed
tree — or climbs the western slopes of the Sierras till it dwindles to
a shrub at an altitude of 4,000 feet. It is strangely variable in the
shape of its leaves and fruit. Its leaf may have deep lobes like
other white oaks, or it may have scarcely any noticeable waves;
some leaves are entire, some have pointed, even spiny-tipped lobes
like those of the black oaks. The blue of them, however, is a
dependable characteristic; also the silky leaf linings.

The acorns are very numerous, and so vividly green in
summer that they often overcome much of the blue of the foliage
until they take on their rich, chestnut brown. The nut often
bulges above the saucer-like cup as if too large for it; often it is
elongated into a pencil shape.

The wood is too brittle and the sap wood too thick for use in
building. It is an excellent fuel.

California White Oak (Quercus lobata, Nee.) — A large,
graceful tree with stout trunk dividing near the ground, with
spreading top and pendulous branches, making a broad dome
80 to 100 feet high, and 1 50 to 20b feet in diameter. Bark brown-
ish grey, scaly, with shallow furrows, and ridges broken into
plates; twigs hoary, grey or reddish brown. Wood hard, fine
grained, brittle and hard to season. Buds ovate, small, pubescent.
Leaves alternate, variable, oblong or obovate, 2 to 4 inches long,
deeply 7 to 1 i-lobed, thin, firm, pubescent, paler beneath; petioles

193

The Oaks

short, broad, hairy. Flowers with half-grown leaves, February
to April, staminate in hairy, yellowish catkins; pistillate, solitary
and sessile, as a rule; stigmas broad. Acorns \\ to 2 J inches long,
annual, sessile (rarely stalked), solitary or in pairs, conical, elon-
gated, with sharp, horny, hairy tip; cup shallow, tomentose,
with thick scales that become finer toward fringed border; kernel,
sweet, edible. Preferred "habitat, rich, sandy loam. Distribution,
valleys in California west of Sierra Nevada Mountains. Forms
open groves, never forests. Uses: Splendid feature of natural
scenery, but never successfully cultivated outside of its range.
Wood useless except for fuel. Fruit used as food by Indians.

It is a happy circumstance for Californians and for all people
who visit "the Land of the Setting Sun" that this valley oak
is scorned by all lumbermen. The tree is practically worthless for
timber, therefore gigantic individual trees stand scattered 01*
grouped in the spacious valleys of western California, helping
to make a landscape that cannot be duplicated this side of England.
Indeed, Vancouver, journeying around the world in 1792, was
astounded at the park-like Santa Clara Valley, set round with
mountains, diversified with hills and intervales, covered with a
carpet of verdure, and adorned with majestic oaks. Writing
home of this landscape untouched by the hand of man, he says;
"It required only to be adorned with the neat habitations of an
industrious people to produce a scene not inferior to the most
studied effect of taste in the disposal of grounds."

The California white oak is the largest and most graceful of
the Western oaks. Its branches end in long shoots that are
pendulous like those of the weeping willow. The trunk branches
near the ground and rises and spreads out like a great fan. A
British elm often has the same habit — our American elm, some-
times. The dome is broader even than that of our Eastern white
oak. The twigs are willowy at first, but there is a surprising
tortuousness acquired with added years. The limbs are gnarled
in the most complex way. " Picturesqueness gone mad" well
characterises the expression of the tree in its bare winter aspect.

"The Sir Joseph Hooker Oak," 100 feet high, 7 feet in diam-
eter of trunk and 1 50 feet in spread of dome, on General Bidwell's
farm in Butte County, California, was named after the great
English botanist on the occasion of his visit with Asa Gray in 1877.

The tree is always broader than it is high, and bears a pro-

194

THE CALIFORNIA WHITE OAK (Quercus lobatn^.

picturesque of the Western oaks. The dome is broader than high ; the outer twigs droop like a weeping
mderful tortuousness later. Lumbermen have spared this tree because its wood is not strong. Gigantic
)ark-like valleys, set round by mountain peaks, making a landscape which is unrivalled in any country

THE LIVE OAK (Quercus Virginiana)

... The.thick trunks of old trees break into horizontal limbs of great length and size, forming a broad
unlike a picturesque old apple tree. The small leaves remain on the twigs all winter

THE CALIFORNIA LIVE OAK (Quercus agrifolia)

_ This evergreen oak has holly-like leaves with bristly tips upon its lobes, but its acorns are annual. Ne

it belongs to the black-oak group. The staminate catkins are delicate and numerous. The red-headed wc
store the acorns away for winter in holes they drill in the bark furrows

The Oaks

fusion of acorns of extraordinary length. These resemble the
acorns of Quercus alba in other respects. The Digger Indians
store them for winter use, and depend upon them as the source of
their bread. They are roasted and hulled, then ground into a
coarse meal, which is made into loaves and baked in rude ovens
in the sand.

The leaves of Quercus lobata are of the true white oak types
with squarish lobes and pale linings. They vary in size and form,
some being almost cut in two like those of the bur oak.

Attempts to introduce this tree into cultivation outside of
its own range have proved unsuccessful. It is believed that the
climate of Australia might be agreeable to the species, which is
too exacting in its demands to thrive in Europe or in Eastern
America.

Pacific Post Oak, Oregon White Oak (Quercus Garryana,
Hook.) — Large tree (or a shrub) 60 to 100 feet high, with stout
erect or spreading branches forming a compact head. Bark
orange brown or greyish, with shallow fissures and broad ridges;
twigs rufous, hairy. Wood light yellowish brown, hard, firm,
strong, tough. Buds large, pointed, coated with red fuzz. Leaves
obovate or oblong, 4 to 6 inches long, coarsely 7 to 9-lobed, with
shallow sinuses and blunt lobes, leathery, dark green, shining,
with pale or orange-brown hairy lining and conspicuous veins.
Flowers: staminate in hairy catkins; pistillate sessile, solitary.
Acorns annual, i to 1 inch long, pointed, in shallow, fuzzy cup
with small, thin, loose scales. Preferred habitat, dry, gravelly
slopes. Distribution, Vancouver Island and the valley of the
lower Fraser River, along coast valleys to Santa Cruz Mountains.
Best and most abundant in western Oregon and Washington:
Shrubby on mountains. Uses: The most important timber
oak on the west coast. Wood of young trees especially tough and
valuable. Used in construction of ships, buildings, vehicles,
agricultural implements, barrels and in finer cabinet work;
excellent fuel.

This oak has leaves and rusty twigs that bear a striking
resemblance to the post oak of our Eastern coast barrens. The
bark, however, is pale grey, and often broken into squares by
transverse fissures. The acorns are quite distinctive, being
large, often over an inch long, nearly twice as long as wide, and
set in a small cup, often shallow as that of Quercus rubra.

*95 .

The Oaks

Upon the mountain slopes this oak .s scrubby in growth,
but in the rich loam of the lower valley land it is a lofty tree,
which often loses its lower limbs by the crowding of young conifers
about it. The crown expands, the outer branches become
pendulous, and the tree assumes the shape of a tall Etruscan vase
— a common form of our American elms.

The whiteness of the wood makes it popular for the interior
finish of houses, as well as for the coarser staple uses to which
white oak is devoted. Its fault is checking as it dries. It takes
two years to season properly.

Robert Douglas, the great botanical explorer, named this
tree in honour of Nicholas Garry, secretary of the Hudson Bay
Company, in recognition of the courtesies and substantial aid
rendered by him to scientists studying the flora of the Northwest.

Live Oak (Quercus Virginiana, Mill.) — Evergreen tree, 50
to 75 feet high, with thick trunk and horizontal limbs of great
length forming a low, spreading dome, like an old apple tree.
Often shrubby. Bark reddish brown, scaly, with shallow fissures;
twigs rigid, slim, hoary at first. Wood light brown or yellow
(sap wood nearly white), close grained, lustrous, compact with
hardly distinguishable annual rings, heavy, tough, strong, durable,
easy to split, hard to work. Buds globose, brownish, small.
Leaves evergreen, leathery, elliptical or oblanceolate, entire,
rarely wavy margined, and spiny tipped above the middle, 2 to 5
inches long, dark green above, paler beneath, brownish yellow in
late- winter, falling when new leaves appear. Flowers in March,
April; staminate in hairy catkins; pistillate 3 to 5-flowered on
long spikes with bright red stigmas. Acorns annual, brown,
stalked, pointed, 1 inch long, in thin cup with tapering base and
small, closely appressed scales; nut sweet, J to § of it embraced by
the cup. Preferred habitat, dry sandy soil near the coast. Dis-
tribution, islands and coast from Virginia to Florida, west to
Mexico, and in Lower California. Uses: Superb avenue and
ornamental tree in the South. Grows rapidly and is easily
transplanted. Lumber better in all respects than that of Quercus
alba, even.

The evergreen live oak of the South is one of the handsomest
of all our native trees in cultivation. Specimen trees in New
Orleans, Charleston and other cities certainly challenge the
observer to mention a more perfect example of all that is to be

196

The Oaks

desired in tree form. The dome is low, but ^exceedingly broad,
often spreading to twice its height and more. The trunk breaks
near the base into horizontal limbs of incredible length and size.
It seems as if the weight of these great arms must split the trunk,
especially under the force of the wind. But the fibre of the wood
is equal to resisting the strain put upon it.

The leaves are not as showy and beautiful in form as many
Northern oaks. They are plain dull green beneath, lustrous
above, and they last all winter until the new leaves appear in the
spring. The acorns are dainty and dark brown, set in a hoary long-
stemmed, top-shaped cup. They are a profuse crop, and very
sweet and pleasant to taste. The Indians gathered them "to
thicken their venison-soop" with, and also cooked them in other
ways. "They likewise draw an Oil, very pleasant and whole-
some, little inferior to that of almonds/' So wrote Mark Catesby,
a century and a half ago.

Live-oak timber ranks highest among the white oaks. Ship-
building depended upon it in this country until the era of steel
construction. Reservation of tracts of these trees in western
Florida for the use of the navy was made in the early days.
"Knees of oak" still brace the sides of vessels, if they can be
obtained. The beauty of the wood when polished would make
it in great demand for furniture and for decorative purposes,
except that it is extremely difficult to work, and it splits easily
when nailed. The short trunk prevents the getting out of timbers
of large size.

As an avenue and shade tree the live oak deserves especial
attention. It grows rapidly and is easily transplanted. It is
not particular as to soils. The trees are becoming scarce in the
wild. They should be saved for the landscape's sake and planting
should go steadily on. To our Northern poet, these trees

"Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic;
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms."

Live oaks without their draperies of moss would lose much of
their charm. However, there is a great difference of opinion as
to the beauty of the moss. It generally looks well in a picture,
but some people think its grey straggling clusters give the oaks
an unkempt and uncomfortable look, as if a parasite were choking
its host.

197

The Oaks

The Durand Oak (Quercus breviloba, Sarg.) is a Southern,
blue-leaved white oak, 80 to 90 feet high, with bark and leaf
linings as silvery as its California cousin's. These leaves, which
are leathery and scarcely 3 inches long, have indistinctly wavy
margins, and tend to broaden at the tip, ending in three lobes.
An ovate nut of moderate size sits in a thin saucer with hairy
scales.

In the bayou region of the South, and on the dry prairies of
Alabama it is a fine, tall tree, with lumber equal to the best white
oak; but west of the middle of Texas it decreases in size and
becomes an almost evergreen shrub which is worthless except for
fuel. It grows in thickets on sterile bluffs, even across the
\Mexican border.

^ "White Oak (Quercus alba, Linn.) — A large tree, 60 to 150

feet high, 3 to 8 feet in trunk diameter, tall in the forest, low and
broad domed in the open fields. Bark pale grey, broken into
small, thin plates. Wood tough, strong, heavy, hard, durable,
light brown, with prominent medullary rays. Buds short, round,
smooth, clustered at tip of twigs. Leaves alternate, 5 to 9 inches
long, obovate or oblong in outline, with 7 to 9 rounded or finger-
shaped lobes with deep, rounded sinuses between; petioles stout;
colour red at first, with white silky lining, then bright green above,
paler beneath ; in autumn deep red, pale purplish beneath. Flowers
in May, with half-grown leaves; staminate catkins, hairy, 2 J to 3
inches long, yellow; pistillate, 1 to 2 on short stems, stamens
bright red. Acorns annual, on short or long stems; cup shallow,
thin, with closely appressed scales; nut of long, shiny, brown,
f to 1 inch long, sweet, edible. Preferred habitat, rich, well-
drained soil. Distribution, southern Maine to Florida; west to
Minnesota, Kansas and Texas. Uses: A lumber tree of highest
rank. Its bark is used in tanneries in the making of leather.
The wood is used in naval architecture, in house building and
inside finishing, for furniture, agricultural implements, cooperage,
railroad ties and fuel.

The white oak is the noblest tree of its race; king by common
consent, in our forests of broad-leaved trees. It is the embodi-
ment of strength, dignity and independence. The Briton has but
one native oak on which to spend his loyalty and devotion. We
have fifty kinds — all American — but the white oak is chief among
them all. In this opinion the lumberman and the tree lover

198

THE WHITE OAK (guercus alba)

broad, round dome above a short, pale-grey trunk; by its finger-lobed leaves, its rounded buds and its
et acorns. It embodies our ideals of strength, dignity and independence in tree form

i Winter bud 2 Staminate fl<

THE WHITE OAK (Quercus alba)

The leaf lobes are finger-like, and the linings white. The twigs are slender. The flowers appear with the new leaves,
bark is pale gray. This species is the type of the annual-fruited oaks. It is one of the nobles of our native oaks

The Oaks

generally concur, and each, as he gazes on a fine old tree, feels
the smouldering fires of ancestral tree worship flame once more in
his breast. There is something in Anglo-Saxon blood that
remembers.

We shall know the white oak in the winter woods by its
pale grey bark, with shallow fissures and scaly ridges. It is a
tall, narrow-headed tree where it is crowded among its forest
neighbours. In the open it has a sturdy, low-branched trunk
that flares into buttresses at the base and supports a rounded
dome of great breadth and dignity. The mighty arms reach
toward the horizon or the sky, breaking into tortuous limbs and
these into dense thickets of twigs. Over these is the luxuriant
thatch of fingered leaves, through whose narrow sinuses the
light sifts so freely that even the inner framework of the dome
bears leafy twigs. The characteristic arrangement of these
leaves is a tuft of them on the end of a twig, spread out like the
divisions of a horse-chestnut leaf.

In spring a shimmering veil of rose and silver covers the grey
old tree. The edges are fringed with the yellow tassels of the
staminate flowers. From the axils of the opening leaves the
forked tongues of the pistillate flowers are thrust out into the
pollen-laden air.

All summer the leaves are bright green with pale linings. In
autumn the red comes back again with bluish tones that blend
into beautiful vinous reds and violet purple. Gradually the
colour fades out, but the leaves usually hang on until pushed off,
even as late as the following April.

We shall find no acorns on white oak trees in winter, for
they mature in a single season, and fall without delay. The
crop is usually a light one, and it is hard to find acorns even under
the tree. The sweet-flavoured nut is a favourite food of animals,
wild and domestic. The Indians and the early colonists ate them.
These shrewd and provident ancestors of ours discovered also
that this "ackorne" had other good qualities. "By boyling it
long, it giveth an oyle which they keep to supple their joynts."
They skimmed this oil from the water before they ate the acorns
in the pot.

White-oak lumber is becoming rare and correspondingly
high priced. Its quality is of the first order. Clear, quarter-
sawed oak exhibits a higher percentage of the "mirrors" (pith

199

The Oaks

rays) than any other species. Its durability, hardness and fine
colour are exceptional among oaks. So great is the demand for it
in the finer decorative arts employing wood that it is going out
of use in general construction where inferior woods can be sub-
stituted. Roots of white oak, sawed, planed and polished, present
a wood of extraordinary beauty. It is pale yellow in colour,
tinged with olive, and shows a feathered grain of intricate and
graceful pattern. The lustre of it is equal to that of mahogany or
rosewood. Fifty years ago Nuttall cited an instance of an English
cabinetmaker paying.five pounds sterling for the roots of a single
tree, counting that furniture veneered with it would vie with the
finest.

*"' Bur or Mossy-cup Oak (Quercus macrocarpa, Michx.) — A
large tree, 75 to 160 feet high, with spreading branches, and
irregular, round head. Bark greyish brown, deeply furrowed,
becoming scaly; branches roughened with thick, corky ridges;
twigs winged or smooth, stout, and pubescent at first. Wood
brown, with paler sap wood, close grained, heavy, hard, durable
in soil ; medullary rays conspicuous. Buds small, blunt pointed,
pubescent. Leay&s* obovate, alternate, 6 to 12 inches long, 3 to 6
inches wide, 5 to 7-lobed; sinuses rounded, shallow or deep,
middle ones often wider, opposite and nearly reach the midrib;
petioles short, grooved; summer colour lustrous dark green, with
pale, or silvery pubescent lining; autumn colour yellow or brown.
Flayers with half-grown leaves in May ; staminate in hairy yellow
catkins; pistillate, with hairy red scales and bright red stigmas.
Acorns annual, \ to 2 inches long, ovoid, variable in size and shape,
pubescent, in deep (rarely shallow) cup, brown, hairy, with loose
scales and mossy fringe. Kernel white, sweet. Pre] erred habitat,
rich, well-drained soil. Distribution, Nova Scotia to Montana;
south to Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas. Uses: Same as
Q. alba. Picturesque park tree. Easily transplanted when
young.

The bur oak is a rugged-looking tree, more picturesque than
its near relative, the White oak, which is conventional and sym-
metrical when it has its own way in growing. The bur oak
flings out its antlered arms without regard for balance and sym-
metry, and casts off the bark of its shaggy limbs. with utter
indifference to any law of neatness. Broad corky wings are seen
even on young twigs, and these are stout and curiously gnarled.

200

THK t'HKSTXLT OAK /MWi)

The dark-coloured bark and thls specie but the wavv.margined J(

and the aks

The Oaks

The leaves are of unusual length and deeply cut into irregular
*ers, or broader lobes. Often two opposite sinuses, wider than
! rest, almost cut the leaf in two in the middle. Bright and
ning above, these leaves are woolly lined and thick.

The acorns are very striking in appearance. The brown
t is often 2 inches long and set in a thick, hairy cup, covered
h coarse, pointed scales that become elongated toward the
1, and form a loose, fringed border. The nut is half covered by

cup as a rule. Sometimes it is quite swallowed up in it;
>m this the species is sometimes, but erroneously, called the
;rcup oak.

This tree is one of the most widely distributed and valuable
vlorth American oaks. It has an astonishing power of adapta-
1 to different regions and climates. It grows from Nova
<tia to western Texas; there are forests of it in Winnipeg;
forms the "oak openings" of Minnesota and Dakota. It
us as much at home in the hot and arid stretches of the West
I Southwest as in the cold, damp air of the coast of New Eng-
d, or the fertile valley of the Ohio, where it reached nearly

feet in height in the virgin forests.

The sturtiiness of the bur oak, its rapid growth in good soil,
rugged picturesqueness, winter and summer, all commend it
)lanters. It is one of the most ornamental of American oaks
:ultivation; and the raising and transplanting of it are fairly
j. People who do not plant oaks because they take so long to
)me big trees miss much pleasure they have not counted on.
nay be children's children who see the aged tree, beautiful in

expression of massiveness and rugged strength. But the
iter enjoys the grace of the sapling, the rich foliage of the
ng tree which is always larger than on the old ones; and there
ery early seen in any bur oak the stocky build and the shaggy
i that mark the adult tree. 1 1 grows rapidly, and soon blossoms

fruits freely. Every year shows gains, and the cycle of the
* in the treetop is worthy of close attention.

The wood of white oaks is of highest quality, the English

itself being one of this group. The bur oak is counted even

er than that of Quercus alba, when grown in rich soil. The

iting of bur oaks on the prairie is especially recommended by

e who understand the conditions prevailing there. It is

/n for shade and for lumber.

201

The Oaks

Overcup Oak, Swamp Post Oak (Quercus lyrata, Walt.) —
Large tree, 70 to 100 feet high, with small pendulous branches
forming a symmetrical round head. Bark grey or reddish, fur-
rowed and shedding in thick plates. Wood dark brown, strong,
heavy, hard, durable. Buds small, blunt pointed, hairy, brown.
Leaves obovate, narrowed at base, 6 to 8 inches long, with 3 to
5 pairs of oblong or pointed lobes, with wide sinuses, especially
the middle pair, bright green above, shining, with dense white
down beneath. Acorns annual, short stalked; nut flattened and
almost or entirely enclosed by the round, rough-scaled cup;
1 to \\ inches across. Preferred habitat, coast or river swamps.
Distribution, Maryland to Florida; west to Missouri and Texas.
Rare except in the Southwest. Uses: Rare in cultivation.
Wood confused with white oak in the trade.

The distinguishing feature of this oak is its button-like
acorns. The scaly cup quite swallows up the nut, as a rule.
The grey of bark and leaf lining, the narrow, deeply cut leaves,
and the strong, durable wood are all characteristics that show
this tree's close kinship with the bur oak on one side and the post
oak on the other. It grows to majestic proportions in watery
ground and wears a luxuriant crown of shining foliage.

Post Oak, Iron Oak {Quercus minor, Sarg.) — A dense,
round-topped tree, scrubby or 40 to 50 feet high, with low, crooked
branches and stubby, rough twigs. Bark greyish brown, deeply
furrowed, scaly wide ridges; branches brown; twigs brownish
with yellow fuzz. Wood pale brown, close grained, hard, strong,
heavy, durable in contact with soil. Buds small, round, rusty,
downy. Leaves 4 to 5 inches long, clustered, abundant, stiff,
rough, dark, shining above, brown woolly beneath, obovate,
with 5 to 7 unequal, square-tipped lobes separated by wide
sinuses, hanging on all winter, turning yellow or pale brown.
Flowers in May with half-grown leaves; staminate catkins, 3 to 4
inches long, yellow, hairy; pistillate flowers, almost sessile;
stigmas bright red. Acorns annual, f to 1 inch long, ovoid, brown-
ish, in shallow cup of loose, blunt-pointed scales, enclosing only
J to \ of the nut. Kernel sweet. Preferred habitat, dry, sandy
or rocky soil. Distribution, southern Massachusetts to northern
Florida; west to Missouri and Texas. Especially common in the
Southwest. Uses: Hardy ornamental oak; grows well in dry,
rocky soil. Lumber used largely for railroad ties, fuel and

202

The Oaks

fencing; also for cooperage and construction. Seldom distin-
guished in the trade from white oak.

The post oak looks like a tree with its trunk buried in the
ground. Its head is broader at the top, no matter how it is
crowded in the woods, and the multitude of stubby branches are
"full of elbows/' i. e., the angles between limb and branch are all
wide open, giving the tree a distinct character.

The foliage is another means of knowing the post oak. At
a distance it looks almost black in summer. Come nearer.
The leaf lining is coated with greyish pubescence. The texture
of a leaf makes you cringe as you crumple it in your hands. It is
thick and leathery, and roughened above by wonderfully branched
hairs, that are star-like under a magnifier. Three broad, squarish
lobes form the top, and the blade tapers from these to the stubby
petiole. Sometimes there are five lobes altogether; sometimes
only the three at the top. Each twig holds out a cluster of these
leaves, like a fan. In the autumn they turn yellow or brown,
but the twigs will not let them go. A characteristic post oak is
densely leafy all winter, and until the opening shoots push the
stubborn old leaf stalks out of the way. This habit gives the post
oak much of its picturesqueness in winter, for the foliage does not
entirely conceal its ruggedness and crookedness of limb.

The acorns are trim and dainty. The annual crop rarely
fails. They are very sweet, and in the old days were devoured
by wild turkeys. Then people knew it as the turkey oak.

The names of this species, iron oak and post oak, indicate the
reputation of its wood for durability in contact with the soil and
v/ith water. Post-oak staves from Baltimore were preferred in
the West Indian trade in sugar, rum and other barrelled com-
modities. "Knees" of post oak are always in demand, and,
where trees attained sufficient size, the timbers are used in the
framework and sides of ships.

Chestnut Oak, Tan-bark Oak (Quercus Prinus, Linn.) —
A forest tree with broad, irregular head on a short trunk, 50 to 100
feet high. Bark dark brown, deeply furrowed, rich in tannic acid;
twigs smooth. Wood dark, reddish brown, close grained, with
conspicuous medullary rays, tough, heavy, hard, strong, durable
in contact with soil. Buds pointed, long, smooth, greyish red.
Leaves alternate, 5 to 9 inches long, obovate, with coarse teeth
rounded at the tops, thick, yellowish green above, paler, usually

203

The Oaks

pubescent beneath; autumn colour yellow and brown. Flowers
in May, solitary or paired; staminate yellow; pistillate on short
spurs ; stigmas short, dark red. Acorns usually solitary, peduncled,
annual, I to i£ inches long, shining, brown; cup thin, downy
lined, covered with smaU tubercular scales. Kernel sweet,
edible. Preferred habitat, rocky upland soil, like the sides of
ravines and stream borders. Distribution, southern Maine to
western New York; south to Maryland, Kentucky and Tennessee;
along mountains into Georgia and Alabama. Uses: A handsome
tree for parks; grows well in dry ground; lumber used for railroad
ties, fencing and fuel ; bark, in tanning leather.

The chestnut oak is the type of a group of white oaks whose
leaves are like those of a chestnut tree. This group has sweeter
nuts than any other oaks. All but this species have pale bark.
Quercus Prinus has bark so dark in colour and so deeply furrowed
that it has often been mistaken for one of the black oak group,
although its wavy leaf margins and annual fruit deny the
insinuation most emphatically.

It is a vigorous tree, and grows very rapidly in dry soil.
Its acorns in their fuzzy cups often sprout before they fall to the
ground! The tree is handsome, and worthy a place in any
plantation. It finally makes the best of fuel.

The name, "rock chestnut oak," refers to the hardness of its
wood. "Tan-bark oak" calls attention to the tannin which
makes this tree the prey of "peelers" throughout its range.
Only the black oak yields as good bark to the tanner.

The Yellow Oak {Quercus acuminata, Sarg.) has smaller and
narrower leaves than Quercus Prinus, and the margins are coarsely
and sharply toothed. They closely resemble chestnut leaves in
form, but are lined with pale pubescence. The tree reaches 160
feet in height in the lower Ohio Valley and extends from Vermont
to Minnesota, and south to Alabama and Texas. It prefers dry
soil, and is a worthy shade and ornamental tree. The silvery
grey bark and handsome leaves, shining- yellow-green above and
white beneath, trembling on slender petioles, make it a beautiful
object in any landscape. The yellow-green of the foliage mass
gives the tree its common name.

The Chincapin Oak {Quercus frinoides, Willd.) is a shrub,
which spreads by underground stems. Its opening leaves are
silvery below and orange-red above. In autumn they turn

204

THE OVERCUP OAK (Quercus lyrata)

The narrow leaves broaden toward the apex ; the largest of the lobes are above the middle. The leaf lining is dense
white down. The wood is confused with other white oak. The bark is gray, tinged with red. The best character is the
acorn, which is usually entirely enclosed by the cup

THE LIVE OAK {Quercus Virginian*)

These leathery leaves are individually small and characterless, as oak leaves go, but the mass of them keeps the treetop green
and glossy until spring produces a new crown of foliage. The slender acorn seems too big for its thin little cup. The wood
ranks higher than any other species of oak.

THE WILLOW OAK (Quercaj Phelhs)

The leaves are like a willow's, but the acorns prove this southern tree an oak. Though its leaves lack s^ iny Icbes, the tree

biennial in fruiting

THE SWAMP WHITE OAK {Quercm flatancides)

The leaves are obovate, with wedge-shaped bases and white, downy linings. They are green when they open. The anm
acorns are sweet. The wood is not distinguished in the trade from other white oak

The Oaks

bright red again. The little sweet acorn probably suggested the
common name. From its leaves and habit this oak is called
the scrub chestnut oak. It occurs from Maine to Minnesota,
and south to Alabama and Texas. In the West it seems to in-
tergrade with the preceding species. Horticulturally it is a
desirable species for covering dry, sterile areas.

Swamp White Oak (Quercus platanoides, Sudw.) — A shaggy
picturesque tree, 70 to 100 feet high, with pendulous branches,
and crooked twigs forming a narrow, round head, bushy with
dead twigs that hang on. Bark pale greyish brown, peeling in
thin flakes from branches and trunk. Wood pale brown, coarse
grained, heavy, tough, strong. Buds short, blunt, brown, hairy,
clustered at tips of twigs. Leaves alternate, obovate, 5 to 7
inches long, wedge shaped at base, wavy toothed or lobed regu-
larly, dull, dark green above, white-downy beneath. Flowers
staminate, hairy, yellow catkins; pistillate few on long peduncles,
hairy with red stigmas. Acorns annual, paired, on long stems;
nut oval, 1 to 1 J inches long, brown, hairy at tip, in rough cup
with thickened scales, sometimes fringed at border; kernel sweet,
edible. Preferred habitat, moist or swampy soil. Qistribution,
southern Maine to southern Iowa; south to Maryland, Kentucky
and Arkansas; along mountains into Georgia. Commonest
about the Great Lakes. Uses: Picturesque tree in landscape,
but rarely planted. Lumber not distinguished commercially
from other white oak. Used in construction of houses, boats,
agricultural implements and vehicles; also, for fencing, railroad
ties and fuel.

The swamp white oak loves the waterside, and many a
noble specimen has been swept away by spring floods or by the
gradual undermining of the bank on which it grew. Such was
the fate of the famous Wadsworth oak, a landmark in the Genesee
Valley in New York State, even when the Indians were the only
people there to admire it. A young tree of this species is generally
pyramidal and quite symmetrical in form, its stout branches
short and horizontal, the lower ones tending to droop. The
strength of character, however, the ruggedness that make so
strong appeal to us in this tree, comes when it has put by the
comeliness of youth and the stern battle of life has left its scars on
the veteran.

Look at a swamp white oak against a winter sky. I mean

The Oaks

that old one which has stood there with its feet in the water as
long as you can remember. In fact, it seemed to be grown up
when first you were told its name. The head is narrow for an oak,
the limbs short and tortuous, especially on the lower half of the
tree where they have a downward tendency, seeming to sprawl
as widely as their grizzled and stubby length permits. Storms
have cut gashes in the outline of the top. A wreird grey pallor
heightens the expression of age. The bark strips off of the branches
somewhat after the sycamore's mode of moulting. Nothing
contributes more to the picturesqueness of a tree than ragged
bark.

In spring the rough coat of the tree is concealed by the open-
ing leaves. The black oaks flush crimson when they wake in
the May sunshine. The young leaves of the swamp white oak are
green, with a silvery scurf that lines them the summer through.
Even in its autumn colour the foliage turns yellow and never red.
All through the summer the brilliant foliage, lustrous yellow-
green above, turns its silvery linings out in every breeze, and
fairly illuminates the duller trees that stand about. One authority
calls it Quercus bicolor, for the two colours of its leaves.

This is one of the chestnut oak group. The leaf proves
it by its shape and margin. The long, sweet nut in its fringed
or plain cup is worthy the attention of any hungry man or
beast.

The swamp white oak is easily transplanted and it grows
rapidly, but because it is known to be a hard drinker people do not
plant it, forgetting that trees sometimes are happy out of their
normal habitat. This oak flourishes as a street tree, and does
well in any moist, rich soil, graciously waiving, for our satisfaction,
its natural preferences.

But he who would have this tree in its grandest state will
wish it set at some distance from his house, and where it is made
very comfortable. While we transplant small saplings into our
grounds, let us exert ourselves to cherish the old ones and help
the community to realise what a precious thing one of these
veteran trees is— the natural heritage of all who can see it.

Basket Oak, Cow Oak (Quercus Mich auxii, Nutt.) — A large
handsome tree, 60 to 100 feet high, 3 to 7 feet in diameter at base,
with stout ascending branches forming a round, dense head.
Bark scaly, silvery or ashy grey, with reddish tinge. Wood

206

The Oaks

hard, strong, tough, durable, close grained with large medullary
rays and spring wood ducts, separating it into annual layers.
Similar to other white-oak lumber. Buds pointed, \ inch long,
scaly, with red hairs. Leaves 6 to 8 inches long, broadly obovate,
regularly undulate on margins, sinuses equal to the lobes in
size and shape, shining, dark green above, pubescent, often
silvery white below. Crimson in autumn. Flowers with half-
grown leaves, March to May. Acorns annual, solitary or paired,
on short stem i to ij inches long, oval, pointed, bright brown,
in shallow, scaly cup, which is flat bottomed and lined with down ;
kernels sweetest of Eastern acorns, eaten by children, negroes and
domestic animals. Preferred habitat, swamps and bottom lands
liable to inundation. Distribution, northern Delaware to Florida;
west to Illinois, Missouri and Texas. Uses: Important timber
tree, lumber ranking with white oak. A handsome ornamental
tree, worthy of cultivation in wet ground.

The common names of trees are interesting, always, and
often confusing. It is sometimes difficult to trace their origin
and to explain their meaning. This beautiful tree, the most
valuable annual-fruited oak of the Southeastern States, differs
from others of the group in that its wood separates like that of
the black ash into annual layers. The toughness and strength
of these sheets adapt them to basket making — the most durable
bushel baskets, china crates, etc., are made of strips of this oak.
It is easy to see why the name "basket oak" came into use.
But who shall explain the name "cow oak"? Perhaps it is
enough that the acorns are sweet and cows eat them. Perhaps
if I lived where the cow oak does I might give an answer that is
more than simply a guess. The basket oak is one of the best
mast trees in the country. The trees are very prolific, and each
year hogs are fattened upon the acorns wherever the trees are
common in the woods.

There would be an appearance of heaviness, perhaps, in this
handsome oak, if it were not that the lustrous leaves are lined
with silver that seems to catch and hold the light, reflecting it to
the inner parts of the treetop. When the wind blows the contrast
of light and shade is strikingly beautiful. In many particulars
the basket oak resembles the swamp white oak, and some author-
ities hold that Quercus Michauxii is the Southern form of Quercus
platanoides, for their ranges meet and do not overlap.

207

The Oaks

4 ■

II. THE BLACK OAK GROUP

Acorns biennial; leaf lobes spiny tipped; bark dark.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Pacific coast species.

B. Leaves holly-like, evergreen.

C. Young growth golden tomentose; branchlets pen-
dulous. (Q. chrysolepis) mountain live oak
CC. Young growth hoary; branchlets erect.

D. Acorns elongated; leaves pubescent; fruit annual.
(Q. agrifoha) California live oak
DD. Acorns ovate; leaves smooth.

(Q. JVisli{eni)_ highland oak
BB. Leaves not holly-like, deciduous.

(Q. Californica) kellogg's oak
AA. Eastern species. Deciduous.

B. Leaves pinnately toothed and cleft by deep sinuses, petiole
slender.
C. Acorn cup shallow, broader than high.

D. Tree pyramidal; branches with pin-like spurs.

(Q. palustris) pin oak
DD. Tree spreading; acorn large, in smooth, shallow .
saucer (Q. rubra) red oak

DDD. Tree of oblong head; acorn cup greyish, downy.

(Q. Texana) texan red oak
CC. Acorn cup hemispherical, as high as broad.

D. Leaves thin, glabrous beneath; acorn cup drawn
in at top. (Q. coccinea) scarlet oak

DD. Leaves coarse, tufted with rusty hairs below;
acorn cup not drawn in at top.

(Q. velutina) black oak
DDD. Leaves firm, pale greyish downy beneath; acorn
cup drawn in at top.
E. Lobes 5 to 7, lanceolate or sickle-like.

F. Leaves thin, 6 to 7 inches long; lobes
entire (Q. digitata) Spanish oak

FF. Leaves thick, 3 to 12 inches long; lobes
toothed. (Q. Catesbcei) turkey oak

EE. Lobes 3 to 5, broad, spiny tipped.

(Q. nana) bear 6ak
BB. Leaves 3 to 5-lobed at apex or nearly entire, on short
petioles, becoming glossy.
C. Tree squat, contorted, spreading.

(Q. Marilandica) black jack
CC. Tree slender, tall, graceful. (Q. nigra) water oak

208

THE POST OAK (Quercus minor)

The leaves are leathery, lined with brown wool, and they cling to their twigs all winter. Three large square lobes above
the middle form the broadest part of the leaf; below the middle sinuses is a triangular basal portion and the short petiole. The
wood is peculiarly adapted for use as posts, railroad ties and barrel staves

THE BLUE JACK

(Quercus brevifolia)

THE COW OAK
(Quercus Michauxii)

THE BLACK JACK

(Quercus M aril 'an die a)

THE WATER OAK

(Quercus nigra)

THE YELLOW OAK

(Que re us acuminata)

— ■ ~ H

Is]

The Oaks

BBB. Leaves entire, elongated, rarely toothed.

C. Foliage willow-like, shining. (Q. Phellos) willow oak
CC. Foliage laurel-like, shining.

D. Tree pyramidal, pendulous.

(Q. imbricaria) shingle oak
DD. Tree round, thick topped.

(Q. laurifolia) laurel oak

Mountain Live Oak, Maul Oak, Gold-cup Oak (Quer-
cus chrysolepis, Liebm.) — A low, broad tree, with drooping limbs,
scrubby in high altitudes, 40 to 50 feet high, rarely 100 feet, and
100 to 1 50 feet across; trunk 2 to 6 feet through. Bark pale grey
or reddish brown, flaky. Wood pale brown, close grained, tough,
strong, hard to work. Buds broadly ovate, small, scaly. Leaves
evergreen, oblong, entire, acute, 1 to 2 inches long, bright green,
shining above, yellowish pubescent below. Flowers, June; stami-
nate catkins profuse; pistillate, sessile, solitary or few in a cluster;
scales golden tomentose. Fruits solitary, \ \o \\ inches long;
cups shallow, thick, of triangular scales, concealed by yellow
tomentum. Preferred habitat, canon sides and rocky gulches.
Distribution, southern Oregon to Lower California, on western
slopes of Sierra Nevada and coast mountains, mountains in south-
ern Arizona and New Mexico. Uses: Most valuable timber oak
of the Pacific coast. Used for wagons and farm implements.

The mountain live oak is not a horticultural tree, beautiful as
it would be in the broad, rolling valleys of California. It is a wild
thing, untamable as the mountain goat, loving the rocky canon
sides and the high terraces on which earthquake and avalanche
have left mighty indelible scars. Two thousand feet above sea
level these trees begin to appear. On these heights they rear
their sturdy, buttressed trunks which soon break into limbs that
spread into broad, low domes. The width of these trees is often
twice their height, and their resemblance to the live oak of the
Southeastern States is striking. Instead of the Spanish moss that
decks these Southern trees and gives them such a funereal look,
here is nothing to droop but the tree's own long, flexible twigs clad
in leaves all yellow-green and shining, which brighten the sun-
shine that sifts through them. They are lined all summer with
yellow down, and the spring catkins and autumn acorn cups
give an extra Midas touch to the tree at both ends of the growing
season.

The Oaks

There is a wonderful story of struggle and victory mutely but
eloquently told by this tree, as it contends with the adverse con-
ditions of soil and weather, grappling the rocky ground with its
spreading roots and losing nothing in dignity and character as its
size dwindles and it reaches its limit — 5,000 feet. This low, knotty
oak chaparral that the mountain climber grasps so thankfully as
he faces toward the summit is fringed with yellow tassels in the
spring and set in autumn with golden acorn cups, even as are its
brethren, the gnarled giants he passed on the terraces 3,000 feet
lower down. In the highest elevations, 8,000 to 9,000 feet above
the sea, this oak is reduced to a foot in height. This is the ^'huckle-
berry oak" of the Sierra Nevada range, variety vaccinifolia, of the
parent species. Another dwarf variety, Palrneri, called the Pal-
mer oak, grows on the boundary between California and the lower
peninsula.

The California Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia, Nee.), with
holly-like leaves, is a ponderous tree with a low, wide dome, very
common in California, extending to the coast and farther to the
islands of the southern half of the state.

The wood of this species is of a hard, durable sort, but can be
got out only in short boards, as the trunk is not tall. It is excellent
for fuel.

The Highland Oak {Quercus JVisliieni, A. DC.) is a large
tree on the elevated foothills back from the coast in California.
Its dark green, shining evergreen leaves resemble those of holly,
Ilex opaca, except that they are more finely toothed, and some-
times entire. The acorn is long and slender The wood is of
especial value in mechanical construction, being hard, tough,
strong and durable. It is also valuable as fuel.

The Kellogg Oak, or California Black Oak (Quercus Call-
fornica, Coop.), is large and beautiful, spreading wide its pictur-
esquely gnarled branches covered with smooth, bright green
leaves, much like those of the Eastern red oak. It has also stout
twigs and rough dark-coloured bark, and the reddish coarse-
grained wood strengthens still farther the resemblance of the two
trees. The acorns of the Western tree, however, sit in deep cups
that half conceal them; the red oak holds its nuts in shallow
saucers.

The uplands only satisfy this Western black oak. It holds
aloof from the plains and keeps back from the sea. Sunny open

210

THE PIN OAK (Zuercus fnlustris)

The thin, deeply cut leaves varv from the delicacy of the scarlet oak to the lustiness of the red oak The s0ult |;rrl, lrorn<:

resemble neuher of these. When ripe the nuts are brown, daintily striped with black. The kernel, aTe UiL an i h.ttir

The Oaks

groves of it, mingled with white oaks, are common among conifers
on mountain slopes and high valleys throughout California and
north to the middle of Oregon.

The black bark of this oak is twice as rich in tannin as hem-
lock bark. The wood is rich in colour and wavy grained, but
lumbermen dislike it. It dries very slowly, and is likely to be
perforated with "pin knots," which mar and weaken it.

Pin Oak, Swamp Spanish Oak (Quercus palustris, Linn.)
— A graceful, pyramidal tree when young, becoming oblong and
irregular, at length; 50 to 120 feet high; branches horizontal,
short. Bark grey-brown, shining, smooth, becoming scaly on
trunk; twigs red, tomentose. Wood hard, tough, strong, heavy,
coarse grained, light brown, variegated. Buds small, acute,
brown. Leaves alternate, 4 to 6 inches long, deeply 5 to 7-lobed
with wide sinuses almost to the midrib, shining above, dull and
pale beneath, scarlet in autumn. Flowers in May, with half-
grown leaves; staminate, in hairy catkins, 2 to 3 inches long; pis-
tillate on short hairy peduncles, with bright red stigmas. Acorns
ripe in autumn of second year, J to \ inch long, pale brown,
streaked, broader than long and set in a shallow saucer-like cup,
of close, reddish scales, which is lined with hair; kernel white,
bitter. Pre] erred habitat, low, moist soil. Distribution, Massa-
chusetts to Delaware; west to Wisconsin and Arkansas. Uses:
Handsome rapid-growing tree for avenues or lawns. It has
fibrous roots and so transplants easily. Wood used in construc-
tion, cooperage, for interior finish of houses, and for shingles and
clapboards.

The tourist who visits Washington and takes the trolley rides
recommended by the guide book must have noted the superb
avenues of native trees that give character and dignity to the
whole city. For long stretches a single species holds uninterrupted
sway, and the distinctive traits of the various kinds are thus
impressed upon the observer, even as he flies by them on the car.
I remember the beautiful pin oaks on the way from the capitol to
the navy yard. Only a few years ago they were little striplings
from the nurseries. Now they are goodly shade trees, and the
beauty of youth is still upon them. Each tree is a glistening
pyramid of leaves, that dance as the breeze plays among them;
for the leaf stems and the twigs are slender and flexible, and the
blades, catching the wind, keep the treetop in a continual flutter.

211

The Oaks

The leaves are deeply cut into five or seven spiny-toothed
blades that point forward. The leaves of scarlet oak, cut with
about the same "waste of cloth," point outward and have more
rounded sinuses than those of the pin oak.

The leaf might confuse us, but the pin-oak tree tells its name
before one is near enough to see the leaf distinctly. The tree has
a broad pyramidal form, with slender branches stretched out hori-
zontally as far as they can reach. The spur-like little twigs that
cluster on the branches throughout the treetop are choked to
death by being crowded, but they reYnain, the "pins" that char-
acterise this species of oak. When it gets old the pin oak loses
some of its symmetry and beauty. 1 1 holds on to its dead branches,
but there is a dignity in its bearing that is admirable, even in its
decline.

The village of Flushing, Long Island, has proved through
many years that the pin oak is an admirable street and shade tree.
It is as easily transplanted as a box elder, so there is scarcely an
excuse for not planting it. The flush on its opening leaves, the
red flame that lights the tree in the autumn, and the dainty striped
acprns in their scaly saucers — all combine to make an ornamental
tree with scarcely a fault to set off its many horticultural virtues.
The Europeans have cherished this tree for over a century. We
Americans are just discovering it, and should make up for lost
time.

Red Oak (Quercus rubra, Linn.) — A large, stately tree, 50 to
150 feet high, with columnar trunk and round, symmetrical head
of stout, spreading branches. Bark greyish brown with red tinge,
with wide furrows between ridges; twigs reddish. Wood red-
brown, with darker sap wood, coarse grained, with well-marked
annual rings and medullary rays; heavy, hard, strong. Buds
reddish, pointed, J inch long. Leaves alternate, 7 to 9-lobed,
5 to 9 inches long, 4 to 6 inches wide; lobes and sinuses both
triangular in form; second pair from apex always largest; lobes
irregularly toothed and bristly pointed; leaves variable in size
and form; lining paler green, smooth at maturity; autumn colour
deep red. Flowers, May, with half-grown leaves; staminate
catkins, yellow, hairy, 4 to 5 inches long; pistillate, on short
2 to 3-flowered stems; stigmas, long, bright green. A corns ripe
second autumn; large, J to 1^ inches long; broad at base, in close-
scaled, shallow saucer; kernel white, extremely bitter. Preferred

212

THE RED OAK ($uercus rubra)

This tree is lusty and beautiful throughout. The pointed buds promise what summer fulfils. The broad leaves have
triangular lobes and sinuses. The lobes point forward more than outward. They are often 9 inches long and six inches broad.
The second leaf shows the paler lining. The large acorns sit in saucers, much shallower than in other oaks. The furroweH
bark has a reddish-brown colour

The Oaks

habitat, rich, well-drained stream borders. Distribution, Nova
Scotia to Minnesota; south to Georgia, Tennessee and Kansas.
Uses: A handsome, quick-growing shade and ornamental tree,
easily transplanted and free from insect pests. Wood used in
cooperage, cheap furniture, in construction and finish of buildings
and for fuel. It is inferior to white oak. Bark rich in tannic
acid, used in tanning leather.

There is no American oak more highly prized in Europe than
the common red oak. It has been cultivated there for two cen-
turies, and splendid specimens are pointed out with pride, espe-
cially in Belgium, Germany and England. It is the "champion
oak" which flames in English parks when the foliage of native
species falls without a hint of the brilliant colouring which we
always expect in autumn woods.

The red oak is so common in our Eastern forests that we have
not realised its worthiness as a street and ornamental tree. Surely
it is a stately tree in the forest, and as noble and benignant a figure
as the white oak where it has ample room to develop its round
dome. It grows faster than any other native oak and in a greater
variety of soils. It can be transplanted, even when 15 feet high,
from the woods to a lawn, and not notice the change. After it
becomes established a growth of a foot or more in height may be
expected yearly, and an increase in diameter of an inch of wood in
five years.

The shining leaves of red oak, though they are variable in
form, are always cut oval and into triangular lobes which point
forward, rather than outward. The sinuses are angled or rounded,
but are not so broad as those of the black oak. These leaves are
leathery and smooth, those of black oak are rougher. The
bloom of red oak is more luxuriant than that of other oaks.
The tree is fairly draped with its long yellow catkins, and
the red stigmas shine out against the silvery pink of opening
leaves.

The acorns of the red oak are unique. They are large, in
pairs, on very short stalks, and the nut sits in a broad, shallow
saucer covered with small, close-fitting scales. The acorn crop
is two years in ripening, but the tree is so vigorous that there are
usually nuts, or at least saucers, in evidence to identify the tree,
if the leaves do not determine it with certainty. The under bark
is red, while that of black oak is orange-yellow. This is another

213

The Oaks

way to tell the two species apart at any time of year by the aid of a
pocket knife.

Scarlet Oak (Quercus coccinea, Muench.) — Slender, sym-
metrical tree, 70 to 160 feet high, with graceful, curving branches
and twigs, tapering trunk and round head. Eark brown or grey,
rough, scaly, shallowly fissured; inner layers reddish; twigs
green, scurfy, becoming red and smooth. Wood pale brownish red,
hard, coarse grained, strong, heavy, of rapid growth. Buds
pointed, hairy at tip, small, reddish. Leaves oval or obovate,
thin, smooth, shining above, paler beneath, sometimes hairy
tufted on veins, 3 to 6 inches long, 2 to 5 inches broad, with 5 to
7 spreading bristly pointed and subdivided lobes, with deep,
rounded sinuses between; autumn colour scarlet; petioles slender,
long. Flowers staminate catkins slender, reddish before maturity;
pistillate with long stigmas bright red. Acorns biennial, \ to -f
inch long, half covered by short-stalked cup, smooth, triangular,
close-pressed scales, rounding in at the top; kernel white, moder-
ately bitter. Preferred habitat, dry, fertile loam. Distribution,
Maine to Florida, west to Minnesota, Nebraska and Missouri.
Best development in lower valley of Ohio River. Uses: A
favourite ornamental oak in this country and in Europe. Lumber
used for same purposes as that of Q. rubra.

The splendour of our autumnal forests owes much to the
foliage of the scarlet oak. The tree blazes like a torch against the
duller reds and browns in the woods, and often keeps its brilliancy
until after snow covers the ground.

There is no reason for confusing the black, red and pin oaks
with this species. They are all heavy and coarse beside it.
Their leaves are leathery compared with the papery thinness of
these. In summer the scarlet oak lifts its young shoots, delicately
pink above the last year's growth, and waves them like long,
tapering plumes, set with skeleton leaves. Break a twig, and the
smoothness and delicacy of the leaves strike you. Just a pale
trace of fuzziness remains along the veins on the under
side. The wide, rounded sinuses are cut nearly to the
midrib, and the leaf flutters airily on a long petiole. The
acorn differs from the black oak's in having its cup drawn
tightly in at the top.

Though we have planted this tree less often than the red
*)ak and pin oak in this country, it is coming to be recognised as

214

THE SCARLET OAK (Quercus ceccii.ee)

No oak leaf is more exquisite in form and finish than this one. The tree becomes a torch of scarlet in the late autumn.
The wood and the furrowed bark are tinged with red. The broad leaf on the budded twig is a freak

The Oaks

superior to both, while in hardiness and rapidity of growth it is
the equal of either.

The Texan Red Oak (Quercus Texana, Buckl.), tallest of
American oaks, and one of the handsomest, grows from Iowa to
Indiana and south to Texas and Florida. It is closely related
to the red and scarlet oaks, showing the characteristic acorns of
the former and the leaves of the latter.

Possibly the giant red oak that stood on the borders of the
Bayou St. Barb in Louisiana, fifty years ago, "44 feet in girth
and tall according," was of this Texan species. Quercus rubra
does not grow so far south.

Black Oak, Yellow Oak {Quercus velutina, Lam.) — A tree
70 to 90 feet, rarely 1 50 feet high, with narrow, open head of
slender branches, occasionally wide spreading and short trunked.
Bark usually very dark grey or brown, thick, with rough broken
ridges and deep furrows; inner layers orange yellow, rich in tannin.
Wood light reddish brown, coarse grained, with annual layers
strongly marked and thin medullary rays, hard, strong, heavy,
not tough. Buds large, pointed, angled, downy. Leaves alternate,
4 to 10 inches long, 2 to 6 inches wide, deeply cut into 7 to 9
broad, bristly toothed lobes with rounded sinuses, thick, almost
leathery texture, lustrous, dark green above, smooth, or somewhat
hairy, brownish beneath ; petioles long, yellow, flattened; autumnal
colour brownish yellow, rarely reddish. Flowers, May, with half-
open leaves; hairy, reddish, stigmas bent back. Acorns biennial,
solitary or in pairs, short stalked; nut ovoid, smooth, in cup of
loose scales; rim fringed, not incurved; kernel yellow, bitter.
Preferred habitat, rich, moist soil. Distribution, Maine to Florida;
west to Minnesota, Kansas and eastern Texas. Uses: Rarely
planted for ornament and shade. Wood used in cooperage, for
furniture and in general construction; bark in tanning and dyeing.

Since early spring I have been watching life kindle and glow
in the top of a grim old black oak. I knew the tree then by its
black bark and its large, downy winter buds, and the velvety
scurf on its young shoots. Still another sign, constant the year
round, proclaimed this tree a black oak beyond question. Under
the rough outer bark is an orange-yellow inner layer, easily
reached by a little digging in one of the furrows. No other oak
need be confused with this species if the observer carries a pocket
knife.

215

The Oaks

This tree, though it was late March, was still holding some of
its old leaves. On twigs destitute of leaves I found a leaf stem,
here and there, frayed into many threads, showing how tough its
fibres are.

My black oak leans up against a bluff, and thrusts its giant
arms out over the wide roadway. One sided as the situation
compelled it to grow, it is yet a majestic tree, "framed in the
prodigality of Nature// From the path below I can just touch
its lower limb with the ten-foot pruning shears; but by climbing
the bluff I walk right into the treetop. Here I go to see things
happen in the spring days.

The buds open and the shoots set with leaves push rapidly
out. The whole treetop flushes crimson in the morning sunshine,
and there is a "pale moonbeam's light" gleaming through it.
Can it be dewdrops pearling the young leaves? I ask the question,
and the tree answers it as soon as I get near enough to examine a
spray. The red glow is from crinkly, half-awake, baby leaves,
and their brilliance is softened by a silky covering of white hairs.
This is especially thick on the under side, but the silvery mist
over the treetop lasts only a day, or until the leaves are grown
large and self-reliant enough to get on without such protection.
Then the fuzz is suddenly shed from the upper sides of the leaves,
but the under surfaces are more or less coated throughout the
summer with a dull scurfy down.

The coarseness of the leaves is one trait that distinguishes the
species from the red and scarlet oaks, whose leaves it often imitates
in form. Crumple a leaf of each in your hands. The red oak
is intermediate between the leathery, harsh texture. of the black,
and the thinness and delicacy of the scarlet. The incisions in
black oak leaves are rounded and !eep, their bristly lobes point
outward as often as they incline forward.

The bloom of black oak may be proiu»j or scant; the tree
has its "off years/' As the leaves lose their red the flowers
take up the theme, and glow with ruddy stigmas and fringed
tassels of stamens among the half-grown foliage. The lustiest
shoots set acorns — sometimes a pair under each leaf. While
the new ones are swelling and forming their little basal cups, on
twigs a year older ambitious acorns of a larger growth are hurrying
through their second summer to be ready to fall in October.

This species is the type of the black or biennial-fruited oaks —

216

THE BLACK OAK (Quercus velutina)

The leaves have squarish lobes, coarse, rough texture and often brownish linings, with tufts of rusty hairs in the angles
of the veins. They turn to dull red or brownish orange. The under bark is orange-coloured. The acorns sit in cups of loosely
shingled scales which form a fringe at the margin. The buds are large, o-vate, with a hoary covering of fine hairs

Flowering branch : A. Staminate Hriwers; B, Pistillate flowers

THE ?LACK OAK (guercus velutina)

The opening leaves arc crimson, with silvery velvet linings and long white hairs above. Half-grown acorns are seen beloTT the

fringe of staminate catkins The pistillate flowers are in the leaf angles

The Oaks

a large group which takes two years to ripen an acorn crop. As a
rule, these trees always show half-formed acorns on their terminal
twigs in winter. The white or annual-fruited oaks never carry
any over; they ripen their fruits and cast them in the autumn.
Black, oaks have bristly pointed leaves; white oaks have only
curved lines on their leaf margins. These facts are well worth
remembering.

Most people know an oak "just by the looks of it." Ask
them which oak it is, and they can't be sure. The bark of the
black oak, with its orange lining, is the key to its name. The
woodsman knows that this oak leads the country as the source
of tan bark. Only the chestnut oak comes near it in percentage
of tannin. Beside tannin, there is in the inner bark the yellow
dyestuff called quercitron, which, before the discovery of aniline
dyes, was largely used in the printing of calicoes. The yellow
bark was dried, then ground, and the powdery citron-yellow
colouring matter sifted out of it. Besides the yellow tints and
shades, it gave, with the addition of salts of iron, various shades
of grey, brown and drab.

Black oaks would doubtless be planted oftener for shade and
ornament but that there are so many other beautiful oaks to
choose from. In the wild they are noble ornaments to the natural
landscape.

For my giant black oak on the hillside I have developed
a kind of personal regard that surprises me. It is the result of
getting acquainted with the tree at successive seasons of the
year. It has taken on individuality. It ought to have a personal
name, not merely its tribal cognomen. I have learned to read
the answers to my questions. I have acquired, therefore, the
rudiments of a new language — for tree language is a code of signs
which anybody can learn. It is astonishing how much of inter-
esting personal and family history a tree will freely give in one
year of friendly intercourse.

The Turkey Oak (Quercus Cateshcet, Michx.) grows most
abundantly, and reaches 60 feet in height, in the high lands
bordering bays and river mouths, along the coasts of South
Carolina and Georgia. It follows the Gulf coast to Louisiana, bur
is rare west of Florida. It is an important fuel in the regions
it inhabits, but is little known to lumbermen. Generally a
small tree, 20 to 35 feet high, it may be distinguished from the

217

The Oaks

Spanish oak by the greater size and breadth of its leaves, and
by the teeth that generally adorn the tapering, triangular lobes.
The leaves are thick and stiff; those of Spanish oak are thin and
flexible.

The Spanish Oak (Quercus digitaia, Sudw.), of the Southern
States, is a distinguished-looking tree, with tall trunk and broad,
open head covered with downy-lined leaves of peculiar forms.
The lobes are elongated, often curved, sickle-like, rarely toothed,
and separated by deep, wide sinuses. From this extreme they
often vary widely, showing broadly obovate blades, often with
no lobes at all. The leaves droop from the twigs, giving the tree
an unique expression.

It is a pity that this tree is not hardy north of lower New
Jersey and Missouri. It is one of the handsomest of shade trees.
The old plantations of the South are likely to show a few aged
Spanish oaks. There are two forms of the tree. Beside the
upland type, a white-barked one abounds in swampy land.
This tree has leaves very deeply cut, which turn a splendid yellow
in autumn. Lumbermen count its wood nearly equal to white
oak. The upland form yields far less durable timber.

The range of the Spanish oak is from New Jersey to Florida
and west to Missouri and Texas. It is most common in the
South Atlantic and Gulf States, on the hills back from the coast.

The Bear, or Scrub Oak (Q. nana, Sarg.), is a shrubby
tree that creeps in thickets over rocky barren ledges from Maine
to Virginia and Kentucky. Its downy-lined leaves va%^ greatly
in their size and lobing. They are obovate, with the three largest
lobes at apex, and tapering to the base, with at least one pair of
lesser lobes below the broad middle sinuses. There is a resem-
blance between these and the leaves of the post oak, although the
sharp, holly-like spines that tip each lobe and the two sizes of
acorns each tree shows in summer prove this species to belong
in the black-oak class. The little acorns, which are bitter and
set in shallow saucers, are abundantly produced, and bears fatten
on them. The species is often effectively planted to adorn
rocky areas in parks.

The Black Jack, or Barren Oak (Q. Marilandica, Muench.),
is a black-trunked, contorted, spreading shrub, or a tree reaching
the height of 50 feet. Its leaves are leathery, with brown fuzzy
linings, and the upper surfaces are set with rough, stellate hairs.

31-8

•-.

'■a

P- «

The Oaks

The leaf broadens to its apex and ends in three indistinct lobes
of variable size and form, whose ribs protrude into the bristly
points that characterise the black oak group. The obovate or
pear-shaped outline is constant, however the lobing may vary.

The function of this ragged little tree is to clothe sterile
ground from New York to Nebraska, and south to Florida and
Texas. What it lacks in beauty it makes up for in a certain
admirable ruggedness of character. The leaves are not as other
oak leaves, and the tree's habit is as handsome as one could
expect considering the worthless ground assigned it by Nature.

The Water Oak (Quercus nigra, Linn.) is a good-sized tree,
with a leaf of somewhat similar outline, but thinner texture than
those of the black jack. It is a favourite shade tree in the Southern
States. It grows naturally along the borders of streams and
swamps, but is easily transplanted, grows rapidly and thrives
in cultivation. Its shining leaves, blue-green above, paler below,
vary from entire margins to lobing as deep as the average red
oak shows. The acorn is a squat little nut in a shallow cup, set
with fine scales.

Willow Oak (Quercus Phellos, Linn.) — A graceful, quick-
growing tree, 60 to 80 feet high, with slender branches that form
a conical, round-topped head. Bark rather rough, reddish brown,
with scaly surface; young trees, smooth. Wood pale, red-brown,
coarse grained, strong, soft, heavy; sap wood lighter in colour.
Buds small, acute, brown. Leaves alternate, leathery, short
petioled, 2 to 5 inches long, linear like willow leaves, but obtuse
at apex and base; upper surface bright green and glossy; lower
pale green, dull, smooth; autumn colour yellow. Acorns biennial,
not numerous, solitary or paired on short stalks ; nut $ inch across,
hemispherical, downy, yellowish brown, set in shallow saucer-
shaped cup; scales thin, ovate, dark reddish brown, hairy; kernel
orange, bitter. Preferred habitat, low, wet borders of swamps.
Distribution, New York to northeastern Florida (in the low
maritime region just back from the coast); along the Gulf into
Texas; north in low ground into Missouri, Ken^cky and Tennessee.
Uses: A fine shade and ornamental tree for Southern cities.
Wood used in construction.

We think of oaks as being sturdy and rugged in their ex-
pression, leaving grace and delicacy to willows and birches, and
such. Here is an oak whose leaves are willow-like in form, size

219

The Oaks

and texture; and they hang on supple, pendant branches, like a
willow's. The dainty acorns in their saucers are often needed to
convince observers that the tree is truly an oak. But only the
young trees are willowy in habit. The oak characters soon assert
themselves.

Naturally, willow oaks grow on the margins of swamps, but
they thrive as a street and shade tree, and are especially beautiful
in the autumnal yellow of their foliage. A large tree grows in
John Bartram's garden in Philadelphia; a small^one seems to be
holding its own without protection in the Arnold Arboretum at
Boston, though its shoots are often nipped by frost.

The Shingle Oak, or Laurel Oak (Q. imbricaria, Michx.) —
A tree 60 to 100 feet high, pyramidal, becoming round headed at
length; branches slender. Bark pale brown, scaly; twigs smooth.
Wood reddish brown, heavy, hard, coarse grained. Buds
small, acute, brownish. Leaves deciduous, alternate, oblong,
usually entire, 4 to 6 inches long, 1 to 2 inches wide, shining, dark
green above, paler and pubescent beneath ; petioles short. Flowers
in May, with opening leaves, tomentose, greenish. Acorns
biennial, J to § inch long, stalked, solitary or paired; nut broad,
short, pointed; cup shallow, scaly, reddish; kernel bitter.
Preferred habitat, rich bottom lands. Distribution, Pennsyl-
vania to Georgia; west to Nebraska and Arkansas. Uses:
Lumber for clapboards and shingles. A hardy and beautiful
park tree.

The pyramidal shape of the young shingle oak and the hori-
zontal and drooping postures of its slender branches remind us
strongly of the pin oak. The "pins," however, are missing, as
we will observe when the tree is bare; and the foliage in summer
quickly corrects any raise impressions. Even from a distance the
foliage masses cf the two trees differ distinctly. The clefts and
angles that make so large a part of pin-oak leaves are all missing
in those of the shingle oak. Willow or peach leaves are more like
these plain-margined ones. The wayfaring man will never imagine
this tree to be an o£ until he sees the acorns.

The shingle oak grows quickly, as the long, leafy shoots in
early summer prove. The star-shaped arrangement of the leaves
on the short branches is most interesting, and there is a wavy curl
in the margins, as if they would each turn aside to let the sunlight
in to the branches less favourably situated. So little interference

220

w
O

THE SHINGLE OAK (Qutrcus imbrkan

The glossy, elliptical leaves are unlike the typical oak leaf. The plump little acorns leave no

' \ the tree. Half-grown acorns appear above the mature

to the family name

The Oaks

is there that the tree is leafy to its central shaft, but the head is
still open.

The shingle oak has a fashion of crossing with related species,
and thus producing hybrids from seed. The black oak and this
one are believed to be the parents of a rather widely distributed
form, now called Quercus Leana. Crosses with the pin oak and
the jack oak also occur.

The summer beauty of this tree is quite sufficient to commend
it to all planters. It is covered in spring with pink and silver, the
leaves before they expand are curled in tight little tubes. In sum-
mer they are leathery and shining. In autumn they change to
rich reds, and the veins and midrib are touched with a more fiery
hue. Truly, there is no season when the shingle oak is not hand-
some in any congregation of trees.

Another Laurel Oak (Quercus laurifolia, Michx.), with
leathery leaves like laurel, grows to large size in swamp borders,
and along streams in the coast regions, from Virginia to Louisiana.
It is the common "water oak" of streets and yards, adorning them
with its graceful columnar trunks and lustrous dark green, almost
evergreen, foliage. Only the live oak, its near associate, exceeds
it in beauty. It is commonest in eastern Florida, and here it
reaches its greatest height. Unfortunately, it is not hardy in the
North.

THE HISTORY OF OAKS

The oak was held sacred by the Greeks, Romans, Teutons
and Celts. They venerated the living tree for its fruit which fed
them, and for its lumber which housed them and served as their
defence against their enemies. " Hearts of oak " were built into the
Norsemen's ships that storms could not wrench apart. The
triremes of the great navies of Greece and Rome were of oak tim-
ber. So were their great bridges, aqueducts and buildings —
triumphs of architectural art and engineering skill. The very
columns, with their flaring bases and capitals, were modelled
from the trunks of oaks. The curves of the branches suggested
their arches, and the leaves and acorns gave them designs for
ornamentation.

The Druids held their most solemn rites under the sacred
shade of their oak groves. The mistletoe was gathered on the

221

The Oaks

coming in of the new year, and only a hook of gold was fit for this
ceremony. Their Yule log was an oak tree cut down, drawn home
and offered on the rude hearth as a sacrifice to Yaioul, the Celtic
god of fire, in the feast of midwinter. It was through his favour
that winter's icy grasp loosened, and the days began to lengthen.
Sleeping under the shade of an oak was counted a sovereign
cure for paralytics. The benefits of such treatment must have
depended upon the weather, for oaks in thunderstorms seem very
prone to "draw the stroke." Shakespeare's famous apostrophe
in "Measure for Measure" seconds the popular belief in his time;
the opinion prevails among woodsmen to-day:

"Merciful heaven!
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt
Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
Than the soft myrtle."

There is a whole thunderstorm crowded into these lines.

Durability is a prime merit in oak timber. The oldest houses
in England show their oak beams and panelling as sound to-day
as ever. Shrines of the early kings carved in oak have not yet
begun to show signs of age. "Antique oak " is imitated by staining
to very dark colour the stock used in furniture manufactories.
Genuine "antique oak" is a priceless treasure.

Bog Oak. — This oak, a favourite wood in the decorative
arts, is obtained from trunks which have lain and blackened in
the peat bogs of Ireland and England for untold centuries. These
logs, exhumed, seasoned, and sawed into lumber, bring extrava-
gant prices. Wholesale inundation of forests, due possibly to
earthquakes, produced some of this bog oak. Tradition has it
that, in 55 B. C, Caesar's army, wintering in the land of the Britons,
was set to cutting down the forests and dragging the logs into
boggy districts. This was to keep the army under strict discipline,
and to spite the unfriendly Britons. The camps and bridges the
Romans built consumed many of the sacred oak groves, and the
surplus, maliciously buried in the swamps, has been discovered
and dug up centuries later. This wood is described by Evelyn
as taking on a colour and hardness "emulating the politest ebony."

Structure of Oak Wood— Oak wood shows distinct annual
rings, each made of a band of close grained, pale summer wood, and
dark, open, porous layer of spring wood. Broad, shining bands of

222

The Oaks

fibres extend in vertical plates from centre to bark in the tree.
When the wood is properly sawed these shining medullary, or
pith rays, show as irregular patches on the surface. Much of the
beauty of polished oak depends upon these "mirrors," which are
the largest when the wood is "quarter sawed" — that is, when
sawed toward the centre of the log. Gnarled roots and tortuous
branches of old oak trees furnish wood of curly grain which is
highly prized for veneering.

Uses of Acorns. — Acorns vary in sweetness and edibility.
They all contain food elements, and primitive peoples have used
them as food. The Californian white oak (Quercus lobata) has a
sweet acorn which the Indians bake, shell, and then grind into a
coarse meal out of which bread is made. The New England Indian
tribes ate the acorns of white oaks of various species, as did the
tribes farther south. The Japanese and Chinese have species with
edible acorns. In Europe the acorn crop is watched with great
solicitude. The ancients believed that

". . . men fed with oaken mast
The aged trees themselves in years surpassed." 7

Quercus esculus was especially esteemed for food. The mast
was also depended upon for the fattening of swine. English
villagers still enjoy in many places the ancient " right of pannage,"
the privilege, granted them by some early king, of turning their
hogs in autumn into the royal forests.

The acorn cups of Quercus Valonia are exceptionally rich in
tannin, and are sifted out from the nuts and sold under the trade
name, Valonia, to the best tanneries in Europe.

Oak bark is a staple tan bark the world over. The black
and chestnut. oaks in this country and the English oak in Europe
are richest in tannin. Spent bark from the pits holds heat. It
was formerly used in private greenhouses under the soil to force
exotic fruits, especially pineapples, in England. It is now spread
on race tracks, roadways, paths and sidewalks.

Insect Enemies. — Numerous insects and fungi prey upon
oaks. Great caterpillars of our most beautiful night-flying moths
devour the young foliage. Weevils infest the acorns, gall insects
distort the leaves and twigs, scale insects suck the juices from the
young branches. Certain of these enemies of the oaks have been
turned to good account by man. The scale, Kermes, is a soft-

223

The Oaks

bodied creature, diminutive in size, but infinite in numbers. Its
eggs are gathered and dried, much as the cochineal insects are,
and a valuable scarlet dye is made of them. This industry
belongs to the countries of southern Europe and northern Africa,
where the Kermes is used for dyeing leather and wool. In France
cosmetics are tinted with it.

Oak Galls. — "Oak apples" are abnormal growths on the
leaves or twigs of oaks due to the presence of the larvae of certain
insects whose eating seems to poison the tissues and distort their
development. An entomologist knows by the form of the gall
what insect produces it. In ancient times people knew little of
their causes — the "apples of Sodom" and "Dead Sea fruit" of
history, sacred and profane, were galls of oaks. The "flea seed"
of California oaks contain the young of a species of the genus
Cynips. A glance into almost any oak tree just as the buds are
opening will show delicate, wasp-like insects resting lightly for
a moment on one leaf cluster after another, depositing eggs, one in
a place, within the leaf substance. The beginnings of oak apples
may be found as large as peas on leaves scarcely an inch long.
John Gerard, the herbalist, writing in 1 597, naively expresses the
misconceptions and superstitious beliefs of his day in England.

"The gall tree," he explains at the outset, "is a kinde of oke."
Then proceeding:

"The oke apples being broken in sunder about the time of
their withering doe foreshew the sequell of the yeare, as the
expert Kentish husbandmen have observed, by the living things
found in them: as, if they finde an ant, they foretell plenty of
graine to ensue; if a white worm like a gentill or maggot, then they
prognosticate murren of beasts and cattell; if a spider, then (say
they) we shall have a pestilence or some such like sickness to
follow amongst men ; these things the learned also have observed,
and noted that before they have an hole through them they contain
in them either a flie, a spider, or a worme; if a flie, then warre
ensueth; if a creeping worme, then scarcities of victuals; if a
running spider, then followeth great sicknesse or mortalitie."

Oak galls are rich in tannin, sometimes yielding as high as
77 per cent. They have always been used in various countries in
tanning the finest skins, and in making inks and dyes. The
Aleppo galls from northern Italy rank highest. The oldest docu-
ments in America show the ink still bright on the yellowing parch-
ment, for it was made of oak galls and is practically permanent.

224

The Oaks

Dyes are equally lasting, in distinct contrast to the cheap aniline
dyes in use nowadays, and the inks that fade in a year or two.
Here is something startling. A writer in England three centuries
ago thus recommends these galls to horse jockeys: "A handful or
two of small Oak buttons, mingled with Oats given to Horses,
which are black of colour, will in a few days eating alter it to a fine
Dapple grey."

Truffles. — The truffles of commerce, famous in the French
cuisine and well known to the gourmands in Rome's palmiest
days, are edible fungi, somewhat like puff balls in texture and
mode of growth. They grow as parasites upon the roots of
various trees, including the Holm oak and the English oak.
Limy soil is required by these fungi. They are produced in
southern England and on the Continent, reaching their highest
perfection in France and Italy. "The reputation of the truffle of
Perigord is as old as the world!" In an impassioned ode to this
delicacy, a famous Frenchman uttered this apostrophe:

"Noir diamant, perle de la Gascogne,
Tous les gourmets venerent ton pays!"

Truffles bring astonishing prices in the markets of Europe.
This fact alone quite justifies the planting of chalky lands to oaks.
Yield of truffles is expected when the trees are a dozen years old,
and it continues without abatement for twenty-five years if con-
ditions remain favourable.

The truffle hunter, often a peasant woman, goes into the
woods with a basket, a spading fork, and a dog or a pig, trained
to help her. The truffle has a rich, strong odour which these
animals detect by their keen sense of smell. The hunter keeps
close to the animal, which soon begins a vigorous digging or
rooting. It is at once interrupted. The eager quadruped is
sorely disappointed, for he is a truffle connoisseur and a gourmand.
His duty is to "point" the truffle only; the spading fork carefully
unearths the precious tuber and it goes into the basket. Unless
carefully tied or penned at night, these ill-used servants fare forth,
and help themselves to these subterranean delicacies by the light
of the moon.

Truffles are doubtless present on roots of beech and oak in
our own woods. We have not yet taken time to discover and
exploit them. Our epicures are satisfied with the canned and

225

The Oaks

imported article. The delectable "beefsteak" fungus, which grows
on the trunks of certain of our native oaks, is highly esteemed
by those who know it, but most people cautiously despise all
"toadstools," great and small.

The Cork Oak (Quercus Suber), native to the peninsulas of
southern Europe, and to northern Africa, is a small evergreen oak,
rarely over 30 feet high and 2 feet in diameter, which grows in
forests on broken, unproductive land. The importance of these
forests has never waned, because nobody has discovered or in-
vented a satisfactory substitute for cork. In France and all other
vine-growing countries the importation of cork is a great business.
What wonder then that the people in the grape and wine belt of
California rejoiced to find that the cork oak can be successfully
grown on the otherwise unproductive foothills of the Sierra Nevada
Mountains. It is a vast saving to raise their own bottle stoppers
instead of importing them from the otheV side of the globe.

What a novel experience it would be to visit at harvest time
one of those forests in Spain or Algeria which have for centuries
furnished cork to the world! We should not say the business was
carried on in a very economical or economic way, as we Americans
count those things. There is not the rush and bustle of the
Western World in those sleepy countries. Haste makes waste
in growing cork and stripping it. The slowest-growing trees pro-
duce the best grade of cork, and they are not at their best till fifty
years old. For the next fifty years they yield a thick coat of cork
every ten years. Then the quality deteriorates, and the trees
are cut down, the bark sent to the tan pit, and the charcoal burner
takes the wood.

When the age of twenty-five years is reached it is time to
strip off from the trunk the "virgin bark," a thin, hard, outer
layer, which is rich in tannin, but bears no resemblance to cork.
The removal of this layer sets the tree to forming a spongy layer,
thick and entirely different from the first. This grows eight or
ten years, when it is removed, and a second layer produced. The
first is practically useless. The second stripping gives cork used
by fishermen to float their nets with. The stripping goes on, each
decade showing improvement in the quality of the cork until the
fiftieth year brings it to its best state.

The stripping of cork is a particular job. Two opposite
vertical cuts are made the full length of the trunk; then circular

226

The Oaks

cuts at top and bottom are made, and the two rectangular plates
of bark, each covering one-half of the whole trunk, are attached
to it only by the alburnum, or "mother bark." It is a delicate
matter to get the cork off and yet leave this under layer uninjured.
Cork never grows again on spots that are bruised. Very carefully
the wedge-shaped handle of the hatchet creeps along the edge of
the plate and lifts it gradually off. The skill and patience required
to do this must challenge our admiration. The harvest time
comes in July or August. The curved plates of cork are scraped
smooth, heated and flattened for transportation.

The flowering period of cork oaks is practically continuous
in the warmer sections of Portugal. The acorns are annual from
the early flowers, but the later ones are carried over, ripening in
the second season. There are no less than three distinct crops of
acorns, as the farmer folk well know. The fattening of hogs
depends largely upon these acorns. There seems to be no distinct
line drawn between annual and biennial cork oaks.

There is only one tree in the world whose bark ranks commer-
cially with the cork oak, and it takes second place. It is the
Cinchona, or Peruvian-bark tree, which is the source of quinine
and related drugs.

Exotic Oaks in American Gardens. — The English oak
(Quercus Robur) is the only oak native to the British Isles. It is
the patriarch of the forest, noblest in any company of trees,
fostered in its youth, cherished and revered in its old age, depended
upon in its prime for its valuable products. The Briton to-day
is as fervent a tree worshipper as his Druid ancestors were, but
his love for the oak is stripped of superstition and tempered by
intelligence. He is a practical man, and while he cherishes the
gnarled oaks that adorn his private grounds and public parks, he
has his oak forests for timber as his grain fields for bread. Sense
and sentiment are both strong in him, but there is a proper
balance between them.

The English oak is by no means confined to England. It
is found all over Europe, where in earlier times it formed extensive
forests. It is known in two forms, sessilifiora and pedunculaia,
varieties dependent upon the absence or presence of stalks of
flower and fruit. With age these trees increase in breadth,
more than in height, grow stout in trunk and limb, and the
branches become extravagantly gnarled and twisted. ThQ

227

The Oaks

prevailing belief as to the age of these oaks is expressed in

Dry den's lines:

"Three centuries he grows, and three he stays
Supreme in state; and in three more decays."

There are trees still hale in England to-day which were old
enough to cut for their lumber when William the Conqueror
landed in 1066. Scientists estimate the limit of longevity among
oaks at about 2,000 years.

The British oak grows indifferently in the United States
except in California. Here it finds conditions most favourable and
grows with great rapidity and vigour. Acorns planted in 1878 were
grown into large trees in 1890 — to the amazement of everybody.

The Holm Oak (Quercus Ilex), which skirts the Mediter-
ranean coast of Europe, and seems to thrive best, even in England,
when exposed to sea breezes, is the Ilex, famous in classical
literature. Its' evergreen leaves resemble those of the holly,
whose generic name is Ilex. This is one of the most ornamental
of the oaks, compact and regular in form, and beautiful in its
glossy foliage the year round. Its acorns form one of the im-
portant edible sorts in Europe. The value of its mast alone would
justify the planting of the Holm oak. It is also one of the truffle
oaks, and its bark and the galls of one of its varieties are of the
highest value in dyeing and tanning.

Turkey Oak (Qjuercus cerris), of Europe, is planted in our
Southern States. It has somewhat the form and symmetry of
the beech in its lusty youth. Its foliage is dark, with greyish
linings; the acorn 1 J inches long, with a large mossy cup that half-
way swallows it. This is the " wainscot oak" of English builders.

Japanese and Chinese oaks feel at home in the Eastern
States of America, and are now coming in, to the enrichment of
our horticulture and the delight of landscape gardeners. The
crispness and vigour of the foliage make these trees strikingly
handsome. Quercus variabilis has leathery, dark green chestnut-
like leaves, with white woolly linings. Quercus dentata, with
toothed margins, in one variety cut into narrow fingers almost
to the midrib, is notable for the size of its leathery, lustrous
leaves. They are often a foot in length. Another Japanese
favourite is Quercus glandulifera, a half-evergreen shrub, whose
chestnut-like leaves are set with glandular teeth. This is half
hardy when planted in New England.

228

THE LAN' CASTER ELM {Ulmus Americana)

This noble specimen of our common white elm prows in a field near Lancaster, Massachusetts. The objects around it em-
phasize its great siz.e. It shows what a roadside tree may become if it is let alone and given time and elbow room. It is
the pride of the state it grows in. May the insects spare it lone!

CHAPTER XXVIII: THE ELMS AND THE
HACKBERRIES

Family Ulmace^e

i. Genus ULMUS, Linn.

Trees of horticultural and lumber value. Leaves alternate
serrate, unequal at base, with strong ribs and short petioles
Flowers greenish, inconspicuous, perfect. Fruit a dry nutlet
with thin encircling wing, bearing two hooks at apex.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Blooming before the leaves in spring.
B. Twigs smooth.

C. Branches corky winged.

(£/. alatd) wahoo or winged elm
(S^^ranches not corky winged.

^ (U. Americana) American or water elm

BB. Twigs pubescent.

C. Branches corky. (U. Thomasi) cork elm

CC. Branches not corky; leaves rough above; twigs and
buds with coarse, rusty hairs.

(l/. fulva) slippery elm
AA. Blooming late in summer or autumn.

B. Leaves over 2 inches long, thin. (£/. serotina) red elm
BB. Leaves 1 to 2 inches long, thick.

(U. crassifolia) cedar elm.

2. Genus CELTIS, Linn.

Valuable shade trees. Leaves simple, 3-nerved, serrate.
Flowers polygamo-moncecious, axillary, small. Fruit sweet,
succulent berry.

A. Leaves coarsely and sharply serrate; fruit large.

(C. occidentalis) hackberry
AA. Leaves entire or obscurely serrate; fruit small.

(C. Mississippiensis) sugarberry
229

The Elms and the Hackberries

3. Genus PLANERA, Gmel.

Water-loving trees of small size. Leaves elm-like, small
unsymmetrical. Flowers polygamo-monoecious, axillary, small.
Fruit a dry drupe in crustaceans husk7(P. aquatica) planer tree

1. Genus Ulmus, Linn.

The genus Ulmus has sixteen known species, distributed in
all north temperate countries except western North America.
Five species are native to our Eastern States and one to the
Southwest; Europe has three, two of which extend to eastern
Asia and northern Africa. Southern and central Asia have
representatives. Elms are valuable timber trees, and have
always been planted for shade and ornament. Many varieties
have arisen in cultivation among the European species. So far
the American species have shown few horticultural forms. The
elms are distinguished by their simple, unsyjrmietricaL. 2-ranked
leaves, and tfieir_ thin, circular, winged samaras. Their wood
is tough, heavy and hard, with interlacing fibres which make it
difficult to split.

White Elm, American Elm {Ulmus Americana, Linn.) —
A tall, graceful, wide-spreading tree, 75 to 125 feet high, usually
of symmetrical, vase shape, with slender limbs and pendulous
twigs. Bark dark or light grey, rough, coarsely ridged; branches/
grey; twigs reddish brown. Wood reddish brown, with palej
sap wood; coarse, hard, heavy, strong, cross grained, difficult to
split, durable in water and soil. Buds acute, flattened, smooth;
flower buds lateral, large. Leave:; alternate, 2 to 6 inches long,
obovate, doubly serrate, acuminate, unequal at base; smooth
above when mature; rnbTparaltel. Flowers, March, before leaves,
on slender, drooping pedicels in umbel-like clusters, perfect,
greenish red, inconspicuous. Fruity May, smooth, oval with thin
ciliated circular wing, notched above to the nutlet. Preferred
habitat, rich, moist soil. Distribution, Newfoundland to Florida;
west to Rocky Mountains. Uses: Favourite shade and, orna-
mental tree. Wood used for hubs, saddle trees, barrels and kegs,
flooring, in boat and shipbuilding, flumes and piles. Indians used
bark for canoes and ropes.

Up and down New England the trolley cars ply in a maze

230

The Elms and the Hackberries

of systems that becomes more complex every year. Buzzing
like insistent and inquisitive bumblebees, they awaken the
sleepiest hamlet, haling its inhabitants to the cities and unloading
weary, city-bound mortals in the green country. They stir the
torpid, stagnant pool of existence; they wake the old nomadic
cravings of the primitive race. The most indignant farmer or
villager, once he* gets thoroughly awake, ceases to grumble; for
his feet of clay the trolley gives him the wings of a bird.

I am not an idolater, I hope, and I would chiefly scorn to
worship the almighty dollar. But the vast extent of picturesque
country one can see for this sum by trolley in New England fills
me with a surprise akin to awe.

The striking ornament of New England landscapes is the
American elm. The countryside abounds with splendid speci-
mens. They are the pride of cities and villages. Down fine old
avenues arched over with their mighty arms the trolley cars
take their noisy way. * The Westerner stands astonished at the
giant size of these trees, and wonders why he cannot match them
at home. It is largely a matter of time. In the early days our
k ancestors took up the trees from the woods and planted them by
^jheir roadsides and about their dwellings. Memories of elms
''at homes — the beautiful Ulmus campestris in England and on the
Continent — guided their choice. Trees twenty years old were
transplanted with safety, for this elm has fibrous roots that keep
near the surface of the ground. Then the busy home-makers
let?* the trees alone. They had no time to prune and cultivate.
The ,trees needed no such attention. The roots ranged freely in
the virgin soil. The spreading tops were self-pruning — the
strong limbs choked the weak ones, keeping an open, symmetrical
head. Every year added to the tree's stature. It is a race
of giants now, against whom insect hosts have come— the tussock
moths, the elm-leaf beetle and the brown tail. No wonder the
people have made the fight their own.

The elm is familiar to everybody — its vase-like form is in
sight whenever we look out of a window. It grows everywhere
east of the Rocky Mountains, and ignorance of it is a mark of
indifference or stupidity. No village of any pride but plants it
freely as a street tree.

The Etruscan vase form — a base gradually flaring to a
round dome — is most common. The trunk soon divides into

231

The Elms and the Hackberries

three or four main limbs with slight but constant divergence as
they rise. Their branches follow their example. The divisions
are drawn downward by their increasing weight, and the extremi-
ties are pendulous, sweeping out and down with loads of foliage,
luxuriant, but never heavy looking or ungraceful.

There are narrower elm forms: tall trunks whose limbs
form a brush at the top, not unlike a feather duster. Such trees
often replace lost outer limbs by a multitude of short leafy
twigs, covering the trunks with foliage, thus forming what are
known as "feathered elms/'

The "oak-tree form"— wider and broader than the vase
form — reminds one of the ample crown of an oak. But only the
outline is suggestive. The limbs are curved, never angular and
tortuous like the oak. Grace rather than strength is invariably
the expression of the American elm. In good soil the terminal
shoots attain great length, and it is not unusual to see an elm
of vase shape with the droop of a weeping willow.

The leaves of the elm are two-ranked, the twigs plume-like.
Every chink is filled with a leaf. Break off a branch that faces
the sun, and you will be astonished at the twisting and contriving
of the leaves, to present an unbroken surface of green. This is
known as a "leaf mosaic/' and is by no means confined to elms.
Any roadside thicket shows the same habit in all its species.

I think, with all due regard for its summer luxuriance, and the
grace of its framework in winter, the greatest charm invests the
elm of the roadside in the first warm days of spring. The swelling
buds are full of promise. A flush of purple overspreads the tree,
while snow yet covers the ground. A tremendous "fall of leaves"
ensues — for the tiny leaf scales that enclose the elm flowers are
but leaves in miniature. The elms are in blossom ; they are among
the first in the flower procession that silently passes till the witch
hazel brings up the rear in October. Then come the little green
seeds, winged for flight. These ripen and are scattered before
the leaves are open, and the growth of the season's shoots really
begins. How much they miss who never see the elms in flower
and fruit!

The English elm (U. campestris) is a strikingly different
tree from its American cousin. Boston Common gives ample
opportunity to contrast large specimens of the two species.
Dignity is a characteristic of each. Each bears a luxuriant

232

The Elms and the Hackberries

burden of leaves. The Briton is stocky; the American, airily
graceful. One stands heavily "upon its heels/' the other on
tiptoe. One has a compact crown, the other an open, loose one.
In October the English elm is still bright, dark green; the Amer-
ican elm has passed into the sere and yellow leaf.

The elm is the favourite tree of the hang bird, or Baltimore
oriole, in America. In winter the deserted nests swing from the
high outer limbs, where the leaves concealed them in nesting
time. The English elm at home is the red-breast's tree. These
birds build, not in the upper limbs, but in those that grow down
near the trunk, and come earliest into leaf.

Classical literature proves the antiquity and the great im-
portance of the elms of southern Europe. The Romans used
elm leaves as forage for cattle. In the vineyards elms were
planted to support the vines. The trees were well pruned so
they should not overshadow the grapes. It was counted danger-
ous to give bees freedom to visit blooming elms, lest they become
surfeited, and sicken as a result. In this opinion the early
observers were evidently mistaken. Virgil discourses upon the
successful grafting of oak upon elm, and describes swine eating
acorns that dropped from the fruiting branches of this wonderful
tree. Experiment long ago proved the fallacy of ,this report.
In England the rustic still watches the elm for signal to sow his
grain, relying on the old saw:

"When the elme leaf is as big as a mouse's ear,
Then to sow barley never fear."

The witch hazel (Hamamelis Virginiand) does not grow in
England, but the wych elm was known in some regions by this
name, because its leaf is hazel-like. Long bows were anciently
made of its wood, and it was mentioned in the "Statutes of
England."

Slippery Elm, Red Elm (JJ. fulva, Michx.) — Fast-growing
tree, 60 to 70 feet high, with erect, spreading branches,- forming
a broad, open head. Twigs stout, rusty, downy. Bark brown-
ish, rough, scaly. Wood strong, hard, heavy, coarse, reddish
brown, durable in soil. Buds densely rusty, pubescent; large,
blunt. Leaves alternate, deciduous, 2-ranked, broadly oval, 4 to
7 inches long, irregularly heart shaped at base, acuminate at
apex, doubly serrate, strongly ribbed; on short, stout petiole;

233

The Elms and the Hackberries

surface rough both ways, stiff, harsh. Flowers, April, before
leaves, fascicled, numerous, Fruits, May, rounded, hairy, only
on seed, wing not ciliate, margined. Preferred habitat, fertile
soil along streams. Distribution, lower St. Lawrence River,
through Ontario to Dakota and Nebraska; south to Florida;
west to Texas. Uses: Wood used as fence posts and railroad
ties; for wheel hubs, sills and agricultural implements. Mucila-
ginous inner bark used to allay fever and inflammation.

The slippery elm disregards the laws of symmetry. Each
limb strikes out for itself. It is not unusual to find a tree quite
one sided in form. Shoots 6 feet in length are often seen as the
growth of a single season, where a broken limb gives an ambitious
bud a chance. The roughness of its foliage to the touch is one
of the striking characteristics of this tree. The leaves are covered
with harsh, tubercular hairs, and the crumbling of a leaf grates
most unpleasantly on the ear. Then, there is a tawny pubescence
on young shoots, and especially on the bud scales of this elm.
In winter this is the best distinguishing mark of the red elm.
The large flower buds are below the pointed leaf buds on the
youngest shoots.

The bark is brownish grey, and rough alike on trunk and
branches. Everything, in fact, about the slippery elm seems
coarser than in its relatives. The leaves are often 8 to 10 inches
long on vigorous shoots.

Under the bark is a mucilaginous, sweet substance that gives
this elm its common name. What man lives who in the heydey
of youth has not had the spring craze for slippery-elm bark, as
surely as he had the chicken pox and the measles! The trees
in every fence row show the wounds of many a jack-knife, for in
the spring its cambium waxes thick and sweet and fragrant — to
growing boys, a delectable substance that allayed both hunger
and thirst. Fortunate for the longevity of the individual trees,
the bark of the limbs is most easily stripped off, so many a veteran
supplies boys to-day, which served as well a former generation.
The bark, dried and ground, mixed with milk, forms a valuable
food for invalids. Poultices are made of it to relieve throat and
chest troubles. It is also useful in allaying fevers and acute
inflammatory ^disorders. This bark, first used as a home remedy,
has now an established place on the apothecary's shelf, and is
used by physicians of both schools. The problem of the supply

334

■

THE SLIPPERY ELM (Ulmus fulva)

Note the bud at the tip of the upper twig. Its scales are coated with tawny hairs. The obovate or circular samaras arr
ripe in May. They are hairy only on the seed body; the wing is smooth. The belated buds produce leafy shoots. The leases
are large and very harsh when crumpled or stroked with the finger. They have the characteristic shape, straight ribs and saw-
toothed margin of all elms. The bark is reddish brown and cleft into narrow, loooe flakes by shallow fissures

The Elms and the Hackberries

is a serious one. The tree grows fast and vigorously if only the
boys give it a chance. The trees are becoming scarcer each year.

The Rock or Cork Elm (Ulmus Thomasi, Sarg.) has
shaggy stout limbs like a bur oak's, and a rugged, stiff expression
quite unusual in an elm. A look at the foliage is reassuring, for
elm leaves vary but slightly in the different species. In spring
the type of inflorescence is the best botanical character to depend
upon.

The cork elm was discovered in the woods of western New
York by David Thomas, who noted its corky bark and habit of
bearing its flowers and fruit in racemes. He named the species
Ulmus racemosa, as was most reasonable. It was discovered
later that this name had previously been applied to a European
corky elm; whereupon the name of its discoverer was substituted.

"Rock elm" and "hickory elm" refer to the hardness of
its wood. Lt has in greater degree the good qualities of white
elm lumber, and is counted the best of all elms by the wheelwright*
Compact, with interlacing fibres, there is spring, strength and
toughness in this wood which adapts it for bridge timbers, heavy
agricultural implements, wheel stocks, sills, railroad ties and axe
handles.

The best trees, 60 to 90 feet high, with trunks 2 to 3 feet
through, grow in dry soil in lower Ontario and Michigan. The
species occurs also in scattered localities west to Nebraska and
Tennessee, and east as far as Vermont.

The Winged Elm, or Wahoo (U. alata, Michx.), is not
an important timber tree, though its wood is used in the localities
where it grows. Its leaves and the two thin, corky blades that
arise on the branches are dainty, as befits the smallest of the
elm trees. There is none of the ruggedness of the cork elm in the
appearance of this pretty, round-headed tree. It rarely grows
over 40 feet high, and is distributed from Virginia to Florida, and
west to Illinois and Texas. Its small, winged samaras are each
prolonged into two prominent incurving hooks at the apex.
They hang in pendulous racemes. The tree is occasionally
planted for shade in Southern cities, but it is not hardy in the
North. "Wahoo" seems to be a term rather indiscriminately
applied to elm trees in sections of the South. "Mountain elm"
and "small-leaved elm" are significant popular names.

Two elms have leather}-, almost evergreen leaves, and

235

The Elms and the Hackberries

bloom very late in the summer. One, found in Georgia and
Tennessee, was confused with U. Thomasi until its flowers were
found opening in the axils of the season's leaves in the month of
September! This discovery set it apart as a separate species,
and it was named from its red-brown wood, the Red Elm (U.
serotind), by Professor Sargent. The specific name means late.

The Cedar Elm (U. crassijolia, Nutt.), of Arkansas, Texas
and Mississippi, blooms in August. Occasionally this tree reaches
a height of 80 feet, with broad, spreading limbs and slender,
pendulous branches. It is a beautiful, graceful tree; its tiny
leaves, close set on the winged twigs, form a dense head of lustrous
foliage. Occasionally a second crop of flowers appears in October.

There seems to be no better reason for its common name than
that it grows with cedars on the dry limestone hills of Texas. It
is the common elm tree of that great state, and is sometimes
planted as a shade tree. Its lumber is used for fencing and for
wheel hubs, the better qualities being cut in the moist lowlands.
In dryer situations it is scarcely worth cutting even for fuel.

2. Genus CELTIS, Linn.

The hackberries include fifty or sixty tropical and temperate
zone species. Two are trees in North America, but future inves-
tigations may still further divide the group. They are trees of
considerable value for shade and ornamental planting. Beside
the two natives, three exotic species are in cultivation in the south,
and a hardy Japanese species farther north. Of the former, one
is from South Africa, one from the Mediterranean basin, and the
third from China and Japan.

Hackberry, Nettle Tree, Sugar Berry (Celtis occidenialis,
Linn.) — Tree, 50 to 125 feet, with slender trunk and round head,
of very slender, bushy twigs and pendulous branches. Bark light
brown or pale grey, broken into thick warts or scales by deep fur-
rows; branches often corrugated and warty. Wood light yellow,
heavy, soft, coarse, weak. Buds axillary, never terminal; acute,
ovate, small. Leaves simple, alternate, ovate, 2-| to 4 inches long,
often fulcate, oblique at base, serrate above widest part, entire
below it; thin, deep green, with downy lining; 3-nerved, from
slim petiole; autumn colour yellow. Flowers, May, monoecious,

236

The Elms and the Hackberries

or mixed, greenish, axillary staminate, clustered at base of sea-
son's shoot; pistillate solitary, in axils of leaves, green, with
spreading, 2-horned stigma. Fruits, September, oblong, thin,
fleshed berry, i to ^ inch long, purple, sweet; hangs all winter.
Preferred habitat, moist soil along streams or marshes. Distribu-
tion, Southern Canada west to Puget Sound; south to Florida,
Tennessee, Missouri, Texas and New Mexico. Uses: Planted for
shade and ornament. Wood used for cheap furniture and fencing.

It is easy to mistake the hackberry for an elm. The habit
of the two trees leads the casual observer astray. It takes a
second look to note the finer spray of the hackberry twigs, its
more horizontal, less drooping branches. The warty bark is
characteristic. The little axillary sugar berries are very different
from elm samaras. There are few months in the year when fruits
are not to be found, green or ripe, on the tree. They are the
delight of birds throughout hard winters. A peculiarity of the
foliage is the apparent division of the petiole into three ribs
instead of a single midrib. Otherwise the leaf is elm-like, though
smaller and brighter green than that of the American elm.

The hackberry is not familiarly known by people in the
regions where it grows. Else it would be transplanted more com-
monly to adorn private premises and to shade village streets.
There is no danger in digging up well-grown trees, for the roots are
fibrous and shallow, ancl carry an abundance of soil with them.

The beauty of the hackberry' s graceful crown is sometimes
marred by a fungus which produces a thick tufting of twigs
at the ends of branches. These are called "witches' brooms."
Growths of similar appearance are produced by insects on other
trees.

Celtis Mississippiensis, Bosc, is the warty-barked, round-
topped hackberry of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys; a graceful
tree, and much like C. occidentalism but smaller. Its leaves are
narrow and entire on the margins. The warts of its bark are
very noticeable. The berries are orange red. This tree is quite
as worthy of cultivation as its larger relative, and the people of
Texas know it. The chief virtue of this species as a shade tree is
that its foliage hangs on, with little dimming of its brightness, to
the very edge of winter.

The European nettle tree (C. Australis) is supposed to have
been the famous lotus of classical literature. Homer tells of the

237

The Elms and the Hackberries

lotus eaters, who, when they tasted the sweet fruit, straightway
forgot their native land, or could not be persuaded to return.

This innocent little tree, against which this charge has never
been proved, bears a better reputation for the qualities of its wood.
It is as hard as box or holly, and looks like satinwood when pol-
ished. Figures of saints and other images are carved out of it.
Hay forks are made of its supple limbs. Rocky, worthless land
is set apart by law for the growing of these trees. A seven-acre
tract in the south of France yielded, according to Landon, 60,000
hay forks per annum, worth 15,000! Suckers from the roots, cut
while small, make admirable ramrods, coach whip stocks, and
walking sticks. Shafts and axle trees of carriages are made of the
larger sticks; oars and hoops from these coppiced trees. This
tree is widely scattered, from northern Africa through Europe,
and on to India, where it is a shade tree and is planted for its
leaves, which furnish fodder for cattle.

3. Genus PLANERA, Gmel.

Planer Tree, Water Elm (Planera aquatica, Gmel.) — Small
tree, 30 to 40 feet high, v/ith short trunk and slender, crooked
branches forming a low, round crown. Twigs reddish. Bark
thin, scaly, grey; inner layers red. Wood light, soft, fine grained,
brown. Buds small, ovoid, scaly. Leaves, February to March;
dull green, paler beneath, 2-ranked, elm-like, 2 to 2j inches long,
unilateral. Flowers with leaves, monoecious or polygamous,
axillary, in fascicles, small. Fruit 1 -seeded drupe in dry, thin,
horny, pericarp; seed shiny, black. Preferred habitat, 'inundated
swamps. Distribution, North Carolina to Florida; west to
Missouri and Texas. Rare.

This tree is interesting chiefly as a botanical remnant of its
family. Several species of this genus once grew in Alaska and in
the Rocky Mountains. Closely related forms are preserved in the
tertiary rocks in Europe.

238

*wp ^^

■

A. Pistillate flower

B. Siaminate flower

THE HACKBERRY (Celtis occidentals)

The leaf has three midribs instead of one, and many swollen, reticulated veins. Note the wide-spreading stigmas of
the solitary axillary fertile flowers. The staminate flowers cluster at the base of the twig. The sweet, i-seeded berries ripen to
dark purple in late September and hang all winter, to the delight of the birds. Strange, warty excrescences are on the bark of
trunks and limbs. The second trunk is of the smaller species. Celt-s Mississippiensis. The third is van reticulata of the latter species

THE RED MULBERRY (Morus rubra)

The fhort trunk r-ustains a broad crown of ascending limbs with zigzag twigs. The leaves are bluish green and thin.;
A complex system of ribs and veinlets make a prominent network of the leaf linings, and roughen the upper surfaces. The!
berries are purple and pleasantly sweet

CHAPTER XXIX: THE MULBERRIES, THE
OSAGE ORANGE AND THE FIGS

Family Morace^

Trees of small or medium size, with milky sap. Leaves sim-
ple, alternate, deciduous, variable. Flowers minute, in axillary
spikes or heads, dioecious or monoecious. Fruit compound, of
many small fleshy drupes.

KEY TO GENERA AND SPECIES

A. Leaves toothed or lobed, with swollen, netted veins; fruit
an edible, oblong berry.

i. Genus MORUS, Linn.
B. Fruit purple; leaves 3 to 5 inches long.

(A/, rubra) red mulberry
BB. Fruit black; leaves 1 to 2 inches long.

(M. celiidijolia) Mexican mulberry
AA. Leaves entire; fruit globular.

B. Fruit 4 to 5 inches in diameter, inedible.
2. Genus TOXYLON, Raf.

(7\ pomijerum) osage orange
BB. Fruit size of pea, ovate; tree habit parasitic.
3. Genus FICUS, Linn.
C. Leaves thick, yellow-green; fruit short stemmed.

(F. aurea) golden fig
CC. Leaves thin, dark green, fruit long-stemmed.

(F. populnea) poplar-leaf fig

The mulberry family comprises 55 genera and 925 species of
temperate zone and tropical plants, of which the fig, genus Ficus,
includes 600 species. The hemp, important for its fibrous inner
bark, and the hop, are well known herbaceous members of the
mulberry family. Hemp is a native of Europe and Asia, but has
run wild here, and is now in cultivation throughout both tem-
perate zones. Hops are used in rhev brewing of beer, and in the
Old World as well as the New are raised as a staple field crop. The
plant is native to both hemispheres.

239

The Mulberries, the Osage Orange and the Figs

Botanically, the mulberry family lies between the elms and
nettles — strange company, but justified by fundamental charac-
teristics. Three genera of this family have tree forms in America:
Morus, the mulberry; Toxylon, the osage orange; and Ficus, the
fig. Two native species of mulberry and three exotic species are
generally cultivated for their fruit, their wood, and as ornamental
trees. Weeping forms are much planted.

i. Genus MORUS, Linn.

Red Mulberry (Morus rubra, Linn.) — Large tree, 60 to 70
feet high, with dense, round head, fibrous roots and milky juice.
Bark light brown, reddish, dividing into scaly plates; branches
reddish; twigs grey, downy. Wood orange yellow, lighi,^coarse
grained, soft, weak, very durable in soil. ^uds_ ovate, blunt,
small. Leaves alternate, variable in form, 3 to 5 inches long, broad,
acuminate, serrate, very veiny, often lobed and palmately veined ;
usually rough, blue-green above, pale^arTd pubescent beneath,
yellow in early autumn; petioles stout, long. Flowers monoecious
or dioecious, variable, in stalked, axillary spikes, staminate flowers
with flat, 4-lobed calyx and 4 incurved stamens that spread sud-
denly and lie flat on calyx, forming a cross as they mature; pis-
tillate flower, a vase-shaped, 4-lobed calyx, with two stigmas
protruding. Fruit fleshy calyx lobes, surrounding single seed;
whole spike unites to form an aggregate fruit, sweet, juicy, dark
purplish red. Preferred habitat, rich well-drained soil. Dis-
tribution, western Massachusetts to southern Ontario, Michigan,
Nebraska, Kansas; south to Florida and Texas. Uses: Wood
used in cooperage and for fencing. A worthy tree for ornament,
but rarely planted. I \ \

The- Chinese mulberry (Morus alba), with white fruit, holds la \
unique economic position, as its leaves are the chosen food of silk-
worms. No substitute has ever robbed this tree of its pre-eminence
maintained for centuries, in its own field of usefulness. The hardy
Russian mulberries are derived from Morus alba.

The red mulberry, discovered in Virginia in great abundance,
inflamed the minds of early colonists who counted it one of the
chief resources of the colony. A tree "apt to feede Silke-worms
to make silke" promised truly "a commoditie not meanely profit-

240

The Mulberries the Osage Orange and the Figs

able" in a new colony — made up of gentlemen. A Frenchman,
reporting the abundance of these trees, mentions "some so large
that one tree contains as many leaves as will feed Silke-wormes
that will make as much silk as may be worth five pounds sterling
money." But their sanguine hopes were not realised. The red
mulberry is no substitute for the white species. Silk culture is
still an Old World industry, even though white mulberries grow
in this country.

Indians discovered that ropes and a coarse cloth could be
woven out of the bast fibre of mulberry bark. The berries have
some medicinal properties, and are eagerly devoured by hogs and
poultry. The chief value of the tree lies in the durability of its
wood, which commends it to the boatbuilder, the cooper, and to
the man with fences to build.

One of the mulberry's chief characteristics is its tenacity to
life. Its seeds readily germinate, and cuttings strike quickly,
whether from roots or stems. Evelyn's instructions for propa-
gating the European mulberry by cuttings are quaint and worth
hearing. "They will root infallibly, especially if you twist the
old wood a little or at least hack it; though some slit the foot,
inserting a stone or grain of an oat to suckle and entertain the
plant with moisture."

The Mexican Mulberry (M. celtidifolia, H.B.K.), with small,
ovate leaves, somewhat like the hackberry's, and small black fruit,
is found from western Texas to Arizona, and follows the moun-
tains to Peru and Ecuador. It is a small tree whose wood fur-
nished the early Indians with bows; and the Mexican often sets it
out in his garden, for the inferior fruit is grateful in the hot, dry
sections where berries are scarce.

The Black Mulberry (M. nigra), native of Persia, is the
one cultivated in Europe for its fruit. It is occasionally grown
in California and the Southern States, but is not hardy in the North.
It has its name from its dark red, fleshy fruit, as well as its sombre
foliage.

No mulberry is ranked among profitable fruit trees. The
berries rarely appear in the markets, though the trees are common
in gardens. The fruits are too sweet, and they lack piquancy of
flavour. They ripen a few at a time, and may be gathered on
sheets by shaking the trees. Planted in hog pastures, the fruit is
highly appreciated as it falls. As an attraction for birds the tree

241

The Mulberries, the Osage Orange and the Figs

justifies planting in towns, and in country yards and gardens.
Some of our most desirable song birds build near mulberry trees
which promise summer fruit for their families. When a bird
basin is added with promise of water supply for drink and bath,
the place will be chosen by many birds.

The Paper Mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera, Vent.) is one
of two or three oriental species of its genus. Its inner bark has
long furnished a good grade of paper in its own country, Japan.
In the United States it has a southern range, and is an ornamental
of considerable popularity owing to the luxuriance of its foliage.
But as a street tree it is less planted than formerly, for its habit
of throwing up suckers makes it troublesome. It has escaped from
cultivation in many places. In sheltered situations it is hardy
to the city of New York.

2. Genus TOXYLON, Raf.

Osage Orange (Toxylon pomijerum, Raf.) — Handsome,
round-headed tree, 40 to 60 feet high, with short trunk, sharp
spines, fleshy roots and milky, bitter sap. Bark dark, scaly
deeply furrowed; branches orange brown; twigs pubescent;
Wood orange-yellow, hard, heavy, flexible, strong, durable in soil,
takes fine polish. Buds sunk deep in twigs, blunt, all lateral ;
Leaves alternate, simple, 3 to 5 inches long, ovate, entire, taper,
pointed, thick, dark green, polished above, paler and dull beneath,
yellow in autumn; petioles slim, hairy, grooved; thorns axillary.
Flowers dioecious, in June; staminate small, in peduncled racemes,
terminal on leafy spur of previous season; greenish; pistillate in
globular, many-flowered heads, axillary. g Fruit globular, 4 to 5
inches in diameter, green, compound by union of 1 -seeded drupes, *
which are filled with milky juice; seed oblong. Preferred habitat,
deep, rich soil. Distribution, southern Arkansas, southeastern
Indian Territory and southern Texas. Naturalised widely.
Uses: Indians used wood for bows and clulbs. Now used for posts,
.piles, telegfaph poles, paving blocks, railroad ties; sometimes for
interior woodwork of houses. Trees planted in parks and grounds
for shade and ornament, also for hedges. Roots and bark yield
yellow dye and tannic acid.

The Osage orange hedge marked one period in the pioneer's

242

The Mulberries, the Osage Orange and the Figs

work of taming the wilds of the Middle West. Farms had to be
enclosed. Board fences were too costly, and were continually
needing repairs. Fencing with wire was new and ineffectual, for
barbed wire had not yet come into use; so hedges were planted
far and wide. The nurserymen reaped a harvest, for this tree
grows from cuttings of root or branch. All that is needed is to
hack a tree to bits and put them into the ground; each fragment
takes root and sends up a flourishing shoot.

It is a pity that this stock mostly came direct from Arkansas
and Texas. A cold winter with little snow killed miles of thrifty
hedge, just as it reached the useful stage. Sometimes the roots
sent up new shoots, sometimes they didn't, and gaps of varying
widths spoiled the appearance and the effectiveness of hedges
throughout Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas. Then barbed
wire was introduced, and wicked as it was, it defended the growing
crops from free-ranging cattle as no other fencing had done. In
most places the hedges were let alone on farm boundaries. These
old hedgerows have become an important source of fence posts.
No timber furnishes better ones. A row often produces twenty-
five posts to the rod. These bring from 10 cents to 20 cents each
in local markets, a fact which makes them a very profitable crop.
The native Osage orange timber is all exhausted now; and as the
old hedgerows are passing, systematically maintained plantations
of Osage orange, grown for posts, promise to pay increasingly
well. They ought to be largely planted in the tree's natural range.
Occasionally a remnant of the first planting is met with as a fine
roadside tree, glorious in its lustrous foliage, formidable thorns,
and the remarkable green oranges that hang on the fruiting trees.
It is a tree well worth planting for both ornament and shade, for
it harbours few insects and has withal a unique character. It is a
"foreign-looking" tree.

I had a personal experience with the Osage orange. "The
leaves are food for silkworms" — so the nurseryman had told us—
and we could have silkworms' eggs from Washington for the
asking. Now, gingham aprons were the prevailing fashion for
little girls on the Iowa prairies — princesses in fairy tales seemed to
wear silks and satins with no particular care as to where they came
from. Silkworms and Osage orange offered a combination, and
suggested possibilities, which set our imaginations on fire. Lettuce
leaves sufficed for the young caterpillars — then the little mulberry

243

The Mulberries, the Osage Orange and the Figs

-i

bushes, but the lusty white worms so ghastly naked and dreadful
to see, and so ravenous, we fed with Osage orange leaves, cut at
the risk of much damage from ugly thorns and with much weari-
ness. But what were present discomforts compared with the
excellency of the hope set before us! Not Solomon in all his glory
was arrayed as we expected to be. And the worms— white
we loathed them, we counted them, and ministered to their
needs.

At last our labours ended. They began to spin, and soon the
denuded twigs were thickly studded with the yellow cerements of.
the translated larvae, to the relief and wonder of all concerned.
But even as we wondered, the dead twigs blossomed with^white
moths whose beauty and tremulous motion passed description.
We were lifted into a state of exaltation by the spectacle.

"Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." A
hard-hearted but well-informed neighbour told us that the broken
cocoons were worthless for silk. "You'd ought to have scalded
'em as soon as they spun up." Clouds and thick darkness shut
out the day. We refused to be comforted.

This explains why the mere mention of the Osage orange tree,
or the sight of a hedge, however thrifty, brings to my mind a
haunting suggestion "of old unhappy far-off things."

3. Genus FICUS, Linn.

Figs belong to a genus of 600 species scattered over all tropical
countries. The trees have peculiar flowers lining the inside of a
fleshy receptacle so that the "fig wasps" that fertilise them have
to crawl in through a small opening.

Dried figs are an important commercial fruit. These are
from varieties of Ficus Carica, an Asiatic species. Smyrna figs
are best for drying. They are extensively raised in California,
and cured for market. Other varieties, better adapted for use as
a fresh fruit, are grown in many Southern States. The figs we
buy are mostly from Asia Minor. The dependence of the fig upon
the ministrations of the little wasp is one of the most interesting
and baffling chapters in the romance of science.

The rubber plant, vastly popular in this country as a pot
plant, is a Ficus. So is the famous banyan tree of India, and the

244

I »..«.

THE OSAGE ORANGE {Toxylon -pom it e rum)

This handsome hedge tree has stout thorns and foliage of unusual lustre. The staminate flowers are borne in loose, head-like
racemes. The pistillate flowers are in globular heads. Theyappear in June,af ter the leaves, on separate trees. The grecn,orange-
like fruit is 3 5 inches in diameter, with many seeds and bitter, milky juice. The wood is very durable in contact with the soil

L ' ■-, j;

es = ■

^ -? 3 «

—

q i

—

The Mulberries, the Osage Orange and the Figs

sacred peepul tree of the Hindoos. Our native fig trees are sprawl-
ing parasitic forms, unable to stand alone.

The Golden Fig (F. aurea, Nutt.) climbs up another tree,
which it strangles with its coiling stems and aerial roots. There is
a famous specimen tree on one of the islands of southern Florida,
which has spread by striking root with its drooping branches until
it now covers with its secondary trunks an area of a quarter of an
acre. It looks much like a banyan tree. More often in South
Florida one sees this tree with a sturdy single trunk which has
swallowed up the parasite that supported it in youth. Smooth as
a beech trunk, with a crown of foliage more glossy than the live
oak, this is a large and beautiful tree. The little yellow figs
snuggle in the axils of the leaves and turn purple when ripe.
They are succulent and sweet, and are sometimes used for jams
and preserves.

Another interesting thing about Ficus aurea is that its wood
is lighter than that of any other native tree. Its specific gravity
is 0.26, which means that, bulk for bulk, this substance is only
one-fourth as heavy as water. Most of our woods range between
0.40 and 0.80. The heaviest wood belongs also to a Florida tree,
Krugiodendron jerreum, Urb., whose specific gravity, when sea-
soned, is 1.302.

The Poplar-leaf Fig (F. populnea, Willd.) is a rare parasite
clambering up other trees on coral islands and reefs off the south-
ernmost coast of Florida. Its thin, dark green leaves and long-
stemmed fruits distinguish it from its near relative.

345

CHAPTER XXX: THE MAGNOLIAS AND THE

TULIP TREE

Family Magnoliace/E

Trees with soft, light wood, and fleshy roots. Leaves
large, simple, alternate, entire. Flowers large, showy, perfect,
solitary, terminal, all parts distinct. Fruit cone-like, com-
pound, of many i to 2 celled follicles or keys imbricated upon a
central spike.

KEY TO GENERA AND SPECIES

A. Leaves pointed at apex; seeds scarlet, berry-like.

1. Genus MAGNOLIA, Linn.
B. Foliage evergreen or nearly so.

C. Leaf linings rusty pubescent. (M. fcetida) magnolia
CC. Leaf linings silvery, smooth.

(M. glauca) swamp magnolia
BB. Foliage deciduous.

C. Leaves scattered along branchlets.

D. Flowers large, white; leaves 1 5 to 30 inches long.
(M. macrophylla) large-leaved cucumber tree
DD. Flowers small, yellowish green; leaves 6 to 10
inches long. (M. acuminata) cucumber tree
CC. Leaves in whorls on ends of branchlets.

D. Bases of leaves tapering; calyx turned back.

(M. tripetala) umbrella tree
DD. Bases of leaves broadened into ear-like lobes;
calyx not turned back.

(M. Fraseri) mountain magnolia
AA. Leaves cut off square at apex; seeds dry, in winged samaras.

2. Genus LIRIODENDRON, Linn.

(L. Tulipijera) tulip tree

1. Genus MAGNOLIA, Linn,

The magnolias include twenty species; twelve are found in
eastern and southern Asia, two in Mexico, six in eastern North

246

The Magnolias and the Tulip Tree

America. Splendid as they are, tropical in foliage and magnifi-
cent in flower compared with everyday forest trees, the family
is to-day but a shadow of its preglacial greatness. Forests of
magnolias flourished in the midcontinental plains of Europe and
America, extending northward even to within the Arctic circle.
Fossil forests, uncovered by erosion and by volcanic forces that
seam and split mountains apart, reveal the trunks and even the
leaves and seed cones of these ancient trees. Amethyst Mountain,
in Yellowstone Park, has such a story to tell, and European
geologists can match it. Even in its decline, the magnolia
family holds first rank among the ornamental trees of the North
Temperate zone.

Magnolias are of peculiar interest because they have the
largest flowers of any trees in cultivation. This is not saying that
they are the showiest trees when in blossom, for an apple tree
or a flowering dogwood may completely cover itself with blossoms.
But the individual flowers of such trees are relatively small, while
a magnolia blossom is often 6 inches, and sometimes a foot in
diameter. Magnolias have several other points which make
them a most attractive group; certain kinds bloom before the
leaves in early spring; the flowers of most sorts are deliciously
fragrant; the texture of the petals is notable, being thick, waxy
and lustrous, and the colouring is exquisite. In many species
the leaves are of extraordinary size, some exceeding a yard in
length. In all, the foliage mass is luxuriant and tropical looking.
Some have shining, leathery evergreen leaves — just the thing
for Christmas decorations. Last, but not least, there are
the curious cone-like fruits which make the trees so attract-
ive in midsummer and autumn. As they ripen they take
on rosy tints, and later they open in a peculiarly interesting
fashion, and hang out their scarlet seeds on slender, elastic
threads.

Magnolias are not hard to grow. The essential thing is to
choose the right kinds and to put them in the best locations.
As they are, first and last, ornamental trees and shrubs, they are
usually grown as single specimens on lawns, and the placing
of them is important. Such a tree should have room enough to
attain its full development. A solid mass of evergreens is the
most effective background for a fine symmetrical specimen,
especially when it is in bloom. The soil should be rich and well

" 247

The Magnolias and the Tulip Tree

drained, with good supply of moisture, for these trees are heavy
feeders.

Magnolias can be obtained from nurserymen as lusty young
trees ready for transplanting. They cost from 75 cents to
$1.50. There are both native and exotic kinds for North and
South. I would strongly urge everyone to refrain from taking
young magnolias from the woods. They are scarce enough
there, and transplanting such trees requires more than a general
knowledge of such work. It is much better to leave them where
they are.

Magnolia, Great Laurel Magnolia (Magnolia Jcetida,Sa.rg.)
— A regular, conical tree, 50 to 80 feet high; trunk 2 to 4 feet
in diameter; branches, strict, ascending. Bark thin, scaly, light
brown or grey; on branches, smooth, pale grey. Wood hard,
close grained, heavy, cream coloured turning to brown. Buds
rusty pubescent, scaly; terminal, 1 to ij inches long. ^Leaves
alternate, oval, 5 to 8 inches long, leathery, shining^abbve, lined
with rusty down, or smooth and dull greerp^persistent until
second spring. Flowers, April to August ; white, cup shaped, 6 to
8 inches across when spread; fragrant; solitary on end of twig;
sepals three, petal-like; petals thick, waxen, 6 to 9; stamens,
many, purple at base; pistils, many, crowded. Fruit, a rusty
brown, oval cone, 3 to 4 inches long, pubescent; seeds flat, red,
two in each cell, hung out on threads; ripe in November. Pre-
ferred , habitat, rich, moist soil; swamp borders or river banks;
sometimes on uplands. Distribution, North Carolina coast to
Florida (Mosquito Inlet and Tampa Bay), west along Gulf coast
to Brazos River Valley in Texas; north along Mississippi bluffs and
bayous into northern Louisiana and southern Arkansas. Uses:
Superb ornamental tree, hardy to Philadelphia. Branches cut for
Christmas decorations. Wood used for fuel.

The magnolia that Linnaeus named grandiflora is a kingly
tree. It is not graceful, for its limbs are stiffly erect. Even the
twigs and leaves are stiff, and in blossom the tree is like a great
system of candelabra, each terminal bud containing a single
flower. But look at a fine specimen tree as it stands in a Southern
garden new-washed by a night rain. Each leaf of the dark
pyramid of green reflects the sunlight like a blade of polished
metal. This lustrous foliage mass is just the foil to set off the
purity of the white flowers. Each is like a great camellia or a

248

The Magnolias and the Tulip Tree

ater lily, with waxen petals, enclosing the purple heart. William
artram likened them to great white roses, and declared that
e could see them distinctly a mile away. The blossoms, when
illy open, are from 7 to 8 inches across, as a rule. There is a
Drticultural variety called gloriosa, the flowers of which Mr.
erckmanns says are 14 inches in diameter. In southern Cali-
>rnia there are double and ever-blooming varieties exploited by
urserymen, and there are no more popular ornamental trees
lan these. Unfortunately, this magnolia has one drawback — its
Dwers have a heavy odour which is disagreeable to many people,
nother is this: They cannot be shipped as cut flowers, for the
ightest bruise of the waxy petals produces a brownish discoloura-
on. This is the species that furnishes the splendid evergreen
)liage that is shipped North for Christmas decoration, and is
sed for similar purposes in the South. The upper surface of
ich leaf is a dark, lustrous green ; the lining of rusty-red fuzz is
led when the leaf is old. Negroes go into the woods and
it down large trees and small to strip them of their leafy
ranches.

The comparative uselessness of its wood has until now been
le saving of the species. This new industry already threatens its
^termination in many sections of the South.

In cultivation this magnolia is oftenest seen as a small tree,
om 20 to 50 feet high, planted on lawns and in parks or lining
venues. In the forests of Louisiana, where it reaches its greatest
erfection, it stands 80 feet high, with a trunk 4 feet thick,
rofessor Sargent calls it "the most splendid ornamental tree in
ie American forests. "

The Swamp Bay {Magnolia glauca, Linn.) — A splendid tree

0 to 75 feet high, or a shrub of many stems. Bark grey or
rown, smooth. Wood soft, pale reddish brown, weak. Buds
Iky, \ to I inch long. Leaves persistent in the South, deciduous

1 the North; smooth, lustrous, bright green, with silvery lining
linutely hairy; blades oblong-lanceolate or ovate, 4 to 6 inches
mg, blunt at apex and base, margin entire, petiole short, stout.
lowers globular, 2 to 3 inches across when spread, creamy white,
-agrant, of 9 to 12 broad concave petals. Fruit oval, dark red,
mooth, ij to 2 inches long; seeds I inch long, flattened. Pre-
zrred habitat, swamps and pine-barren ponds. Distribution,
lorida to Texas and Arkansas; north along Atlantic coast to

249

The Magnolias and the Tulip Tree

New York; isolated stations in Suffolk County, Long Island, and
near Gloucester, Massachusetts. Uses: Valuable ornamental
tree or shrub in American and European gardens. Branches
sold for decoration of houses and churches. Cut flowers hawked
on city streets. Wood used for broom handles and for small
wooden utensils.

The swamp bay is remarkable for its range, which extends
from Gloucester, Massachusetts, to Florida, and westward to lower
Arkansas and the Trinity River in Texas. On the rich "ham-
mocks" elevated above the cypress swamps and pine forests of
middle Florida this magnolia is a tree of slender trunk but often
50 to 75 feet high. Leaves, flowers and fruit proclaim it a mag-
nolia. The smooth, silvery linings distinguish the leaves from
those of the other evergreen magnolia. The small globular
flowers and the smooth, diminutive fruits further identify it.
From Bay Biscayne northward along the coast, following the pine
barrens and swamp borders, this fugitive species becomes gradually
dwarfed and its leaves become deciduous. In New Jersey it is
a shrub, vigorous and tropical looking, for the region, but. very
u#lik| the sub-tropical representatives of the species. On Long
Island there is a station of this bay in Suffolk County. A few
remaining plants are known still to exist in a swamp near Glouces-
ter, Massachusetts, the only place north of the latitude of New
York which has any recollection of native magnolias growing
wild near by. I wandered through that Gloucester swamp, just
east of the station named Magnolia, in a vain quest for the remnant
of the colony. I was told that the only person who knew where
the;survivors grew was "the Hermit/' who formerly made his
living by digging up young plants and selling' them. Thrifty
garden specimens in Gloucester and other points on Cape Ann
came originally out of this swamp. The colony is now practically
extinct.

Swamp bay flowers are globular and small for a magnolia —
only two or tliree inches across — but delightfully fragrant.

One of the sights on the streets of Philadelphia and New
York in May is the street Arab hawking the blossom clusters. A
flower with a half-open bud in its whorl of leaves costs ten cents.
An absurd custom prevails among these flower venders. They
"open" the globular blossoms by springing back the curved
petals. The finest flowers are produced by cutting back

250

1 905, by Doubleday, Page & Company

SWAMP MAGNOLIA {Magnolia glauca)

Upper one is the seed pod and seed

The Magnolias and the Tulip Tree

the tree and letting the suckers grow up thickly around the
stump. These bear flowers of unusual size, and clean, hand-
some leaves.

Professor Gifford recommends the systematic planting of
swamp lands in New jersey to this species of magnolia as a profit-
able enterprise. He would prune with care, so as to produce the
finest leaves and flowers. The blooming period covers several
weeks. Cut flowers and leafy branches command good prices in
the markets. Waste land near large cities can be transformed
and beautified by this means, and become a source of income to
the owners at small outlay. The prunings are salable for house
decoration at holiday time.

The swamp bay is also called white bay, sweet bay and
beaver tree. Beavers used its soft wood for their lodges in
earlier times. The English call it laurel magnolia.

Sweet bay it is called because its foliage is somewhat like
that of the bay tree of the Old World, which is commonly grown
in tubs by florists and is much used in this country for porch
decoration. This is Laurus nobilis, the "laurel" of the ancients.
The sweet bay of the swamps grows well in gardens if only the soil
is moist. But it is safer and in every way more desirable to get
plants of it from nurserymen.

Large-leaved Cucumber Tree (Magnolia macrophylla,
Michx.) — A broad, round-headed tree, 30 to 50 feet high, with
slender trunk and stout branches. Bark thin, smooth, grey,
minutely scaly. Wood light, close textured, pale brown, weak ; sap
wood thick, yellow. Buds terminal, i^ to 2 inches long, blunt,
covered with white silky hair; axillary small, flat. Leaves 16 to 30
inches long, obovate, rounded or acute at apex, broadened at base
into ear-like lobes, or deeply cordate, margin entire; upper surface
bright green, lining silvery white; petioles stout, 3 to 4 inches
long, veins prominent. Flowers 10 to 12 inches across, bowl
shaped, made of 6 white fleshy petals much broader than the 3
sepals. Inner petals with purple spot at base. Fruit almost
globular, 2 to 3 inches long, turning red at maturity. Seeds §
inch long. Preferred habitat, deep, fertile valleys, protected from
wind. Distribution, foot hills of Alleghany Mountains in North
Carolina, south to middle Florida, and west to southern Alabama,
to northern Mississippi and Louisiana, and in central Arkansas;
range not continuous, trees occur in small, detached groups.

251

The Magnolias and the Tulip Tree

Uses: Cultivated as an ornamental tree in Europe and America.
Hardy to Boston.

This species excels all other magnolias in the size of its leaves
and flowers. The leaves are almost a yard long. In fact, no
tree of simple leaf approaches it outside of the tropics. It is
the remarkable size of its leaves and flowers that commends this
tree to planters. Of beauty we cannot credit it with quality to
match its size. A flower as big as a man's head is sure to be
lacking in delicacy. There is a dash of purple at the base of the
inner row of petals. The wind lashes the broad leaves into
ribbons early in summer, and every twig or leaf that touches a
petal mars it with a brown bruise. So the flowers soon spread
wide open and become discoloured. Two fine young specimens
stand in front of the Museum of the Arnold Arboretum, Boston.
The protection of the building and the border planting are not
sufficient to defend these trees from the common fate of all plants
which offer an unusual expanse of leaf surface in a region where
winds are frequent and strong. Though but a dozen feet high
these trees have already bloomed freely. The silvery leaf linings
tend to obscure the white flowers in spite of their extraordinary
size.

People who desire to plant this magnolia do well to shelter
it from wind and cold. At best it is but half hardy in the North.
It is a curiosity. Prominent situations are better filled by species
of tried hardiness, whose beauty is admitted to be a joy at any
season.

Cucumber Tree {Magnolia acuminata, Linn.) — Pyramidal
tree of spreading habit, 60 to 100 feet high, with trunk 3 to 4
feet in diameter. Bark furrowed, thick, coated with brown
scales. Wood weak, light, yellowish brown, close grained. Buds
silky, pointed, terminal ones longer, larger. Leaves longer than
wide, entire, heart-shaped base, acute apex, 6 to 10 inches long,
thin, yellow green, sparsely hairy below; yellow in autumn;
petioles 1 to 2 inches long. Flowers inconspicuous because
yellowish green, bell shaped, terminal, erect, sepals 3, short,
reflexed; petals 6 with long, tapering bases; stamens numerous,
pistils numerous on central receptacle. Fruit compound, of
many coalesced follicles, distorted by abortion of many; seed
scarlet, berry-like, hangs out of 2-valved follicle on elastic thread
when ripe. Preferred habitat, rocky uplands near streams; low

252

The Magnolias and the Tulip Tree

ountain ranges. Distribution, western New York and southern

ntario to Illinois, Kentucky and Arkansas; mountain slopes of

annsylvania south to Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi.

ses: Ornamental tree planted in Europe and America to a

nited extent. Wood is used for flooring and other general

jrposes. Good stock upon which to graft less hardy magnolias.

The cucumber tree is the hardiest species of native magnolias.

:s great leaves betray its sub-tropical affiliations. No tree but

le catalpa can match it in the North, and this does not venture

y itself farther than the latitude of southern Indiana. Against

le foliage mass of oaks and elms and maples the great clean

aves of the cucumber tree form a striking contrast. They are

Iky at first, but when mature keep only a fringe of hairs on the

sins beneath. In autumn the tree turns yellow before the leaves

rop. The elevated leaf scars almost encircle the silky winter

uds.

Cucumber trees make less show in the period of blossoming
lan other magnolias. The yellowish-green tulip-like flowers,
lough large, are scarcely distinguishable at a little distance from
le new leaves by which they are surrounded. They are neither
eautiful nor pleasantly fragrant. The elongated fruits look
ke pale green cucumbers at first, but are soon distorted in form
y the failure of many of the carpels to set seed. The fleshy green
one flushes pink, and later turns red as autumn approaches,
n September each mature carpel splits open and two scarlet
seds hang out, each on an elastic thread. The wind buffets them
ntil they dangle several inches below the conical fruit. Then a
ust tears them off, and if they fall in moist leaf mould or on the
lamp border of a stream, young cucumber trees spring up from
his planting.

The cucumber tree is not yet appreciated as a shade and
.venue tree in the Northern States. It has few faults and many
irtues. It grows vigorously from seed and after transplanting,
"'he digging and planting must be carefully managed, as the
leshy roots of all magnolias are brittle. Since the tree is com-
batively rare in the northern part of its range, nursery stock
>r seed should be planted rather than stripling trees from the
voods.

The Yellow Cucumber Tree has been cultivated in gardens
or over a century. It has bright yellow blossoms, and dark,

253

The Magnolias and the Tulip Tree

almost evergreen leaves. In the wilds of central Alabama and
the Blue Ridge of South Carolina has been found the yellow-
flowered prototype of this garden form. It is named for its
broad, heart-shaped leaves, var. cordata, of Magnolia acuminata.
In cultivation the variety has been considerably modified.

Umbrella Tree {Magnolia tripetala, Linn.) — A round-
topped or conical tree 30 to 40 feet high, of irregular habit, with
stout contorted branches and twigs. Bark thin, grey, smooth,
with bristly warts. Wood close, soft, pale brown, weak; sap
wood yellow. Buds: terminal, purplish with pale bloom, pointed,
1 inch long; lateral, round, short, reddish brown. Leaves 16 to
20 inches long, obovate, acute, entire, tapering narrowly to the
stout petiole, smooth, thin, bright green. Flowers white, cup
shaped, of unpleasant odour, 4 to 5 inches deep, soon spreading
open, the 3 sepals recurved. Fruit elongated, smooth, 2 to 4
inches long, rose coloured when ripe; seeds \ inch long. Preferred
habitat, swamp borders and banks of mountain streams. Distri-
bution, Pennsylvania to southern Alabama, northeastern Missis-
sippi and southwestern Arkansas. Nearly to the coast in South
Atlantic States. Uses: An ornamental tree in temperate regions
of Eastern States and Europe.

The flower of this magnolia is surrounded by an umbrella-like
whorl of leaves. The whole tree, indeed, suggests an umbrella, so
closely thatched is its dome with the glossy leaves. The twigs
have a peculiar habit of striking out at right angles from an erect
branch, then turning up into a position parallel with the parent
branch. This feature, combined with the inevitable forking of
each twig that bears a flower, gives the branches angularity and
tends to destroy the symmetry of the dome.

The three recurved sepals are the distinctive feature of the
flower. The whole tree is smooth, except when its young shoots
unfold. The silky hairs are soon shed. Altogether, this is one
of the trimmest and handsomest of our native magnolias. It
attains large size in the Arnold Arboretum, proving it hardy in
southern New England.

Ear-leaved Magnolia, Mountain Magnolia {Magnolia
Fraseri, Walt.) — Tree 30 to 40 feet high, with small, broad crown
above slender, often leaning trunk. Branches stout, angular,
erect. Bark thin, brown, smooth, with warty patches. Wood
brownish yellow, weak, soft. Buds smooth, purplish; terminal

254

The Magnolias and the Tulip Tree

i to 2 inches long; axillary very small. Leaves obovate, acute,
with ear-shaped lobes at base, 10 to 12 inches long, bright green,
smooth, whorled near end of branchlet. Flowers creamy white,
fragrant, spreading, 8 to 10 inches across, petals narrowed at
base. Fruit oblong, 4 to 5 inches long, bright rose at maturity;
carpels with long horny tips, seeds f inch long. Preferred habitat,
well-drained soil along mountain streams. Distribution, valleys
of Appalachian Mountains from Virginia and Tennessee to Georgia,
Alabama and northern Mississippi; abundant in South Carolina
along headwaters of the Savannah River. Uses: Cultivated in
gardens of Eastern States and in Europe. Hardy to New England.
The eared leaves of this tree and the prominent horns that
decorate its brilliant seed cones readily distinguish it from the
preceding species, which it resembles in habit and in the whorled
leaf arrangement. The two are alike in their adaptability to
culture far outside of their natural range. Each has proved suc-
cessful as a hardy stock upon which to graft half-hardy exotic
varieties. Planted in the Northern States, these trees seem to hold
their own even with M. acuminata. A peculiarity of the mountain
magnolia, umbrella tree and large-leaved cucumber tree is that
the foliage of all three falls without any perceptible change of
colour. The leaves are pretty much frayed and blemished before
falling.

The Hardy Exotic Magnolias

There are sixteen species of magnolias worth cultivating in
this country, six of which are natives. Two of these natives and
five exotics have proved hardy as far north as Boston. The
others are not to be depended upon north of Washington, D. C.
It is plain that they reach their highest development in the South-
ern States.

Whenever you see a magnolia in the North blossoming
before the leaves you may be sure that it is an exotic species;
and if the flowers are coloured you may be equally sure that it is a
hybrid belonging to a group of which the type is Magnolia Sou-
langeana. This hybrid is a cross between Magnolia Yulan and
Magnolia obovata, and it is most interesting to compare these two
with their offspring. Both parents came from China and Japan,
where they grow wild. All of our important exotic species are

255

The Magnolias and the Tulip Tree

natives of the same countries, except M. Campbelli, which comes
from the Himalaya Mountains.

The Yulan magnolia (Magnolia Yulan) has pure white,
fragrant flowers, which are bell shaped and fully 6 inches across.
It is a hardy tree which grows about 50 feet high. For centuries
it has been a favorite in Japanese gardens. The purple magnolia,
Magnolia obovata, is only a shrub, and it cannot endure our
• northern winters. It blooms in May or June — later than the
Yulan — and its flowers are relatively small and almost scentless.
The outside of the flowers is purple, and it is from this that the
hybrids get their shades of pink and rose and crimson.

It can be readily understood what a triumph it was to cross
these two species successfully, for the hybrids are hardy, large-
flowered and fragrant; and they present several new and most
desirable colours. In this group are the following: Alexandrina,
grandisy Lennei, Norbertiana and speciosa. They are all small
trees, excellent for setting in city yards and in other prominent
places, for after the blossoms the fruits and foliage are both
decorative.

The starry magnolia (Magnolia stellata) is also a very fine
species for home grounds, as it blooms in March and April
and is one of the earliest of the flowering shrubs. Not only is
it thel earliest magnolia, but it is wonderfully precocious,
beginning to bloom when scarcely 2 feet high. Unlike most
magnolias, its flowers are star shaped, opening out flat instead of
forming cups or bells. When open the flowers measure 3 inches
across. They are made of sixteen to eighteen narrow petals —
twice as many as most magnolias have. There is a variety, rosea,
with petals flushed with pink outside.

Magnolia Kobus, a large tree from Japan, is at present of
interest only to connoisseurs. Though one of the hardiest &f
the exotics, it does not yet bloom profusely. Its white flowers
are star shaped, 4 or 5 inches across. They open in April or May.

Tender Exotic Magnolias

Magnolia parviflora, a little known species from Japan, h
hardy in Salem, Massachusetts, where a handsome tree, the
largest in this country, blooms freely. Its white flowers have
few petals, but in form and texture they are exquisite.

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THE TULIP TREE (Liriodendron Tulipiftra)

The tree frame is one of unusual symmetry and stateliness, the columnar trunk extending far into the crown. The winter
twigs end in flattened buds, enclosed in a pair of stipules. The conical fruits, made up of flat-winged seed cases attached tc a
central spike, persist over winter, and are gradually loosened by the wind

The Magnolias and the Tulip Tree

Campbell's magnolia (A/. Campbelli) is at once the most
beautiful and the most difficult of cultivation of all our tender
exotic species. It is the glory of the high mountain valleys of
the Himalayas, where at very high altitudes it is a great tree.
But in this country it cannot endure cold winters, and even in the
extreme South it does not grow as it does at home. However,
it is a splendid magnolia, and some day we hope to see
it — a tree 80 to 100 feet high — covered, before the leaves
appear, with its rosy bells. It is, or should be, to the
Southern States what the Soulangeana group is to the North,
for its petals are coloured pink or crimson, shading from
the pale interior to the deeper colouring on the outside.
The flower cups are from 6 to 10 inches in diameter and
sweet scented.

The rest of the tender exotic species bloom after the leaves
appear. Of these, the best, by all odds, is Magnolia hypoleuca,
a tall tree which is notable because it is used so extensively in the
manufacture of the lacquered wares for which the Japanese are
famous. It is readily distinguished from all the species so far
described by the dash of scarlet in the centre of its white blossoms.
This colour is on the filaments of the stamens, and not on the
petals. Another strikingly beautiful feature of this tree is
the silvery linings of the leaves, which are much larger
than those of the swamp bay. The latter species shows
far less brilliant contrast in its foliage mass than does this
exotic.

Another species with crimson-centred flowers is Watson's
magnolia (M. Watsoni), z small tree, with blossoms 5 or 6 inches
across. These have a decided odour of allspice.

The dwarf magnolia (M. pumila), a native of China, grows
only 4 or 5 feet high, as a rule, and has white flowers which exhale
a perfume like that of a ripe pineapple. This is especially strong
at night. The flowers are small — only an inch or two in diameter
— but the shrub is widely found in Southern gardens, probably
because of its fragrance and the foliage, which is evergreen. Its
period of bloom is long, and under glass it becomes everblooming.
The purple magnolia (M. obovata) is also grown in the South, but
I see no reason why it should be. Surely it is inferior to its
noted offspring, which embody all its good traits and are, besides,
far easier to grow.

257

The Magnolias and the Tulip Tree

HOW TO TELL MAGNOLIAS WHEN IN FLOWER

A simple key for the tree lover; free from technicalities and
especially designed for use out-of-doors:

Blooming before the leaves.

Colour of flowers pure white or nearly so.

Shape of flowers bell-like yulan

Shape of flowers star-like.

Petals 9 to 18, pink streaked outside, .stellata

Petals 6, pure white .kobus

Colour of flowers pink to purple outside.
Size of flowers large, 6 to 10 inches.

Hardy soulangeana

Tender campbelli

Size of flowers about 3 J inches obovata

Blooming after the leaves.

Colour of flowers greenish acuminata

Colour of flowers white, with conspicuous colour
in centre.

The petals purple-spotted at base macrophylla

The stamens with scarlet filaments.

Leaves mostly clustered at the ends of

branches hypoleuca

Leaves scattered along the branches, .watsoni
Colour of flowers, pure white.

Size of flowers small (1 to 3 inches across).

Shrub or tree, 10 to 70 feet high glauca

Shrub, usually 4 or 5 feet high pumila

Size of flowers large, 6 to 9 inches across.

Foliage evergreen fcetida

Foliage deciduous.

Leaves eared at base fraseri

Leaves not eared at base tripetala

2. Genus LIRIODENDRON, Linn.

Tulip Tree, Yellow Poplar (Lirtodendron Tulipifera, Linn.)
— A stately tall tree, 80 to 200 feet high, with trunk 5 to 10 feet in
diameter, the crown conical at first, spreading in old age. Bark
close, thick, intricately furrowed, brown. Wood light, soft,
brittle, weak, easily worked, pale brown with narrow, white
sap wood. Buds reddish with pale bloom, elongated, blunt.
Leaves 5 to 6 inches long and wide, 3 or 4 lobed with shallow

258

The Magnolias and the Tulip Tree

sinuses, apex truncate or concave, base truncate or heart shaped;
margin entire, dark green, leathery, smooth, lustrous above,
paler beneath; autumn colour, yellow. Flowers tulip-like;
i i to 2 J inches across, sepals 3, greenish, recurved; petals 6,
yellow, with orange splash near middle; stamens numerous with
large yellow anthers; pistils numerous, imbricated around central
receptacle. Fruit in September, seeds in dry, winged samaras
that fall early from the persistent central spike. Few seeds
fertile. Preferred habitat deep, rich soil. Distribution, Vermont
to Florida; west to Illinois, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama;
maximum size and greatest abundance in the lower Ohio Valley
and on mountain slopes of North Carolina and Tennessee. Uses:
A valuable shade and ornamental tree. Lumber used in boat-
building, construction and interior finish of houses, for shingles
brooms, small woodenwares, and wood pulp. Postal cards are
made of "poplar" pulp. Bark yields an important tonic drug.

A grove of young tulip trees is most beautiful, I do believe,
in the dead of winter. It is not hard to find the old seed tree,
whose family of varying ages and sizes stand in close ranks all
about. A young tulip is singularly straight and symmetrical,
compared with the young of chestnut, dogwood and oak. It
takes on very early in life the tree habit of later years. The
shaft is tall and grey and smooth, crowned with an oval head of
ascending branches, clean and handsome throughout*

The winter twigs, with their oblong terminal buds, are worth
looking at. The leaf scars are prominent, and a narrow ridge
encircles the twig at each scar. Spring tells the meaning of these
lines, when the leafy shoots unfold. Cut across the terminal bud,
and its contents exhibit all parts of a flower — or, if the tree be too
young to bloom, the little leaves are revealed, packed away to
wait for spring.

Two green leaves with palms fastened together form a flat
bag that encloses the new shoot after the bud scales fall in spring.
Hold it to the light and you see a curved petiole and leaf. The
bag opens along its edge seam, and the petiole straightens up,
lifting the leaf, which has its halves folded on the midrib. At
the base of the petiole stands a smaller flat green bag. The leaf
grows and takes on its mature, dark-green colour, while the basal
palms of its protecting stipules shrivel and fall away. Their
work is done. The place of their attachment is the ring scar,

259

The Magnolias and the Tulip Tree

Within the second bag is the second leaf. The stem lengthens,
mounting this little bag far above the first leaf before it opens
to let out the second. So the growing point conceals itself, but
grows on, unfolding a new leaf and expanding the shoot, node by
node, until the growth of a whole season is accomplished. Suckers
from the roots of a tree often exhibit unusual exuberance of
growth, and hold the stipules at each joint as two broad, leafy
blades, throughout the season.

The "chopped-off" ends of the leaves of the tulip tree set it
apart from others at any season. Sometimes there are two
shallow basal lobes, like those the maples have. Occasionally
the apex is concave. Always the surface is shining, and turns
to gold with birch and chestnut and hickory in the autumn.

The flowers are showy and handsome, with dashes of orange
on their greenish-yellow corollas to attract the bees. The plan
of the flower is much like the magnolias' until the central spike
reveals its seeds. Magnolia seed vessels split up the back at
maturity. Tulip capsules are dry and do not open. A flat
wing rises above the angular, 2-celled seed box. The outer
keys loosen and fly away on the early autumnal breezes. These
seeds are rarely fertile. Before winter is fairly come the shingled
seeds that formed the tulip cone have all been carried off, and
the pencil-like receptacle remains erect on the end of the twig.

The tulip poplar is a beautiful lawn and shade tree. It is
a favourite in Europe. Only far-away China has a sister species
in the genus Liriodendron. It is a pity that this stately native
tree is not better known in cultivation in its own country. It
needs the same care we bestow on magnolias in transplanting,
for its roots are fleshy and tender. There is no season when

the tree is not full of interest and beauty, no matter what its age.

260

CHAPTER XXXI: THE PAPAW AND THE

POND APPLE

Family Anonace^

The custard apple family contains fifty genera, all tropical
and mostly confined to the Old World. The family characteristics
are exemplified by the two genera with a single species in each,
which invade the warmer parts of the United States — vanguard
of the West Indian host of many species. These trees have
small use as ornamentals in a region rich in handsomer species.
Their fruits have small horticultural value.

KEY TO GENERA AND SPECIES

A. Trees with straight trunks; fruit simple, banana-like.
i. Genus ASIMINA, Adans.

(A. triloba) pa paw
AA. Trees with trunks bulging at base; fruit compound, of many
united pistils.

2. Genus ANON A, Linn.

(A. glabra) pond apple

i. Genus ASIMINA, Adans.

Papaw (Asimina triloba, Dunal.) — Slender, spreading trees
or shrubs, 20 to 30 feet high. Bark thin, fibrous, dark brown,
blotched with pale grey, beset with warts and a network of
shallow grooves. Branches grooved, reddish brown. Wood
light, coarse grained, weak, soft. Winter buds small, flat, pointed,
densely hairy, red. Leaves alternate, simple, clustering near
ends of branches, obovate, tapering slenderly to base; 8 to 12
inches long, 4 to 5 inches broad, thin bright green above, paler
beneath, on short petiole. Flowers in April, solitary in axils of
last year's leaves; stamens in globular mass; pistils, many,

261

The Papaw and the Pond Apple

on disk; sepals 3, green, downy; petals, 6, veiny, purplish red.
ill-smelling. Fruit, 3 to 5 inches long, like a thick, shapeless
banana, skin wrinkled and brown; flesh yellow, sweet, insipid.
Ripe in September and October. Seeds, large, hard. Preferred,
habitat, rich bottom lands. Distribution, Southern States and
north into Kansas, Michigan, western New York and New Jersey.
Uses: Planted for ornament and for a curiosity. Fruit, in-
different. Wood, inferior. Bark, used for fish nets.

This dainty little "wild banana tree" of the North is more
interesting than it is useful, I am bound to confess. Its great
leaves spread in umbrella whorls like certain magnolias, covering
the upturned branches with a dense thatch of green. These
leaves give the tree a tropical look, hinting at the fact that this
is a fugitive member of a large family that belongs in the regions
of no winter.

The papaw is not devoid of beauty in its blossoming time,
though the flower resembles, and is /not more conspicuous than
that of the wild ginger that cowers in the woods. In April, the
opening leaf buds have scarcely cast their scales when the wine-
coloured flowers appear, set at intervals upon the twigs. Then
the leaves come out lined with a red fuzz, which intensifies the
rich colour of the whole tree. The bees find the flowers worth
visiting, but their odour is unpleasant to most people. Twigs
and leaves share this disagreeable characteristic, and the fruits
repeat it in autumn.

The papaw' s soft pulp, in its green banana-like envelope, is
delighted in by the Negro of the South. It is sold in the markets,
but is too sweet and soft to be really enjoyed by more fastidious
people. One must get used to the pungent papaw taste, and
then only the yellow-fleshed fruits are fit to eat. These are
improved by hanging on the tree until they get a sharp bite of
frost. The name, Asimina, means "sleeve-shaped fruit," and
triloba refers to the three-parted flower.

The Melon Papaw (Carica Papaya, L.), which has had its
name borrowed by the species just described, is a tropical tree
that grows wild in southern Florida, and is often seen in green-
houses farther north. It grows like a palm, with tall stem and
leaves rosetted at the top. The bark is silvery white, the leaves
lustrous, long stalked, deeply cleft, and often a foot across.
The flowers are waxen and yellow, and on the pistillate trees are

262

The Papaw and the Pond Apple

succeeded by melon-like fruits, sometimes as large as a man's
head, clustered at the base of the leaf rosette. This is the papaw
exploited in certain patent medicines. It belongs to the passion-
flower family.

The botanical explorer, William Bartram, wrote in 1790:
"This admirable tree is certainly the most beautiful of any
vegetable production I know of." The fruits are eaten raw,
or made into conserves. The leaves are used by the Negroes as
a substitute for soap in washing clothes. But they are especially
valued as a means of making tough meat tender. The fleshy
leaves are bruised, then wrapped up with the meat and laid
aside. A solvent called papain, which the leaves contain, soon
breaks down the tough connective tissues.

2. Genus ANONA, Linn.

The Pond Apple {Anona glabra, Linn.) is our only other
arboreal representative of the custard apple family. It grows in
the swamps of southern Florida, and in the West Indies. Its
fruits are heart shaped, 4 to 6 inches long, smooth, and when
ripe the thick stem pulls out, leaving the creamy, custard-like
flesh set with hard seeds next to the large central cavity. The
fruit is fragrant when ripe, but not of such quality as would war-
rant the cultivation of the little tree. The West Indian Anona
muricata is the Soursop sold on Southern fruit stalls. Some
hopeful horticulturists believe the pond apple may in time rival
the soursop as a fruit.

263

CHAPTER XXXII: THE LAURELS AND THE

SASSAFRAS

Family Lau raceme

Aromatic trees with handsome wood. Leaves simple
alternate, punctate, entire. Flowers small, unconspicuous, yel-
lowish green, clustered. Fruit, a i -seeded berry.

KEY TO GENERA AND SPECIES

A. Leaves evergreen, entire.

B. Calyx lobes persistent on the fruit.

i. Genus PERSEA, Linn.

C. Flower stalks short, smooth; bark red.

(P. Borbonia) red bay
CC. Flower stalks long, pubescent; bark dull brown.

(P. pubescens) swamp bay
BB. Calyx lobes not presistent on the fruit.

C. Flowers in long-stemmed, sub-terminal panicles;
berry small, blue-black.

2. Genus OCOTEA, Aubl.

(O. Catesbyana) lancewood
CC. Flowers in short-stemmed axillary umbels; berry
large, yellow-green.

3. Genus UMBELLARIA, Nutt.

(U. Calijornica) California laurel
AA. Leaves deciduous, entire or 2-3 lobed.

4. Genus SASSAFRAS, Nees.

(S. Sassafras) sassafras

The laurel family has forty genera, most of them tropical.
Of the six North American genera, four are arbourescent. Three
of these have broad evergreen leaves; the fourth is deciduous.
All have 1 -seeded berries, following inconspicuous, yellowish-
green flowers. Three of these genera are monotypic; one has two

264

The Laurels and the Sassafras

species. All but the sassafras produce handsome, ornamental
wood, used in inlay work and for interior finish of houses.

i. Genus PERSEA, Linn.

Red Bay (Persea Borhonia, Spreng.) — A shapely, narrow
headed tree, 50 to 70 feet high, with numerous stout, erect branches
and angled branchlets. Roots yellow, fleshy. Bark thick, red,
furrowed and cut into broad, flat, scaly ridges; branches greenish.
Wood hard, heavy, strong, bright red. Buds woolly, red, small.
Leaves evergreen, 3 to 4 inches long, broad, entire, oblong to
lanceolate, tapering at base and apex, thick, bright green, lustrous,
gloucous beneath, turning yellow; petioles stout, short, brown.
Flowers small, white, axillary, in few-flowered clusters. Fruit
blue or black, shiny berries, J inch long, 1 -seeded, with persistent
calyx lolpes. Preferred habitat, stream and swamp borders.
Distribution, Virginia to Texas near coast; north to Arkansas.

The red bay is a handsome tree deserving more extensive
cultivation for its clean, leathery foliage, which is red when it
opens and yellow before it dies. The brilliant dark green mass
is lightened in summer by the pale leaf linings. The red bark
probably gives the name its distinguishing adjective. The leaf
is not unlike that of Laurus nobilis, the familiar tub laurel of
hotel verandas.

This lover of rich, wet soil is occasionally discovered growing
wild among long-leaf pines in dry, sandy loam — a most encourag-
ing fact for anyone who wishes to grow the tree in ordinary well-
drained soil. The berries are handsome but not showy. The
wood was once used for boatbuilding, but is now devoted to
interior house finishing and fancy articles of furniture. It is
comparatively rare in use.

The Swamp Bay (P. pubescens, Sarg.) is a slender tree,
rarely 40 feet high, that frequently crowds out all other under-
growth in pine barren swamps along the coast from North Carolina
to Mississippi. Its densely woolly opening shoots and leaf veins,
and the dull brown bark distinguish it from the previous species,
as do also the long stalks on which the flowers and berries are
borne.

The Avocado, or Alligator Pear (P. gratissima, Gaertn.),

265

The Laurels and the Sassafras

grows wild in the West Indies, Brazil, Peru and Mexico. It is
cultivated in Florida and southern California. The berry in
this species has the size and the shape of a Kieffer pear. It has
smooth, greenish-purple skin, and a yellow pulp, soft and oily
like marrow, surrounds the single giant seed. The flavour is
peculiar, and strangers to it have to acquire a liking for it. When
this preliminary step is taken, they often beccme extremely
fond of it. It is usually cut in two like a melon, and eaten as a
salad, dressed with vinegar, salt and pepper.

The abundant oil expressed from these pears is used in
soap making and for illumination. The seeds yield a black
dye that is converted into an indelible ink. The growing of
the trees is easy and profitable. They begin to fruit in about
five years from seed.

2. Genus OCOTSA, Aubl.
\
The Lancewood (Ocotea Catesbyana, Sarg.) is a little ever-
green laurel tree 20 to 30 feet high, much like the swamp bay in
flower and fruit. But its shoots are smooth, its leaves thin and
lanceolate, and the lobes of the calyx have dried away under the
berry. The flower stalks are bright red. The reddish-brown
bark is warty. This tree is common on the shores and islands of
the lower end of Florida, from Cape Canaveral on the east around
to Cape Romano. It is abundant and of largest size near Bay
Biscay ne.

3. Genus UMBELLARIA, Nutt.

The California Laurel {Umbellaria Californica, Nutt.) is
frequent among the broad-leaved maples in the forests of south-
western Oregon. It is a lover of wet soil, growing 80 to 90 feet
high in rich bottom lands. It climbs the western slopes of the
Sierra Nevada and extends to the San Bernardino Mountains
in southern California, reaching altitudes of 2,500 feet, but
keeping generally along waterways.

The beauty and stateliness of this tree impress all those who
look with eyes that see upon the varied forest flora of California.
It is strikingly handsome in a land full of handsome trees. Its

266

The Laurels and the Sassafras

willow-like leaves are lustrous and rich in an aromatic oil, which
causes them to burn even when piled green on a campfire. The
flowers, small but fragrant, bloom in December and January.
The plum-like purple fruits which fall in autumn have the peculiar
habit of keeping their integrity long after the pit has germinated
in the leaf mould under the tree. The plantlet has the distinction
of being provided with a fresh fruit lunch which does not decay
and disappear until well into the following summer.

The tree is planted in parks and gardens of California, and in
southern Europe. Its wood is esteemed one of the most beautiful
and valuable in the forests of the Pacific coast. It is used for
interior finish of houses and for furniture. It is close, firm, hard
and strong, rich brown, with pale thick sap wood. From the
leaves an aromatic oil is extracted, and a fatty acid from the
fruit.

_ 4. Genus SASSAFRAS, Nees.

Sassafras (Sassafras Sassafras, Karst.) — Tree, 30 to 50
feet high; rarely, in the South, 100 feet high with trunk 6 to 7 feet
in diameter; top, flat or round, loose, open, irregular. Roots
fleshy, aromatic, deep, throwing up suckers. Bark spicy aro-
matic, thick, dark brown, reddish, scaly and broken by shallow
fissures into broad flat ridges; twigs, smooth, striated, green,
mucilaginous. Wood dull brownish yellow, soft, weak, coarse,
brittle, durable in the soil. Buds ovate, acute, greenish, aromatic.
Leaves alternate, petiolate, sometimes opposite, 4 to 6 inches long,
dull yellow-green, pale beneath, with entire margin; autumn
colour orange; shapes vary: (a) ovate, (b) mitten shape, with one
side lobe only, (c) 3 lobed, with a thumb on each side — the three
shapes all on the same tree. Flowers in May, dioecious, pale
yellow, in corymbose racemes on separate trees; staminate, with
9 stamens mounted in 3 rows on the 6-Iobed calyx, minute glands,
orange coloured, at base of inner whorl of 3 stamens; pistillate,
with 6 abortive stamens in one row about single erect pistil.
Fruit soft, oblong, smooth, dark blue, on thickened scarlet calyx
and pedicel. Preferred habitat, rich, sandy loam, borders of
woodlands and peaty swamps. Distribution, southern Vermont
west through Michigan and Iowa to Kansas, south to Florida and
Texas. Uses: Wood makes posts and rails, boats and ox

267

The Laurels and the Sassafras

yokes. Bark of roots used as medicinal tea. Oil of bark used
to flavour medicines. Valuable ornamental for its berries and
brilliant autumn colouring. Attracts birds.

Who has not nibbled the dainty green buds of sassafras in
winter, or dug at the roots for a bit of their aromatic bark? Or
who has not searched among the leaves for " mittens "? Surely
they are people whose youth was spent in regions that knew not
this little tree of the fence corners and woodland borders. And
they have missed something very much worth while out of their
childhood.

Then there is the great green caterpillar with the Cyclopean
black eye transfixing the culprit who dares disturb him on the
soft silk mattress he has spun for himself on a sassafras leaf.
When he is hung up like a mummy we have dared to carry him
home, to learn that the "eye" is only a big black spot made to
scare away birds, no doubt, which are looking for worms. Did
you never see the glorious swallow-tail butterfly that comes out of
that plump chrysalis in a day or two? Then you have, indeed,
missed another joy, for no tiger of the jungle is more richly
banded with black and yellow than this ranger of the meadows;
in form and colouring and motions he is as beautiful as the flowers
that supply him with nectar.

. But there is the sassafras tree. When the butterfly is still
in its tiny green eggshell, hidden by a provident mother in plain
sight on the face of an opening leaf, the delicate greenish yellow
flowers come out. The starry calyxes are alike on all the trees.
But the stamens are all on one tree, nine in each flower, prominent,
with bunchy glands at the bases of the inner ones. Plainly
these flowers have pollen making for their duty. The pistillate
flowers, with a row of abortive stamens at the base of the central
style, grow in numbers on another tree. Here in autumn come
the birds, even before the blue berries have softened on their
coral pedestals. To leave them till they ripen would be to lose
them to some other bird.

The glory of the autumn foliage of the sassafras is like the
glory of a sunset — all mingled with purple and red and gold.
The three forms of leaves that fascinated us in summer time are
here yet, but the shining treetop is the unit now, and we do not
look for individual leaves.

The wood of sassafras is light and tough, and makes good

268

The Laurels and the Sassafras

fishing rods. Durable in the soil and in water, it is used for posts
and rails, and for boats and barrels. The bark, especially of the
roots, is strong in a volatile oil used to flavour medicines. The
bark itself is sold in drug stores, and people buy it in spring and
make sassafras tea "to clear the blood." The leaves and twigs
yield a mucilaginous substance which is used in the South to give
flavour and consistency to gumbo soups. The useful properties
of its various members are as nothing when compared with the
beauty and desirability of the living tree, which is beautiful
throughout the year — as a towering tree or a roadside sapling.

269

CHAPTER XXXIII: THE WITCH HAZEL AND
THE SWEET GUM

Family Hamamelidace/e

Trees with slender twigs and fibrous roots. Leaves simple,
opposite, deciduous. Flowers with parts in four's, perfect or
unisexual. Fruits woody 2-valved, i, to 2-seeded capsules.

KEY TO GENERA AND SPECIES

A. Leaves obovate, unequal at base; flowers perfect, autumnal,
i. Genus HAMAMELIS, Linn.

(//. Virginiana) witch hazel
AA. Leaves star shaped, symmetrical at base; flowers monoe-
cious, staminate in terminal racemes, pistillate in
axillary long-stalked heads, in early summer.

2. Genus LIQUIDAMBAR, Linn.

(L. Styraciflua) sweet gum

The relationship of the witch hazel and sweet gum is not
obvious to the general observer. In fact, the common characters
are such as only the keen eye of the botanist detects. The 2-
horned woody capsules joined together in the sweet gum seed
ball is morphologically the same type as the solitary woody 2-
lipped seed capsule of the witch hazel.

Eighteen genera compose the subtropical family, Hamame-
lidacese. Two genera, each with a single species, are native to
North America. There are two or three species of Hamamelis
in Eastern Asia. The four species of Liquidambar include one
Mexican and two Asiatic species beside our own sweet gum.

1. Genus HAMAMELIS, Linn.

The Witch Hazel (Hamamelis Virginiana, Linn.) — A
small tree, or usually a stout shrub, rarely 25 feet high. Bark

270

The Witch Hazel and the Sweet Gum

light brown, scaly or smooth. Wood close grained, hard, heavy,
brownish red, with thick, white sap wood. Buds sickle shaped,
pale brown, hairy, enclosed in leafy stipules. Leaves alternate,
unsymmetrical, strongly veined, oval or obovate, wavy margined,
or coarsely serrate, 4 to 6 inches long, rusty-hairy at first, yellow
in autumn, often hanging all winter. Flowers in autumn, clus-
tered, greenish, with 4 yellow ribbon-like petals. Fruits ripe
in autumn, a 2-beaked, 2-celled, woody capsule that opens ex-
plosively; seeds, 2, black, shiny. Preferred habitat, low, rich soil
or rocky stream banks. Distribution, Nova Scotia to Nebraska,
south to Florida and Eastern Texas. Uses: Valuable orna-
mental. Bark, twigs and leaves used in making extract for
rubbing bruises.

There is nothing in the forest west of the Mississippi Valley
that quite compensates the Easterner for the absence of the
witch hazel, familiar to every lover of the woods in his half of
the continent. Not that it is a very important tree, in any
practical sense, but it is an integral and familiar part of the
woods it frequents, filling in the bare places with undergrowth
and exhibiting interesting and unusual habits. It is the most
inconspicuous tree in the woods in spring. Its opening leaves are
coated with rusty hairs, which the botanist finds interesting
because they branch into star-shaped tops. But to the casual
observer these leaves look old and dingy, compared with the bright
green foliage about. And no sign of bloom adorns the witch
hazel while the impressive flower pageant is passing. Only the
curious, lifting a branch and looking in the axils of last year's
leaves, will see little curved stems each capped by a cluster of
green-grey cups, dull from their winter's contact with the elements.
On the newer shoots, and at the bases of leafy side spurs cluster
tiny green balls no larger than pin heads. A few brown pods, dry
and empty, drop to the ground, as the wind shakes the tree.

All through the summer the witch hazel tells its secrets only
to the thoughtful and keen-eyed observer. The side branches
send out twigs of varying lengths. The longest and thriftiest
of these are near the extremity of the limb, where the best light is,
and the most room. Here the broad leaves spread their faces
toward the sun, and under them little green buttons assert them-
selves, rending apart the cups that easily contained them in
spring.

271

The Witch Hazel and the Sweet Gum

Every tree has its supreme moment of beauty. This usually
comes when the foliage is in its prime, or when the flower buds
burst in spring. The witch hazel is an exception to all rules.
When the crisp autumnal atmosphere warns all plant life to get
ready for winter the witch hazel trees put a new construction on
the message. As if by magic, all up and down through the woods
they burst into bloom, each flower bravely flaunting four delicate
petals like tiny yellow streamers. The woods are fairly sprinkled
with these starry, gold-thread blossoms, and a rare fragrance
breathes upon the languid October air. The ripening leaves
second and intensify the colour of the flowers, which often thickly
fringe the outstretched twigs, and cover up the green buttons.

Ah! here is another surprise the witch hazel has to offer.
These buttons, so precious to the tree, contain the seeds developed
from the flowers that bloomed last year. It has taken a full
year to ripen them. Each pod has two cells, with a shiny black
seed prisoner in each. The frost gives the signal, and the pods
fly open with a snap, freeing the seeds, and ejecting them with
surprising force. Dry, cold weather will discharge the whole
seed crop in a few days. They shoot in every direction, and to a
distance sometimes of twenty feet from the foot of the tree. But
warm, wet weather delays their game. The pods are close and
glum. There is no spring in them till they are dry again.

It is a far cry from March to October; from furry tassels of
blossoming aspens and willows to the witch hazel in its yellow
blossoms bringing up the rear in the great annual procession of
the flowers. In fa<?t, the witch hazel practically bridges the
chasm of winter, for at no time does the cold cause all the flowers
to fall. Their yellow petals curl up like shavings; but they often
stay till spring.

A witch in old days was a person who did or said things not
conventional. Our witch hazel has defied the ancient laws of
the calendar — a very dreadful thing! So it comes honestly by
its name; and one is inclined to ignore the accepted etymology
that the word " witch," or "wych," in Old English, means "weak/'
and refers to the sprawling habit of the tree. Surely the observer
cannot miss seeing little weazen witch faces grinning at him from
all possible angles of the tree, their yellow cap strings flying in the
wind, as if in defiance of the rumour that the days of witchcraft
are past.

272

The Witch Hazel and the Sweet Gum

The English "wych hazel" is an elm. In the mining regions
it would be counted the height of folly to sink a shaft without
first determining with a hazel wand where the rich veins of coal
or metal are. No more would one think of digging a well until
the same divining rod pointed to the hidden springs. Our
American witch hazel is credited with all the occult powers of the
Old World tree from which it gets its name. In hamlets and
country neighbourhoods not too close to the currents of modern
life we may still meet old fellows who can "water witch," and a
goodly number of neighbours who believe in his powers.

Billy Thompson's well goes dry and he sends in haste for
Old Andy. Promptly, but with no undignified haste, the old
man goes out into the woods that join his "clearin'." He chooses
a forked twig whose Y stands north and south, for the rising and
setting suns must have sent their rays through its prongs as it
grew. Carefully the leaves are removed, as they drive to Billy's
place, where the whole family and a neighbour or two await them.
A solemnity settles on the company as the supple twig is grasped
by its two forks, thumbs out, knuckles down, and the stem of
the Y is thrust forward. Holding it as rigid as his trembling old
hands are able, Andy paces with dignity over the ground that
Billy has chosen as a convenient site for the new pump. He
shakes his head as the stubborn wand keeps its position. "There's
no use diggin' thar." Billy is disappointed, but convinced.

Old Andy stumbles along and the wand points downward.
It is most emphatic. Back he comes across the same spot, and
down goes the wand again. He moves away — even to the other
side of the barn — then returns and the sign is repeated over the
exact spot indicated before. "D'ye see his wrist move?" asks a
doubter, nudging his neighbour, and speaking under his breath.
But it is not a time for levity. All eyes are on the seer who
announces with proper dignity: "Thar's the place, Billy. The
signs is plain. You'll git a good spring-fed well if you go deep
enough." And nobody has the hardihood to dispute his word.

Hamamelis water, or extract of witch hazel, in a variety of
brands, is for sale in every country and city drug store. There
is widespread faith in its soothing and curative powers when
rubbed on bruises and sprains, and applied to burns. Strangely
enough, the Indians taught white folks to use it. But chemical
analysis has failed to discover any medicinal properties in bark or

273

The Witch Hazel and the Sweet Gum

leaf. Druggists will concede that the alcohol in these decoctions
is the most effective agent. The patented preparations cost more
than the ordinary witch hazel that the druggist makes up, and
there is an impression that the higher-priced kinds are "stronger."
They probably have a higher percentage of alcohol.

Below is given the "national formulary" which manufacturing
druggists follow in the United States. It is published that anyone
may know just how the extract is extracted, and what is added
to the witch hazel.

{Aqua Hamamelis) extract of witch hazel

Hamamelis roots and twigs 10 lbs.

Water 20 pts.

Alcohol — 6 per cent. . ii pts.

Place Hamamelis in a still, add the water and alcohol, and
allow the mixture to macerate twenty-four hours. Distil ten (10)
pints by applying direct heat, or preferably by means of steam.

2. Genus LIQUIDAMBAR, Linn.

The Sweet Gum (Liquidambar Styraciflua, Linn.) — A large
tree 75 to 140 feet high, with straight trunk and short, slender
branches, forming a pyramidal or oblong head. Bark reddish
brown, furrowed, scaly, on old trunks; on young trees, ashy grey,
with' hard, warty excrescences; twigs, pale, usually with corky
wings, which continue to grow for years. Wood bright reddish
brown, striped with black, straight, close grained, lustrous when
polished, hard, heavy, not strong. Buds acute, reddish and hairy
at tips, small. Leaves 5 to 7 inches, long and broadly cleft into
5, rarely 7, triangular-pointed lobes, which are finely saw-toothed;
with resinous sap, lustrous when mature, streaked crimson, and
yellow in autumn. Flowers after leaves, monoecious; staminate
in terminal, hairy racemes, 2 to 3 inches long, set with head-like
stamen clusters; pistillate in solitary swinging balls from axils of
upper leaves; stigmas conspicuously twisted. Fruits dry,
swinging balls, i-| inches in diameter, of the hardened, 2-horned
capsules. Single seed, winged, J inch long in some cells. Most
of the cells filled with minute, aborted seeds. Preferred habitat, low
wet woodlands. Distribution, Connecticut to Missouri; south to
Florida and Texas; also in Mexico and Central America. Uses:

274

i*i.x-<'**~- • > •.■■■?':i>-,--*.V^"W-;"!

;..::■■ r * . .;.■■.■-"

THE WITCH HAZEL {Hamamelh Virginiana)

TSie gold-thread blossoms appear with the ripeni lg fruits in October and November. The 2-valved capsule flies open
and explosively discharges the two seeds. The leaves are un symmetrical and strongly ribbed, and turn yellow in autumn.
In spring the undeveloped fruits appear clustered on side shoots, awaiting the summer, which will mature them. The buds are
naked, the outer covering becoming the first leaf. The spiny galls are produced by an insect

J-^$f

* A • •

'"&Ss5

B. Pistillate flowers

A. Staminate flowers

THE SASSAFRAS (Sassafras Sassafras)

The leaves show three different shapes, all on the same twig. The yellow flowers are borne on separate trees. The
blue berries are handsome on their coral-red stems, the delight of birds in late September. The plump green aromatic buds
are good to nibble on a winter's walk

THE SASSAFRAS {Sassafras Sassafras)
fhe roadside specimen is often shrubby, but it rises in favorable situations into a stately tree. In autumn the foliage tuns to

scarlet and gold

The Witch Hazel and the Sweet Gum

Valuable ornamental and shade trees. Lumber used for railroad
ties, paving blocks, shingles, fruit boxes, spools; choice pieces
known as "satin walnut," used for veneering furniture and for
interior finishing of houses. Dyed black, it imitates ebony, in
picture frames and cabinet work.

The sweet gum is probably more closely linked with planta-
tion life in the South than any other tree. It grows in the swamps,
and many a slave hugged the slender shaft of a leafy gum tree
while he waited all day for the north star to point him the way
to freedom. Here the 'possum and the 'coon found similar
refuge from hunters and their dogs; and it was a hollow gum tree
that old "Nicodemus, the slave," was buried in to be waked in
time for the great jubilee ! As a child, I lived in a state north of
the range of the most intrepid liquidambar tree. I recall with
great vividness an old ex-slave's description and eulogy of the
tree, and the song he sang, full of the exaltation his dearly bought
freedom always roused in him — especially the thrilling chorus:

"Da's a good time comin', 'tis almos' heah,
Hit's bin long, long on de way:
Run 'n' tell 'Lijah t' hurry up, Pomp',
Meet us at de gum tree, down in de swamp;
Wake Nicodemus to-day!"

Travellers in the bayou country of the Mississippi Valley
can easily verify the statement that a hollow gum tree is large
enough to entomb a man. Giants exist there to-day, standing
in rich bottom lands, or on soil that is inundated a part of the
year, whose trunks, 1 5 feet or more in girth, carry their tops 1 50
feet into the air. These trees, often bare of branches for half
their height, look like great columns set amid the tropical vegeta-
tion, and towering high above most of their neighbour trees.
In its northern range the tree sacrifices size but not beauty.

It is good to take a whole year to get acquainted with the
sweet gum, and it doesn't really matter when one begins. The
seed balls swing on the trees in winter, looking like the button-
balls of the sycamore. A second glance shows the paired "cows'
horns" above the gaping pods, and the crowded, undeveloped
seeds shake out like sawdust. An easier way to identify the tree
is by the narrow blade-like ridges of bark that in most cases adorn
the twigs. Strangely, these are on the upper side of horizontal
twigs, and all around the vertical ones. The shading of olives

275

The Witch Hazel and the Sweet Gum

and greys and browns in these corky ridges reminds one of the
banding of an agate. Now and then you come upon a gum tree
whose twigs are all smooth.

Farther down, the branches have warty bark, broken into
rough, horny plates. This gives the tree its name, "alligator-
wood." Then the grey of the big branches gives way to the red-
brown of the trunk; the shallow fissures and scaly ridges give
a finer texture to this oldest bark than the limbs give us reason to
expect.

In summer time the leaves of the sweet gum are our sure
guide to its identity. "Star-leaved gum," it is often called.
There is no other tree whose leaf so closely resembles a regular,
six-pointed star with one point missing where the petiole is
fastened on. These leaf stems are long and flexible — a very
important fact in analysing the beauty of the sweet gum tree in
full leaf. The large shining blades flutter on their stems,

"Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle in the Milky Way."

They fairly dazzle the beholder, as the polished leaves of the
tulip tree always do.

But the summer garb of the sweet gum tree is pale and
monotonous compared with the radiant beauty of its October
foliage. Wherever gum trees grow, there the autumn landscape
is painted with the changeful splendour of sunset skies. The
leaves do not seem to dry and wither as maples and dogwoods do.
They give up their bright green for the most gorgeous shades
of red. "The tree is not a flame — it is a conflagration!7'

Often one sees a fence-row thicket of young gum trees all
burning low with dull crimsons as if their fires sullenly smoulder,
and might at any moment burst into the clear orange-red flame
that consumes a neighbour tree. Afterward, the foliage may
turn to those browns and lilac tones assumed by ash trees, but as
a rule the ground is littered with the leaves before they fade —
they "die like the dolphin."

The sap of the sweet gum is resinous and fragrant. It is
easy to find this out by crushing a leaf or bruising a twig. Chip
through the bark of a tree and an aromatic gum accumulates in
the wound. In the Northern States this exudation is scant, but
it becomes more plentiful as one proceeds south. The most

276

The Witch Hazel and the Sweet Gum

copious flow is from trees in Central America. This gum is
known to commerce as "copalm balm/' large quantities of which
are shipped to Europe from New Orleans and from Mexican ports
each year. A Spanish explorer in Mexico described in 1651
"large trees that exude a gum like liquid amber." This was the
beginning of the trade. Linnaeus later gave the name "liquid-
ambar" to the whole genus, which contains four species. Be-
sides our American tree there is a species in eastern Asia, not yet
well known, and a very important species, L. orientalis, which
forms forests in Asia Minor. Long before the Christian era the
fragrant gum storax, or styrax, of these trees was used as incense
in the temples of various oriental religions. Later it had its
place also with frankincense and myrrh in the censers of the
Greek and Roman Catholic churches. It was used then, as it is
now, as a healing balm, as a medicinal drug and as a perfume.

The American gum is believed to have the same properties
as the oriental storax, and it is manufactured into medicines,
perfumes, and incense. As a dry gum, it is the standard glove
perfume in France.

First and last, it is not the products of the sweet gum tree
that should first commend it to the American people. It is the
tree itself, beautifying by its growth the landscape of which it is
a part. More and more we are realising the value' of native
things in landscape gardening. There is a lesson for the American
(who would not learn it at home) as he hunts in European gardens
and nurseries for trees to plant on his estate. Among the finest
ai}d most valued trees abroad is his own native Liquidambar
Styraciflua, all the more esteemed because there is no European
species.

The name "gum tree" is also applied to our tupelos, and to
certain species of Eucalyptus, natives of Australia.

277

CHAPTER XXXIV: THE SYCAMORES

Family Platan acem
Genus PLATAN US, Linn.

Large, ornamental, deciduous trees with smooth • limbs
from which whitish bark peels in irregular flakes. Leaves simple,
alternate, palmately lobed. Flowers monoecious in pendant
heads. Fruits swinging, many-seeded balls, hanging all winter.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Fruits solitary, rarely 2; leaves with shallow sinuses,
broader than long; seeds blunt.

(P. occidentalis) sycamore
AA. Fruits 4 to 6 on each stem ; seeds pointed.

B. Leaves with triangular lobes and deep sinuses.

(P. racemosa) California sycamore
BB. Leaves with variable lobes, often finger-like and 8 to
1.0 inches long. (P. Wrightii) Arizona sycamore
AAA. Fruits 2 to 4 on each stem; seeds pointed; leaves deeply
lobed, broader than long. (Exotic.)

(P. orientalis) oriental plane

There are six species of the genus Platanus found in the
Northern Hemisphere, and equally divided between the Old and
New Worlds. The geologist finds evidences of much wider
distribution for our sycamore than it now enjoys. The Arctic
regions from Greenland west bore forests of these trees, and so
did central Europe before the Glacial Epoch. The plane tree of
Europe extends east to India.

The trees are all characterised by brittle, smooth bark of
light colour, except on old trunks. The flaking off of this bark
in irregular plates, leaving the white under layer exposed, enables
the most casual observer to recognise the trees of this family by
sight. The broad leaves, lobed like a maple's, and the hanging
seed balls are striking characteristics.

278

The Sycamores

Sycamore, Buttonwood, American Plane Tree (Plata-
nus occidentalism Linn.) — A large, stately tree, 75 to 150 feet high,
with tall trunk and loose, broad head and mottled green and white
limbs. Bark dark reddish brown on trunk, breaking into small
scaly plates; smooth and thin on branches, olive green, flaking
off in irregular plates, exposing whitish- inner bark. Wood light
reddish brown, hard, heavy, with prominent satiny pith rays.
Buds conical, with hood-like scales, covered by hcilow base of leaf
stalk, and encircled by a single leaf scar. Leaves deciduous, alter-
nate, simple, 5 to 6 inches long, 7 to 9 inches broad, 3 to 5 lobed,
with broad, shallow sinuses and wavy-toothed lobes; yellow green
above, paler beneath, and fuzzy on veins; yellow in autumn and
papery; petiole short, with hollow, dilated base; stipules, a sheath,
tubular, flaring into ruffle-like border. Flowers, May, monoecious,
in globular heads on flexible stems; staminate axillary, deep red;
pistillate terminal, pale green tinged with red, with long stems.
Fruit, dry pendulous balls, solitary or rarely two on a single pedun-
cle, 1 inch in diameter, made of a close-set, pointed akenes. Pre-
ferred habitat, borders of streams and rich bottom lands.
Distribution, southern Maine to north shore of Lake Ontario;
west to Minnesota and Nebraska; south to Florida and
Texas. Uses: Excellent shade and ornamental tree, especi-
ally in cities and towns. Wood is used for furniture and
inside woodwork of houses; also for butchers' blocks and
tobacco boxes.

The "hoary antlered sycamore" in our damp woods is a tree
that the stranger will never forget after his first introduction to it.
There is only this one native tree with such strange, crazy patch-
work on its branches. These patterns in dull olives and
dingy white show themselves from any reasonable distance in
winter, and the grey balls dangling from the twigs are another sure
means of identification. In the summertime the thickest foliage
never quite conceals the .scarred trunk and excoriated branches,
splotched as if with whitewash to the utmost twigs. Moulting is
a continuous performance during the buttonwoods' growing sea-
son. Even in winter flakes of bark may be picked up on the snow
blanket that protects the roots. This tree seems utterly lacking
in the power to stretch its bark fibres and fill in the chinks to fit
the growing limbs. Instead, with the first rift sycamore bark
loosens, separates, and lets go, leaving only the inner layers

279

The Sycamores

between the tender cambium and the cold outdoors. It is the
sycamore's way.

Have you ever looked out of a car window at the sycamores
and white birches that streak the dull winter woods with light?
It is a strange sight, calculated to stir the dullest imagination.
The birches stand together, and keep each other in countenance.
They do not seem to mind being looked at, but flaunt their tattered
ribbons of bark without self-consciousness. The sycamores stand
alone, as a rule. Except in young trees, the limbs are tortuous,
reaching out in many directions without much regard for syrr^
metry. One often stands on the verge of a stream, and leans far
out as if contemplating a plunge. The rush of the train makes of
these solitary trees pallid, spectral figures, that dart past the win-
dows— hunted outcasts, lepers in the tree community, fleeing
before invisible pursuers. It is a satisfaction to find each tree
back in its place when we come again that way.

Quite a different tree from the distressed-looking specimen
in colder New England is the buttonwood of more congenial soil
and clime — a stalwart, large-limbed tree of colossal trunk, which
lifts its head high above its. forest neighbours, and shelters great
oaks and maples under its protecting arms. The weird, irregular
top is singularly free from small branches, but in summer the
broad leaves are so disposed as to soften the harsh lines. The
open-boughed buttonwoods of the little city of Worcester, Massa-
chusetts, noted for their stately beauty early in the century just
finished, well illustrate this kindly ministry of the leaves.

The buds of the sycamore deserve our close attention in the
autumn. Leaves are fading; at first glance we note that there are
no buds in their angles. How is next year's growth provided for?
Look again! The leaf loosens in your hand and lets go its hold
on the twig. Its stem ends in a hollow cone. There on the twig
is a plump bud that grew all summer under the protecting base
of that leaf. Two or three little hoods each bud wears to protect
it, now the leaf is gone. The outer one is of leathery texture,
without seams, and the delicate inner ones fit close, so there is no
danger. The leaf never abandons its ward until it is safe to do so.

The little frilled sheathing stipules are well worth looking for
on young shoots of the sycamore in spring. So are the balls that
hang in the treetop, first in May as the two separate kinds of
flower heads; later when the surviving pistillate ones change to

280

The Sycamores

hard brown seed balls, banging against neighbouring limbs until
the flexible stems are worn to shreds, and the pointed seeds are
loosened and wafted away on their hairy parachutes. Most of the
seeds die, of course, but Nature sees to it that here and there a
sycamore seed falls on good ground; and a young sapling lifts its
broad palms next year above the spot.

Some people object to sycamores because the leaves as they
unfold cast off their fuzzy covering of branched hairs, which are
irritating to the mucous membrane of the eyes and throat. Most
of us have never heard of this trouble before, and have lived com-
fortably in the neighbourhood of sycamore trees for years. Hap-
pily, this moulting period of the leaves is very brief. A more
serious obstacle to the planting of these trees is their susceptibility
to a fungous disease. The young leaves often look scorched imme-
diately upon opening. A second crop of inferior size and vigour
may replace them. Examine an affected leaf, and you find black
specks along the veins. These are the outward signs of inward
trouble, which is too deep-seated to be reached by any fungicidal
spray. Let us hope that time will show a cure, for the sycamore
is one of the trees that grows rapidly and flourishes amid the dust
and smoke of city streets. How few kinds of trees there are, after
all, that stand by to shelter and encourage city-bound humanity
through the hot summer days, making fresh green oases ^n burning
brick-and-mortar deserts!

The California Sycamore (P. racemosa, Nutt.) bears its but-
ton balls in a series of four to six strung on the tough, fibrous stem.
The feaves have the same general outline as those of its Eastern
relative, but the lobes are slenderly triangular, and deeply cleft
by sinuses of about the same size and shape. This beautiful
Western tree was long confused with P. occidentalis, for its
bark is white, and in habit and size the two are similar. A
comparison of the leaf and the fruit easily enables one to dis-
tinguish them.

The Arizona Sycamore (P. Wrightii, Wats.) is a sycamore
which looks like P. racemosa in fruit and leaf, but the lobes of the
latter are much more finger-like, and measure often 8 to 10 inches
in length. These trees are strikingly beautiful objects, growing
to large size on canon sides and stream borders, rising far above
the evergreen oaks and pines of the semi-arid regions, each tree a
refreshing dash of verdure in a weary land.

281

The Sycamores S

The Oriental Plane Tree (P. orientalis, Linn.) is the species
best known in Europe, and is coming to be very popular in this
country. It is a shapelier tree than our own, more compact in
habit, with larger leaves, and three or four seed balls are strung
on each long stem. So far it seems almost immune to fungous
diseases, a very important consideration to the planter. This is
the plane tree of the Greek writers, in groves of which Plato
walked and discoursed — a tree held in worshipful esteem by the
ancients for its stateliness and beauty. On occasions they poured
wine upon its roots and decked its limbs with jewels and gold.
Xerxes halted his unwieldy army for days that he might contem-
plate to his satisfaction the beauty of a single tree. He had its
form wrought upon a medal of gold to help hin> to remember it the
rest of his life. Xerxes never did things by halves.

Certain venerable plane trees in Europe are estimated to be
4,000 years old. Very few species of trees attain a greater age.
These patriarchs are giants as well. They measure as much as
40 feet in trunk diameter, though they are so perforated by decay
that counting rings is impracticable even when the tree falls.
These old trees are at best but shattered ruins, supported in their
senile age by columns and braces — melancholy figures, indeed,
renewing feebly each spring by their few leaves the youth they
had spent and quite forgotten centuries before the dawn of civilisa-
tion. It is almost pitiful that they should live on.

Quaintly does John Parkinson, " Apothecary e of London/'
write of plane trees in the year 1640: "They are planted by the
waysides and in market places/ for the shadowes sake onely."
Quite sufficient justification for any tree in any age, that it tem-
pers the heat of the sun in places where men must congregate.
"For the shadowes sake" is a phrase worth remembering! John
Parkinson seems to have been a poet as well as an apothecary.

The generic name of these trees comes from the Lajin plains,
which means "broad." It refers to the breadth of theleaf^A
species platanoides is found in many genera; it means "like the
sycamore." The swamp white oak sheds its bark in sheets. _Jjel
theNorway mapje_the_shape of the kaLis much like^that of the
j^camore.

The common name of this tree has had an interesting history.
The original sycamore was a fig tree of the ancients — Pharaoh's
fig, they called it in Egypt. Their strong mummy cases were

282

The Sycamores

built of its wood. Its scientific name is Ficus Sykomorus. In
Europe, the great maple, Acer Pseudo-platanus, is called sycamore.
In America, our sycamore is Platanus occidenialis. Botanists try
to teach Europeans to call their tree the sycamore maple and
Americans to call theirs the buttonwood; but in spite of their
efforts the old names stick. The traveller who meets abroad all
three of these sycamores — a fig, a plane, and a maple — all different
but known by the same common name, is ready to side with the
botanists, for his head is in a whirl. Common names may do
well enough till al! the trees are met with in the same region.
Then trouble and confusion are constant.

283

CHAPTER XXXV: THE APPLES

Family Rosacea
Genus MALUS, Hall.

Trees which are parents of cultivated apples. Leaves
simple, alternate, deciduous. Flowers showy, perfect, fragrant,
in terminal cymes. Fruit fleshy, enclosing papery 5-celled core.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Leaves smooth at maturity; flowers rose pink.

B. Blades of leaves ovate, blunt, minutely serrate, thin.

(M. coronaria) wild crab apple
BB. Blades of leaves narrow, pointed, coarsely toothed,
leathery.

(M. augustijolia) narrow-leaved crab apple
AA. Leaves tomentose beneath; flowers pale.
B. Fruit flattened, 2 to 4 inches in diameter.
C. Stems slender. (Exotic.)

(M. Malus) common apple
CC. Stems stout (M. Soulardi) soulard's apple

BB. Fruit not flattened, £ to ij inches in diameter.

C. Flowers white. (M. rivularis) oregon crab

CC. Flowers pink. (M. loensis) iowa crab

The genus Malus is native to the whole of eastern Asia.
We have four native species. Our cultivated crab apples and
the hundreds of orchard varieties have their ancestral home
somewhere in Asia Minor. For centuries horticulturists have
been at work improving wild apples. In Europe and in America
the effort is to get better fruit. In the Far East the aim has been
to produce the finest flowering trees. The results are both ad-
vantageous to the horticulture of the world.

Closely allied to apples are the other pome fruits, pears and
quinces. Neither are native to America, though they are widely
cultivated here.

284

PRAIRIE CRAB APPLE ( Mains loensis)

The Apples

Wild Crab Apple (Malus coronaria, Mill.) — A low, bushy
tree, with thorny angular twigs, rarely 30 feet high. Bark
reddish brown, scaly. Wood heavy, fine grained, weak, reddish
brown. Buds small, blunt, bright red. Leaves ovate or trian-
gular, 3 to 4 inches long, half as broad, velvety beneath, blunt
pointed, sharply serrate, often lobed near base; petioles i^ to 2
inches long. Flowers May to June, after the leaves, in 5 to 6
flowered umbels, perfect, white to deep pink, spicy, fragrant —
1 to 2 inches across. Fruit flattened, yellow, 1 inch in diameter;
flesh hard, sour. September. Preferred habitat, upland woods,,
in moist, rich soil. Distribution, Ontario to Minnesota; south
along Alleghanies to Alabama; Nebraska to eastern Texas; New
York to South Carolina. Uses: An ornamental, flowering tree.
Fruit made into jellies and preserves. Wood used for levers, tool
handles, etc.

The wild, sweet-scented crab apple! The bare mention of
its name is enough to make the heart leap up, though spring be
months away, and barriers of brick hem us in. In the corner
of the back pasture stands a clump of these trees, huddled together
like cattle. Their flat, matted tops reach out sidewise until the
stubby limbs of neighbouring trees meet. It would not occur
to anyone to call them handsome trees. But wait! The twigs
silver over with young foliage, then coral buds appear, thickly
sprinkling the green leaves. Now all their asperity is softened,
and a great burst of rose-coloured bloom overspreads the treetops
and fills the air with perfume. It is not mere sweetness, but an
exquisite, spicy, stimulating fragrance that belongs only to wild
crab-apple flowers. Linnaeus probably never saw more than a
dried specimen, but he named this tree most worthily, coronaria,
"fit for crowns and garlands."

Break off an armful of these blossoming twigs and take
them home. They will never be missed. Be thankful that
your friends in distant parts of the country may share your
pleasure, for though this particular species does not cover the
whole United States, yet there is a wild crab apple for each
region.

In the fall the tree is covered with hard little yellow apples.
They have a delightful fragrance, but they are neither sweet nor
mellow. Take a few home and make them into jelly. Then
you will understand why the early settlers gathered them for

285

The Apples

winter use. The jelly has a wild tang in it, an indescribable
piquancy of flavour as different from common apple jelly as the
flowers are in their way more charming than ordinary apple
blossoms. It is the rare gamy taste of a primitive apple.

Well-meaning horticulturists have tried what they could do
toward domesticating this Mains coronaria. The effort has not
been a success. The fruit remains acerb and hard; the tree
declines to be "ameliorated" for the good of mankind. Isn't
it, after all, a gratuitous office ? Do we not need our wild crab
apple just as it is, as much as we need more kinds of orchard
trees? How spirited and fine is its resistance! It seems as if
this wayward beauty of our woodside thickets considered that the
best way to serve mankind was to keep inviolate those charms
that set it apart from other trees and make its remotest haunt the
Mecca of eager pilgrims every spring.

The wild crab apple is not a tree to plant by itself in park
or garden. Plant it in companies on the edge of woods, or in
obscure and ugly fence corners, where there is a background, or
where, at least, each tree can lose its individuality in the mass.
Now, go away and let them alone. They do not need mulching
nor pruning. Let them gang their ain gait, and in a few years you
will have a crab-apple thicket. You will also have succeeded in
bringing home with these trees something of the spirit of the
wild woods where you found them.

The Narrow-leaved Crab Apple {Mains angustifolia,
Michx.), smaller in all its parts than the common wild crab apple,
but closely resembling it in all but its leaf, is found on the Atlantic
coast from New Jersey to Florida, and west to the Mississippi.
It extends also to western Pennsylvania and eastern Tennessee,
overlapping the range of the other species in these regions. Its
leaves are leathery, almost evergreen, dark and shiny, with dull,
often fuzzy linings. They are small, narrow, and blunt pointed
at both ends.

The Oregon Crab (Malus rivularis, Rcem.), a white-
flowered species with ovate, taper-pointed leaves, grows in dense
thickets along streams in the coast region from northern California
well into Alaska. Its young growth is covered with a grey
pubescence. The apples are oblong, rarely over J inch long,
and few people beside Indians consider them worth gathering for
food.

286

THE WILD CRAB APPLE (Malus coronaria)
In late May the tree is a mass of pink, spicv, fragrant flower clusters and bright green leaves The flat little apple ripens
September, but it is not mellow. It is waxy to the touch, and has the gamy taste a wild apple ought to have

The Apples

The Prairie Crab Apple {Mains Ioensis, Britt.) is the
species found from Wisconsin to Oklahoma. It has only recently
been distinguished from M. coronaria, which its flowers closely
resemble. Its leaves are shorter and oval in shape, with deep,
irregular teeth, and linings of silky white down. The dull green
apples are of good size, larger than the other native crabs, and are
not at all flattened. It is the woolliness of all the young growth
in summer that will chiefly distinguish this tree.

The double-flowered form of this crab apple, Mains Ioensis
flore pleno, is one of the most beautiful of ornamental trees. Its
flowers are not so numerous as to overload the tree, and each
blossom, in its setting of green leaves, has all the delicacy of a
pink tea rose, exquisite in form, in shading, and in fragrance.

The Soulard Apple (Mains Soulardi, Britt.) may con-
fuse us. It is a hybrid of M. Ioensis and the common apple, as-
caped from orchards — the trees that come from apple seeds and
are not grafted. Such are our good-for-nothing roadside "wilding"
trees, with gnarly fruit nobody can eat.

The Soulard apple occurs locally from Minnesota to Texas.
It is large leaved and stout of stature, with pink-flushed blossoms,
like an orchard apple tree. But its woolly surfaces are often
roughly rusty; its fruit is a flat crab apple on a stout st;em, larger,
sweeter and more edible than one expects it to be. Because this
species is hardy and disposed to vary and improve in the quality
of its fruit in cultivation, horticulturists consider it a^ distinctly
promising apple for the coldest of the prairie states. Several
varieties have already been produced from it.

The Wild Apple (Mains Mains, Britt.), native to southern
Europe and Asia, is the parent of our cultivated apples. It is
the apple of classical literature, inseparably associated with the
growth of civilisation, and cultivated for the improvement of its
fruit for unnumbered centuries. Our orchard trees, which renew
their youth every spring in fuzzy leaves and fragrant pink and
white blossoms, are direct descendants of this ancient species.
Myth and folk-lore and written history all tell how this fruit, more
than any other — the simple, wholesome, uncloying fruit of the
north temperate zone — is interwoven with the life of the people.
Read in the Song of Solomon: "As the apple tree among the
trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons." And as a
symbol of exquisite joy attained through the senses, "the smell

287

The Apples

of apples" is named with the odours of spikenard and camphire
and bundles of myrrh. Read the classics, ancient and modern.
Fancy the story of the fall of Troy or the legend of William Tell
with the apple left out!

If we would know what this wild European apple is like we
may get a good idea by planting an apple seed, and watching the
tree that springs from it. Or we may save time by examining a
wilding tree in the fence corner, planted perhaps by the hand
that threw away an apple core years ago. Suppose it was the
seed of a fine desert variety of apple. Its offspring will not bear
the same variety and quality of fruit. It is almost sure to "revert
to the wild type." That is, the fruit of it will be small, sour and
gnarly, just such apples as the orchard tree would have borne if
it had not been grafted or budded while it stood in the nursery
row.

But there are exceptions to every rule. There are varieties
of apples — a very few — that "come true from seed." Such is
La Belle Fameuse, the ruddy-cheeked, white-fleshed "Snow"
of the Northeastern States — the domestic apple of the Canadian
French. Up and down the valley of the St. Lawrence this apple
tree grew in the gardens of the early settlers. The seeds were
carried and distributed by neighbours, by migrant traders, but
chiefly by the Jesuit missionaries whose hope was that the home-
sick habitant should grow to love the land of his adoption. And
they were not disappointed. Generations passed, and the tree
became an intimate part of the home life of New France. Drurri-
mond, poet of the habitant, describes the old-fashioned garden,
modelled on the typical one of precious memory in sunny France:

"Dat house on de hill, you can see it still,
She's sam' place he buil' de firs' tarn' he come;
Benin' it dere's one leetle small jardin,
Got plaintee de bes' tabac Canayen,
Wit Fameuse apple, an' beeg blue plum."

It was a hard life, and the touch of poetry and luxury brought
into it by these fruit trees was not lost on the appreciative habitant.
He had his domestic animals, and the home flowers about his
door — "the leetle small jardin" — and he was comforted in the
land of the long, cold winters. His apple trees were as much a
part of his establishment as the dog and. cow and team of horses.
He cherished them next to his family and his religion. In fact,

288

The Apples

they were a part of both, if he could have analysed his feeling for
them.

While the French in Canada were still planting seeds of their
beloved Fameuse apple as their fathers had done before them,
noting no change in the character of the fruit except when a tree
bore handsomer and finer-flavoured apples than any tasted
before, a strange and interesting story was unfolding itself in the
valley of the Ohio River. A picturesque character calling himself
Johnnie Apple Seed wandered up and down, with no apparent
object in life but to plant apple seeds. Queer as he was, the
motive that actuated him was nobly altruistic. He was doing
what he could to turn the desert into a garden. He had the
strange notion that grafting and pruning trees was a wicked
practice. He lived to see his trees in bearing over a vast territory.
But it is to be hoped that he never realised to what a degree his
philanthropy failed. They were mostly "Apples of Sodom"
that came as a harvest. Where he had planted seeds of Baldwins
and Greenings and Bellflowers grew trees bearing apples with
strange, crabbed looks, mongrels of varying degrees of insipidity.
They were largely seedling trees of varieties that did not come
true. They stubbornly exemplified the rule of which the Fameuse
is an exception.

Do you know the romance of the Newtown pippin? If
you have seen one of these matchless apples and sunk your teeth
into its mellow substance I need not tell you of its sprightly
flavour, its absolute fulfilment of your ideal of what an apple
ought to be. What is its pedigree?

Two centuries ago a chance seed fell near a swamp on the
outskirts of the village of Newtown, Rhode Island. A seedling
tree came up, and was ignored, as such trees are, until some vagrant
passing by saw and tasted the first apples it bore. And the very
golden apples of Hesperides they were for the village and the
countryside! Cions of this tree became the parents of great
orchards in the Hudson River Valley. Up and down the coast
among the colonies they were scattered.

In the year 1758, Benjamin Franklin, our representative in
England, received a box of Newtown pippins, and he gave some
to his distinguished friend, Peter Collinson. Thus were American
apples introduced with eclat to the attention of the English.
The trees did poorly in English orchards, but the fruit in London

289

The Apples

markets grew in popularity. In 1845 tne orchard of Robert
Pell, in Ulster County, New York, which contained 20,000 pippin
trees, yielded a crop which brought in the London market $21
per barrel. The tables of the nobility were supplied with these
apples at the astonishing price of a guinea a dozen — forty-two
cents apiece!

And yet, almost within the memory of men now living, the
old tree still stood on the edge of the swamp, and men came from
far anfl near— even from over seas — to cut cions from the original
Newton pippin tree.

Here and there in the history of horticulture are other instances
where Nature seems to rise superior to her own laws by creating
valuable seedling varieties. The "Wealthy" apple was a chance
discovery in a Minnesota nursery row. It is the parent of one of
the noblest varieties of the Northwest States— a worthy mate
for the Newtown pippin. Other sorts of apples have sprung
from crosses between known varieties. These are hybrids —
seedlings, one of whose parents contributed the pollen that
fertilised the flower on another tree. From the seed thus set
the new tree comes, different from each parent tree, but having
some traits of each.

In these two ways — by seedlings and by hybrids — new
varieties have arisen, and others will come on. But each is
uncertain — a problem for the scientist, not the apple grower.
To plant seeds for an orchard would be the utmost folly. The
quick and sure way to get and keep a good variety is to graft
other trees with cions of the desired kind. Fertilising the soil,
and thorough tillage, greatly improve the health of a tree, and
the quality and size of its fruit. But they do not change a
Baldwin into a Greening. It may be possible, however, to produce
a superior individual tree, whose characters, perpetuated, give
rise to an improved "strain" of the variety. Soil, climate and
treatment all emphasise individual differences in trees and in their
fruits. There is no law in Nature so inexorable as the law of
Constant Variation. f\

Our little hard-fleshed, slender-stemmed garden crab apples
are an interesting race. The Siberian crab (Malus baccdta), of
northern Asia, is the parent species. The larger sorts are prob-
ably from crosses of this with Malus Malus in some of its varieties.

Japan has given us some wonderful flowering apples, small

290

The Apples

v trees and shrubs. Mains floribunda is probably as glorious a
sight in bloom as any tree that ever grew. After these splendid
• blossoms we can but marvel again at the crop of fruit that succeeds
them. Some of these apples are handsome and good to eat, but
of the various species I have seen no fruit grows larger than a
cherry !

The Pear (Pyrus communis, Linn.), also a native of Europe
and Asia, is a close relative of the cultivated apple, and ranks high
among orchard fruits. We have no native species, but num&ous
valuable varieties have originated in this country.

The Quince (Cydonia vulgaris, Pers.) is a dwarf tree from
Europe, whose hard-fleshed, apple-like fruit has been used for
centuries in marmalades and jellies. It is seen in old gardens
in the East — one or two trees are the customary number. Occa-
sionally one sees a quince orchard. It is an old-fashioned fruit,
indeed; the demand for it is small, but steady. The Japanese
quince, C. Japonica, is a splendid flowering shrub, with inedible
fruit. Hedges are often seen of it, ablaze with great rose-coloured
flowers before the leaves are out m spring — a sight, indeed, worth
going miles to see.

The Medlar (Mespilus Germanica, Linn.), a pretty tree native
to central Europe, is occasionally planted in gardens for the curios-
ity aroused by its peculiar, apple-like fruits. The core is exposed
at the blossom end, as if the flesh had not quite reached around it.
After frost has bitten them, and they have lain all winter, these
medlars soften, and are not unpleasant to eat. They also are
made into preserves.

291

)

CHAPTER XXXVI: THE MOUNTAIN ASHES

Family Rosacea
Genus SORBUS, Linn.

Small trees of good habit, with ornamental foliage, flowers
and fruit. Leaves alternate, 7 to 17 leaflets, serrate. Flowers
small, white, in many-flowered flat corymbs. Fruit small, red,
berry-like.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Buds sticky; shoots smooth.

B. Leaflets taper pointed, pale green.

(S. Americana) American mountain ash
BB. Leaflets abruptly pointed, dark green.

(S. sarnbuci folia) elder-leaved mountain ash
AA, Buds woolly; branchlets and petioles pubescent; leaflets
blunt pointed, dull green. (Exotic.)
(S. Aucuparia) European mountain ash or rowan tree

The handsome foliage and showy clusters of flowers and
fruits make this a favourite genus of trees and shrubs for orna-
mental planting. There are about thirty species of Sorbus,
widely distributed over the Northern Hemisphere and chiefly
inhabitants of mountain slopes. Their contentment with poor
soil and exposed situations make them valuable for the covering
of broken ground, where they show to the best advantage. In
autumn the red berries are matched by the ruddy foliage. Birds
often depend on the berries for food in snowy winters. On a
lawn a mountain ash is a neat and very decorative little tree at all
seasons.

Mountain Ash {Sorbus Americana, Marsh.) — A small tree,
attaining 30 feet, with slender spreading branches, forming
pyramidal head. Bark smooth, brown or grey, with large lenticels
like those on cherry; taste bitter. Wood pale brown, close
grained, weak. Buds reddish, pointed, glutinous. Leaves pinnate.
6 to 12 inches long, alternate; petioles red; leaflets 13 to 17, lanceo-

29a

A * y s* /

The Mountain Ashes

late, dark yellow-green, pale beneath. Flowers creamy white,
perfect, small, in broad, conrgojmd, flat-topped corymbs, after
the leaves in May and June. Fruit small, scarlet, berry-like, with
thin flesh and bony seeds. Ripe in September and hang on all
winter. Preferred habitat, rich, moist soil. Distribution, New-
foundland to Manitoba; south along mountains to Tennessee and
North Carolina. Uses: Planted for its red berries and fern-like
foliage. Fruit used in home remedies.

The way to see our American mountain ash at its best is to take
a leisurely October drive through the wooded uplands of New Eng-
land or lower Canada. Along the borders of swamps, or climbing
the rocky bluffs, with the wild plums and the straggling beeches,
this frail scarlet-berried ash leaps up- like a yellow flame, and the
broad discs of its fruit gleam among the leaves like red embers in
a grate. There is no handsomer leaf at any season than this
one, on its red stem, its pointed leaflets dainty and slim as a
willow's.

I have wondered that people prefer to plant in their gardens
the European species. But I find it is not all the deep-seated
craving for imported things. The American tree languishes in
warm, dry climates and in the protected situations we are apt to
choose. It shov/s a distinct preference for cold, unsheltered places,
exposed to winds, where its growth is stunted. Though its
range extends into the Southern States, it always keeps to high
altitudes.

The Elder-leaved Mountain Ash (Sorbus. sambucifolia,
Rcem.) is even more daring in its fight with the elements. It
climbs higher on the mountains, and ranges from Labrador to
Alaska, following the Rocky Mountains to Colorado. In the
East, it goes no farther south than Pennsylvania. The same
species inhabits Japan and eastern China,

This species has showier flowers and fruit clusters than
S. Americana. In the large area where their ranges overlap, these
two can be best distinguished by their leaves. This Western moun-
tain ash has darker green foliage, of abruptly pointed leaflets.
The fruits have five large, erect calyx points at the blossom end.
These points are small on the berries of the other species, and are
bent inward until they lie flat.

All through the summer the graceful, elder-like foliage of the
Western mountain ash makes it a tropical-looking tree among its

293

The Mountain Ashes

north temperate forest neighbours, though it is rarely more
than 15 feet in height. Its open, pyramidal head gives each
leaf a chance. After the leaves have fallen, the twigs still hold
up their broad discs of scarlet berries that cling until winter is
well past.

The Rowan Tree or European mountain ash (Sorbus Aucu-
ftaria, Linn.) is the one people usually plant on their lawns in this
country. This trim, round-headed tree is very conventional and
well-behaved compared with its country cousins back in the hills.
Long discipline at the gardener's hands has made it what it is. In
the craggy highlands of Scotland and Wales it leads a wild life,
and is there quite different from the familiar garden tree. Strange
legends and superstitions, centuries old, cluster around the rowan
in all rural sections of Europe. They are preserved in the folk-
lore and the literature of many languages. The tree, its berries, a
leafy spray, or a bit of its wood — all were considered to be effectual
charms to exorcise evil spirits, and to undo their work. The rowan
was planted at the gates of churchyards, and by cottage doors;
and leafy twigs were hung over the thresholds. Crosses of " roan "
wood, given out on festival days, were worn as amulets, and were
tacked up over the doors of houses and barns. Milkmaids, espe-
cially, depended on them for the defeat of the "black elves" who
tried to make their cows go dry, and, unless prevented, got
into the churns, and then the butter would never come! We
shall look upon this pretty tree with new interest, and perhaps
a mild kind of awe, knowing how it has been regarded by our
ancestors.

It may be known at any season by the woolly fuzz that whitens
buds, twigs and the linings of leaves. The leaflets are small, dull
green, with blunt points, and the margins have double teeth, large
and small. The flowers and fruits are larger than those of our
native species, and more showy.

Mountain ash berries at best are a poor, insipid sort of fruit.
But as they hang on the trees very late, birds eat them with
apparent satisfaction. During periods of deep snow, these trees
are often the sole reliance of our hardy winter residents — the one
bar between them and starvation.

The farther north a tree can grow, the more likely it is to have
near relatives in the Old World. One mountain as! of Japan can
be distinguished only with difficulty from our o^/n; and some

294

THE MOUNTAIN ASH (Sorbus Americana)

The flat crowded cluster of tiny white flowers is set in a whorl of the dark-green leaves in May or June. The red berries
ripen in September and remain all winter. The foliage is bright yellow in autumn. The twigs are red; so are the waxy buds
above the prominent leaf scars. The white breathing pores show distinctly on the smooth bark

,nM^'

THE SERVICE-BERRY TREE {Amelanchier Canadensis)

This solitary trre grows on the edge of a plowed field. Tillage and elbow room enable it to spread out like a luxuriant cherry
tree. Its bloom appears in April, when most trees are still bare. Tts berries are the delight of the birds in June

The Mountain Ashes

authorities consider our two species but varieties of the rowan
tree of Europe, which extends its range well into Asia. Inter-
mediate forms, growing wild with the two American species,'
show how each is apt to vary, and how very close is their
relationship. All species are supposed to have sprung from a
common ancestor not very long ago.

295

CHAPTER XXXVII: THE SERVICE-BERRIES

Family Rosacea
Genus AMELANCHIER, Med.

(

Slender, pretty trees often cultivated. Leaves simple,
alternate, deciduous, Flowers white, numerous^ in racemes.
Fruits small berry-like, with 4 to 10-celled core.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Leaves ovate, finely saw-toothed; fruit flattened, red to
purple.
B. Fruit J to J inch across; leaves sharp pointed.

(A. Canadensis) service-berry
BB. Fruit about J inch across; leaves blunt pointed.

{A. obovalis) longleaf service-berry
AA. Leaves broad, coarsely toothed on apical half, blunt;
fruit i to 1 inch across, blue-black.

{A. alnijolia) wester^ service-berry

The genus Amelanchier occurs in southern Europe, northern
Africa, China and Japan, and in southwestern Asia as well as in
eastern and western North America. It includes few species, all
delicate and pretty in foliage and flower, planted for ornament
in many countries. Dwarf varieties are raised for their fruit.
The flowers cover the slender branchlets before the leaves appear.
The sweet berries feed the birds. Our Western service-berry has
especially large and juicy fruits.

June-berry, Service-berry, Shad-bush (Amelanchier Cana-
densis, T. & G.) — A slender, round-headed tree, rarely 40 feet high,
usually less than 20 feet. Bark smooth, purplish brown, with pale
lenticels. Wood heavy, hard, dark brown. Buds pointed, brown,
inner scales elongate in spring. Leaves alternate, oval or oblong,
serrate, tapering, smooth; 3 to 4 inches long, midrib grooved
above and ridged underneath. Flowers, April, before leaves, white
in loose, drooping racemes, with silky bracts, 1 inch across with 5

296*

The Service-berries

narrow, long petals. Fruit, June, a red, juicy, sweet berry, with
io-celled core. Preferred habitat, rich, upland soil, borders of
woods. Distribution, Newfoundland to the Dakotas, south to the
Gulf. Uses: A desirable park or lawn tree; wood occasionally
used for tool handles, etc.

Do you wait until you are sure of finding violets a-plenty
before you take the time to go to the woods? Then you miss a
rare and most delightful experience. Go two weeks earlier this
year, and you may see the little June-berry tree put on her bridal
veil. The larger trees which stand about with naked branches
are but a background to set off the charms of this modest wood-
land beauty. It is not simply by contrast with the barrenness
around it that this tree delights the beholder. The soft, graceful,
feathery clusters and the individual, starry blossoms would be
attractive at any season. But that flowers so delicate should
unfold so early, while yet winter lingers, is a marvel that goes
straight to the heart. You break the sprays that lean toward you
as if in invitation, and carry them home with a sense of personal
gratitude. What makes one feel a glow of warmth when looking
at this tree? The sharp spring air does not justify it. There is
a faint undertone of colour that takes off the chill of the white cloud
of blossoms. Looking close we see that the strap-shaped bracts
are red, a pair of them below each flower, and the tinge is deepened
by the red-brown of the silky infant leaves, which hang limp and
helpless, their two halves folded on the midrib, and quite obscured
by the mass of bloom.

y" In summer the leaves are not distinctive. They are daintier
than those of the apple and pear, and have not the hydrocyanic
acid odour of the foliage of plums and cherries. The twigs lack
the thorns characteristic of the hawthorns. So, by elimination,
we may be able to identify this tree among the multitude of its
relatives.

The fruit cluster is a good clue all summer long, though the
birds take the berries so promptly that it is exceptional good luck
if you find a ripe one on the tree. But the long branching stems
which bore the sweet morsels are held out empty, or with dry,
undeveloped berries upon them, longer and looser in structure
than the racemes of the cherry group.

Showy as it is in blossom, the June-berry is never a self-
assertive tree. Its flowers are gone as suddenly as they came, and

297

The Service-berries

the little tree quite loses its identity when the forest wakes and
covers itself with a dense thatch of green. Cloistered thus, and
cut off from the benefits of wind and sun, no wonder that the tree
ordinarily rises little higher than a thrifty shrub.

The Dwarf June-berry, or Swamp Sugar Pear (A. obo-
valis, Ashe), has its young leaves and tender shoots covered with
dense white wool until quite matured. The flowers are smaller
than those of its sister species, and crowded in shorter, denser
racemes. The fruit is juicier and of richer flavour, and eagerly
sought by children and birds. The tree bears the name, long-leaf
service-tree in some localities, and in others, shad-bush. The
Indians noted that these trees blossomed along the banks of tide-
water streams about the time that the shad came up to spawn.
The colonists adopted this name. Naturally, it is not used in the
inland states, where shad are seen only in fish markets. This
June-berry frequents swamps and stream borders, ranging from
New Brunswick to Florida and Louisiana, and west to Minnesota
and Missouri.

The Western Service-berry {A. alnifolia, Nutt.) has a
thick, roundish leaf, broad and toothed, which makes it a hand-
some foliage tree. Its large, juicy, fine-flavoured berry commends
it to horticulturists as worthy of cultivation. It grows over a
vast territory which extends from the Yukon River south through
the Western States, and east to Ontario, Michigan and Nebraska.

Widely distinct as is this species from A. Canadensis when
individuals from distant localities are compared, these differences
become less marked as each species is studied nearer and nearer
the regions where their ranges overlap. It is believed that in
these two we have the offspring of a single species which came
from the North, and, spreading east and west on the slopes of the
Rocky Mountains, became modified by climate into two distinct
species as we see them to-day. Comparisons of specimens taken
at regular intervals on both sides of the mountains form a most
interesting chain of evidence to support the theory of a common
origin. Fossils of the Glacial Period show clearly the charac-
teristics of the ancestral type.

298

•

^' >>i4>r

>r -;■, -

•'<&■ ■■■• -._-"', v''*Vyr*^^

/*' ' *•£?&

THE SERVICE-BERRY {Amelanchier Canadensis)

A well-tilled specimen spreads like an apple tree. The flowers appear in April before the leaves spread themselves. The fruit

is a juicy berry, which the birds love. It is ripe in June

CHAPTER XXXVIII: THE HAWTHORNS

Family Rosacea

Genus CRATAEGUS, Linn.

Small trees or shrubs, with rigid, thorny branches. Leaves
simple, alternate, deciduous, stipulate, serrate, often lobed.
Flowers perfect, usually white, in corymbs on short side twigs.
Fruits drupe-like pomes, with hard nutlets containing the seeds.
Wood hard, tough, reddish, close grained. Uses: Ornamental
trees and hedge plants; wood used for tool handles and mallets.

KEY TO GROUPS AND TO SPECIES

A. Nutlets not grooved in front.

B. Leaf veins extending to points of lobyes; not to sinuses.
C. Petioles short ; leaves obovate, wedge shaped at base.
D. Corymbs many-flowered.

E. Leaves leathery, dark green, shining above;
fruit almost globular, nutlets i to 3,
ridged on back.

I. Group CRUS-GALLI

F. Stamens 10, anthers rose colour; leaves
thick, fruit dull red; spines stout, 4 to
6 inches long.

(C. Crus-galli) cocks pur thorn
FF. Stamens 20, anthers yellow; leaves thin;
fruit orange red; spines slender, 1 to
ij inches long. (C Mohri) haw

EE. Leaves membranaceous or firm; veins strong;
fruit usually dotted; nutlets 2 to 5,
strongly ridged on back.

II. Group PUNCTAT/E

F. Fruit oblong, yellow or red, J to 1 inch
long, with large, pale dots; stamens 20.
(C punctata) dotted haw
299

The Hawthorns

FF. Fruit globose, J to J inch long, dull red,
with small pale dots; stamens 20,
yellow. (C. collina) haw

DD. Corymbs few-flowered; flowers with leaves in
February, stamens 20 to 25, with large, dark-
red anthers.

III. Group /EST I VALES

(C. aestivalis) may haw
CC. Petioles long, slender, scarcely glandular; leaves mem-
branaceous to leathery, narrow at base; corymbs
many-flowered; fruit oblong to subglobose, J to
f inches in diameter.

IV. Group VIRIDES

Fruit flattened, under J inch in diameter,
bright scarlet or orange. (C viridis) haw

CCC. Petioles long, slender, glandular at apex.

D. Leaves broad at base; corymbs many-flowered.

E. Fruit flattened, i to § inch in diameter,

green, with glaucous bloom, becoming

dark purple-red and lustrous; leaves blue

green, smooth.

V. Group PRUINOS/E

Leaves elliptical (C. pruinosa) haw

EE. Fruit short oblong or obovate, i to f inch
long, scarlet to purple, leaves mem-
branaceous.

VI. Group TENUIFOLIA

Leaves blue-green, rough.

(C. apiomorpha) haw
EEE. Fruit 1 inch in diameter, red or yellow, flesh
thick, juicy; corymbs downy.

VII. Group MOLLES

F. Stamens 20, anthers yellow; leaves broad
and thick; fruit scarlet, downy.

(C. mollis) RED HAW
FF. Stamens 10, anthers yellow.

G. Fruit crimson, velvety, flattened.

(C. Arnoldiana) scarlet haw
GG. Fruit orange red, lustrous.

(C. submollis) red haw
FFF. Stamens 10, anthers rose colour.

Fruit short oblong, bright crimson,
shining.

(C. Ellwangeriana) scarlet haw

300

The Hawthorns

EEEE. Fruit oblong, f inch long, red, pulpy,
lustrous; leaves lobed; anthers red.

VIII. Group FLABELLAT/£

Stamens 5, rarely 6 to 8; leaves yellow-
green. (C. Holme siana) haw
EEEEE. Fruit nearly round, f inch long, greenish
red, calyx prominent; stamens 20, anthers
rose coloured.

IX. Group DILATATVE

Flowers 1 J inches across, few; leaves 2 to
3 inches long and broad, with deep
side lobes. (C. coccinioides) hXw

DD. Leaves wedge shaped at base.

E. Corymbs many-flowered; leaves dark green,
lustrous above, fruit i to f inch long,
nutlets 2 to 3, ridged on back.

X. Group COCCINE/E

Thorns ij inch long, brown, stout;
fruit crimson, dry and sweet, leaves

2 to 3 inches long.

(C. coccinea) scarlet haw
EE. Corymbs few-flowered ; leaves membranaceous.
F. Fruit i inch long, green or yellow;
nutlets 3 to 5, rounded at ends, strongly
ridged at back; leaves yellow-green.

XI. Group INTRICATE

Fruits 2 to 4 in clusters, erect, flat,
rusty, reddish green, stamens 10,
pale yellow. (C Boyntoni) haw

FF. Fruit \ inch long, red or orange; nutlets

3 to 5 but slightly grooved on back;
stamens 20, anthers rose coloured;
leaves thin, sharply lobed.

XII. Group PULCHERRIJVL^

Fruit bright red. (C. opima) haw

FFFl Fruit \ to f inch long; nutlets 3 to 5,
narrowed at ends, strongly ridged on
back; bracts large; calyx lobes leaf-
like; stamens 20, anthers yellow; leaves
dark, lustrous, leathery.

XIII. Group BRACTEAT/E

Fruit bright red. (C. Ashei) haw

301

The Hawthorns

CCCC. Petioles, leaves and corymbs conspicuously glandu-
lar; corymbs few-flowered; fruit i to f inch long,
flesh hard, dry; branches zizag.

XIV. Group FLAV/E

Bark deeply furrowed ; leaves diamond shaped, thick,
shining, with short winged petiole; corymbs
velvety, with 3 to 6 flowers, stamens 10, an-
thers yellow; fruit late, dull orange red,
flattened. (C. aprica) haw

BB. Veins of leaves extending to sinuses as well as to points
of lobes ; corymbs many-flowered ; stamens 20.
C. Fruit flattened to oblong, pea size, scarlet; nutlets
2 to 5, prominently ridged at back; anthers rose
coloured or purple.

XV. Group MICROCARP/E

D. Leaves round, deeply 5 to 7 cleft.

(C. apiijolia) parsley haw
DD. Leaves heart shaped.

(C. cordata) Washington thorn
CC. Fruit flattened, J to \ inch long, red, blue or blue-
black nutlets 3 to 5, obtuse at ends, slightly ridged
at back; leaves dark and lustrous.

XVI. Group BRACHYACANTH/E

Leaves lanceolate; thorns stout; fruit bright blue.

(C brachyacaniha) pomette bleue
AA. Nutlets grooved in front.

B. Fruits I to \ inch long, erect, lustrous, orange or
scarlet; nutlets 2 to 3, blunt at ends, ridged on oack;
leaves downy below.

XVII. Group TOMENTOS/E

C. Fruit pear shaped, translucent, orange red, leaves
2 to 5 inches long, grey-green, tomentose below;
thorns 1 \ inches long, slender.

(C. tomentosa) pear haw
CC. Fruit, pea-like, crimson, leaves 2 to 3 inches long,
dark, lustrous, tapering; thorns 2\ to 4 inches long,
curved. (C. macracantha) long-spin e haw

BB. Fruit nearly globular, i inch long, black; nutlets 5,
blunt at ends, faintly ridged on back; stamens 20;
leaves leathery.

XVIII. Group DOUGLASIAN/E

Leaves variable in form, fruit many in a cluster,
lustrous, sweet. (C. Douglasii) black haw

^*"> 302

The Hawthorns

The hawthorns are a shrubby race &i trees, under-sized, as a
rule, with stiff, zigzag branches, set with thorns. The leaves are
simple, alternate, deciduous, usually cut into sharp lobes, and saw
teeth. The flowers are generally white, and set in terminal
corymbs on side branchlets. The fruits are drupe-like pomes,
with bony nutlets containing the seeds. As a rule fruits are red;
in a few species they are orange; still fewer, yellow, blue or black.
The flesh is generally mealy and dry. The nutlets are joined at
their bases, and are variously grooved and ridged.

The stamens are normally five in a circle, set alternate with
the petals. There may be five pairs, similarly placed. Or fifteen
may occur, in two rows, twenty in three, or twenty-five in four
circles. These are the typical arrangements. When not in fives,
some stamens have failed to develop. The number of stamens,
their arrangement and the colour of their anthers, is considered by
Professor Sargent an important due. to relationship. The grooves
and ridges on the nutlets form another constant and significant
character on which his classification -is based.

The generic name, Crataegus, is derived from kratos, the Greek
word for strength, and refers to the hard, tough wood.

he centre of distribution for the hawthorns is undoubtedly
tj(e eastern United States. From Newfoundland to Mexico they"
ound in great variety. A few species are found on the Pacific
oast and in the Rocky Mountains. Europe and Asia have a few.

It is remarkable that trees so conspicuous as these should
til lately be so little known. Linnaeus named four American
species. Professor Sargent described fourteen only in Vol. IV. of
"The Silva of North America." In Vol. XIII., the supplement,
issued in 1900, seventy-three species were added to those described
in Vol. IV., bringing his total up to eighty-seven. In his " Manual"
published in 1905, Professor Sargent describes and gives rank as
species to 128 hawthorns native to the United States. These are
divided into eighteen groups by characters set forth in the key.
I have chosen a typical species to illustrate each group, and added
only such others as have distinction and horticultural promise.
The fact that Professor Sargent knows this genus better than any-
one else has been my reason for borrowing his key almost un-
changed.

The whole story of the hawthorns and their relationships can-
not be told by any man now living. Nor can present knowledge

303

The Hawthorns

and opinion on the subject be considered as final. It takes time
to test the stability of species. Thousands of seeds have been
collected from haws and planted in the nurseries of the Arnold
Arboretum. Probably no such undertaking was ever projected
and carried out. What is it all about? Take an example.

A new kind of hawthorn was found growing wild on a hillside
within the very gates of the Arboretum. It was evidently related
to C. mollis, but was considered sufficiently distinct to deserve
rank as a new species. Professor Sargent called it Crataegus
Arnoldiana. A keen-eyed scientist found the same species growing
wild along the river banks at Medford, Massachusetts. Does it
grow elsewhere? Nobody knows, yet. Seeds from both groups
are growing in the nursery. They have shown their foliage.
They will be set out in due time, and ultimately will produce
» flowers and fruit for comparison with the parent trees. If they
are alike and "true to type," the inference is that the species is
distinct — set off by clear-cut characters from its near relatives.
If, on the other hand, these seedling trees closely resemble C. mol-
lis, rather than their own parents, the variability is evidence against
their deserving a distinct name and a place among species. Their
seeds must be planted, and seedling trees brought to bearing.
What will their testimony be? How will they compare with their
parents and grandparents?

It takes years of careful study to find out these things. Accu-
rate records must be kept ; each tree has its pedigree and biography
written in full in the card catalogue, and a prophecy of its value
in cultivation.

Perhaps there are not so many species as are now described.
One student of the genus thinks that the virgin forests kept
hawthorns suppressed. The clearing of the land gave them a
chance. The multitude of forms now seen, he thinks may be
seminal variations, due to the more favourable auspices under
' which the seedling trees now grow. Until recent years, nobody
was making observations on the subject. Nov/, in many regions,
this scientific study is being carried on — independently or in con-
junction with Professor Sargent. The outcome will be a large
body of knowledge regarding the genus.

The horticulturist is beginning to realise the value of the
hawthorns. The showy flowers and fruits, the vivid colouring
of autumn foliage, and the striking character expressed in winter

304

SCARLET HAW (Crategus coccined)

The Hawthorns

by the rigid branches and their menacing thorns, give most of
these little trees attractiveness at all seasons. Many species
are handsome and effective as hedge plants. Fine individual
trees for lawn planting are furnished by others. Hawthorns
are quick to grow in any soil and situation, and they show the
most remarkable improvement when encouraged by tillage and
a little fertilising. They do well in heavy clay. They are trans-
planted easily when young, from the wild; but having tap roots
are hard to dig, and less sure to survive transplanting when older.
They come readily from seed, though as a rule requiring two years
to germinate.

I. Crus-galli

Cockspur Thorn (Crataegus Crus-galli, Linn.) — A small,
handsome tree, 15 to 25 feet high, with stiff branches in a broad,
round head. Thorns axillary, stout, often curved, brown or
grey, 3 to 4 inches long, often becoming 6 to 8 inches long and
branched when old. Bark grey or brown, scaly, branchlets
smooth, green, becoming brown, then grey. Wood brownish red,
close grained, hard, heavy, takes satiny polish. Buds small,
scaly, brownish red. Leaves thick, leathery, lustrous, dark green
above, paler beneath, 1 to 4 inches long, obovate; acute or rounded
and serrate at apex; entire below middle and tapering to the
stout petiole; veins netted; stipules paired, st~ap shaped, or
obliquely ovate, falling early. Autumn colours orange and
scarlet. Flowers, May to June, after leaves, in racemose corymbs,
loose, many-flowered, with smooth stems, blossoms spreading,
white, § inch across; sepals and petals 5; stamens 10, with rose-
coloured anthers; styles usually 2. Fruit, October, remain till
spring, almost globular, \ inch long, dull red, with dry, tTiin,
mealy flesh; calyx lobes dry and spreading at apex; nutlets 2,
deeply grooved on back. Preferred habitat, rich soil of low hill
slopes. Distribution, Montreal region to southern Michigan;
south to Delaware and Pennsylvania; along Appalachian foot-
hills into North Carolina. Uses: Cultivated as an ornamental
and in hedges in Europe and America. Wood used for tool han-
dles, levers, etc.

Wherever a cockspur thorn is planted, in open lawn with
elbow room, or in a crowded shrubbery border, it keeps its char-
acter, and gives the passerby a distinct impression of something

305

The Hawthorns

new and different. It is like an interjection met in the even
swing of a long sentence.

There are vigour and strength expressed at any age by the
tree's rigid, zigzag branches, armed with long, sharp spurs. The
thorns strike downward, as a rule, on horizontal branches. The
leaves stand up "on tiptoe," as if to keep out of the way. Indeed,
they might be taken for weapons themselves, they are so thin,
and keen edged, and shining. From the ground up, on young
trees, the bark is bright and polished, varying from red to brown
and grey.

The flowers are late, coming out in showy clusters when
the full-grown leaves make a lustrous background.- The fruits
make little show until ripe, for the leaves are rarely touched by
fungous or insect injuries, and in the fall, when the fruit begins to
flush, the foliage takes on the colours of flame. The dull red
clusters glow with a subdued warmth on the branches all winter.
The birds let them alone.

So all year long the cockspur is a beautiful ornamental tree,
and a competent and popular hedge plant. It is the favourite
American thorn in Europe and at home, known for two centuries,
and named by Linnaeus, one of the proud old "first families"
of the genus Crataegus.

Crataegus Mobri, Beadl., is a slender thorn tree, close of kin
to the other cockspurs, as we recognise by its shining leaves,
slender spines and thin-fieshed fruits, with nutlets deeply grooved
on the back. It belongs to the group of cockspur thorns whose
flowers and fruits are borne on pubescent pedicels. There are
twenty stamens, with yellow anthers, set in three rows.

This straight thorn tree has spreading and rather pendulous
limbs, and short, shiny, brown spines. Its range centres in
Alabama, whence it extends into Georgia, Mississippi and
Tennessee. Its favourite situations are moist, level wood-
lands.

It promises to be fur the South what C. Crus-galli is in the
Northeastern States — a handsome, useful ornamental and hedge
tree.

II. Punctata

Dotted Haw {Crataegus punctata, J acq.) — A broad, round-
headed tree, 20 to 30 feet high, with horizontal branches, and

306

5 Seeds from one fruit

i Leaf, under s.de a Leaf upper side g Fruit 4 Fruit cut to show seeds

THE COCKSPUR THORN (Cratagus Crus-galli)

fcopious white Woo- conceals the leaves in early June The thorns are slender and strong, becoming 6 to 8 inches long and

branched on old limbs. The leaves are leathery and polished, narrowly obovate, I to 4 inches long

THE RED HAW (Crataegus mollis)

The large red haws which ripen in early September, are fuzzy around the base of the incurving calyx tips. The fruit stems and

leaf hnings are pubescent. In spring the new growth is thickly coated with white hairs

&$$$&

"'"*r^H.

THE DOTTED HAW {Cr**g»l ?■"•.'«""
upper plcte

THE SCARLET HAW (t><*rj»«5 /»r«/«o5/i)
The lower right-hand picture shows the broad-ba|

bloom upon it

The Hawthorns

rigid twigs. Thorns straight, slim, 2 to 3 inches long, brown or
grey. Bark thin, dark brownish red, in long, plate-like scales,
branches brown to pale grey; twigs pubescent at first, soon
becoming smooth. Wood red-brown, hard, close-textured. Buds
plump, small, scaly, shiny. Leaves obovate, acute or obtuse at
apex, 2 to 3 inches long, narrowed to short petiole; sharply
serrate, sometimes lobed, entire toward base; pubescent at first,
smooth at maturity, except on veins below, leathery, grey-green,
orange and scarlet in autumn. Veins prominent, depressed
above. Flowers, May, when leaves are half grown, in thick,
flat, many-flowered corymbs on pale tomentose stems; calyx
hairy, corollas spreading, white, \ to J inch across, stamens 20,
with rose-coloured or yellow anthers, styles 2 to 5, hairy at base.
Fruit falls in October, short-oblong to sub-globose, J to 1 inch
long, yellow or red; marked by white dots; flesh thin, dry; calyx
lobes flattened; nutlets 5, ridged on back. Preferred habitat, rich,
moist upland soil. Farm thickets. Distribution, Quebec to Detroit;
western New England, along mountains to northern Georgia,
Tennessee and North Carolina; west to Ohio and Illinois. Uses:
Valuable ornamental hawthorn.

The large, pale dots on the fruit of this haw give it its name,
-punctata. Very strangely, some trees produce yellow fruit,
and have flowers with yellow anthers; while red is the rule in
both anthers and fruit.

The dotted haw is a handsome, long-thorned tree, with
obovate, strongly veined leaves, whose colour in autumn is like
fire. The fruit is brilliant, too, hanging in full clusters long after
the leaves drop.

Crataegus collina, Chapm., which resembles C. punctata and
C. Crus-galli in habit, has yellow-green foliage, and the dull red
fruits are flattened globes, containing five grooved and ridged
nutlets. Sometimes the branches are set with formidable,
branched thorns, 6 inches long. It is quite common for the trunk
to be corrugated and buttressed at the base.

This tree grows along the foothills from West Virginia to
central Georgia, and west half way across Tennessee and Alabama.
It reaches an altitude of 2,500 feet. It is an early species, bloom-
ing in April when the leaves are scarcely opening, and ripening its
fruit in September. The flesh is yellow and thin, mealy and
insipid.

307

The Hawthorns

III. /^STI VALES

May, or Apple Haw (C. aestivalis, T. & G.) — A round-
headed, compact tree, with stout trunk, 20 to 30 feet high. Thorns
1 to 1 i inches long, stout, sharp; often absent. Bark thin, fissured
and broken into plate-like scales, dark reddish brown. Twigs
rufous pubescent, soon becoming smooth and grey or brown.
Wood heavy, Close grained, light brown, weak. Buds plump,
small, scaly, brown. Leaves elliptical, irregularly wavy-toothed
and serrate above the middle, entire and tapering to pubescent
petiole; ij to 2 inches long, dark green, leathery shining above,
with rusty hairs on veins beneath. Flowers with the leaves in
February or early March, 2 to 5 in simple corymbs, corolla 1 inch
across, white; calyx tips ruddy; stamens 20 to 25, anthers large
dark rose. Fruit, May, 1 to 3 in cluster, flattened globes, fragrant,
pleasantly sub-acid, juicy, thick fleshed, calyx lobes large, curved
back; nutlets 3 to 5, with deep grooves and ridges on back. Pre-
ferred habitat, moist, sandy soil. Distribution, Florida to Texas
and Arkansas. Uses: Handsome tree for ornamental planting.
Fruit sold in Louisiana markets, and made into preserves and
jellies.

IV. Vi RIDES

Haw (C viridis, Linn.) — A round-headed tree, 20 to 35 feet,
with tall, often fluted trunk, and spreading branches. Thorns
slim, pale, under 1 inch long; usually wanting. Bark brown,
ashy grey or orange, checked into plate-like scales. Leave:
ovate or obovate, acute at apex and base, serrate and lobed above
middle, usually ^entire below; dark green] lustrous above, rtpale
and dull beneath] scarlet in autumn; veins strong; petioles slender.
Flowers, March to May, with leaves, in smooth corymbs, white,
f inch across, stamens 20, anthers yellow, styles 5. Fruit bright
scarlet in pendant clusters, flattened globose, pea-size, thin,
dry flesh; nutlets 5, scarcely ridged. Preferred habitat, low
ground along streams. Distribution, Savannah River to western
Florida, through Gulf States to eastern Texas; north to St. Louis;
forms thickets in Louisiana. Uses: Valuable ornamental tree,
for the brilliance of its autumn foliage and winter fruits.

The trunk of this species attracts attention, sometimes by its
form, always by its colour. ^ Its vivid fruit hangs throughout the

308

THE SCARLET HAW (Cratxgus Arnoldiana)

This tree is vigorous in habit; its new growth is downy.
Even the ripe fruits are velvety. The flowers come out
in May after the broad, ovate leaves are spread

THE PARSLEY HAW (Cratagus apiijolia)

The deeply cut leaves distinguish this tree

The Hawthorns

winter, making up in quantity what it lacks in size. Rare in the
East and North, yet it is hardy in the Arnold Arboretum.

V. Pruinos/E

Scarlet Haw (C. pruinosa, K. Koch.) — Small tree, 15 to
20 feet high, spreading irregular head of horizontal limbs. Thorns
numerous, stout, straight, 1 to i^ inches long. Bark grey, thin,
in loose scales. Wood hard, heavy, close grained. Buds small,
blunt, scaly. Leaves ovate or elliptical, acute, lobed and serrate,
except on entire base; dark blue-green, smooth, leathery, paler
beneath; 1 to \\ inches long, on slender petioles; autumn colour
orange. Flowers, May, white, 1 inch broad, in few-flowered
corymbs, stems long smooth ; stamens 20, with long, rose-coloured
anthers; styles 5, tufted. Fruit sub-globose, h to f inch in
diameter, with erect calyx, green with hoary bloom until ripe,
then purplish red and lustrous with pale dots. Nutlets 5, deeply
ridged, enclosed in dry, thick flesh. Preferred habitat, limestone
soil of slopes. Distribution, Vermont to southern slopes of Appa-
lachian Mountains; west to Illinois and Missouri. Uses: Valuable
ornamental tree over wide territory.

There is a pale bloom on the green fruit of this tree, which
wears off at length, and the skin becomes shiny and dark, purplish
red. The leaves, too, have a bluish green cast through the
summer, but turn to orange at last. This is one of the handsome
native thorn trees, a long time confused with C. coccinea.

VI. TENUIFOLIyE

Haw (C. apiomorpha, Sarg.) — A pyramidal tree, 10 to 25
feet high, with short trunk. Thorns short, straight, slender,
grey, 1 to i| inches long. Bark dark grey, cracking into plates
which show yellow under /ayer. Leaves oblong-ovate, pointed at
apex, serrate almost to petiole, irregularly lobed above middle,
thick, leathery, lustrous, blue-green, paler beneath, membrana-
ceous and hairy when opening, i£ to 2\ inches long, petioles
slender. Flowers, May, in many-fiowered corymbs, with hairy
stems, small, white, stamens 5, anthers pink, styles 3 to 5, tufted.
Fruits, September, in drooping clusters of 3 to 5 ; pea size, obovate,
bright, red-purple; calyx large, spreading, deciduous, flesh thin,

309

The Hawthorns

acid, succulent; nutlets 3 to 5, with one low ridge on back. Pre-
ferred habitat, dry borders of woodlands. Distribution near
Chicago.

VII. MOLLES

Red Haw (C mollis, Scheele.) — A tree 25 to 40 feet high,
tall trunk; round head, branchlets stout. Thorns stout, brown.
1 to 2 inches long, shining. Dark grey to brown, thin, in plate-
like scales; branches ashy grey; twigs coated with pale hairs.
Wood hard, heavy, brown. Buds small, blunt. Leaves thick,
firm, rough above, dark yellow-green, 3 to 4 inches long, broadly
ovate, acute, serrate, with 4 to 5 pairs of pointed lobes above
middle; base entire; lining, pale, pubescent; petioles slender,
hairv, stipules leaf-like, toothed on vigorous shoots. Flowers,
May, 1 inch across, in hairy, many-flowered corymbs, with
prominent bracts; disc, red, calyx hoary, red-tipped, stamens 20,
with pale yellow anthers, styles 4 to 5. Fruits, August and Sep-
tember, few in a cluster, drooping, scarlet, downy, globular, or
nearly so, J to 1 inch in diameter, marked with dark dots; calyx
lobes large, erect, falling as fruit ripens, nutlets 4 to 5, faintly
ridged, in thick, mealy yellow flesh. Preferred habitat, rich
bottom lands. Distribution, Ohio to Dakota, Nebraska and
Kansas.

This red haw is the type of a large group containing a dozen
related species. Ample in size, fine in form and colouring, there
is but one fault the landscape gardener can find. The red fruits
fall early in the autumn.

Scarlet Haw (C. Arnoldiana, Sarg.) — A broad, open-
headed tree, 15 to 20 feet high, with ascending branches and
slender, zigzag, orange-brown branchlets, downy at first. Thorns
stout, shining, brown, 2 to 3 inches long. Bark dark grey, with
thick scales on trunk; branches pale grey, smooth. Leaves
broadly ovate, with shallow lobes, sharply serrate almost to
petiole; covered at first with matted white hairs, at maturity
lustrous, dark green above, paler beneath and smooth except on
slender veins, 2 to 3 inches long and the same broad; petioles f
to 1 J inches long. Flowers, May, in broad, compound corymbs;
stems velvety; corolla } inch across; stamens 10, anthers pale
yellow, large; styles 3 to 4, densely tufted. Fruit, August,
September, soon falling, few in a cluster, erect, nearly globular

310

The Hawthorns

bright crimson, J inch long, velvety, with large, pale dots; flesh
thick, juicy, pleasantly acid; nutlets 3 to 4, ridged. Preferred
habitat, dry banks. Distribution, Arnold Arboretum in Boston,
and Medford, Massachusetts.

The discovery of 'this handsome hawthorn, not long ago,
growing wild within the gates of the Arnold Arboretum, was
an event of considerable importance to horticulture; for this
tree, laden with its large crimson fruit in August, is a wondrous
sight. Added to their beauty, these fruits are juicy, and have
a pleasant piquant flavour, for which they deserve especial
mention.

In winter, the tree may be known by the remarkable zigzag
of its ascending branches. In habit and foliage it is thrifty and
handsome. The fruit ripens and begins .to fall in August, but a
goodly quantity remains to brighten the fading leaves well on
into October.

The tree has been found growing wild near Medford, Massa-
chusetts, and is now often seen in cultivation about Boston.

Red Haw (C. submollis, Sarg.) — Tree 20 to 25 feet high, with
round, handsome head, branchlets slender. Thorns slender,
curved, brown, shining, 2 to 3 inches long. Bark pale greyish
brown, scaly; twigs, tomentose, branches orange brown. Leaves
ovate, acute, with doubly serrate, pointed lobes above middle;
base cuneate, serrate, becoming entire near slender, downy
petiole; 2 J to 3^- inches long, almost as wide, pubescent at first,
becoming smooth, except on veins beneath, and rough above.
Flowers, May, in compound, pubescent corymbs, white, 1 inch
across, with 10 stamens, anthers pale yellow, styles 3 to 5, tufted
at base. Fruits ripe and falling in early September; in slender,
copious clusters, lustrous orange red, pear shaped, with pale dots,
f inch long, with prominent, erect calyx lobes; pedicels slender,
velvety; nutlets 5, slightly ridged, in thin, mealy flesh. Preferred
habitat, rich soil of woodland borders. Distribution, Quebec to
Penobscot Valley in Maine; to eastern Massachusetts; also near
Albany, New York.

This Eastern species was long considered identical with the
preceding one. It is now distinguished by well-defined characters.
It is not so densely downy as C. mollis. The leaves are smaller,
more deeply lobed, and usually wedge shaped at base. The
fruits are smaller and pear shaped. The branchlets are orange

The Hawtnorns

brown. The flowers have ten stamens; C. mollis has twenty.
C submollis is one of the showiest and best species for ornamental
purposes.

Scarlet Haw (C Ellwanger iana, Sarg.) — A handsome
tree, 10 to 20 feet high, with ascending branches, forming a round
head. Thorns ij to 2 inches long, stout; tree often unarmed.
Bark light grey, scaly; twigs green, with pale hairs. Leaves
oval, acute, sharply serrate almost to base, with 4 to 5 acute
lobes, rough above, paler beneath, light green, thin, 2J to 3^
inches long; petioles pubescent, slender; veins strong. Flowers,
May, in velvety-stemmed corymbs; calyx, hairy, with stalked
glands; corollas 1 inch across, white; stamens 8 to 10; anthers
small, rose coloured. Fruits ripe and falling in September, on
smooth stems, oblong, bright crimson, shining, 1 inch long, f
inch wide, flesh thin, sour, juicy; nutlets 3 to 5, ridged. Prejerred
habitat, rich woodland soil. Distribution, about Rochester, New
York. Uses: A handsome ornamental tree.

The preceding species is worthily named in honour of the
founder of the Arboretum. Another distinguished patron of
horticulture arid forestry, George Ellwanger, is remembered in
the name of this species. A single tree which stands in the
Mount Hope Nurseries of Ellwanger & Barry, at Rochester, New
York, has been for years the wonder and admiration of visitors
and the pride of its owners. In the woods about Rochester this
species is quite common. It is counted by Professor Sargent
"one of the largest and most beautiful hawthorns in the Northern
States."

VIII. Flabellatte

Red Haw (C. Holmesiana, Ashe.) — Tall tree, 20 to 30 feet
high, with stout ascending branches; head irregular and open, or
compact. Thorns thick, ij to 2 inches long, scattered far apart.
Bark grey or nearly white, scaly. Leaves oval or ovate, acute or
acuminate, sharply lobed and doubly serrate; thick and firm,
nearly smooth, distinctly yellow-green at maturity, 1 \ to 2 inches
long, with strong midribs and long petioles. Flowers, May,
cup shaped, i to J inch across, in loose corymbs; stamens 5 to 8,
anthers large, deep reddish purple. Fruits September, falling
soon, crimson, oblong, \ to f inch long, with reddish, incurved
calyx lobes; nutlets 3, distinctly ridged, flesh mealy, acid, dis-

312

THE SCARLET HAW (Crataegus coccinea)

This is one of the old, well-known, ornamental
thorns which flowers copiously in early Mav and
ripens its large red fruits in late August,
tunately, they soon fall

Unfor-

THE RED HAW (Cratagus mollis)

This handsome thorn tree is hoary in spring with white, matted hairs
upon its new shoots. One flower cluster is shown below. Each flower
has 20 pale yellow stamens

The Hawthorns

agreeable. Preferred habitat, rich, moist hillsides. Distribution,
Montreal to southern Ontario; coast of Maine, central and western
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, western New York, eastern Pennsyl-
vania. Largest in Worcester County, Massachusetts. Uses:
Handsome tree for ornamental planting.

This is the largest hawthorn in eastern New England. Its
scaly bark is often almost white. Its leaves are more distinctly
yellow than green — greenish yellow, to speak accurately. The
lustrous crimson fruit makes a gorgeous autumn contrast with
bark and foliage.

Scattered over pasture land, these lusty young trees are
cropped by cattle, which manage to avoid the infrequent thorns,
By degrees, the girth of the tree widens, in spite of the pruning
thus administered. The terminal shoot finally rises above the
reach of any yearning tongue. It branches, and lifts above the
dome-like basal part a flourishing top that grows loose and free
in striking contrast to the compact close-clipped base. Many of
these pasture trees have this hour-glass form.

IX. Dilatatte

Red Haw (C. coccinioides, Ashe.) — A tree 10 to 25 feet
high, with broad dome of stout, spreading branches. Thorns
1 J to 2 inches long, straight, stout, purplish red. Bark dark
brown, scaly; branches light grey. Leaves broadly ov?ite, acute,
sharply serrate, with deep pointed lateral lobes, 2 to 3 inches long,
lustrous yellow-green, at first; becoming dull, dark green later;
thin, turning to orange and bright red in fall; petioles bright red,
f to 1 inch long. Flowers, May, in compact corymbs, with prom-
inent, serrate bracts, with red glands; corolla \\ inches across;
stamens 20, anthers large, rose colour; styles 5. Fruits, October,
falling gradually; clusters erect; haws globose, flattened at ends,
lustrous, dark red, with pale dots; calyx conspicuous, red at base;
fiesh thick, reddish, pleasantly acid; nutlets 5, small, slightly
ridged on back. Preferred habitat, dry woods. Distribution,
St. Louis, Missouri, to eastern Kansas. Uses: Desirable orna-
mental thorn tree.

The very large leaves of this tree obscure the compact fruit
clusters, and its ornamental character is not so obvious until the
leaves turn. I recall one tree, a fine, lusty specimen, loaded with

3*3

The Hawthorns

fruit in late September. There was a cockspur on one side, an
Arnoldiana on the other. Both were bidding high for attention,
one with its crimson fruits, the other with its splendid foliage and
flashing thorns. A flush of rose pink covered the middle tree,
the fruits turning to red. There was more delicacy of colouring
and moderation here, which made the two trees alongside seem
rather common and gaudy by contrast. Sometimes soft colours
appeal strongly as a relief from more vivid ones. Out of this
period the tree passes to its flaming October garb, in the midst
of which the shining fruits are a dark crimson, and even the twigs
and spines burn red or purple.

X. Cocci ne^

Scarlet Haw (C. coccinea, Linn.) — A shrubby round tree,
i o to 20 feet high, with short trunk, and stout, ascending branches.
Thorns stout, shining, 1 to \\ inches long, brown. Bark dark
red-brown, scaly; branches grey. Leaves elliptical or obovate,
acute at both ends, serrate and acutely lobed on sides; 2\ to 3
inches long; veins prominent; petioles 1 inch long, tinged with red.
Flowers, May or June, in broad corymbs with downy stems;
corollas J to J inch across; stamens 10, anthers small, yellow.
Fruit, October, falling soon; sub-globose to oblong, \ inch in
diameter, deep crimson, with dark dots; calyx red, spreading;
flesh sweet, dry, thin; nutlets 3 to 4, distinctly ridged on back.
Preferred Habitat, w£ll-drained soil, along low hills and banks of
salt marshes. Distribution, Newfoundland to Connecticut, along
the shore, and along St. Lawrence to western Quebec. Var.
roiundifolia, a shrub, New England into Pennsylvania.

.This scarlet thorn, the one that Linnaeus named, has very
uncertain botanical and geographical limits. Those forms found
west of Quebec are now excluded, and many that were counted
mere varietal forms are now promoted to specific rank. These
changes in classification are the result of recent studies of the
genus in various regions. The true coccinea is one of the old
well-known ornamental thorns, a favourite in the Northeastern
States.

XL Intricate

Haw (C Boyntoni, Beadl.) — Narrow or round-headed tree,
15 to 20 feet high, with tall, straight trunk, often a many-stemmed

3'4

THE SCARLET HAW {Crataegus coccinea)

This is one of the old, well-known, ornamental
thorns which flowers copiously in early Mav and
ripens its large red fruits in late August. Unfor-
tunately, they soon fall

THE RED HAW {Grata gus mollis)

This handsome thorn tree is hoary in spring with white, matted hairs
upon its new shoots. One flower cluster is shown below. Each flower
has 20 pale yellow stamens

The Hawthorns

shrub. Thorns numerous, slender, straight, i^ to 2 inches long,
sometimes branched when old. Bark grey, often brownish,
scaly. Leaves broadly ovate, acute, irregularly lobed, finely
serrate, thin, firm, yellow-green at maturity; smooth, 1 to 2\
inches long; petioles stout, short, with red glands. Flowers, May,
in 4 to 10-flowered corymbs, smooth, corrollas } inch across,
stamens 10, anthers pale yellow; styles 3 to 5, tufted. Fruit
ripe and falling in October, in erect clusters of 2 to 4; each a
flattened globe, rusty reddish green, with dark dots, i inch in
diameter; calyx spreading, falling off before fruit ripens; flesh
thin; nutlets 3 to 5, distinctly ridged. Preferred habitat, stream
borders and uplands. Distribution, Appalachian foothills, to
3,000 feet elevation; southern Virginia and southeastern Kentucky
to northern Geoigia and Alabama.

XII. PuLCHERRIM/E

Haw (C opima, Beadl.) — Small tree 20 to 25 feet high, with
open, oval head, above a slender, spiny trunk. Thorns slender,
straight, shining, 1 to ij inches long. Bark nearly black at base;
ashy grey on limbs. Leaves ovate, acute, sharply saw-toothed,
lobed above middle, thin, firm, pale beneath. Flowers, few in
clusters § inch across, stamens 20, anthers purple. Fruit in
October, persistent, small, few, bright red, mealy. Preferred
habitat, clay soil in woods. Distribution, about Greenville,
Alabama.

XIII. Bracteat^e

Haw (C. Ashei, Beadl.) — Tree 15 to 20 feet high, with pyra-
midal head. Thorns slender, 1 to 1^ inches long. Bark scaly,
grey or brown. Leaves broadly ovate to obovate, about 2 inches
long, finely serrate, blunt at apex, tapering to base. Flowers in
May, 3 to 10 in cluster on hairy stems, J inch across, stamens 20,
anthers yellow. Fruit, October, bright red, 1 inch long, dotted,
thick fleshed. Preferred habitat, clay soil of fallow land. Distribu-
tion, near Montgomery, Alabama.

XIV. FlavjE

Haw (C. aprica, Beadl.) — Tree 15 to 20 feet high, or many-
stemmed shrub. Thorns straight, slender, chestnut brown,

3*5

The Hawthorns

i to i J inches long. Bark dark grey, deeply furrowed, with
plate-like scales; branchlets brown to ashy grey. Leaves obovate
or rhomboidal, acute or rounded, serrate, often faintly lobed at
apex, entire at tapering base; thick, shiny, dark yellow-green at
maturity, paler beneath, ij to 2 inches long and wide; petioles
short, winged. Flowers, May, 3 to 6 in corymbs, velvety stems,
corollas } inch across, stamens 10, anthers yellow. Fruit late to
ripen, 2 to 3 in cluster, J inch in diameter, slightly flattened, dull
orange red; calyx spreading, red tinged at base; flesh juicy,
yellow, sweet; nutlets 3 to 5, ridged. Preferred habitat, dry
woods of foothills. Distribution, southwestern Virginia, through
western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, northern Georgia and
Alabama. Common at 1,500 to 3,000 feet above sea level.

Its contorted branches and dark, furrowed bark give this
tree a picturesque appearance that matches well the wild, broken
foothills it covers in thickets of considerable extent. Inured to
high altitudes and exposed situations, yet it grows thriftily in the
Arboretum at Boston. It is a striking tree in late autumn, when
its leaves turn to purple, and the twigs are illuminated by the
thickly clustered, orange-red fruit.

XV. MlCROCARPyE

Parsley Haw (C apiifolia, Michx.) — Tree 15 to 20 feet,
with horizontal, zigzag, twisted branches, forming irregular, wide,
open head. Thorns stout, straight, brown, 1 to ij inches long.
Wood hard, heavy, reddish brown, with satiny lustre. Leaves
broadly ovate to round, with $ to 7 lobes, separated by deep
sinuses, and sharply toothed margins to the broad, entire base;
bright green, smooth above, i£ to 2 inches long; petioles slender,
long. Flowers, March to April, J inch long, in hairy, dense
corymbs; stamens 20, anthers bright rose colour, styles 1 to 3.
Fruits, October, persistent for several weeks, oblong, £ to J inch
long, scarlet; nutlets 1 to 3, grooved. Preferred habitat, stream
borders, hummocks in pine barrens and swamp margins. Dis-
tribution, coast region from Virginia to Florida; westward to
Arkansas and Texas. Uses: One of the finest and most abundant
hawthorns in the valley of the Mississippi. Its graceful, parsley-
like leaves at once distinguish it from other species. The flowers
and fruit are small, but abundant and very handsome.

316

The Hawthorns

Washington Thorn (C cordata, Ait.) — Vigorous tree,
compact, 25 to 40 feet high. Thorns numerous, slender, 1 to 2
inches long. Leaves triangular, 1 to 3 inches long, with 3 to 7
acute lobes, serrate, cordate at base, thin, shining, vivid red in
autumn; petioles slender, long. Flowers, May, many in corymb,
J inch across, styles 5, stamens 20, anthers. Fruits, September,
small, flat, scarlet, shining, hanging late into winter. Preferred
habitat, moist woods. Distribution, Virginia to Alabama, to
Illinois. Uses: A desirable ornamental and hedge thorn.

This species comes nearer than any of its relatives to the
typical heart-shaped leaf, hence its Latin name. As the upper
course of the Potomac River is the northernmost limit of its
natural range, we rrfay guess that it takes its common name
from the capital city.

Very early, the Virginians sent the seed of this thorn to
•friends at home, so that it has long adorned European gardens.
In the colonies, it was extensively planted for hedges. It proved
hardy in all the Middle States, and is now naturalised by escape
from old hedges in Uew York, Pennsylvania and Delaware.
The compact habit of the tree, and the great multitude of its
slender spines make it useful as a hedge plant. Besides, it is
thrifty and grows rapidly. The flowers and berries make up in
numbers for their small size. When the bright green foliage
turns to vivid reds in the fall, the tree has already been conspicuous
for some weeks by its coral red berries, which persist often till
spring.

XVI. BRACHY ACANTHI

Hog's Haw, Pomette Bleue (C. brachyacantha, Sarg. &
Engelm.) — Tree 40 to 50 feet high, trunk 18 to 20 inches in
diameter, with handsome, compact head, of stout grey branches.
Thorns numerous, short, stout, curved, § to § inch long. Bark
dark brown, deeply furrowed, scaly. Leaves lanceolate to rhom-
boidal, acute, serrate, sometimes distinctly lobed above middle,
dark green, lustrous, firm, 1 to 2 inches long, on short petioles;
stipules triangular, often 1 inch long. Flowers, May, J inch across,
in compound corymbs; petals orange colour as they fade; stamens
15 to 20. Fruits, August, falling soon, flattened globes, § to $
inch in diameter, bright blue, with pale bloom; flesh thin; nutlets
3 to 5, faintly grooved on back. Preferred habitat, rich, moist

3'7

The Hawthorns

soil of stream borders. Distribution, southern Arkansas to
western Louisiana, and to the Sabine River valley in Texas.
Uses: Handsome ornamental in south temperate regions; not
hardy in Massachusetts.

This is the only blue-fruited haw in the world. This unique
character alone must commend it to planters. The stout, curving
thorns, the lustrous foliage, the abundant flowers, and the large
blue fruit — all make this one of the best ornamental species. On
the wet prairies of western Louisiana, this tree forms dense
thickets which are quite the dominating feature of the woods.

XVII. Tomentose

Pear Haw (C. tomentosa, Linn.) — A tree 15 to 20
feet high, forming a flat, wide head. Thorns scattered, slim,
straight, 1 to i-£- inches long; or wanting. Bark dark brown,
furrowed; branches grey, twigs hoary tomentose, becoming dark
orange colour. Leaves ovate, acute at apex and base, 2 to 5
inches long, shallowly lobed and coarsely serrate, thin, firm,
grey-green, persistently tomentose below; petioles stout, winged;
veins prominent; autumn colour orange and scarlet. Flowers,
March to June, \ inch across, in broad, downy corymbs, ill-scented;
stamens 20, anthers rose or yellow. Fruits, October, in erect,
many-fruited clusters, persisting all winter, dull orange red,
translucent, pear shaped, \ inch in diameter; flesh thick, sweet,
juicy; nutlets 2 to 3, ridged on back; grooved on ventral face.
Preferred habitat, low, rich soil. Distribution, Troy, New York,
to eastern Pennsylvania, central Tennessee and northern Georgia;
west to southern Minnesota and south to southeastern Kansas.
Uses: Valuable ornamental for its brilliant autumnal colours
and persistent fruits.

This is one of the most widely distributed of our native
haws. It is cultivated to some extent, but not as it deserves.
With the development of horticulture, it will get recognition
from nurserymen and from the tree-planting fraternity in general.

Long-spine Haw (C macracaniha, Koehne.) — Tree 10 to 15
feet high, or spreading shrub. Thorns numerous, curved, slender,
i\ to 4 inches long, shining. Bark pale, close textured; branchlets
reddish, lustrous.. Leaves oval or obovate, 2 to 3 inches long,
1 to 2 inches wide, acute at both ends, shallowly lobed, and

318

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The Hawthorns

sharply serrate; dark green, often red when opening, leathery,
lustrous in late summer; petioles short, red, stout. Flowers,
May, f inch across, in compound, velvety corymbs; stamens 10,
anthers yellow. Fruits, September, falling before winter, in erect
clusters, globular, pea size, hairy at tips, till ripe, then lustrous,
crimson; flesh dry; nutlets 2 to 3, ridged on back, with irregular
depressions on face. Preferred habitat, rich, uplands; limestone
soil. Distribution, from Montreal region through New England
south to eastern Pennsylvania; westward to northern Illinois
and southern Wisconsin. Uses: For ornamental planting.

Its many very long thorns make this a strikingly ornamental
tree. The leaves are handsome, and the fruits though small are
blood red and conspicuous.

XVIII. DoUGLASIANyE

Black Haw (C. Douglasii, Lindl.) — Round-headed tree,
30 to 40 feet high, or many-stemmed shrub, with slender, stiff
twigs. Thorns stout, acute, f to 1 inch long, red, becoming
grey. Bark red-brown in oblong, scaly plates. Wood hard, tough,
heavy, rose coloured, with satiny grain. Buds blunt, J inch long,
scaly, shining, brown. Leaves obovate to oblong-ovate, acute,
finely serrate, on irregular incised lobes; occasionally with two
deep sinuses nearly cutting the blade in two; base tapering to
short, stout petiole; smooth, dark green, leathery, paler beneath;
1 to 4 inches long. Flowers, May, J to \ inch across, in leafy
cymes; stamens 20, anthers pale, small; styles 2 to 5, short.
Fruits black, ripe in August to September, soon falling, globose
or oblong, in many-fruited clusters, lustrous, J inch long; flesh
thin, sweet; nutlets slightly grooved on back and front. Pre-
ferred habitat, moist soil of coast and stream borders. Distribution,
coast of Puget Sound, Oregon, and California; east on mountains
to Montana and Idaho, and south to Colorado and New Mexico.
Occurs also in the upper peninsula of Michigan.

This black-fruited thorn tree of the West has been successfully
introduced into cultivation in the Eastern States, and proves
hardy along the Atlantic seaboard to Nova Scotia. It is well
worth cultivating wherever it will grow.

The English Hawthorn (C Oxyacaniha, Linn.) is the best
known Crataegus in the world. V: grows wild in Asia and Europe*

3*9

The Hawthorns

and when it first came into cultivation no man knows. English-
men will tell you it has. always formed the hedgerows of their
snug little island, and the sweetness of the blossoms will be one of
the last things to fade from the exile's memory. Snowy white,
and pink and rose coloured, the "blossoming May" turns the
whole countryside into a garden, with linnets and skylarks filling
the fields and lanes with music. "Oh! to be in England, now
that April's there!" Browning's poetry is sometimes obscure,
but here is a line that needs no explanatory note for any of his
countrymen.

The leaf of the English hawthorn is deeply cut, like our
parsley haw, in the type species. But this species we shall
rarely see. It has been so long in cultivation that the improved
horticultural varieties are legion. These are much in evidence
in American gardens, where they are usually grown as single
specimens, for their showy flowers and coral-red fruits.

320

ift

CHAPTER XXXIX: THE PLUMS AND THb

CHERRIES

Family Rosacea

Genus PRUNUS, B. & H.

Trees with bitter, astringent sap, containing hydrocyanic
acid. Leaves simple, alternate, generally serrate. Flowers in
clusters, perfect, white, with parts distinct. Fruit a fleshy,
i -seeded drupe, with smooth skin and stone.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Flowers axillary, in sessile umbels; fruit with oval,
flattened stone. Plums

B. Fruit red or yellow, without bloom.

C. Leaves broadly elliptical, taper pointed, dull
green, thick; twigs thorny.
D. Petioles bearing 2 glands near base of leaf;
pit much compressed. (P. nigra) Canada plum
DD. Petioles without glands, pit thick.

(P. Americana) wild red plum
CC. Leaves broadly oval, finely serrate, leathery;

pit grooved at back. (P. subcordata) pacific plum
CCC. Leaves lanceolate, thin, shining; petioles glandu-
lar; pit thick.
D. Twigs stout, stiff, usually thornless; leaves
broad; fruit thick skinned.

(P. hortulana) wild-goose plum
DD. Twigs slender, supple, thorny; leaves narrow;
fruit thin skinned.

(P. angustifolia) chickasaw plum
BB. Fruit blue or black, with pale bloom, small.
C. Petioles not glandular at apex.

D. Leaves lanceolate to ovate, long pointed.

(P. Alleghaniensis) alleghany sloe
DD. Leaves oblong or obovate, blunt pointed.

(P. umbellata) black sloe
AA. Flowers axillary, in umbels; fruit small, red, shining,

globular. Bird Cherries

321

The Plums and the Cherries

B. Leaves lanceolate, taper pointed; fruit sour.

(P. Pennsylvania) wild red cherry
BB. Leaves obovate, blunt pointed; fruit bitter.

(P. emarginata) bitter cherry
AAA. Flowers in terminal racemes; fruit globose.

Wild Cherries
B. Trees small, blooming early; leaves broad, abruptly
pointed.
C. Fruit red, puckery; sap rank smelling.

(P. Virginiand) choke cherry
CC. Fruit purple, mild, edible.

(P. demissa) western choke cherry
BB. Trees large, blooming late, leaves oval to lanceolate,
taper pointed ; fruit black, sweetish.

(P. seroiina) wild black cherry
AAAA. Flowers in lateral racemes; leaves persistent; fruit

globular. Cherry Laurels

B. Fruit thin fleshed, dry^

C. Flowers in autumn; fruit brown.

(P. sphcerocarpa) west-indian cherry
CC. Flowers in spring; fruit black; leaves with entire

margins. (P. Caroliniana) cherry laurel

BB. Fruit thick fleshed, juicy; leaves ovate, entire, or
obscurely spiny serrate.

(P. integrijolia) entire-leaf cherry

The genus Prunus includes trees with stone fruits, and has
its representatives well distributed over the Northern Hemisphere.
In its wild forms it is not as well known, perhaps, as in those
varieties that horticulture has brought to high perfection and
importance as fruit trees. There are over one hundred species,
including many shrubby ones. Of this number about thirty
occur in North America, only half of which assume tree form.
All of these but the wild black cherry are small trees. Neverthe-
less the wood of most of them is valuable, being close grained and
durable. Their fruits furnish food and medicinal substances.
Beside the cherries and plums of others countries, the peach,
apricot and almond belong to this genus. Important flowering
varieties of each are to be added to this list of valuable introduced
stone fruits.

THE PLUMS

Wild Red, or Yellow Plum {Prunus Americana, Marsh.) —
A graceful little tree, 15 to 20 feet high, with thorny limbs. Bark

322

A \i

•****!*«*,

THE CANADA PLUM {Prunus nigra)

Note the spurs and the broad, abruptly pouited leaves. The sour, hard-fleshed orange fruits have flattened pits. They

ripe in August

THE CANADA PLUM (Pruau* nigra)

The white, fragran^ flowers open in early spring and turn pink in fading The stiff zigzag branches bes.t with spiny «d

interlace, forming impenetrable thickets

The Plums and the Cherries

thick, grey. Leaves oval, taper pointed, sharply toothed. Flowers
in April, before the leaves, in lateral umbels. Fruit globose, red
or yellow, with pleasant taste, but covered with leathery, acid
and puckery skin. Pit, with two sharp edges. Preferred habitat,
moist woods and river banks. Distribution, New York to Texas
and Colorado. Uses: Good stocks on which to graft less hardy
varieties. Deserves planting as an ornamental, and cultivation
to improve its fruit.

In the woods that bordered the prairie watercourses were
occasional open spaces, often swampy in times of high water.
Here the wild plum took possession and spread into dense thickets.
The timber land about was owned by farmers who lived on the
prairies, but the plums belonged by common consent to the com-
munity at large, just as did the nut trees and the wild grapes.

In April these plum thickets were white with bloom. Bees
hung over the nectar-laden blossoms, as if intoxicated. Indeed,
the fragrance was so sweet it was overpowering; and in hot
weather the nectar often fermented and turned sour before
the petals fell. It was good luck if a brisk wind were blowing
when plum blossoms opened, for experience had taught that

" You need a breeze
To help the bees
To set a crop of plums."

After the bloom, thoughts of plums were banished until the days
grew shorter and the autumn haze settled on the woods. Then
came a sharp frost one night, and everybody knew what the
signal meant.

" Do you calculate to go a-plummin' this fall? " The question
was quietly put in father's judicial tones, but it sent an electric
thrill from head to toes of every youngster. Mother's reply
sent an answering current, and the enthusiasm of the moment
burst all bounds. "Well, you'd better go this afternoon. I can
spare the team and wagon, and I guess John is big enough to
drive. There's no use in goin' at all if you can't go right off."

So mother and the children rode out of the yard, she sitting
with her young driver on the spring seat, the rest on boards laid
across the wagon box behind. What a jouncing they got when
the wheels struck a stone in a rut! But who cared for a trifle
like that? John's reckless driving but brought nearer the goal
of their heart's, desire,

323

The Plums and the Cherries

A lurid colour lightened the plum thicket as it came in sight.
The yellow leaves were falling and the fruit glowed on the bending
twigs. Close up the wagon is drawn; then all hands pile out,
and the fun really begins. "How large and sweet they are this
year!" Mother knows how to avoid the puckery thick skin in
eating plums. The youngsters try to chew two or three at once
and their faces are drawn into knots. But they soon get used
to that.

Now the small folk with pails are sent to pick up ripe plums
under the trees, and warned against eating too many. "Remem-
ber last year," says mother — and they remember. The larger
boys spread strips of burlap and rag carpet under the fullest
trees, in turn, and give their branches a good beating that showers
the plums down. With difficulty the boys and girls make their
way into the thicket; but torn jackets and aprons and scratched
knuckles can be mended — such accidents are overlooked in the
excitement of filling the grain sacks with the ripe fruit. How
fine "plum butter" will taste on the bread and butter of the
noon lunch when winter comes and school begins ! (The Pennsyl-
vania's love for "spreads" on his bread leavened the West
completely.)

Other neighbours have come, and started in with a vim.
It seems unreasonable to take any more. The bags are full,
and there are some poured loose into the wagon box. Besides,
everybody is tired, and John shouts that the hazel nuts are ripe
on the other side of the log road.

A great grapevine, loaded with purple clusters, claims mother's
attention. There will probably be no better chance for grapes
this fall, and the sun is still an hour high. John chops down the
little tree that supports it, and the girls eagerly help to fill the
pails with the fruit of the prostrate vine, while John goes back to
command the hazel-nut brigade and see that no eager youngster
strays too far.

Mother's voice gives the final summons, and the children
gather at the wagon, tired but regretful for the filled husks that
they must leave behind on the hazel bushes. A loaded branch
of the grapevine is cut off bodily, and lifted into the wagon. The
team is hitched on, and the happy passengers in the wagon turn
their faces homeward.

Such was the poetry of pioneer life. Pleasures were simple,

324

The Plums and the Cherries

primitive, hearty — like the work — closely interlinked with the
fight against starvation. There was nothing dull or uninteresting
about either. The plums and grapes were sweetened with molasses
made from sorghum cane. Each farmer grew a little strip, and
one of them had a mill to which everyone hauled his cane to
be ground "on the shares/'

Who will say that this "long sweet'nin'" was poor stuff, that
the quality of the spiced grapes suffered for lack of sugar, or
that any modern preserves have a more excellent flavour than
those of the old days made out of the wild plums gathered in the
woods? And this is also true: There is no more exhilarating
holiday conceivable than those half days when mother took the
children and "went a-plummin\"

The Canada Plum (Prunus nigra, Ait.), which grows from
Newfoundland to Manitoba, and extends its range into the northern
tier of states, is called by Professor Waugh a variety, nigra, of
our common wild plum, instead of a separate species, as the
earlier authorities have set it down. The tree has a narrow head,
formed of stiff, angular branches. The leaves are broad and
large, with abruptly sharpened points. Flowers and fruit are
larger than in the common plum; the petals turn pink before
they fall. It is valuable to the North, furnishing the settler
a relish for his hard fare until his orchard comes into bearing.
It forms an excellent stock on which to graft cions of species
which are not hardy on their own roots through long Northern
winters. It is a tree well worth planting about one's premises,
as in some bare fence corner that needs brightening in early
summer, and in August and September when the bright orange-
coloured fruit shows its colour against the leafy background.
In winter the framework of the tree is picturesque by the angu-
larity of its thorny twigs.

The Chickasaw Plum (Prunus angustifolia, Marsh.) is the
wild plum of the South. Its narrow leaves are shiny and strangely
trough-like, instead of flat. The small, round fruit is soft and
sweet, more like a cherry than a plum. One often sees it planted
near houses, and the crop in the woods is marketed by the Negroes.
It is unexcelled for jellies and preserves.

The Wild-goose Plum (Prunus hortulana, Bailey) is a
natural hybrid between the species, Americana and angustifolia.
It is supposed to have originated in Kentucky. It grows wild

325

The Plums and the Cherries

from Maryland to Texas — a tall, straight-limbed, thornless tree,
with thin, oblong, flat leaves, and thick-skinned, juicy fruit.
It is a better fruit tree than either of its parents, and has given
rise to several varieties of garden plums of which the Miner and
the Wayland are familiar types. The Miner group are commonly
seen in Northern orchards; the Waylands in the South.

The little beach plum of the Atlantic coast, the sloes of the
Alleghanies and the South, the leathery-leaved Pacific plum, and
the sand plum of the semi-arid plains are all distinct species.
There is scarcely a region of the country that has not its own
wild plum; and each species shows a tendency to improve under
cultivation.

The Alleghany Sloe (Prunus Alleghaniensis, Port.) is a
black-fruited little wild plum found growing on the slopes of the
mountains of this name wherever the soil is wet enough. The
abundant fruit is gathered in fall to make preserves and jellies,
and is often seen in local markets.

The Black Sloe (P. umbellaia, Ell.) is highly esteemed for
the same purposes farther south. It follows the coast from
South Carolina to Mosquito Inlet, Florida, and from Tampa Bay
into Louisiana, thence north into Arkansas.

Exotic Plums

The old-fashioned New England garden with its fine plums —
damsons, green gages, and the like — points us back to the time
when the colonists came to the New World and brought the fruit
trees they had known in the Old. These common plums are
varieties of the woolly-twigged, thick-leaved European Prunus
domestica, and they still do well in the Northeastern States and on
the Pacific slope.

The native plums, improved greatly in the past half century
have proved the best for the prairie states and for the South.

Now a fine Japanese plum, Prunus iriflora, hardy, prolific
and generally immune from the black knot, a fungous disease
of native plums, gives promise of thriving in the South and in the
Middle West. Its fruit is large and handsome. and keeps well,
though in quality it is not considered equal to the European
varieties. Crosses between the Japanese and the native American
plums promise well. Prune raising as an industry was old in

326

O
O

-
Q

Q
<

THE BEACH PLUM (Prunus maritima)

The white flowers are succeeded by little globular, sweet fruits, coated with a pale blocm. This straggly seaside plum in

alwavs shrubby

THE WILD-GOOSE PLUM (Prunm hortutana)

This is a natural hybrid between the wild re I plum and the Chickasaw plum. The
leaves are large, thin and flat, and the fruit is thick-skinned, sour and juicy. It is the parent
of the Miner and Way land groups of garden plums

ALLEGHANY SLOE

/ '• u nu 5 Alleghan ie u sis )

The winter buds of this little]

black-fruited plum

The Plums and the Cherries

Europe before it came to us. Now France ranks second to
California. Prunes are dried plums. Only certain sweet and
fleshy species can be profitably dried.

Peaches, almonds, nectarines and apricots, all stone fruits,
and Old World relatives of plums, have been introduced into
cultivation here. The almond, with its dry, woody flesh, is
commercially the most valuable species in the genus. Bitter
almonds yield almond oil and hydrocyanic acid. The pit of the
sweet almond is one of the most important nuts.

THE CHERRIES

The Wild Red Cherry, Bird, or Pin Cherry (Prunus Penn-
sylvania, Linn.) — A slender, narrow or round-headed tree, 20 to
40 feet high, with regular, horizontal branches. Bark smooth,
shining, reddish brown, with conspicuous rusty lenticels on
branches; on trunk broken into thin, curling, horizontal plates.
Twigs red. Wood pale, close grained, soft. Buds small, brown,
sharp, often clustered. Leaves slender, pointed, finely saw-
toothed, with wavy edges and shining, smooth surfaces. Flowers
white, few in lateral clusters on long stems. Fruit globular,
clear red, size of a pea, sour. Preferred habitat, rocky woods.
Distribution, Newfoundland to Georgia; west to Rocky Mountains.
Uses: Valuable nurse trees to hardwoods in the natural reforest-
ing of burned areas. Fruit made into cough medicine.

It is hard to find what a hard-headed, practical person would
call a sufficient excuse for this tree's existence. It has no timber
value, and the horticulturist has little interest in it as a fruit tree.
But I consider that it has many uses. It is beautiful, with
satiny bark and leaves that catch and reflect the light, providing
itself with a sort of nimbus of glory, winter or summer. The
wavy leaf margins, fluttering in every breeze, seem to shake the
light off as they do the drops of rain.

It is no small boon to a bleak ravine and to the people who
live near it that this tree should spring up and clothe both sides
with verdure. With the leaves come clustered, nectar-laden
flowers, whitening the tree, and calling the bees. Then comes
the harvest, and who can see without real emotion a bird cherry,
gemmed on all its twigs with these clear, ruby fruits, and the
birds holding high carnival among the shining leaves? The

327

The Plums and the Cherries

cherries are small and sour, to be sure, but: the biids pick every
one. By them, the pits are scattered far and wide, and seedlings
spring up each year, in fence corners, on rocky hillsides, and in the
paths of forest fires. Wherever such a tree appears we may be
sure it was planted by birds.

This wild cherry, it is acknowledged by foresters, renders a
distinct service to the country by furnishing shade under which
valuable hardwoods and other kinds of timber trees can make a
strong start. By the time the nurse trees are no longer needed
they are gone, for the bird cherry is a fast-growing, short-lived tree.

'Wild Black Cherry, Rum Cherry (Prunus serotina, Ehrh.)
—A large, spreading tree with oblong head and sturdy, rough
trunk; branches drooping. Bark dark brown (grey in the South),
checked into rough plates, shedding horizontally in curling
sheets on branches; bitter taste. Wood reddish brown, hard,
light, strong, easily worked, close, lustrous grain. Bads brown,
slender, scaly. Leaves narrowly oblong, tapering, 2 to 5 inches
long, alternate, finely serrate: dark green, shining above, paler
beneath; bitter; yellow in fall; petioles slender, short. Flowers,
May, small, white, in racemes 2 to 4 inches long. Fruits, Sep-
tember, flattened, pea sized, purple, bitter and sweetish aromatic;
skin thick. Preferred habitat, moist, alluvial soil. Distribution,
Ontario to Dakota; south to Florida and Texas. Uses: A most
valuable lumber tree; handsome, quick-growing shade and orna-
mental tree; the fruit, roots and bark yield a tonic drug.

The black cherry is a substantial citizen in any community
of trees. In an astonishingly short time the sapling becomes a
tree, low trunked, great of girth, and crowned with a dome of
graceful, pendulous branches.

The satiny brown bark reminds us of the birches. It has
the same slit-like horizontal "breathing holes," and the birches'
way of shedding its bark. But a taste, or even a sniff of a twig,
or a bit of bark, will decide the point. The cherry birch, which
is the species most likely to be confused with the black cherry,
has a pleasantly aromatic flavour. The bark of the cherry is
bitter as gall.

In old-fashioned home remedies, in patent medicines, and in
the prescriptions of regular physicians cherry extracts and decoc-
tions are often met. No spring tonic is seriously expected to rid
us of "that tired feeling" unless the tang cf wild cherry is there.

328

THE BIRD CHERRY (Prunus Pennsylvania)

Th'. V7hite flowers spread a feast for the bees in May and the ruby fruits for the birds in June. The tree lover finds beauty
in the dainty foliage all summer long, and in the satiny brown bark all winter

they turn black in August.

THE CHOKE CHERRY (/»rir«i» Virginia**)

,1 of bark and bruised leaves, and ruckcry, harsh fruit ^ that ■

is red nr vello«

^Min May, and the In*, from Jun,

The Plums and the Cherries

Cherry brandies and cordials are put away against an emergency,,
and cherry bounce is a good old-fashioned beverage that long
ago got into the story books. Old settlers, frugal as they were
wise, simply chewed the opening buds in the spring "to purify
their blood," and to save doctors' bills at the same time.

The chief value, however, of this cherry is its wood. It is
beautiful enough when polished to compete in popularity with
mahogany and rosewood. Its rich, lustrous brown deepens and
softens with age. Woodwork in sumptuously built houses, parlour
cars and steamships is often done in cherry. Fine furniture is
made of it. Small pieces are used in inlay work, for tool handles,
and the like. It is so costly that it is largely used in veneering
cheaper woods. A sharp look on unfinished edges of chairs,
bureau drawers and similar articles will detect this. Birch
furniture, which is much cheaper and more crude in colour, is
often sold under the name of "solid cherry" or "solid mahogany."

As a shade and ornamental tree the black cherry is charmingly
unconventional. It is somewhat wayward in habit and sparse
in foliage, but it carries neither trait to extremes. The foliage
mass is carried with the grace of a willow, for the leaves are narrow
and pointed, and they hang on slender petioles.

While the opening leaves are still red the flowers come on, in
dainty, erect racemes that bloom from the bottom upward to the
top. The heavy fruits invert the clusters, and remain until late
summer. They are sweet and not unpleasant in flavour, eaten
before they are thoroughly ripe by birds and by children.

The Choke Cherry {Prunus Virginiana, Linn.) is a minia-
ture tree, as a rule, rarely growing higher than a thrifty lilac
bush except in the region between Nebraska and northern Texas.
Its shiny bark, racemed flowers and fruit, and the odour of its
leaves and bark may lead one to confuse it with a black cherry
sapling. But this mistake need not occur. The leaves and
bark of the black cherry are aromatic and pungent, and the taste
is bitter. The choke cherry exhales an odour that is rank and
disagreeable beside being pungent, and the taste is intensified
in the same unpleasant way. The leaves of choke cherry are
nearly twice as broad as those of P. seroiina, and abruptly pointed;
its fruit, until dead ripe, is red (or yellow), and so puckery, harsh
and bitter that children, who eat the black cherries eagerly,
cannot be persuaded to taste choke cherries a second time.

329

The Plums and the Cherries

The birds arc not so fastidious. They strip the trees before
the fruit turns black. It is probably by these unconscious
agents of seed distribution that the choke cherry has become so
widely scattered. From the Arctic circle to the Gulf of Mexico,
and from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains it is found in all
wooded regions.

The Western "Wild Cherry (P. demissa, Walp.) occurs
west of the Rocky Mountains, and on to the Pacific. Closely
related to the Eastern choke cherry, it differs in having thicker
leaves and sweeter, scarcely astringent fruit. It is easy to believe
that these Western trees belong to the Eastern species, but are
modified by climatic conditions into a new form. Where their
ranges meet, it is hard to distinguish the two species.

The Cherry Laurels

The cherry laurels are ornamental native species, so named
because of their waxy green leaves. They have handsome but
not showy fruits. They deserve and are receiving recognition
by nurserymen. Californians bring their beautiful spiny-leaved
evergreen islay and plant it in their gardens as an ornamental
tree, or set it close for screens and hedges.

The European cherry laurels, strange evergreen relatives
of our plums and cherries, are often seen as tub plants for porch
decorations in this country. They are easily mistaken for the
Old- World sweet bay, Laiims ndbilis, which is also set in tubs
for the same purposes.

Cultivated Cherries

The Sour, Pie Cherry {Primus Cerasus, Linn.), which
often escapes from old gardens and spreads by suckers into
roadside thickets, is a European immigrant. It is believed to be
the parent of our cultivated sour cherries. It is a low-headed,
spreading tree with* no central "leader " among its branches,
with grey bark, and stiff, grey-green, ovate leaves, and white
flowers in scaly side clusters opening before the leaves are fully
out. The cherries are soft, small and red.

Two groups of these sour cherries are recognised in cultiva-
tion: (i) The early, light-red varieties with uncoloured juice,
of which the Early Richmond is a familiar type; and (2) the late.

330

The Plums and the Cherries

dark-red varieties with coloured juice, of which the English
Morello is a well-known example.

The Sweet Cherry of Europe (Prunus Avium, Linn.),
has given us our cultivated sweet cherries. Wild seedlings in
fence corners are called Mazzards. They have brown bark, and
grow tall and pyramidal around a central stem, often attaining
great age and size — very different in habit of growth from small,
short-lived sour cherry trees. The leaves are broad, doubly
toothed, sharp pointed, and limp in texture. The flowers are
much like those of the preceding species, but they open later,
when the leaves are out. The cherries are more or less heart
shaped and generally sweet.

Beside the Mazzards, which are inferior in fruit, there are the
Heart cherries in cultivation, two groups of them: (i) Those with
firm fiesh, and (2) those with soft, juicy flesh; and the Dukes,
which have light-coloured, acid flesh. The Hearts are variously
coloured — some red, some black, others yellow.

Cherries in Japan

Everybody admires, in a casual way, the crisp, dainty
blossoms of our garden cherries, and the large, rosy ones, of certain
European ornamental varieties often seen in American gardens.
But until one goes to Japan he cannot realise how beautiful a
blossoming cherry tree can be, nor what it is really to love the
flowers. The native species, Prunus Pseudo-Cerasus, has been
specialised in the direction of beauty, according to the ideals of
Japanese artists. Grace of line and delicacy of texture and
colour have been patiently worked for — not in flowers alone, but
in leaf, in branch, and even in bark. The whole tree crowned with
its blossoms is the ideal toward which patience and artistic skill
have successfully striven for centuries.

"Spring is the season of the eye," says a Japanese poet.
The third month is cherry-blossom time, and as the gardens
burst suddenly into the marvellous pink bloom all eyes and
thoughts are fixed upon them. The passionate love for Sakura,
the cherry, symbol of happiness, lays hold on all classes alike.
In a quiet ecstasy of joy the Japanese people turn out in holiday
attire to view the wondrous spectacle. It is a great national
fete, a time of universal rejoicing.

33*

CHAPTER XL: THE POD-BEARERS
Family LeguminosjE

Trees of high ornamental and timber value. Leaves com-
pound (except in Cercis), alternate, deciduous. Flowers sweet,
pea-like, or regular. Fruit, a pod.

KEY TO IMPORTANT GENERA AND SPECIES

A. Foliage simple; flowers rosy, pea-like,
i. Genus CERCIS, Linn.

B. Leaves heart shaped. (C. Canadensis) redbud

BB. Leaves kidney shaped. (C. Texensis) Texas redbud

AA. Foliage compound.

B. Leaves twice compound; flowers regular.
C. Branches thorny; foliage fleecy.

2. Genus GLEDITSIA, Linn.

D. Pods 12 to 1 8 inches long, pulpy, many-seeded.

(G. triacanthos) honey locust
DD. Pods 4 to 5 inches long, without pulp, many-
seeded. (G. Texana) texan honey locust
DDD. Pods oval, i to 2-seeded, without pulp.

(G. aquatica) water locust
CC. Branches thornless; foliage and pods coarse.

3. Genus GYMNOCLADUS, K. Koch.

(G. dioicus) KENTUCKY coffee tree
BB. Leaves once compound; flowers pea-like, showy, in
racemes, pods thin.
C. Leaves with spiny stipules.

4. Genus ROB IN I A, Linn.

D. Blossoms white; shoots smooth.

(R. Pseudacacia) locust
DD. Blossoms pink; shoots hairy.

E. Shoots clammy. (R. viscosd) clammy locust
EE. Shoots not clammy.

(R, N eo-M exicana) new Mexican locust

332

•-

The Pod-bearers
j

CC. Leaves without spiny stipules; flowers white, in
loose clusters.

\V%. Genus CLADRASTIS, Raf. (C. luted) yellow-wood

The family Leguminosae, to which our pod-bearing trees
belong, is one of vast size and economic importance, and of
world-wide distribution. There are nearly 450 genera and over
7,000 species. Peas, beans, lentils, clover — all plants that bear
simple, 2-valved pods after the flowers — are included. By tbis
sign they are easily recognisable when in fruit. Besides food
stuffs, the pod-bearers yield rubber, balsams, oils, dyesturTs,
good timber, and a long list of ornamental plants. The grass
family, which includes the chief forage and grazing plants, the
grains and sugar cane, is the only one that ranks higher than the
legumes in service to the human family.

The pod-bearers are the only plants that have the power
to abstract nitrogen from the air and store it in their stems and
roots. The rotting of these parts restores to the soil that particular
plant food which is most commonly lacking and the costliest to^
replace. The cheapest way to put nitrogen into the soil is to*
plough under green crops of clover, cowpeas, or other legumes.
They improve the texture and therefore the moisture-holding
capacity of the soil; commercial fertilisers do not. Legumes
grow on poor soil and make it rich.

American pod-bearing trees belong to several different genera,
with one or more species in each. With few exceptions they have
handsome pinnate foliage, and showy flowers in drooping clusters.
These characters, combined with an admirable form, give these
trees prominence as ornamentals wherever they will grow. Their
pods are often highly decorative in summer and winter. The
thorns of certain species give the trees character and distinction.
Several valuable lumber trees are included in the family. In
North American forests seventeen genera of pod-bearers are
native. These include over thirty species. Beside these, several
exotic species are met with in cultivation.

1. Genus CERCIS, Linn.

The genus Cercis, including seven species of shrubs and trees,
is distributed in Asia, Europe and America. We have two tree
forms and one shrubby species, native to California.

333

The Pod-bearers

\/ . .

Red Bud, Judas Tree (Cercis Canadensis, Linn.) — A dainty
tree, sometimes 40 to 50 feet high, oftener much smaller, with
broad, flat head of slender, smooth, thornless, angular branchlets.
Bark reddish brown, furrowed deeply and closely, broken into
small, scaly plates; twigs brown or grey. Wood heavy, hard,
close grained, weak, red-brown. ^Buds inconspicuous, axillary,
scaly, blunt. Leaves simple, entire, broadly heart shaped or
ovate, alternate, deciduous, on long, slender, smooth petioles
which are enlarged at apex; autumn colour yelloWS Flowers,
April, before the leaves, in axillary fascicles, pea-like, | inch long,
rose pink to purplish ; numerous, conspicuous. Fruit a pod, thin,
pointed, flat, smooth, lustrous, purplish, stalked, 2 to 3 inches
long, many-seeded. Preferred habitat, borders of streams, under
other trees. Distribution, New Jersey to western Florida, Alabama,
Mississippi, Texas; Ontario to Nebraska and south. Maximum
size, Arkansas to Texas. Uses: Important hardy ornamental
tree. Grown in Europe. Flowers sometimes eaten as" a salad.

The early-blooming trees and those of small size will ever
be held in affectionate regard. Here is one of the most charming
*of them all — a dainty, low-headed tree skirting the woodlands \n
the North, often growing farther south in dense thickets, under
the taller trees. It wakes with the shad-bush and the wild plum
and covers its bare twigs with a profusion of pea-like rosy magenta
blossoms in clusters that hug the branch closely, and continue to
open until the leaves have unfolded.

The hardiness of the redbud commends it to planters in
the Northeast, as well as in the warmer parts of its natural range.
It is widely cultivated as a flowering tree. After the flowers,
the glossy, round leaves are beautiful, as are also the dainty, pale,
green pods, which in late summer take on their purple hue. The
foliage, unmarred by the wear and tear of a season of growth,
turns to bright yellow before it falls.

A further merit of the redbud tree is that it begins blooming
when very young. It should be in every shrubbery border.
Some people prefer the double-flowered form offered by nursery-
men. A variety, pubescens, called the downy redbud, grows wild
from Georgia westward.

The Texas Redbud (Cercis Texensis, Sarg.) is commonly
seen as a low shrub, forming thickets on the uplands of eastern
Texas. Occasionally it reaches 40 feet in height. The leaves

334

The Pod-bearers

are leathery, but in the characters of flower and fruit the tree is
much like its Northern relative.

The European redbud, which grows also in Asia Minor, is
stigmatised by tradition as the tree on which Judas Iscariot
hanged himself. Our little tree has had to share the name,
and in many places it is the "Judas tree" to-day. It is a pity to
keep alive a notion so ghastly. The most beautiful redbud is
a Chinese species (C. Chinensis, Bunge), with very large and
abundant pink flowers. Its leaves are bordered with a clear or
white rim.

2. Genus GLEDITSIA, Linn.

The genus Gleditsia has ten species or more, three of which
are native to the eastern half of the United States. Japan and
China have three or four species between them; Asia Minor and
northern Africa have representatives. The oriental species are
cultivated by the Japanese and Chinese, and have been intro-
duced into European and American plantations. The wood is
durable and strong. The trees are ornamental and easy to
grow. In Japan the pulp of the green pods is used instead of
soap^

l^jHoney Locust, Three-thorned Acacia (Gleditsia Jriacan-
ihos, Linn.) — A large, handsome tree, 70 to 140 feet high, with
rigid, horizontal branches; trunk 3 to 5 feet in diameter. Bark
rough, dark, deeply furrowed; twigs brown, smooth. Thorns
in second year, 3-pronged, single, or in close-set clusters. Wood
reddish brown, heavy, durable, hard. Buds clustered, nearly
hidden in winter; spine bud some distance above axillary buds.
Leaves 7 to 8 inches long, alternate, once or twice pinnately com-
pound, softT^veivety, and pink when opening, changing to dark
green with paler linings; yellow in autumn .^ Flowers inconspicu-
ous, regular, in small greenish racemes, staminate and pistillate
racemes separate on the same or on different trees. Fruits
purple, curving, flat pods, 6 to 18 inches long; seeds 10 to 15,
hard, flat, brown. Preferred habitat, rich woods. Distribution,
New York and Pennsylvania to Mississippi and Texas; Ontario
to Michigarf i and Arkansas. Uses: Ornamental and shade
tree much cultivated. Good hedge tree. Wood used for wheel
hubs, fencing, andt§p»ffuel.

14;

The Pod-bearers

Unlike its relative, the yellow locust, this tree is strikingly
handsome and full of character in winter. Its bark, from root
to twig, is brown and " alive-looking/' though no buds are in
sight, and the bark furrows are deep on a large tree. There is all
the difference in the world between a dead grey and a lively
brown. The locusts well illustrate this difference.

The honey locust has angular branches, slender and wiry,
which extend far out in horizontal planes. These branches
shine as if they were polished. The three-pronged thorns give
an added asperity to the demeanour of the tree. The rattling
pods are purple and shiny. They curve and cluster on the top-
most limbs, and long defy the efforts of the wind to dislodge
them.

The thorns of the honey locust are thorns indeed — modified
branches that branch again, and are rooted in the very pith of
the twig that bears them. The "thorns" of the yellow locust
are prickles — merely skin deep. Occasionally a leaf appears on
the side of a young thorn to strengthen the evidence that the
thorn is a branch changed to a special form to serve a special
use. But the thorns stop growing when they reach about a
foot in length, and remain indefinitely in their places, ranging
along the branches or clustered on the trunk, even encircling
it in some instances with the most formidable chevaux-de-frise—a.
barrier to the ambitions of climbing boys, and to cropping cows
which like the taste of locust foliage. There is a thornless variety
which is the delight of boys who climb for the sweet pods in
summer time.

The foliage mass of the honey locust is wonderfully light and
graceful. New leaves with a silvery sheen upon them are con-
stantly appearing; some once, some twice compound, on the
same tree. The colour of them is a clear, intense emerald. The
pods in midsummer show many shades of changeable red and
green velvet against the leaves, and are as beautiful in form as
in colour and texture.

In this stage of growth the pods contain a sweet, edible
pulp which later dries and turns bitter. An Old-World tree
has pods that are thicker but otherwise resemble those of the
honey locust; these sweetish pods are sold on the streets of New
York as "St. John's Bread," and are believed to be the locusts
eaten by John the Baptist in the wilderness^

336

Staminate Flowers

Winter Bud

THE HONEY LOCUST (Gkditsia triacamhos)
leave, (much fnlarged in the lovver plate, are made „p q[ M£^— ~£ .£ «£" ^^ ^

The Pod-bearer«.

The curving, S-shaped pods of the honey locust hang on the
tree until winter, when the wind whirls them along over the icy
ground until they lodge. Here the seeds eventually soften and
germinate, and saplings spring up far from the parent tree. The
range of this tree is extensive, but it has nowhere a very plentiful
growth. The wood is not as well known nor as fully appreciated
as it deserves. The claims of the tree for ornamental planting
and for shade are granted by enterprising nurserymen. It is a
handsome park tree, and thrives in almost any soil. It is hard}/,
and endures heavy pruning. This character combined with its
thorns make it one of the best of our native hedge plants. It
is necessary to soften the hard seeds in hot water before planting,
else they will not germinate until the second year.

Unlike most of the pod-bearers, the honey locust has greenish,
inconspicuous flowers, not of the pea-blossom form. The bees
find them, as they are fragrant and nectar laden. The "honey"
mentioned in the name is not in the flower but in the half-ripe
fruit.

The Texan Honey Locust (G. Texana, Sarg.), with the
characters given in the key, has so far been found only in one
grove near Brazoria, Texas. It is a large, thornless tree, with
thin, smooth bark. v . '

The Water Locust (G. aquatica, Marsh.) is a small, flat-
topped, irregular tree which grows best in the swamps just west
of the lower Mississippi. It is found sparingly from South Caro-
lina through the eastern Gulf States, and north as far as the Ohio
River. The tree can easily be recognised by its brown polished
thorns which are 3 to 5 inches long, pointed and stiff, and some-
times flattened, like the blade of a sword. The two lateral
thorns arise close to the base of the main one.

The pods, which are usually but 1 -seeded, are oval and
pointed, and much more thickly clustered than those of G. triacan-
thos. The wood is coarse and inferior to other locusts, though
it is heavy, hard and strong, and has been put to many uses.

3. Genus GYMNOCLADUS, K. Koch.

The genus Gymnoclodus has one species in China and another
in eastern North America. Both are bare-limbed, clumsy mem-

337

The Pod-bearers

bers of a family which boasts many graceful trees. The pulp
in the heavy pod is used in China for soap. Our tree is planted
for shade on city streets, and for the sake of its peculiar, great
pods, which hang on the bare limbs all winter. The characters
of the genus are embodied in the native species.
Y Kentucky Coffee Tree (Gymnocladus dioicus, K. Koch.) —
A narrow, round-topped tree with tall trunk, 75 to 100 feet high,
with stout, thornless twigs. Bark grey, deeply furrowed; ridges
scaly. Wood light brown, soft, heavy, coarse, strong, durable.
Buds scaly, half hidden in the twig. Leaves twice pinnate, 1 to
3 feet long, 1 to 2 feet broad, of 40 to 60 oval leaflets, dark green,
smooth; petioles stout, long, enlarged at base; autumn colour,
clear yellow. Flowers, June, dioecious, regular, greenish white,
in racemes staminate, 3 to 4 inches long; pistillate 10 to 12
inches long, somewhat hairy. Fruit a thick-walled, purple pod,
6 to 10 inches long, 2 inches wide, dark red, short stalked; seeds
several, bony, globular, \ inch in diameter, in sweetish, sticky
pulp, bitter at maturity. Preferred habitat, rich, moist soil.
Distribution, New York to Minnesota and Nebraska; south to
Pennsylvania, Tennessee,' Arkansas and Indian Territory. Uses:
A good street and shade tree. Wood used for fencing, in con-
struction and rarely in cabinet work.

The Kentucky coffee tree is one of the rarest of American
forest trees. It ranges widely, but is nowhere common. It is
remarkable for its dead-looking frame, which holds aloft its stiff,
bare twigs in spring after other trees are clothed with new leaves.
But at length the buds open and the leaves appear, twice com-
pound, and often 3 feet long. The basal leaflets are bronze
green while the tips are still pink from having just unfolded.
This stately tree, its trunk topped with a close pyramid of these
wonderful leaves, is a sight to remember. Often the trunk is
free from limbs for 50 feet or more.

The flowers of the coffee tree are greenish purple and incon-
spicuous, borne in erect racemes or loose panicles on separate
trees. The pistillate trees are burdened with their clumsy pods
in the autumn. They are so heavy as to inflict a painful bruise
if they strike a person in falling. The pioneers of Kentucky
made out of the seeds a beverage to take the place of coffee. We
may well wonder how they ever ground these adamantine beans,
and how they ever drank a beverage as bitter as it must have been.

338

The Pod-bearers

4. Genus ROBINIA, Linn.

Trees of the genus Robinia have slender, angled branchlets
usually set with paired prickles which are the spiny stipules of
leaves, past or present. The leaves are once compound, and
have the habit of closing and drooping when night comes or when
rain begins to fall. The pea-like blossoms are in showy clusters;
the pods are thin valved, opening when ripe, but slow to fall
from the tree.

Four species belong to the United States; of these three are
arbourescent. Three more occur in Mexico. Other countries
are without native species, so they borrow of us. Streets, parks
and gardens, in various parts of Europe, are planted with our
black locust. The genus contains one of the good lumber trees
of thjs country, and some of our handsomest flowering trees.

VLocust, Yellow Locust, Black Locust (Robinia Pseuda-
cacia, Linn.) — A tall, slender tree, 40 to 80 feet high, with erect
branches forming an oblong head. Bark rough, dark grey, deeply
furrowed; twigs smooth, silvery, downy, becoming reddish brown.
Wood brownish yellow, hard, coarse grained, heavy, strong,
very durable in contact with soil. Buds pointed, silky, all but
tip hidden. Leg&esJLto 14 inches long, alternate, odd-pinnate of
9 to 19 leaflets, silvery, downy when young, later, pale beneath,
dark green above, turning yellow in early autumn. Stipules in
pairs, spiny, persistent, becoming thorny. Flowers, May to June,
in axillary, drooping racemes, white, fragrant, pea-like, of good
size. Fruit thin, brown, smooth, 4 to 8-seeded pods, hanging
on through the winter. Preferred habitat, gravelly soil on mountain
slopes. Distribution, Pennsylvania to Georgia, west to Iowa and
Oklahoma. Naturalised in New York, New England, and west
of Rocky Mountains. Uses: Planted as a shade and ornamental
tree. Wood exceptionally durable and strong. Used in ship-
building, for mill cogs, posts, ties, wagon hubs and spokes,
and especially for tree_nails. Excellent fuel. Bark has tonic
properties.

The locust is a beautiful tree in its youth, and being a rapid
grower, becomes sturdy and spreading in a few years. But its
twigs and branches are brittle, the wind breaks them, and the
symmetry of the crown is soon lost. An old locust is a dead,
scraggly-looking object for half the year. Coarse, ragged bark

339

/**

The Pod-bearers

covers trunk and larger branches. The twigs show no sign of
buds. These trees have a fashion of hiding their winter buds in the
wood of the twig, as the sumachs do. The pods hang on all
winter, chattering in the wind, and calling attention to the hope-
lessly untidy appearance of the tree as a feature of the landscape.

Whatever may be urged against it — and it surely has its
faults — the locust redeems itself in the late spring. The delicate
leaf spray is silvery as it unfolds, changing to dark green as the
masses of white fragrant bloom are shaken out. From a little
distance the green leaves are obscured by the flowers; it is as if
a white cloud rested on the treetop, heavy with perfume and
alive with bees. One rarely sees, even in spring, a sight more
beautiful. It is the supreme moment in the life of this tree.

A very interesting habit of the locust is the folding of its
leaflets and the drooping of its leaves on rainy days and on the
approach of evening. The sensitive plant, a near relative, shrinks
away and folds its leaves whenever it is touched. It is believed
the locust's habit of ''cuddling down" avoids excessive loss of
moisture and heat. Parkinson, writing of the tree in 1640,
noted "each leaf foulding itself double every evening upori^Sunne
setting, and opening again upon the rising." Some years before,
the cultivation of locusts had been introduced in Europe by-
Vespasian Robin, whose name the genus bears. Great plans
were made a century ago for the growing of these trees to supply
the British Navy with shipbuilding timbers. The plan never
reached the magnitude its promoters desired; yet the locust is to
be met with more often in European gardens and forests than any
other American tree. The leaves are a common forage for cattle.

Unfortunately for us, the locust borer has put an end to
raising this valuable timber in any but the mountainous parts
of its natural range. Lumbermen well know there is no more
profitable timber crop, except when the locust borer attacks it.
The wood is riddled by these, even to the twigs, and no effective
means of combating them is known. For this reason, the cultiva-
tion of the tree has been abandoned in the regions where this
insect has appeared. In Europe, locusts seem to be comparatively
free from insect injury.

The extreme hardness of locust wood is due to crystals,
called rhaphides, formed in the wood cells. These hard mineral
deposits soon take the edge off of saws and chisels.

540

The Pod-bearers

As an ornamental tree, the chief drawback of the locust is its
imsightliness when bare of leaves. The fact should he added that
the leaves come late and fall early. The tree sends up suckers
freely from the roots, which unfits it for planting on lawns. There
are sixteen varieties of this tree known in cultivation. With all
its faults they love it still; the American people plant locusts for
the borers to distort.

The prickles that arm these trees are not thorns at all. They
are but skin deep, like prickles of rose and gooseberry bushes.
But they persist and become quite formidable. They are merely
stipules of the leaves. Each pair of leaflets has a pair of tiny
spines guarding the base. But they are transient, falling with the
leaf. Thornless trees often occur in groves of locusts.

The Clammy Locust (Robinia viscosa, Vent.) is a little,
rough-barked tree that grows wild in the mountains of Nortl
Carolina. It is a favourite garden ornament, for it has delical
feathery foliage and the shaded pinks of its close flower clustery
make a combination of form and colour no artist can resi
The calyxes are dark red, and all the new growth shines with the
sticky substance that exudes from the covering of glandular
hairs, and gives the tree its name. The spines are inconspicuous.

The New Mexican Locust (Robinia Neo-Mexicana, Gray)
rarely rises higher than a shrub in the Southwestern semi-desert
regions. Its tender shoots are covered with glandular but not
viscid hairs. The flowers are rosy and handsome. The twigs
are armed with short, stout, recurved spines.

The Bristly Locust (Robinia hispida, Linn.), a garden
shrub with large crimson flowers and bristly hairs covering its
shoots, is probably the most common locust in cultivation.

5. Genus CLADRASTIS, Raf.

The genus Cladrastis is "Queen of Beauty" among the
pod-bearers. It is represented by one species in the eastern
United States and another in Manchuria. The name, from two
Greek words, refers to the brittleness of the branches.

The Yellow- wood, or Virgilia (Cladrastis lutea, K. Koch.),
is native to the limestone hillslopes of Tennessee, Kentucky and
North Carolina, but even here it is very rare. It is cultivated,

341

The Pod-bearers

however, and good specimen trees may be seen in nurseries and
in private grounds in the East. It is hardy as far north as New
England and Ontario, and is one of the most desirable native
ornamental trees*

It is a small tree, rarely reaching 50 feet in height, with
wide, graceful head of slender, pendulous branches, grey bark
as smooth as that of a beech, and four little winter buds enclosed
in the hollow base of each leaf stem. The leaves are compound,
a foot long, of seven to eleven oval, broad leaflets, diminishing in
size toward the base, pale beneath, and turning a clear yellow
in the autumn.

The flowers are large, white, pea-like, fragrant, and borne
in drooping, terminal clusters, often a foot long. The pods are
thin, smooth, few-seeded. Virgilia is the garden name of this
tree. It is called so in the nursery catalogues. The wood is
yellow, and its sap yields a dye of that colour.

These are the botanical characters of the yellow-wood.
One can easily identify it. But to remember the tree, to have
it indelibly impressed upon the memory, one must see it in blossom.
It is a "shy bloomer"; at least it never blooms in two successive
years, and rarely does it cover itself with flowers oftener than
twice or three times in a decade. That is quite enough to justify
planting it as a lawn tree, with evergreens for a background — a
frame for the picture when it comes.

The virgilia is always beautiful. But in wealth of bloom^ as
I saw it in the gardens and parks about Boston in the summer of
1904, it surpassed all other trees. Every twig ended in a long,
loose raceme in which each pure white blossom had room to reach
its full development — to get its fill of light and sun and air. The
weight of the flowers made every twig bend outward and down-
ward. Each tree was overspread for days with this marvellous
veil of white, and out of each came all day long the low murmur
of contented bees.

The tree is rare and local, hanging over mountain streams and
edging the woodlands of its range, the highlands ot western North
Carolina, eastern Tennessee, central Kentucky and northern Ala-
bama. Its beauty is much enhanced by cultivation. The hand-
some foliage turns yellow before it falls, and all through the
summer and on through the autumn the pendant clusters of
dainty pods are highly ornamental.

342

THE NEW MEXICAN LOCUST (Robinia Neo-Mexicana)
fhis desert locust has short, curved spines on its twigs, and its new growth bears glandular but not viscid hairs. The flowers

are rosv

THE CLAMMY LOCUST {Robinia viscosa)

Handular hairs cover all the new shoots of this tree. The sticky exudation is shiny, making the stems look wet. The flowers

are beautifully shaded from deep to pale pink

THE YELLOW-WOOD (Cladrasth lutea)

fhls tret i ..QuK„ rf Beau,," „ «H«« S >o,h barkjike .ha, l^^^rfVi™^*

The Pod-bearers

The virgilia has no bad habits; it is hardy in the climate of
Boston; it thrives in many different soils; it is easily propagated
by seeds or root cuttings; it is a handsome lawn or park tree at any
season of the year. It ought to be in gardens up and down the
land — increasingly planted wherever a beautiful native tree is
desired and appreciated.

Some Little-known Pod-bearers

Brief mention may be made here of a number of relatives of
our locust trees which are little known because they are restricted
to small areas distant from the Eastern States whose forests we
know somewhat better than those of other sections of this great
continent. They are omitted from the key to avoid making it too
complex for easy use.

The Horse Bean, or Retama (Parktnsonia aculeata, Linn.),
native to the valleys of the lower Rio Grande and the Colorado, is
a small, graceful tree with drooping branches, which are clothed
with strong spines, long leaf stems set with many pairs of tiny
leaflets, and bright yellow, fragrant perennial flowers. In the
tropics the tree is ever-blooming. Ih Texas it rests only in
midwinter. The pods are long, and constricted between the
seeds. As an ornamental hedge plant this tree has no equal in
the Southwest.

The Small - leaf Horse Bean (Parktnsonia microphyUa,
Torr.) has its leaf stems as well as leaflets much reduced. It
grows in complexly gnarled form in the deserts of Arizona and
California. The yellow flowers are much smaller than those of
the preceding species; the few-seeded beaked pods, larger. This
little tree or shrub has its branches sharpened into stout thorns,
which have green bark.

The Cat's Claw (Zigia Unguis-caii, Sudw.), of southern
Florida, has persistent, twice pinnate leaves, each division bearing
but two leaflets. A pair of spines guards the base of each leaf.
The flowers are in compound panicles; the pods long, thin, and
contorted in ripening. The shape of the petals is described by the
tree's name.

The Texan Ebony (Zigia flexicaule, Sudw.), of southern
Texas and Mexico, is a beautiful, acacia-like tree, with feathery
leaves, racemed, creamy, fragrant flowers and large, woody pods,

343

The Pod-bearers

not quite so large as those of honey locust. These pods are
cooked and eaten when half grown. The ripe pods are roasted,
and ground to make a substitute for coffee. The wood is valuable
in fine cabinet work, and for posts and fuel. It deserves the
attention of gardeners and foresters in all warm temperate
countries. Professor Sargent considers it the most valuable
ornamental tree native to Texas.

The Huisache, or Cassie (Acacia Farnesiana, Willd.),
belongs to a great tropical suborder of the pod-bearers which
is widely distributed over the earth. The valuable blackwood
of Australia belongs to it and Acacia Arabica, of Egypt and
southern Asia, which yields the bulk of the gum arabic of com-
merce. Valuable timber, tan barks, dyes, perfumes and drugs
are yielded by acacias. As ornamentals, the trees rank very high.

The huisache grows wild in the Rio Grande Valley, and has
become established in Florida and the other Gulf States, having
escaped from cultivation. It is a small, spiny tree, with graceful,
spreading branches,' and pendulous twigs covered with feathery
twice pinnate leaves. The flowers are numerous, bright yellow,
in heads, and very fragrant. The thick pods contain two rows
of flattened seeds. In Italy this species is cultivated for its
flowers, which are used in the making of perfumes. It is culti-
vated in gardens the world over, and has generally established
itself in the warmer parts of every continent. It yields tannin,
gums and valuable lumber.

The Cat's Claw (Acacia IVrightii, Benth.), of western
Texas, is less graceful than the huisache, and more often seen
as a shrub. The yellow flowers are borne in finger-like close
racemes. The pods are large, flat and irregular, with small, oval
seeds. The leaves are twice pinnate; the spines, short and
recurved.

The Cat's Claw (Acacia Greggii, Gray), of the region from
western Texas to California, differs from A. IVrightii in having
its pods twisted, and its seeds larger and circular in outline.

The Frijolito, or Coral Bean (Sophora secundiflora, DC.),
is a small, slender, narrow-headed tree, with persistent, locust-like
leaves, and fragrant, violet-blue flowers in small, one-sided
racemes. The pods are silky white, pencil-like, and the seeds are
bright scarlet. The tree grows wild in canons in southern Texas
and in New Mexico, and is highly recommended by Professor

344

The Pod-bearers

Sargent for cultivation throughout the South. It is a close rela-
tive of the famous Japan pagoda tree, S. Japonica, of universal
cultivation.

The Sophora, or Pink Locust (Sopbora affinis, T. & G.),
local in Arkansas and Texas, is a small round-headed tree, with
deciduous leaves, pink flowers and small black pods, tightly
constricted between the globular seeds.

The Leueeena (Leuccena Greggii, Wats.) is a spineless little
tree, with fine, twice-compound foliage like the acacias, and white
flowers, whose structure ranks it with the mimosas. Its shoots
and petioles ar^$>owdered white. The tree is cultivated from the
West Indies to southern California. It is found wild near Key
West, Florida, and in western Texas.

The Chalky Leucaena, or Mimosa {Leuccena pulverulenta,
Benth.) grows as a handsome, round-headed tree near the mouth
of the Rio Grande River in Texas. Its leaves and young shoots are
thickly covered with white down when young. The feathery
foliage and white flowers and fruit commend it to cultivators.

The Green-barked Acacia (Cercidium floriduni, Benth.)
is a little, gnarled tree, rare in western Texas, whose leaves are
locust-like, but reduced to very tiny size in the dry air. The
whole tree is invested with smooth, green bark which serves the
office of foliage. The spiny twigs are sparsely set with regular
yellow flowers throughout the summer, with pointed, few-seeded
pods, yellow and papery, coming on after them. It is, on the
whole, a striking looking tree, and good to see in the desert.

The Sonora Ironwood {Olneya Tesota, Gray) is a small
tree, with hoary, spine-beset twigs and locust-like flowers, leaves
and seed pods. It has very hard wood. In the deserts between
Arizona and Lower California it is a most beautiful object when
in bloom. It sheds its red bark in flakes after the manner of the
buttonwood.

The Jamaica Dogwood (1 chthyomeihia Piscipula, A. S.
Hitch.) grows in southern Florida, a conspicuous and beautiful
tree when the great clusters of pink pea-like blossoms hang on the
bare branches. The slender brown pods have four wide, papery,
longitudinal frills. The hard wood is used in boatbuilding, and
the bark of the roots contains a drug like opium. The natives of
the West Indies have from ancient times used this bark to stupefy
fish they were trying to capture.

345

■fc*.

The Pod-bearers

The Mesquite, or Honey Pod (Prosopis julifiora, DC.) is one
of the wonderful plants of the arid and semi-arid regions. It is
found as a tree 60 feet high along the rivers of southern Arizona.
It ranges from Texas to southern California, and north to Colo-
rado and Utah. In arid situations it becomes a low shrub, often
with little to show above ground. But the roots develop to
amazing size. There is a central tap root that goes in search
of water, sometimes 60 feet below the surface. Secondary roots
go out in all directions, and form a labyrinth of woody substance,
which in quantity furnishes the treeless region with building and
fencing material and good fuel. Oxen drag the mesquite out
by the roots, and it is cut into posts, railroad ties and frames for
the adobe houses.

The leaves are like those of our honey locust, but much
reduced in size. The tree furnishes little shade. But young
shoots, leaves and the greenish, fragrant flowers which come in
successive crops from May to July, are all cropped eagerly by
cattle. So are the long, slim, sweet pods which are also used as
food by Indians and Mexicans. The sharp, spiny branches of
this shrub make it a good hedge plant, and the complex root
system makes it invaluable for the holding of sand dunes. Alto-
gether the mesquite is one of the most useful trees in the silva
of this country. Aborigines in the American desert might well
worship it as the Hindoos do a related species.

The Screw Bean, or Screw-pod Mesquite {Prosopis
pubescens, Benth.), with hoary foliage, grows in the same region,
and differs from the true mesquite chiefly in having its pods
spirally twisted.

346

r.,,.^

;opyright, ) 905, by Doubleday, Page &. Company

CLAMMY LOCUST ( Robinia mscosa\

CHAPTER XLI: THE LIGNUM-VITyE

Family Zygophyllace/E

The Lignum-vitae is Guaiacum sanctum, Linn. — The chief
reason for mentioning this tree is that its wood is one of the
toughest and hardest known to commerce. It is very close
grained, and varies from dark green to yellowish brown. It is
used for sheaths of ships' blocks, pulleys, cogs and other bearings
in machinery, and also for tenpin balls. The heart wood, chipped
and heated, yields a medicinal gum.

The tree grows on the Bahamas, the Antilles and the Florida
Keys. It is squatty and gnarled, but beautiful in its silvery
bark, little, lustrous, ash-like leaves and delicate blue flowers
which keep on opening for weeks. The fruit is a little fleshy
5-celled capsule of bright orange colour.

The West Indian Guiacum officinale, Linn., ranks with the
species just described in commercial importance. No distinction
is made between the two woods in the trade.

347

CHAPTER XLII: THE PRICKLY ASH AND THE

HOP TREE

Family RutacejE

The rue family is best known through the genus Citrus,
which includes oranges and lemons. It is a large botanical group
of trees and shrubs, all of which have bitter aromatic sap, and
an oil distributed in glandular dots all over the leaves.

The Prickly Ash, or Toothache Tree (Fagara Clava-
Herculis, Small) has all the characteristics suggested by its names.
Its compound leaves resemble those of the ash except that these
alternate on the twig, while ash leaves are always opposite. The
twigs are set with sharp prickles, each raised on a corky base.
In Arkansas, where the tree forms thickets of considerable extent,
it is also called "tear-blanket" and "wait-a-bit"!

There is an acrid, resinous juice in the twigs, leaves and
bark which is used as a stimulant in medicine. The bark of the
roots is especially bitter. The Negro in the South chews a piece
of prickly ash bark to cure the toothache. "Sting-tongue" and
"pepperwood" he calls it, for it produces a burning sensation
and a copious flow of saliva. Possibly it is as a counter-irritant
only that it relieves the pain. Belief in its curative powers is
widespread; the collecting of its bark has almost exterminated
the species along the southeastern coast.

The prickly ash in its best estate looks like a well-grown
apple tree, and often grows over 40 feet in height. It is found
along streams in sandy soil from Virginia to Florida and west to
Texas and Arkansas. As a rule it is under 25 feet in height.
The small, greenish flowers are clustered on the ends of branches.
The birds are fond of the aromatic seeds which hang out of the
seed cases in the autumn.

The prickly ash of the North is Fagara Americanum, a shrub
found on mountain slopes from Quebec west to Nebraska and
Missouri, and south to Virginia. It will easily be recognised by

348

The Prickly Ash and the Hop Tree

its abundant prickles and bitter taste. Its leaves have fewer
leaflets than the Southern species, and the flowers are borne in
small, sessile clusters in the axils of last year's leaves.

Fagara flava, Kr. and Urb., is the "satinwood" so much
sought for in the West Indies. It once grew on all the Florida
Keys, but is now extinct on all but three of them. Its wood has
a beautiful satiny lustre when polished, and when fresh sawed has
the odour of the true satinwood of the East Indies.

Fagara Fagara, Small, is a shrubby tree of this genus which
is found growing in southern Florida and along the Texas coast.
It is known as the wild lime.

The Hop Tree, or Wafer Ash {Ptelea trijoliata, Linn.) is
a pretty, slender tree, widely distributed over this country.
From Ontario its range covers the Eastern States from New
York to Florida, throughout the Gulf States and north in the
forests of the Mississippi Valley into Michigan and Minnesota. A
related species, P. angustijolia, found in Mexico, Colorado and
California, also occurs in South Carolina and Florida.

It is interesting to ask why this little tree has been so success-
ful in the American forests. We go to the tree for an answer.
It chooses to grow in the shadow of taller trees. The seeds are
plentiful and vigorous, so bitter no animal eats them, and they
are winged for long flight. These are reasons enough for its
success in life. Besides, the roots send up suckers.

Warned of its scattering habits, one hesitates to introduce
it into a garden. But look at that one! A neighbour has planted
it among the high shrubs that form the background of his fine
perennial border. From a little distance the pale green fruit
masses against the dark foliage remind one of a hop vine in its
midsummer glory, but genuine hops are quite unlike the elm-like
discs on this hop tree. There is a satiny sheen on the dainty
leaves that make us desire a tree of it for the foliage alone. They
look like ash leaves reduced to three leaflets, and given an extra
polish by 'way of compensation. Clean and shiny and circular,
the seeds are models of form and finish, and in their tropical
abundance they remain to adorn the tree even after the leaves
fall. There is no question but that a hop tree finds its best setting
in a shrubbery border, especially where the surrounding greens
need lightening. In such company it is a continual delight.

Ptelea was the ancient name of the elm — its seeds look like

349

The Prickly Ash and the Hop Tree

our elm keys, grown large and plump and smooth. These are
sometimes used instead of hops in the brewing of beer, for there
is a tonic, bitter principle contained in all parts of the tree, espec-
ially in the bark and fleshy roots.

The flowers of the hop tree are numerous in terminal clusters,
but they are so small and green they are rarely noticed. They
appear in May and June.

Baretta (Helietta parviflora, Benth.) — This small tree or
shrub grows nowhere but along the lower Rio Grande River in
Texas. Its 3-parted leaves, bitter bark and winged seeds suggest
its relationship to the other members of the rue family. Its
winged seeds, four on a stem, suggest maple keys in miniature.

Torch Wood {Amyris Elemifera, Linn.) — Slender as is
this little south Florida tree, it is prized for fuel, for its wood is
hard and close grained, and full of an aromatic oily balsam.
Its twigs are often burned to give a perfume in the room. The
leaves are much like those of the box elder, opposite and of three
leaflets.

35©

CHAPTER XLIII: THE PARADISE TREE AND

THE AILANTHUS

Family Simarubace^

The Quassia, or Paradise Tree (Simaruba glauca, DC.)
is the nearest American relative of the ailanthus tree, which is
no sffanger to inhabitants of the Eastern States. It grows in
lower Florida and in the West Indies — a low, round-headed
tree whose graceful, pinnate leaves are dark red when they first
appear, soon becoming dark green and shining above, and pale
beneath. For weeks in spring the immense loose clusters of tiny
yellow flowers spread like a delicate veil over the treetop. Stam-
inate and pistillate trees both bear panicles often 2 feet across.

In the autumn the fertile tree burns bright with the scarlet
fruit, which are full grown as early as the end of April. These
remain all summer, turning purple, and falling in autumn. They
are as large as wild plums.

This is one of the most beautiful trees in tropical gardens,
as its name implies. A related species in the islands of the
Caribbean Sea yields a tonic drug, quassin, used in the treatment
of malaria. The Florida tree has bitter sap, and it is popularly
believed that to drink water from a cup made of its wood is a
cure for chills and fever.

The Ailanthus {Ailanthus glandulosa, Desf.) is an immigrant
from China which has sprung into popularity as a city street
tree. A Long Island nurseryman introduced the 4ree in 1820.
New York City and Brooklyn planted the saplings extensively
Smoke and dust do not seem to injure their great, fern-like leaves.
They throve in sterile and worn-out soil, shading hot pavements
and clothing waste places with verdure.

Then came the blossoming, and the inch worm! The stam-
inate trees had a rank odour, and the pollen annoyed people
with catarrh. Caterpillars revelled on the luxuriant foliage, and
dropped upon passersby. A tide of feeling against these trees

*5 ,

The Paradise Tree and the Ailanthus

swept the cities. An effort was made to get rid of them. But
no such effort can be made unanimous. The caterpillar nuisance
was soon controlled by the birds. It was found that only stam-
inate trees are malodorous, and the blossoming period is soon
over. Pistillate trees can be guaranteed to planters by taking
cuttings for nursery stock from pistillate trees only. The ailanthus
is now rated at its real value. It is certainly a luxuriant tree
and especially adapted for city planting. The dead, stiff appear-
ance of the tree in winter is forgiven when spring sets the sap
astir once more.

- - Ailanthus leaflets are plain margined except for a tooth or
two near the base. The long leaves resemble those of the sumachs.
The opening leaves and later the ripening' fruit clusters exhibit
most beautiful variations of rich colour — pinks, reds and bronzes.
Somebody is sure to harbour a seedling tree whose pollen fertil-
ises the pistillate flowers of a whole neighbourhood. A fruiting
tree in late summer looks like a great hydrangea.

. The vigour of ailanthus seedlings is amazing. Suckers ten
feet high shoot up in one season. They appear in the most
unexpected places. The tilting rafts on which the seeds are
borne carry them with the wind, and lusty young trees come up in
crannies of city back yards, covering unsightly objects with their
graceful plumes of green. I have seen seedlings throw up leafy
shoots 8 feet long and an inch through, bearing leaves nearly a
yard long — all in one season. But these are youngsters, growing
in exceptionally rich soil. Such lusty growers are peculiarly
subject to accidents. The wind breaks off limbs, and the trunks
become riddled with decay.

Short-lived as ailanthus trees are, they soon replace them-
selves. Th^ir popularity is not likely to decline. The traveller
in Europe will find them in evidence in the parks and along the
boulevards of Paris and other cities. In Peking they are favourite
shade and ornamental trees, for the ailanthus is the Chinaman's
"Tree of Heaven/' -~~ *""~

AnTeffective use of the ailanthus is to plant a few seeds along
a fence or boundary line. Cut back the young trees to a few
feet high each spring, and a beautiful leafy screen will result.

CHAPTER XLIV: THE MAHOGANY AND THE

GUMBO LIMBO

i. Family Meliace/E

The Mahogany (Swtetenia Mahogani, Jacq.) is the true
mahogany whose heavy, brownish-red wood is so highly valued
by the makers of elegant furniture. In Central America and in
the West Indies it grows to great size, and is remarkable in having
huge buttresses extending out from the base of its lofty trunk.
In the Florida Keys it attains but medium size, and the greed
of lumbermen usually sacrifices the half-grown trees. It is
known as "Madeira/' and is used in boat building.

Nurserymen in Florida and southern California offer small
mahogany trees for ornamental planting. The potted specimens
bloom when quite young. The tree has graceful, slender branches,
delicate, shiny, ash-like leaves, and light sprays of tiny white
flowers. The fruits are heavy, brown, 4-valved capsules as large
as lemons and full of winged seeds.

The wood, beside being beautiful in colour and in pattern
of grain, becomes richer in tone with age, and seems impervious
to decay. The finest grades of this wood grow on upland lime-
stone soil. The Florida trees do not furnish this first-grade
lumber.

The China Berry, Chinese Umbrella Tree, or Pride of
India (Melia A{ederach, Linn.), is a relative of the mahogany.
It came from China into European and American gardens long
ago. It grows easily from seed, and rapidly becomes a most
admirable shade tree. In April it bears a profusion of fragrant,
lilac-coloured flowers, succeeded by yellowish berries. The
leaves are bright and luxuriant, and remain so until late in the
autumn, when they are gradually shed.

The variety umbraculiformis is the one most commonly
planted. It is known as the Texas umbrella tree. The only
fault I find with this tree is the shortness of its trunk and the

353

* 1

The Mahogany and the Gumbo Limbo

density of its leaf thatch. It cuts off the life-giving breezes too
often and too well. The native Floridian's one-story house set low
in the midst of his garden soon has its windows and doors choked
by the "China trees" that were set too close to each other and to
the house.

2. Family BurseracetE

The Gumbo Limbo (Bur sera Simaruba, Sarg.), sole arbores-
cent species of the single genus of its family represented in the
United States, is a tree very commonly met with in southern
Florida. It is the only native tree that sheds its leaves in the
autumn. This habit it shares with the ubiquitous China tree of
the Southern garden. Winter reveals a round-headed tree, with
stout horizontal limbs, trunk and branches covered with reddish-
brown bark, which peels off in thin flakes of irregular sizes. The
soft wood easily falls a prey to disease and insect injury; a tree
50 feet high often falls to pieces from these causes. The species
reminds one of willows in its ability to sprout from the stump
and from fragments of any size set in the ground. Fence posts
are soon clothed in verdant foliage if cut from a gumbo limbo tree
and driven at once. Screens and hedges are made by sticking
twigs into the ground.

Gumbo limbo is a popular street and lawn tree; its ash-like
leaves, very new and fresh, make a grateful summer shade.

The flowers appear with the leaves in early spring. They
are borne in lateral elongated clusters; the individual blossoms
are imperfect and inconspicuous in size and colour, the two sorts
on separate trees. The fruit looks like a green berry as it develops,
but it breaks in ripening in a dry, 3-valved pod, each cell of which
contains two triangular red seeds.

Beside its horticultural uses, the tree is valuable for a resinous
gum which exudes from wounds in the trunk. This is made into
varnish, and was formerly used in the treatment of gout. The
Florida "cracker" makes tea of the leaves when "store tea" is
not at hand.

354

CHAPTER XLV: THE SUMACHS AND THE

SMOKE TREE

Family Anacardiace/e

i. Genus RHUS, Linn.

Small trees or shrubs with stout, pithy branchlets, and
viscid, usually milky, juice. Leaves alternate, usually pinnately
compound. Flowers minute, greenish, polygamo-dioecious, in
compound panicles. Fruit a small, dry drupe.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Leaves pinnate, of 9 to 3 1 leaflets, deciduous.

B. Fruit whitish, in loose, drooping, axillary panicles.

(R. Vernix) poison sumach
BB. Fruit red, in erect, compact terminal panicles.

C. Branches, fruit clusters and leaf stalks densely
hairy; leaflets 11 to 31 ; juice milky.

(R. hirta) staghorn sumach
CC. Branches, fruit clusters and leaf stalks pubescent;
rachis winged; leaflets 9 to 21 ; juice watery.

(R. copallinay dwarf sumach
AA. Leaves simple, evergreen.

(R. integrifolia) western sumach

The sumachs form a temperate zone genus of a great tropical
family, comprising fifty genera and 400 species. There are about
120 species of the genus Rhus; they are most abundant in South
Africa. Sixteen species are found in North America, only four
of which are ever trees. Of these, none compare in economic
importance with the sumach cultivated in southern Europe,
whose leaves contain 25 to 30 per cent, of tannic acid, and are
regularly gathered and dried, and used in the tanning of fine
leathers. The pistachio-nut tree, from Asia Minor, now cultivated
in southern California, is a relative of our roadside sumachs, as
is also the turpentine tree of southern Europe. They belong to
the genus Pistacia, and are both commercially important.

355

The Sumachs and the Smoke Tree

The Japanese lacquer tree (Rhus vernicifera, DC.) exceeds all
other species in value; its sap is the black varnish used in making
lacquered wares. Each year about 1 30^000 gallons of this valuable
substance are gathered in Japan and China. Each little tree
yields but a few ounces, and is killed by the draining process.
The acrid juice of R. Vernix, our poison sumach, is milky and
turns black on exposure to the air, forming a substance very
much like the lacquer varnish.

Staghorn Sumach, Hairy Sumach (Rhus hirta, Sudw.) —
A low, flat-topped tree, 30 to 35 feet high, with branches stout,
erect, forked many times, and densely velvety. Bark smooth,
brown; hair on branches soft, long, and changing from pink to
green the first year; later, dark, short; shed the third or fourth
year. Wood light, coarse, soft, brittle, but satiny when polished,
green streaked with orange. Buds pointed, in summer covered
by leaf base, in winter almost buried. Leaves pinnate; leaflets
11 to 3 1 , narrow, pointed, serrate, dark green above, pale to white
beneath; velvety; autumn colours scarlet, orange and purple.
Flowers, June, inconspicuous, greenish, in dense, conical, hairy
clusters, the two sorts on separate trees. Fruit tiny, globular
acid drupes, densely hairy, red, in large, compact panicles, which
remain through the winter. Preferred habitat, uplands and
gravelly banks. Distribution, southern Canada to Winnipeg;
south to Georgia and Mississippi. Uses : Planted as an orna-
mental for its foliage and fruit. Wood used for walking sticks,
and for inlaying boxes, tabourettes and other fancy articles.
Twigs used as pipes to draw maple sap from the trees.

This largest of Northern sumachs is constantly seen on
railroad embankments, in fence rows, and along the highways
of wooded regions. In the summer its fern-like foliage covers
all the ugliness of the most unsightly bank, and lifts among the
green its fine clusters of ruddy or pink blossoms. In the fall
these are lost sight of amid the glory of the leaves, which turn
to all shades of orange and purple and red. For weeks they
flame and glow in the soft autumn sunshine, then fade and fall,
and the bare antlered branches, like candelabra, hold aloft the
pointed red fruit clusters which burn on with gradual abatement
to the middle of winter.

The glory of the staghorn sumach's colouring makes it one
of the most desirable of ornamental trees for fall and winter

356

Fruit

THE STAGHORN SUMACH (Rhus hiria)

Foliage, fruit, and all the younger branches of this much-forked sumach tree, are densely clothed with stiff hairs. The
petioles dilate at the base, and their detachment leaves a circular scar. The winter bud is capped by this conical leaf base,
and it never sees the light until the leaf falls. The foliage turns to vivid red in autumn. The fruits persist late into the
winter, after the leaves have fallen. The species is an admirable cover for rocky slopes

THE POISON SUMACH (Rhus Vtrnix)

White berries in drooping clusters, growing with
smooth foliage of brilliant autumn colouring in
swampy ground set apart the deadliest of the sumachs.
Touching the plant is far worse than handling poison
ivy. The twigs are pale grey in winter, dotted
thicklv with lenticels (breathing doci)

THE DWARF SUMACH (Rhus copallina)

This tree is shrubby in the North. The new growth is coated
with fine, silky down. The leaves are lustrous and smooth above,
and lined with soft hairs. The central leaf stalk is wing-margined
between the pairs of leaflets. The twigs are brown and marked
with breathing pores. The prominent leaf scars give the twigs
a ziezac aooearance.

*" *a**

- L%

#**>

A. Pistillate flowers

B. Fruit clu.'ter

Staminate flowers

THE SMOOTH SUMACH (Rhus glabra)
This is rarely a tree at all, but is familiar as a roadside shrub. The foliage and flower cluster are smooth, the sterns coat M

The Sumachs and the Smoke Tree

colour effects. Its habit of spreading by root suckers makes
it objectionable for planting except in situations where the
trees can spread unchecked, and the massed effect of the
foliage can be enjoyed at some distance. The fern-like
leaves are much larger if the plants are cut back severely
each spring. For screen and border shrubs this species is
very satisfactory.

The Dwarf, Black, or Mountain Sumach (Rhus copallina,
Linn.), is the soft, velvety species, fully as handsome, if not quite
as large, as the preceding one. It grows all over the eastern half
of the United States and beyond the Mississippi to the foothills
of the Rocky Mountains. Usually a shrub, it rises to 30 feet in
height in the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. It is
the latest of all the sumachs to bloom. Its long pinnate leaves
are lined with soft hair, and the central leaf stem is winged on
each side between the pairs of leaflets. These are the most beau-
tiful leaves to be found in the sumach family. They turn in
autumn to dark, rich reds.

In the South, the leaves are gathered in summer in considerable
quantities, for they are rich in tannin, and when dried and pulver-
ised, are used for tanning leather. A yellow dyestuff is also
extracted from them.

The Poison Sumach (Rhus Vernix, Linn.), "one of the
most beautiful, but unfortunately the most poisonous of the
sumachs,' ' ranges from New England to Minnesota, south to
Georgia, and across to Texas. It is more to be dreaded than the
poison ivy, or the poisonwood of Florida, both of which are near
relatives. Though widely distributed, it always grows in swampy
land, and as its leaves and flowers proclaim it a sumach, people
ought to learn to suspect it because of its habitat. Only red-
fruited sumachs are safe to touch. This species has greyish-
white berries. The clusters droop; in harmless sumachs they
stand erect.

White berries in drooping clusters in swampy ground warn
the collector to pass the poison sumach by, no matter how alluring
its brilliant foliage. There is certain poisoning for those who
are rash enough to touch it.

The Western Sumach, or Mahogany (Rhus integrifolia,
Benth. & Hook.), is entirely different, of course, from the true
mahogany, a lumber tree of the tropics. This is a low, stout-

357

The Sumachs and the Smoke Tree

trunked evergreen tree which forms thickets along the coast
bluffs of Lower California and the adjacent islands. The leaves
are simple, oval, and often toothed like the holly. Its flowers are
in scant terminal clusters, white or rosy, succeeded by large, red,
hairy berries. A cooling drink is sometimes made of the acid,
fatty exudations of these berries, and the wood makes good fuel.
The Smooth Sumach (R. glabra, Linn.) is rarely given
rank as a tree, though it sometimes almost deserves it. Like
the staghorn, this species has serrate leaflets and dense, erect
clusters of red fruit. But it is smooth instead of hairy, except
its fruits, and its twigs have a pale, glaucous bloom. This is
one of the best species for decorative planting. Its foliage is
clean and fine, and turns to rich colours in fall. Its large fruits
last late into winter. The berries, bark and leaves are used in the
treatment of fevers. A cooling beverage, pleasantly acid, is
made of the unripe fruit in summer. This species is found
everywhere east of the Rocky Mountains, and extends to British
Columbia and Arizona. It is oftenest seen in situations chosen
also by the staghorn sumach.

2. Genus METOPIUM, P. Br.

The Poison Wood, or Hog Gum (Metopium Metopiutn,
Small), a beautiful little West Indian sumach, breathes poison
from its flowers and leaves not unlike that exhaled by Rhus
toxicodendron, the poison ivy. The bitter, poisonous juice exudes
as a gum from cracks in the thin, orange-brown bark. In lower
Florida the tree is abundant along the coast, and on the Keys.
There is an old account that says: "Wild Hogs, when wounded,
by natural instinct come to this tree, where by rubbing its balsam
on their wounds, they are cured." Its leaves are pinnate, some-
what ash-like, and the drooping clusters of glossy, orange-red
berries have given the tree the name, Coral Sumach.

3. Genus COTINUS, Linn.

The American Smoke Tree (Cotinus Americanus, Nutt.)
shows by its pithy stems, aromatic, resinous juice, and general
habit, its kinship with the sumachs, which are better known.

358

The Sumachs and the Smoke Tree

The large, simple leaves, 4 to 6 inches long and half as wide, are
not like sumach leaves; the flowers, however, are carried aloft
in terminal panicles, each sort on separate trees, and these, as
well as the individual nutlets, are sumach-like. In a panicle only
one flower in a hundred sets seed, so as a fruit cluster it is a very
scant one. Instead of fruits these panicles show a peculiar
feathery development of the bracts. These graceful and delicate
plumes, tinted pink to green, form in the aggregate a great cloud
of rosy haze or smoke, that makes it a thing of beauty in the
late summer. Then it earns its common names, smoke tree and
mist tree.

The species ranges from Tennessee to Oklahoma, and south
into Alabama and Texas. It is sometimes seen in gardens, but
it cannot compete in hardiness nor in vigour nor showiness with
the much more commonly cultivated Cotinus Cotinus, Sarg., the
Venetian sumach, or European smoke tree.

359

CHAPTER XLVI: THE HOLLIES

Family Aquifoliace/E
Genus ILEX, Linn.

Trees of small size, or shrubs. Leaves simple, alternate,
petioled. Flowers minute, axillary, dioecious or polygamous.
Fruit, a berry-like drupe.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Foliage evergreen.

B. Leaves spiny. (/. opaca) American holly

BB. Leaves not spiny.

C. Length 2 to 4 inches, margins mostly entire. -^

(/. Cassine) dahoon
CC. Length 1 to 2 inches, margins crenate.

(/. vomitoria) yaupon
AA. Foliage deciduous.

B. Leaves blunt pointed, crenate, 1 J to 2 J inches long. ,

(/. decidua) swamp holly
BB. Leaves taper pointed, serrate, 3 to 6 inches long.

(/. monticola) mountain holly

The holly family is distributed in every continent, and
ranges from the North Temperate to the South Temperate zones.
Many species are tropical. They are all trees or shrubs, the
centre of whose distribution seems to be in South America. Of
the 175 species, about seventy are found in northern Brazil.

The mate, or Paraguay tea, to which the people of South
America are addicted as North Americans are to tea and coffee,
is made of the dried and powdered leaves of two holly trees of
Paraguay. Chief of these is Ilex Paraguariensis. These are the
most important species, in a commercial sense. "Yerba mate"
has a remarkable stimulating effect upon the human system,
fortifying it for incredible exertion and endurance. Indulged in
to excess, it has much the same effect as alcohol.

China and Japan have thirty different species of hollies,

360

The Hollies

some of which are coming into cultivation in America. Europe
has but one species. America has fourteen, four of which assume
tree form; the rest are shrubby "winterberries."

There are 1 53 distinct varieties of the European Ilex Aqui-
folium in cultivation. No more popular ornamental is grown.
The Englishman looks out upon his bloomless garden in winter
time,

" And sees the clustered berries bright -*&•

Among the holly's gay green leaves/1'

It is more, I think, than a poet's fancy that holly leaves are
dull in summer in contrast with other foliage, only to gleam
brilliant as polished leather when other broad-leaved trees are
bare. The fell-fare, a little thrush, eats these tempting red
berries in winter, to the disgust of narrow-rHnded gardeners.

Ilex is the name by which the holm oak of southern Europe
has always been popularly known. Its leaf resembles that of the
holly with which it grows in the wild. Linnaeus dropped the old
name, A qui folium (sharp leaf), which the holly had been called.
The European species became Ilex Aquijolium and the oak Quercus
Ilex.

Its sharp leaf, far more spiny and deeply cleft than that of
our species, and the lustrous sheen of leaf and scarlet berry
make the European holly handsomer than the American. Its
specific name, opaca, meaning dull, reminds us of the inferiority
of the latter.

Holly and mistletoe are inseparably linked in traditions of
the English Christmas. The Druid feasts gave these two plants
prominent places in pagan rites, and they have come down to
modern times with few changes. Old chroniclers and , ballad
makers kept the ancient usages fresh in mind, and to-day the
English gentleman re-enacts the customs of his forefathers right
loyally, as he celebrated Christmas with all his tenantry in the
great hall.

"The mistletoe hung in the castle hall
And the holly branch hung on the old oak wall ;
The baron's retainers were blythe and gay
Keeping their Christmas holiday."

Away back of the Christian Era, not the Druids only, but
the pagan tribes of Continental Europe, especially those under
the rule of Rome, sent holly branches to each other as token of

361

The Hollies

goodwill, and decked their dwellings with them in celebration of
the feast of the Saturnalia — "the turning of the sun." The
gradual lengthening of the days in late December mitigated the
cold which brought so much suffering to rich and poor in the
crude dwellings of the times. Yuletide, the feast of the Celtic
sun god, Yaioul, gradually and naturally gave way to the later
celebration of Christmas. The Aquijolium became the Christ-
thorn, or Cbrtstdorn — the "holy tree," afterward called "holly."
It was regarded by devout people as a symbol of the Saviour's
crown of thorns.

Though only half hardy in the latitude of New York and
Boston, many varieties of Ilex Aquijolium are to be found in
American gardens, and where necessary are tied up in straw
for the winter. The beauty of these little trees amply repays all
the care they cost. Just one of the American species, /. opaca,
might be confused with this one.

Hollies are multiplied by ripened wood cuttings, by grafting
and budding, and by seeds, which germinate the second year after
planting. The seedlings require transplanting after their second
year of growth. Evergreen hollies must be stripped of ail their
leaves whenever transplanted. Young trees are moved with
comparative safety. The best time is early fall or early spring.

The hollies introduced from Japan include the species /.
latifolia, a large tree in its native land, with long, glossy leaves
and large red berries in abundance. This is one of the most
beautiful and hardy trees in the family. /. Sieboldi, is a slender
shrub with dainty leaves and scarlet berries. It is like the native
black alder, but smaller in all its parts. Two forms of this species
are grown.

Of our native shrubby hollies, the two winterberries, /.
Icevigata and /. verticellata, are far the most ornamental. The
latter is the black alder, found from Canada to the Gulf, and west
to Wisconsin and Missouri. Its leaves blacken after heavy
frost, but the abundant red berries remain, untouched by birds,
late into the winter. It is one of the best of hardy shrubs for
winter brightness in the shrubby border. Its fruit-laden branches
gathered in the wild are* sold for Christmas decorations.

American Holly {Ilex opaca, Ait.) — A slow-growing, pyra-
midal tree, 20 to 45 feet high, with short, horizontal branches.
Bark grey, warty; twigs brown. Wood white, close grained,

362

The Hollies

tough, not strong. Buds short, pointed, brown. Leaves 2 to 4
inches long, oval, leathery, shiny, with wavy margin, veins
ending in sharp, stiff spines; persistent three years. Flowers
small, white, axillary in clusters, dioecious. Fruits bright red
(rarely yellow), dry berries, containing 4 bony nutlets, remaining
all winter. Preferred habitat, moist woodlands. Distribution,
southern Maine to Florida and throughout Gulf States; north into
Indiana and Missouri. Maximum size in Texas. Uses: Valuable
ornamental and hedge trees. Wood used as engravers' blocks, for
tool handles, whip stocks, walking sticks and for inlay work.
Branches for Christmas greens.

It is rare to find a wood which so closely imitates ivory in
colour and texture as holly wood does. This makes it the delight
of the carver and decorator. Scroll work and turnery employ it.
Trunks of it form the rollers by which calicoes are printed. But
the Southern woods and barren fallow fields where the holly
grows are invaded every fall by collectors who cut the trees
down, strip them of their twigs, and leave the trunks to rot upon
the ground. These twigs go to Northern cities, and retail dealers
display in quantities, as wreaths and loose clusters, the evergreen
leaves, bright with scarlet berries. In the remotest village one
may now buy a sprig for his buttonhole to usher in the Christmas
holiday. The supply is still ample, but no means of renewing it is
being practised, and Nature will not be able to keep up much
longer with the increasing demand, and the wasteful methods
of gathering the annual harvest. It will not be long before the
engraver will have to buy holly wood, as he does the Eastern
boxwood, by the pound. The European holly and the American
are not essentially different in the quality and appearance of their
wood.

The Dahoon (Ilex Cassine, Linn.) is a shrub or small tree
which grows on pine barrens and in low woods along the coast
from Virginia to Florida and west into Louisiana. Its evergreen
leaf is shiny above and twice as long as that of Ilex opaca, but it
has only occasionally a faint suggestion of teeth near the tip;
and it has no spines at all. The twigs and midribs of the leaves
are downy. The berries are dull red. A white-stemmed, narrow-
leaved variety, myrtifolia, is quite distinct from the type.

The Yaupon (Ilex vomiioria, Ait.) is a shrubby tree of spread-
ing habit with very small oval, evergreen leaves and many red

363

The Hollies

berries. It grows from Virginia to Florida and west to Texas
and Arkansas. The Indians made their famous "Black Drink"
by boiling the leaves of this tree. This nauseating beverage was
persistently drunk for several days with the notion that the
system was thoroughly cleansed by the process. This purifica-
tion was a yearly ceremonial in which the whole tribe took a part.

The Swamp, or Meadow Holly (Ilex decidua, Walt.) grows
in wet soil throughout the South, its northern limits being Virginia
and Kansas. Generally a shrub, it becomes a tree 30 feet high
in Texas, Arkansas and Missouri. The thin brown bark is cov-
ered with warty outgrowths. Its most striking characteristic
is the silvery grey bark of its twigs. The deciduous leaves are
tapering at the base and blunt, often notched, at the apex. The
red berries are flattened.

The Mountain Holly (Ilex monticola, Gray.) has a thin,
serrated leaf that might be mistaken for a cherry or plum leaf,
except that it is usually larger. This is one of the handsomest
of the tree hollies. Its fruit is as large as a cherry. Unfortu-
nately, leaves and fruit fall early, so they cannot be used for deco-
ration. The tree is found in mountain woods from New York to
Alabama, following the Appalachian chain to its southern limits.
The species is shrubby except in the two Carolinas.

364

CHAPTER XLVII: THE BURNING BUSH
Family Celastrace/E

Evonymus atropurpureus, J acq. — This dainty little American
tree skirts the edges of deep woods from western New York to
Montana, and south to Florida and Arkansas. The foliage is
not noticeable, and the tree might be mistaken for a wild plum,
except for its fluted ash-grey bark. The close observer will
see that the leaves are opposite. The flowers in their axillary
clusters spread flat their four purple petals to support a square
platform that bears the stamens and pistils. They are suc-
ceeded by equally strange-looking fruits. Four flattish lobes,
deeply separated, turn to pale purple as they reach full size.
The whole fruit is one-half inch across in October. The purple
husk parts and reveals the seed, enveloped in a scarlet outer
coat that fits it loosely. The delicate pale lining of the purple
envelope makes harmony between the two stronger colours,
and the plum-coloured twigs and yellow leaves contribute to make
this indeed a burning bush, that glows brighter as the advancing
winter opens all the husks and displays the scarlet seeds. No
brighter dash of colour can be added to gardens or shrubbery
borders than this tree, which shows its beauty chiefly in the
dead of winter. It does not require botanical knowledge to
recognise that the climbing false bittersweet, Celastrus scandens,
is a very near relative.

The European Evonymus is called spindle tree, for its wood
has long been used in making spindles, knitting needles, and
other small articles requiring hard, close-textured wood. Tooth-
picks and skewers are made of it, and jje jEnglish often call the
tree prickwood for this reason. OuApecjk is locally known
as the wahoo. Chinese and Japanese sffpciVare now planted in
American gardens, both tree forms and some notably valuable
shrubbery and climbing species. Two other members of the
same family are found in America.

Gyminda Grisebachii, Sarg., is a relative of the wahoo which

365

The Burning Bush

grows on the islands of southern Florida. Its wood is hard and
black. The small white flowers are succeeded by blue berries.
Yellow Wood, Florida Boxwood (Schaefferia jrutescens,
J acq.) — This rival of the Old-World boxwood grows on the
Florida Keys, though the greed of lumbermen has narrowed its
range materially, and the big trees have been cut down long ago.
It has hard, close, yellow wood, which is used in cabinet work
and for fine furniture. The tree is quite a handsome one, with
persistent leaves, and yellow flowers followed by scarlet berries.
It is a common tree in the West Indies, where its lumber is an
important article of commerce. It is chiefly exported to England.

366

CHAPTER XLVIII: THE MAPLES

Family Ace raceme
Genus ACER, Linn.

Trees valuable for timber and ornament. Leaves simple
(except Negundo), opposite, palmately veined and lobed, decidu-
ous. Flowers inconspicuous, racemed or in corymbs. Fruits
paired, winged samaras.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Leaves simple, palmately lobed.

B. Bloom before the leaves in lateral clusters; fruit ripe in
May or June.
C. Flowers red; leaves shallowly lobed, serrate, pale
beneath. (A. rubrum) red or swamp maple

CC. Flowers greenish yellow; leaves deeply 5-cleft,
silvery white beneath.

{A. saccharinum) silver maple^
BS. Bloom after the leaves, from terminal buds; fruit ripe
in autumn.
C. Petals present in flowers.

D. Flowers in erect, compact racemes.

\ {A. sulcatum) mountain maple
DD. Flowers in loose, drooping racemes.

E. Leaves 8 to 12 inches across, deeply 5-lobed.

{A. macrophyllum) broad-leaved maple
EE. Leaves 5 to 6 inches across, 3-lobed at apex;
bark stripped with white lines. /

{A. Pennsylvanicum) striped maple
DDD. Flowers in drooping terminal corymbs.

E. Leaves 7 to 9-lobed, circular. -v

{A. circinatum) vine maple
EE. Leaves 3-lobed or divided.

(A. glabrum) dwarf^ maple^
CC. Petals wanting; flowers in corymbs.
D. Corymbs without stalks.
E. Leaves pale beneath.
367

The Maples

F. Lobes of leaves blunt, pubescent beneath;
margins wavy.

(A. Floridanum) sugar maple
FF. Lobes of leaves sharp, smooth beneath;
margins toothed.

(A. Saccharum) sugar maple
EE. Leaves green beneath, pubescent.

F. Branchlets slender; leaves thin, bright
yellow-green.

{A. leucoderme) sugar maple
FF. Branchlets stout, orange coloured; leaves
thick, drooping, dull green.

{A. nigrum) black maple
DD. Corymbs on short stalks; leaves 3-lobed, pale
and pubescent beneath; lobes with large
rounded teeth.

{A. grandidentata) large-Iooth maple*
AA. Leaves pinnately compound, leaflets 3 to 5; flowers dioe-
cious. {A. Negundo) box elder

Opposite leaves palmately veined and lobed, and paired
keys with long wings — these characters are the hallmark of the
maple family the world over. No amount of "improvement"
blots these out of the most ultra new variety. No other tree has
both leaves and fruits likely to be confused with a maple's.

The genus Acer comprises between sixty and seventy species,
well scattered over the Northern Hemisphere. China and Japan
are the original home and the centre of population for them,
having about thirty native maples. Twelve species are found
in the Himalayas, and twelve in Europe and Asia Minor. Nine
are native to North America. Of these, two are on the Pacific
coast, one among the Rocky Mountains, five in the eastern half
of the continent, and there is one species "at large."

Red or Scarlet Maple, Swamp Maple (Acer rubrum,
Linn.) — A spreading, symmetrical tree, 80 to 120 feet high,
oftener less, slender with erect branches. Bark flaky, in plates,
dark grey; paler branches; twigs red. Wood pale, brownish
red, hard, close grained. Buds opposite, blunt, red; flower buds
clustered on side spurs. Leaves variable in size, 3 to 6 inches
long, not so wide; with 3 to 5 triangular lobes, separated by
triangular sinuses; margins twice cut-toothed; lining whitish,
often downy; petioles long, slender, often red; autumn colours
scarlet and crimson. Flowers: pistillate red, staminate orange,

368

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i — u

J -=r

Ixl

= O
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:j o.
= i!

si S

"3 -^

The Maples

in earliest spring before the leaves; on same or different trees.
Fruit, May, smooth, paired samaras, i inch long; wings divergent,
hung on slender pedicels, 3 ■ to 4 inches long, seed germinating
immediately; rarely the next spring. Preferred habitat, swampy
ground, borders of streams. Distribution, Eastern States to
Wisconsin, Nebraska and Texas. Most common in lower Miss-
issippi Valley. Uses: Valuable ornamental and shade tree.
Woodv used for gun stocks, tool handles, oars, furniture and
miscellaneous woodenwares. Excellent for fuel. Occasional curly
and bird's-eye logs used for veneering in cabinet work.

"The maple puts her corals on in May,
While loitering frosts about the lowlands cling,
To be in tune with what the robins sing,
Plastering new log huts 'mid her branches grey;
But when the autumn southward turns away,
Then in her veins burns most the blood of spring,
And every leaf, intensely blossoming,
Makes the year's sunset pale the set of day."

— Lowell.

Who shall know the red maple better than this poet of
New England? Yet it must be a sadly belated tree that blooms
in May. Her May corals are the dainty keys which swing in
graceful clusters from th£ twigs, each one red as any cock's comb.

It is fine to watch the spring come on in a region where the
red maple grows. Late in March a rosy cloud lies on the wooded
marshes and stream borders. Up the hillsides the same colour
tells where there is a clump of these trees. The grey branches
glow with their" crimson -broidery" long before any-but the pop- ♦
lar trees and pussy willows show their blossoms.

Go as early as you will to examine these maple flowers, *

the bees are there before you. Their motive is a selfish onai
but while they swing from one bell to another in quest of nectar J
they dust with pollen the red forked tongues of the fertile flowers.
This insures the setting of seed. The reddest flowers are the
fertile ones; the sterile ones, fringed with yellow stamens, are
orange coloured. The two sorts are isolated on separate branches;
often on separate trees. As the leaves appear, the colour deepens.
The lengthening bud scales and the opening leaves are deep
crimson at first. Then come the ruddy fruits, which set the
trees aglow, and which fall in early summer, leaving only the
red veins of the leaves to bear the colours of the tree until late

369

The Maples

August or September. Then of a sudden the tree stands clothed
in scarlet! It was not so yesterday. And one by one the leaves
fall while vet fresh and smooth.

There is no more desirable tree for the home grounds, for
parks and roadsides than the red maple. It is quick and sure
to grow in the East if the soil is moderately rich and moist. Young
trees are trim as beeches in their snug pale grey bark. The frame
of the tree is admirably adapted to resist breaking in the wind.
The branches are short, numerous, erect, not heavy, nor spread-
ing enough to be torn loose from the trunk as the silver maple's so
often are. The tree is beautiful at all ages and through all seasons,
and it has no bad habits.

As it comes quickly from seed in the woods, there can be no
objection to taking up woodland saplings for home planting. Or
they may be obtained from nurseries. If seeds are desired,
collect and plant them in early summer; they will not, as a rule,
germinate if kept until the following spring. Nature gives
helpful suggestions. The woodland carpet and the neighbouring
cornfield show a forest of tiny red maples under six inches high
by the middle of summer.

Unfortunateiy, the silver maple, a quick, cheap and sure
grower, has been exploited by nurserymen to the overshadowing
of the claims of its handsomer but more exacting relative. It
is rare to see a red maple in the upper valley of the Mississippi,
though its natural range covers these states to western Iowa,
and along the lower course of the Ohio River and following the
" Father of Waters" it becomes a dominant tree in wet land.
Nurserymen near Chicago complain that it is hard to get good
seed; that the tree grows very slowly at first, and the dangers
of. drought and hard winters make the cost of one red maple
equal to that of ten silver maples. One of these days people
will realise that it is ten times more beautiful. Then the study
of its preferences and peculiarities will pay the nurseryman, and
the tree will be more generally and successfully planted to super-
sede the silver maple in the moist soil and humid air of the North
Central States. It is a foregone conclusion that a swamp-loving
tree would die of thirst on the plains. Nebraska and Kansas
have tried in vain to introduce it.

Nobody knows what red maple log is going to reveal the
beautiful curly and bird's-eye grain when sawed into boards.

37°

The Maples

The sharp eye of the lumberman detects it, and the boards are
put aside. They are worth far more than plain, sound lumber
of the same species. Hard maple and red maple are the kinds
most likely to display this variation from straight grain. Some
lumbermen boast that they can "spot" the standing trees;
others declare that there is no outward sign that is dependable.
Injury to the bark tends to set a trunk to sprouting. Often a
multitude of small twigs cover a considerable area, close together,
and have only vigour enough to keep their terminal buds poked
outside the bark — sometimes not even that — but they still live.
Each is the centre of a series of wood rings which are revealed
when cut and polished as "birds' eyes" of the maple that veneers
a bureau or a dressing table. Curly grain is not so easily accounted
for. The wood fibres are longer than in straight grain, and lie
upon each other in ripples. Beech often shows this grain, as
well as maples and birches. There seems to be no explanation
of the cause and method of its formation. In beauty curly
maple often excels the more striking "bird's-eye" wood.

To saw a bird's-eye log in the ordinary way would be to lose
most of the beauty of the grain, which can be got only by tan-
gential sawing. A special method used is to take short lengths
to a saw which cuts a thin layer from the surface of the revolving
log. Thus a thin, spiral sheet that will measure one hundred
or more feet when spread out can be pared from a single log
section before the saw reaches the central pith. Steamed and
pressed this veneer wood shows every eye it ever had.

Silver Maple, Soft Maple {Acer saccharinum, Linn.; Acer
dasycarpum, Ehr.)— A large tree, 80 to 120 feet, with wide spread-
ing top, trunk soon dividing into long limbs, ending in slender,
drooping twigs. Bark reddish brown, furrowed, surface rqugHly
scalyj twigs reddish, smooth. fP7)dit~ft5fft, pale brown, close
grained, brittle; easy to work. Sap sweet. HCmtezJbpds: leaf
buds pointed, red, in pairs; flower buds blunt, red, clustered at
nodes. Leaves 4 to 7 inches long, deeply 5-cleft by narrow
sinuses, irregularly toothed; smooth, pale green, white beneath,
pubescent along veins; yellow in autumn; petioles long, red,
flexible. Flowers, March to April, before leaves, greenish yellow,
without petals, '(* spurs or in axils of* last year's leaves; fertile
and sterile on different branches or often on separate trees. Fruit,
May, in pairs of winged samaras, i| to 3 inches long, on short

37i . 'y

cor

The Maples

pedicels, pubescent and green when young, becoming smooth;
germinating soon after they fall. Preferred habitat, rich, moist
soil. Distribution, Newfoundland to Dakota; south to Florida
and Oklahoma. Rare on Atlantic seaboard and on mountains.
Uses: Popular ornamental and shade tree, especially useful
west of Mississippi River. Wood used for flooring and cheap
furniture. Sap boiled occasionally for sugar.

The silver maple is a tree to count upon, if one is in search
of a suitable species to plant on a Western prairie that has uncertain
rainfall. It has ingratiated itself with people living farther
east, who might better choose elms and other maples. It is a
lazy man's tree, for it comes vigorously from seed, and bears
transplanting, even when there are radical changes in soil and in
climate to be met. It is a rapid grower, soon giving ample shade.
But rapid growth implies brittle, weak wood, as a rule. Slow-
growing trees like elms should always be alternated with soft
maples, to replace them after their brief race is run.

The habit of a tree must be considered when choosing a
place to plant it. It is unwise to plant silver maples close to a
house, as they have great horizontal spread, and the long, weak
limbs are easily broken by ice and wind storms. Old trees are
often cut back to a few main stubs above the trunk. A new top
is soon formed by suckers that rise from the stubs, but the tree's
symmetry is forever lost.

Local names often confuse the two Eastern early blooming,
early fruiting maples. They may easily be distinguished by their
mode of growth, flowers, fruits and leaves. Red maple limbs are
small and rarely droop; those of the silver maple curve downward,
but the twigs ascend. The brilliant colour belongs to the red
maple; the deep-cleft, silver-lined leaves to the silver maple. The
little, smooth, long-stemmed keys of the red species differ dis-
tinctly from the large, short-stemmed fruits of the other, which
are woolly until almost ripe. In winter even, buds and twigs
of the red maple are vividly red.

The Broad-leaved Maple, Oregon Maple {Acer macro-
phyllum, Pursh.) — A large, stout-limbed tree, ioo.feet high, with
compact head and drooping lower branches. Bark brown,
furrowed and with plate-like scales; twigs reddfeh, with milky
juice. Wood reddish brown, soft, light, close grained, susceptible
of a satiny polish ; often having curly and bird's-eye grain. Winter

372

THE SILVER MAPLE {Acer saccharin urn)
1- e Ion* limbs and the weakness of wood and bark combine to make this quick-growing specie, a prey to winds. The
t tinually needs corrective pruning. The twigs bear opposite leaves and buds. It is a good tree - but there are many

„tter ones to be had as easily, if one wishes to plant trees

Pistillate flrrwers (enlarged) Strtrniuaie flowers (enlarged)

THE SILVER MAPLE (Jeer sacckarinum)

The flowers come out before the leaves in March or early April. They may be on separate, or on the same trees. The
red-forked tongues of the pistillate flowers soon wither, and the horns of the keys rise. Hie staminate flowers are yellow. The
keys are more «_r less spreading. They are fuzxv until nearly ripe. They fall in May or earlier, and must germinate forthwith
or they die. Th? deeply cut leaves arc silver-lined.

The Maples

buds: axillary small; terminal larger, red, scaly. Leaves deeply
cut, by deep, narrow sinuses, into 5 lobes, each of which has wavy
margin, indented into secondary lobes; petioles 10 to 12 inches,
slender; blades 8 to 12 inches broad and long, dark green, lustrous
above; paler beneath; turn orange-yellow in autumn. Flowers
yellow, fragrant, in long racemes in late spring. Fruits paired
samaras, ripe in autumn; i^ inches long, with hairy nutlets, but
smooth wings, slightly divergent. Preferred habitat, banks of
streams and rich bottom lands. Distribution, south coast of
Alaska to San Diego, California. Uses: Valuable ornamental
and timber tree. Wood used for furniture and interior finish.

The great leaves that distinguish this species make it a
favourite on the Pacific slope. Unfortunately it is not hardy
north of Philadelphia, and does better in Europe than in our
Eastern States. It really is happiest in the bottom lands of
southern Oregon, where it forms forests and attains tremendous
proportions. One must see it at home in order to appreciate
this maple.

John Muir, writing of the western slopes of the Cascade
Mountains, says: "In a few favoured spots the broad-leaved
maple grows to a height of a hundred feet in forests by itself,
sending out large limbs in magnificent interlacing arches covered
with mosses and ferns, thus forming lofty sky gardens, and
rendering the underwoods delightfully cool. No finer forest
ceiling is to be found than these maple arches."

The wood of the broad-leaved maple ranks highest of all
deciduous lumber trees on the west coast. It is equal to the best
maple of the Eastern States.

The Vine Maple {Acer circinatum, Pursh.) grows from
British Columbia into northern California, and from the low >
bottom lands to an altitude of 1,000 feet, but always along
streams. In the lowlands it throws up several stems from the
root, which droop as they grow as if their weight overcame their
strength. Branches that spring from these prostrate stems
strike root, and soon the interlacing trunks and the branches
they bear cover the ground to the exclusion of everything else.

The vine maple's leaf is thin and almost circular, with a heart-
shaped base, and 7 to 9 triangular, cut-toothed lobes, uniform
in size and shape. In summer they are green, with prominent
veins and veinlets, and pale linings. In autumn they turn to

373

The Maples

orange and scarlet. The flowers are borne in terminal umbels,
and the samaras are smooth, with widely divergent wings.

Sugar Maple, Rock, or Hard Maple {Acer Saccharum,
Marsh.; Acer saccharinum, Wangh.; Acer barbatum, Michx.) — A
large, handsome tree, 75 to 120 feet high, with many upright
limbs forming an oval or oblong head. Sap sugary. Bark grey,
deeply fissured. Wood reddish brown, close grained, tough, hard.
Leaves broad, 4 to 5 inches across, 3 to 5-lobed, each lobe with
straight sides and peaked apex, which has 3 to 5 prominent teeth
with curved sinuses between; thin, dark green above, paler
lining; turn to yellow, orange and red in the fall. Flowers, with
the leaves in late spring, on long stems, in hairy, thick clusters,
without petals, greenish; monoecious or polygamous. Fruits,
October, 1 to 1 \ inches long, smooth, in pairs, on stems, \\ to 2
inches long, with wings only slightly diverging. Preferred
habitat, rich, moist soil in valleys or uplands. Distribution,
Great Lakes to Newfoundland; south along mountains to Florida;
west to Nebraska and Texas. Uses: Best of all maples as
lumber and shade trees. Wood used for flooring, interior finish
of houses, saddles, furniture, boats, shoe lasts, all turned wares
and fuel. Shows occasionally curly grain. Sap makes maple sugar.

The sugar maple is one of the most characteristic and valuable
trees in the eastern forests of America. It leads all the other
maples — it is the reliable, conservative member of the family;
slower than many of them, and less brilliant, but with staying
qualities — an absolutely dependable tree. Soft maples come and
go. These come and stay — standing always " proud and tall
under their leafy crowns." They are hardy, clean and vigorous.
They turn gradually to gold and reds in the fall, and drop their
burden of foliage without haste.

Hard maple lumber outranks all other species, and as fuel
it is surpassed only by hickory. Its ashes yield potash and
alkali in large percentages. Fresh unleached hard maple ashes
are highly esteemed as fertiliser for orchards and vegetable
gardens.

Wise men were they who set hard maples along the boundary
lines of their farms in earlier days. They now have avenues to
be proud of. And they have also a source of revenue, for these
low-branched, isolated trees give abundant flow of sap in the
early spring.

374

THE SUGAR MAPLE (Jeer Saccharum)

\ ,

, A 11 *l th.r maoles-it is the reliable, conservath e member of the family. Beautiful for shade and ornamW,
This tree leads **£^*^%^ of high quality, and finally its ashes make the best of fertilisers - \

» Winter buds

3 Fniitin;; branch

Fl^Hntrh«,„rn A.Sf,n1in.-tr,n.,v,r:R Pfetfl?atc flowe,

blooms • THF SUGAR WPLE ' ■'''" WA^W)

£^^ , t? fl— <«**»'■*> thru., out forked

is r,^n ,n October rh. „..: ,. , thin and dark green with pale lining. The smooth

TIk
tongue
Plump seeds rioen hTrw-IT' ^!""° * m'nch "' st;lmeni

The Maples

The Black Maple, or Black Sugar Maple {Acer nigrum,
Michx.), is now counted a distinct species, but was long regarded
as a variety of Acer Saccharum. The best year-round character
to look for is the orange colour' of the stout branchlets. The
. tree's head is less compact and has a duller, darker green foliage
mass than that of the hard maple. The leaves vary much in
size and shape, but in general have three pointed lobes with
broad, shallow sinuses and scantly toothed or unbroken margins;
the basal sinus is often closed by the overlapping of its sides.
The leaf is usually green on both sides, and smooth, with hairy
tufts along the principal veins below, and on the petioles. The
drooping of the leaves is very noticeable, as if the stout petioles
were too weak to support their burden. The samaras differ from
those of the previous species in having more widely divergent
wings.

The black maple predominates over A. Saccharum in the
Western prairie states. It is the sugar maple of South Dakota and
Iowa. In the East, it is a rare tree. It ranges from Montreal
to Ontario and to the Dakotas, and from New Hampshire and
Vermont south to lower Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri and eastern
Kansas. It is an admirable shade and sugar tree, and its wood
has the characteristics of the rock maple.

The Florida Maple {Acer Floridanum, Pax.) is smaller
than our Northern hard maple, and differs from it in its small
3-lobed leaves, with blunt or faintly 3-lobed apexes, and pale,
hairy linings. The fruits are also small. This tree varies con-
siderably, and grows along streams and swamps, throughout the
Gulf States.

The Large-toothed Maple {Acer grandidentata, Nutt.)
resembles the last species, but its leaves are leathery and have
very wide sinuses and very short petioles. It is found on the
mountains from Montana to Mexico.

The two species named above are considered by some authors
to be varieties of the Eastern rock maple.

Three Little Maples

There are a few members of the great maple family which
do not share the lofty aspirations of the majority, They are
to be sought in thick forests of mixed hardwoods, and they do

375

The Maples

much to make our walks through such a wood delightful. With
the viburnums and the ground hemlocks they spread their leafy
- branches "amidst the cool and silence," and the sun rarely
looks in upon them.

The Mountain Maple {Acer spicatum, Lam.) is usually
shrubby in habit; very rarely it reaches 30 feet in height, and a
maximum trunk diameter of 6 to 8 inches. Its green bark is not
striped, a character which at any season distinguishes it from
the striped maple. The lobes of its leaves are taper pointed, and
their margins coarsely saw-toothed. The petioles are long and
slim' and scarlet throughout the summer. The flowers are small,
greenish yellow with long, narrow petals; they are clustered in
/racemes that stand erect in the axils of the fully-expanded leaves.
The fruits hang in clusters, the little samaras but slightly divergent,
and showing clear red in the summer. In autumn they are brown,
while the foliage takes on brilliant shades of yellow and scarlet.
After the leaves fall the grey, downy twigs are bright with the
winter buds only.

The Striped Maple, or Moosewood {Acer Pennsylvanicum,
Linn.) grows from a shrub to a tree 40 feet high, best always in
the shade of taller trees and usually in rocky woods that cover
mountain slopes. It has green bark that breaks as the stems
increase in diameter into a network of furrows, which expose a
pale under layer, and make the green appear to be delicately
striped with white. Sometimes the stripes are dark brown.

The leaf of this maple is unusually large, often 6 inches in
length. It is about as broad as it is long, with three triangular
lobes, whose points form the leaf's broad apex. There are faint
suggestions of two basal lobes sometimes, but not always. The
margin is finely serrate, and the petiole grooved. In the autumn
the leaves turn yellow. The yellow, bell-like flowers in long,
pendulous racemes appear among the leaves in May. The
samaras are larger than those of the mountain maple, and the
wings in each pair are more widely divergent.

The striped maple is most brilliant in colouring when its
bud scales lengthen in late April, and the rosy, down-covered
leaves appear. The stems and unfolding shoots are delicate and
beautiful enough to repay an artist for making a pilgrimage each
spring to the place where this budding maple blushes unseen.
It is hard to make people believe that all this exquisiteness of

376

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The Maples

line and colour and texture can be revealed by " a common
maple that grows wild* in our woods."

The name; moosewood, calls attention to the fact that in
the north woods the green shoots are browsed by the deer and
moose. "Goose foot" is from the shape of the leaf; "whistle-
wood" from the easy slipping of the tough bark in early spring.

This little tree is rare in cultivation, though it is more inter-
esting and beautiful even than many an expensive exotic. One
may easily transplant a seedling from the neighbouring woods,
and it thrives in good garden soil if not too dry. A shady corner
is best, but there is a good specimen growing in the sunniest
part of a garden I know.

The Dwarf Maple {Acer glabrum, Torr.) is a shrub or low
tree of bushy habit which grows on the western mountains from
Canada to Arizona and New Mexico. The leaves are variable,
one type being a three-lobed, cut-toothed form not unlike the
red maple leaf; the other extreme is a compound leaf made of
three oval, coarsely toothed leaflets. They vary, in diameter
from one to five inches. The flowers are usually on separate trees
as in the box elder. The fruits as well as the leaves are smooth
and small, with wings that spread but little. They are often
ruddy during the summer.

Box Elder, Ash-leaved Maple (Acer Negundo, Linn.) —
A quick-growing, sturdy tree, 50 to 70 feet high, with irregular
spreading top. Bark greyish, regularly furrowed; twigs purple,
glaucous. Wood soft, white, weak, close grained. Buds opposite,
blunt, reddish. Leaves opposite, compound, of 3 to 5 pinnate
leaflets, irregularly toothed and lobed; smooth, pale beneath;
yellow in autumn. Flowers open with „ leaves on separate trees,
fertile, greenish, in drooping ra^gmes, sterile, in clusters on pink, j\

silky pedicels. Fruits narrow, flat, winged samaras, ij to 2
inches long, in pairs, clustered in drooping racemes; ripe in
September, but hanging until early spring. Preferred habitat,
rich, moist soil, by streams or along borders of swamps. Dis-
tribution, Vermont to Montana; south to Florida and west to
Colorado and Utah. Rare east of Appalachian Mountains.
Uses: Much planted for shade and ornament. Wood inferior;
used for cooperage and small woodenwares.

There are two things remarkable about the box elder: its
geographical range, natural and acquired, and the variation of

377

The Maples

altitudes it will endure with cheerfulness. Out of a certain
number of nursery trees you may plant a row rising gradually
from low bottom land to an altitude of 6,000 feet above sea
level, and they will all thrive.

It is the nature of mankind to love box elders for growing
where most trees refuse. In the treeless regions people had no
time to experiment with uncertain trees. Their land, taken up
under the homestead laws, had to show so many acres of wood-
land at the end of a certain time. So box elders and cotton-
woods and soft maples went in, because they could best be de-
pended upon to grow. The windbreak behind the settler's
house and the sh .de trees in front were of these same trees. They
grew, but they c 'dn't do well.

In the Middle West the quick growth and youthful prettiness
of the box elder have led people to keep on planting it, though
the early day of planting for shelter belts and windbreaks is
past. The result is that in many a village the majority of its
trees are unsightly, broken-down box elders and willows, with
a few fine elms, hard maples and ashes to redeem it. It is high
time the habit of planting the inferior, temporary kinds of trees
was overcome.

In the interests of village improvement and the fostering
of a love for better trees I went out to reason with a neighbour
who had come over to beg a few trees to plant in front of his
new house. He was digging a volunteer box elder out of our
blackberry patch, when I expostulated, offering him some hand-
some young elms instead. Twas throwing words away. "I
told yo' paw I'd ruther have box elders, an' he said I could."
v "But why wouldn't you rather have the elms? You can
^ee yourself that the finest trees in town are elms."

"Yes, they're harnsome trees — elms is; but it's the shade
I want. I always noticed that box elders, big or little, has the
coolest shade of any trees they is."

Before such subtle distinctions I was dumb. ►

• ^ Japanese Maples

I have said tnat Japan is the ancestral home of the maples.
Two-thirds of the forest trees in the islands to-day belong to the
genus Acer. The artistic and skilful Japanese gardeners have

378

THE STRIPED MAPLE {Acer Pennsyhanicum)

The bell-shaped flowers with bright yellow petals hang in graceful clusters below the opening leaves about the last week, in
May. Pistillate ar J starninate flowers are in separate clusters on the same tree

■$fc\

^% V F$$ik

C^jl/^

•-'

THE VINE MAPLE U<vr circinatum)
This leaf is almost circular in outline. The tree strikes root with its prostrate limbs, thus forming an impenetrable jungle.

It grows in the Northwest

THE JAPANESE MAPLE
{Acer palmatum, var. dissectum)

The leaf of this variety has been rcd'iccd by cultivation
to a i.<cre skeleton

THE DWARF MAPLE (Acer glabrUm)

This tree is variable in its leaf forms, even to producing com-
pound leaves. They vary also in size. It is smooth throughout.
Often it beats flowers separately, like the box elder. It is native!
to the mountainous West

The Maples

developed a great number of beautiful garden varieties. These
are dwarf fonns, almost without exception, low and usually
spreading in habit, as if to show to best advantage the wonderful
form and exquisite colouring of' the foliage and fruits.

Acer palmatum and A. Japonicum, with their varieties,
show all possible gradations from a broad palm to the merest
skeleton of a leaf. The Japanese worship beauty such as these
garden maples show; and in the autumn when each careful
gardener has brought his maples to their utmost perfection, a
grand national fete is celebrated. The people dress for a holiday,
and go forth "to view the maples." It is a day of picknicking,
combined with mushroom gathering and a sort of aesthetic jubilee
— as much a time for rejoicing as the spring jubilee of the cherry
blossoms. Japanese maples are among our most beautiful exotics.
They are quite at home in American gardens, and there is nothing
like them. Well might we turn pilgrims like the Japanese, and
by much planting and close watching come to know and appre-
ciate them.

Acer Japonicum, the type, is throughout the season a uniform
rich dark purple. Acer Nikoense, a large species, has vivid scarlet
autumnal foliage. Other species of maples are imported from
eastern Asia, and one or two each from the Himalayas, the Cau-
casus and North Africa. But the Japanese lead them all.

' 1
The European Maples Y

fhe Sycamore Maple {A. pseudo-platanus) is the most
important hardwood tree in Europe. It ranks with our hard
maple, and with xa Himalayan species of great lumber value. It
is the wood out of which deal tables are made.

In America, where it is planted to some extent, it is thrifty
but short lived. It may be known by its thick 5-lobed, sycamore-
like leaves, with crenate margins, and the long, pendulous racemes
of flowers or keys, which may c>e found at any season on good-
sized trees. It is chiefly set as a street tree, but its head is rather
too spreading to use except on wide avenues.
*/ The Norway Maple {A. platanoides) is a round-headed
tree, of dense foliage which turns yellow in the fall. It is one
of our best exotic maples, growing rapidly and to great size. Its
broad, 5-lobed leaves are remotely toothed, and smooth and

379

The Maples

green on both sides. A broken petiole or growing shoot exudes
a milky juice. The flowers are yellow, in flat clusters, followed
by thin, paired samaras whose wings spread in opposite directions.
-jl As the flowers open after the leaves, the samaras are late in
\ ripening, and they germinate the following spring. Seeds of
this species may be gathered and shipped without losing their
vitality, as do the two "soft maples."

The Nonvay maple has proved itself an exceptionally good
species for the Middle West. In any region, it holds its leaves
much later than other maples, which is a strong argument in its
favour, for they are still perfect when they fall.

There was a time in Rome's luxurious days when men went
mad over tables made of curly maple. Not of the sycamore
maple, the standard hardwood of Europe to-day, but of the
lesser maple, Acer campestris, the maple of the field. It out-
ranked even the precious Arrah, or citron-wood, in popularity
among the Imperial "smart set." The best trees grew on the
nether slopes of the Alps; and the curly wood came from trees
disfigured with knobs and swellings. There were two. kinds:
one, dark, which came in logs large enough to saw into tables;
the other, white, far more beautiful, but always in such small-
sized pieces that only curious and dainty articles could be made of
it. Often it was worked down so thjn that when polished it was
transparent, and showed its beautiful patterns as if they were in
a pane of glass.

"The Pavonaceous maple" was that rare grain whose elegant
curls and undulations imitated the eyes of a peacock's tail.
Workers in maple wood ranked with jewellers and goldsmiths.
They made tables with the most beautiful colours and patterns
revealed by their polished tops. For such a table Cicero paid
ten thousand sesterces. It showed curious "spots and macula-
tions" in the natural grain which imitated the colours and shapes
of tigers and panthers! One of the Ptolemies had a circular
table three inches thick and four feet and a half in diameter for
which he gave its weight in gold! Fifteen hundred thousand
sesterces — $60,000 — paid by this emperor for a single table,
probably represents the limit to which this extravagance was
carried.

The Maples

A common phrase, which we use without understanding
its meaning, originated at this time. The women matched their
husbands in lavish expenditures. "When the men at any time
reproached their wives for their wanton extravagance in pearl
and other rich trifles, they were wont to retort, and turn the tables
upon their husbands." Evelyn, from whom I quote, makes
this statement on the authority of Pliny.

381

CHAPTER XLIX : THE BUCKEYES

Family Hippocastanace^e

Genus iESCULUS, Linn.

Trees with ill-smelling bark and soft wood. Leaves palm-
ately compound, opposite, large. Flowers perfect, large, showy,
in panicles. Fruit a nut; one or two of them in a 3-celled, 3-
parted husk.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Flowers yellow; leaflets 5 to 7.

B. Husk spiny or rough; stamens long.

(/£. glabra) ohio buckeye
BB. Husk smooth; stamens short.

(/E. ociandra) sweet buckeye
AA. Flowers white; leaflets 5.

B. Fruit smooth, pear shaped.

{/E. Calijornica) California buckeye
BB. Fruit spiny, globose. (Exotic.)

{/Br. Hippocastanum) horse chestnut
AAA. Flowers red; leaflets 5; fruit smooth.

(/E. austrina) buckeye

There are but few of our native tree families whose leaves
are set opposite upon the twigs. The horse chestnut family is
one of them. This is an important family trait, wherever it
Occurs; it is shared by the ashes, maples, dogwoods, catalpas,
viburnums and elders. Of these six the first and last have
compound leaves. So a tree withopposite and compound leaves,
if a native, is almost sure to be an ash, an elder or a buckeye.
Ash and elder leaflets are always distributed in pairs along the
sides of the main leaf stalk. The buckeyes all bunch their leaflets
at the end of the leaf stem. They are palmately compound,
while those of the ash are pinnately compound. This simple
and easy mode of identifying opposite-leaved trees is set forth
more graphically in the Key to the Families.

382

The Buckeyes

Buckeyes are distinguished by large winter buds, showy
flowers in pyramidal racemes, large handsome foliage, and large
nuts in 3-valved husks.

Every continent of the Northern Hemisphere has its buckeyes.
There are eleven species in all. Of these America has four in her
own right; the horse chestnut of Asia Minor is much oftener
planted in this country than the native kinds. Indeed this
species is the most cosmopolitan of trees, being found in the
parks of cities in all regions where the climate permits it to thrive.
It is a hardy immigrant, springing up spontaneously in some
sections of our Eastern States.

The name "buckeye" is traceable to the brown nut marked
with white, which suggested to somebody's fancy the eye of a
deer. "Horse chestnut" employs the word horse to indicate
that the fruit, which resembles the familiar edible chestnut, is
unfit for human food. One nibble will prove to anyone its
rank quality. These nuts lie untouched by squirrels through the
most trying of winters. A strange circumstance is that the name
/Esculus was-~tfTe" classical name of an oak tree, and it is v
similar in form to the Latin word which means edible.
formed an important part of the diet of primitive peor*
is hard to imagine an edible horse chestnut. Bitt-
bark and seeds are characteristic of the whole far

In Mexico and Central America grow t
genus Billia, trees with three leaflets inste
Otherwise, the trees are like the buckeyes,
family. The maples with their opposite
of the buckeyes.

Ohio Buckeye, Fetid Bucket
— Tree 20 to 70 feet high, with small,
twigs brown, pubescent, becoming
into plates. Wood white, shading
soft, and difficult to split. Winte
resinous; scales elongating to.
light coloured. Leaves opposite
obovate, smooth leaflets. Flowe
clusters, small, pale, yellow-gret
inches in diameter, globular, 3pVS$
becoming less so when ripe; nut bi
Preferred habitat, moist woods along

383

The Buckeyes

Alleghany Mountains from Pennsylvania to Alabama; west to
Michigan and Oklahoma. Uses: Wood used for artificial limbs
and small wares.

This tree was found most abundantly in Ohio by the botanical
explorer, Michaux, and though it grows more plentifully farther
west, Ohio will always be called "the Buckeye State." The
tree is gradually becoming rarer, for the strong, disagreeable
odour exhaled by its bark impels people to cut it down. There
is nothing about the tree to offset this disadvantage. Its flowers
are inferior to those of other species. Only the special use to
which its wood is put — the making of artificial limbs — seems to
justify this ill-favoured tree in the eyes of practical people. Its
vigorous nuts are too bitter to be eaten, and thus it seems to be
well fitted to hold its own in the woods.

The Yellow, Sweet, or Big Buckeye {/Esculus octandra,

Marsh.), grows on mountain slopes of the Alleghanies, from

western Pennsylvania south into Georgia and Alabama, and west

to Iowa and Texas. It is a handsome large tree, with leaves

*ive slenderly elliptical leaflets, more or less pubescent below

the veins above. The showy yellow flowers are elongated

The husks of the nuts are smooth. This species lacks

Me odour of the Ohio buckeye, and its nuts, though

x)ple, are eaten by cattle. Paste made from

*rred by bookbinders. It is strong in two

ind destructive insects will not eat it.

uckeye {/Esculus Californica, Nutt.) is a

?o to 40 feet high, with leaves much

large, compact clusters of white or

smooth pear-shaped fruits. Its

1 resinous. The upper Sacramento

It is found along the coast and on

as as far as Los Angeles County.

^an gardens.

sjulus austrina, Sarg.) has but

mong the species of this genus.

y more than a shrub. Its thin

five leaflets, but the distinctive

y: cluster, with stamens protruding

^ater, the pitted husk of the fruit,

uts within it are good characters.

384 <

THE BOX ELDER {Acer Negundo)

The only maple with a compound leaf is this one. The opposite buds
and leaves and the key fruits are family characteristics. These keys load the
leafless pistillate trees well into winter. The wind scatters them, but the
curved stems persist until summer.

THE BLACK MAPLE {Acer nigrum)
A winter twig

Fruit and leaf

THE OHIO BUCKEYE (.Esculus glabra)

Winter buds

Five smooth leaflets compose each leaf. The flowers are yellowish green, with stamens curved and extended. They opei
after the leaves in May, and the 3-valved spiny husk liberates the nut in October. The wood is used for artificial limbs

The Buckeyes

The tree occurs from Missouri to Texas and from near Memphis,
Tennessee, to northern Alabama.

/Escula carnea is a garden species produced by crossing our'
shrubby red buckeye, A. Pavia, with the horse chestnut, A.
Hippocastanum. The handsome hybrid tree is 20 to 30 feet high,
with leaves like the horse chestnut and flowers flesh coloured to
scarlet. The colour is derived from the smaller species, but size,
foliage, waxy winter buds, and slightly prickly fruit, as well
as its hardiness, come from the larger one. This is one of the
most desirable kinds for ornamental planting.

The Horse Chestnut (/Esculus Hippocastanum, Linn.) came
originally from southern Asia, and has for centuries been a favourite
tree for avenues and parks in Europe. In America it grows
with even greater vigour than in the Old World. It is one of
the trees commonly planted in the Eastern States, and has escaped
from cultivation in many places.

Longfellow's "spreading chestnut tree" was a horse chestnut.
He called the tree by the name popular in England, where the
word "horse" is ordinarily left off. The most aged and imposing
specimen trees are to be seen in our Eastern cities, or near them.
The trees reach their best development in more open country
away from choking dust and smothering pavements. It is by
no means the most desirable of trees, but it improves on ac-
quaintance.

If you are in a city with a bare horse-chestnut tree outside
your window, look at it. See the great varnished brown buds
that tip the stout twigs. There are small buds on the sides in
pairs, but these are evidently subordinates. ~~The twigs are
generally forked. This tells that a flower cluster came out of
an end bud and the growth of the twig had to be carried up by a
pair of side buds. The whole treetop is a great complex system
of candelabra — each main branch curves up, then down, then up
again to hold all its tips erect.

In late winter a subtle change comes over the horse-chestnut
buds. They |rimme7^wTtR~arT unwoTrted-light as if warned from
within of a great change about to take place. When the warm
days come they swell and loosen their waxy scales* showing the
silky grey down that lines them, and the close-packed leaves
inside. If one would see a miracle he must watch the quick
unfolding of the leaf bundle, the lifting of the pale green silvery

385

The Buckeyes

tent and the spreading of the young leaves into erect umbrellas
all over the treetop. During this brief period the trees are en-
chanting. I wish every house-pent human being could stop
work and sit with folded hands and absorb the beauty
and inspiration of this spectacle. A brief hour and it is
over; the leaflets rise and go about their duties, leaving
with us only a memory of their hour of adorable appealing
babyhood.

The horse-chestnut tree in bloom is a superb sight — "a
pyramid of green supporting a thousand pyramids of white!"
Each blossom of the dense cluster has in its throat dashes of
red and yellow, and the curving, yellow stamens are thrust far
out of the runied border of the corolla. If they were rare flowers,
they would be admired as orchids are now.

Few of the flowers set seed, as few have perfect pistils.
The cluster does quite enough if it matures one or two burs.
In fall the small boy assails the trees, knocks off and husks the
smooth brown nuts, and how glowing and soft are the colours
of them! They are "Conquerors" in games which recur as
regularly among town children in the autumn as do games of
marbles and the flying of kites in the spring.

The fall of the horse-chestnut leaves is a sudden and absolute
surrender. When the time comes, the leaflets and the stem
that bore them fall separately. The leaf has evidently expected
to come apart, for the joints are perfect: there is no tearing ncr
breaking involved in the process.

The base of the leaf stalk leaves a scar on the twig which
is strikingly like the print of a horse's hoof. This may have
given its name to the tree. Or was it, as Gerarde explains,
"for that the people of the east countries do with the fruit thereof
cure their horses of the cough, shortness of breath, and such like
diseases"? More probably the coarse, large, uneatable nuts
are responsible; many rank-growing plants unfit for human
food are similarly named, e. g., horse mint, horse nettle, horse
sugar.

The great fault of the horse chestnut is that it is continually
dropping something. The bud scales first make a considerable
litter; then the flowers fall like snow. The unripe fruits drop in all
stages, and the leaves that choke to death in the crowded interior
turn rustv yellow and drop all summer. It also casts too dense

386

The Buckeyes

a shade, and in some regions is stripped of its foliage by caterpillars
covered with tufts of white hairs — the larvae of the tussock moth.
Few people who take thought will choose this tree when elms and
hard maples can be had for planting.

Family Sapindace^

Some interesting relatives of the buckeyes are to be found
in the soapberry family, which comprises over one hundred
genera, chiefly tropical plants. The leaves are alternate,
and the fruits are drupes or capsules. Five deserve mention
here.

The Spanish Buckeye (Ungnadia speciosa, Endl.) is a
small tree with alternate ash-like leaves and profuse clusters of
rose-coloured flowers. It grows on canon sides and along streams
in Texas and New Mexico. Few trees surpass it in beauty when
blooming. The fruit is shaped like an inverted top, deeply
3-lobed, and contains three shiny seeds smaller than buck-
eyes.

The Soapberry (Sapindus* Saponaria, Linn.) has the dis-
tinction of bearing "sope berries like a musket ball that washeth
as white as sope." So writes an early explorer of southern
Florida. The berries produce a good lather in water. The
Asiatic sort have long been used for washing silks and rare woollen
fabrics, such as cashmere shawls. The stem of the ash-like
leaf is winged with a narrow, leaf-like web throughout its length,
as is that of our familiar smooth sumach of the roadside
thickets.

The Wild China Tree (Sapindus marginatus, Willd.) — A
tree of medium size which grows from Louisiana to Kansas and
southern Mexico, has leathery leaves with wingless-stems, and
yellow berries which have the same saponaceous principle. This
tree is especially valuable for its wood, which is tough and hard,
and divides into plates, or annual layers. These are separated,
stripped, and woven into baskets to use in gathering the cotton
crop.

The Ironwood, or Inkwood (Exothea paniculata, Radlk.),
grows on the southeast coast of Florida. It is a small tree whose
hard red wood is used for piles and boats, because it seems to be
immune from the attacks of the ship-worm. Its leaves have

387

The Buckeyes

2 to 4 oval leaflets. The minute flowers are in panicles, and the
fruit is a juicy, i -seeded, purple berry.

The White Ironwood (Hypelate irifoliaia, Schwartz.) —
A rare species on the Umbrella Keys, and in Cuba and
Jamaica, it is esteemed as timber and devoted to boat building.
Its wood, though hard, is far from white. The leaves have three
obovate leaflets; the minute flowers are succeeded by sweet,
black berries, each enclosing a thick pit.

388

CHAPTER L: THE BUCKTHORNS

Family RhamnacejE
Genus RHAMNUS, Linn.

Ornamental trees and shrubs, with bitter juice. Leaves
simple, alternate, entire or toothed. Flowers inconspicuous,
greenish, in axillary clusters. Fruit berry-like, black or red.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Leaves deciduous. (Eastern.)

(R. Caroliniana) Indian cherry
AA. Leaves evergreen, or nearly so. (Western.)
B. Length, J to ij inches, holly-like.

(R. crocea) evergreen buckthorn
BB. Length, i to 7 inches, deciduous or persistent.

(R. Purshiana) cascara buckthorn

The buckthorns are small, ornamental tree and shrubs.
There are sixty species of them, widely distributed in the Northern
Hemisphere, with a few tropical species, and representatives in
South Africa and Brazil.

Of our three natives, the Indian cherry is rarely seen in
cultivation. When people plant buckthorns they order them of
nurserymen who offer the vigorous English Rhamnus caihartica, a.
clean-leaved, handsome, thorny shrub, beset in autumn with
black berries clustered close to the twigs. Its fruit yields a
valuable medicinal principle, oftenest sold in the form of a syrup.
The bark furnishes a yellow dye. Another European buckthorn,
R. jrangula, appears in our shrubbery borders, its shining leaves
brightened by large red berries. The wood of this species makes
valuable charcoal for gunpowder.

Morocco leather is dyed yellow with the berry of a French
buckthorn. Painters get their "China green" from two Chinese
species. Jujube paste is made from the fruit of a member of
this family. The "Lotus-eaters" of ancient literature are now

389

The Buckthorns

believed to have tasted — to their undoing— the fruit of one of the
buckthorns.

Indian Cherry, Yellow Buckthorn (Rhamnus Carolini-
ana, Walt.) — A slender, spreading tree, 25 to 35 feet high, or a tall
shrub; branches thornless. Bark ashy grey, blotched with black,
shallowly furrowed; branches grey. Wood hard, light brown,
close, brittle. Buds pointed, small. Leaves deciduous, alternate,
elliptical, acute, faintly serrate, 2 to 5 inches long, yellow-green
above, paler beneath; veins yellow. Flowers small, in axillary
umbels, April to June. Fruits, September; berry-like, 2 to 4-
celled drupes, with dry, sweet, black flesh, red before it ripens.
Preferred habitat, rich bottom lands and limestone hillsides.
Distribution, Long Island to Florida; west to Nebraska and
Texas. Uses: Sometimes planted as an ornamental for its
bright berries. Not hardy North.

The Cascara Buckthorn (R. Purshiana, DC.) grows
from Puget Sound through California, and east to Colorado and
Texas. It is extremely variable in size, adapting itself to different
regions and climates with great facility. In the canons of the
Sierras it becomes a tree 40 feet high; on the exposed mountain
sides and on the arid coast of California it dwindles to a prostrate
shrub. Its elliptical leaves are usually evergreen or half ever-
green; the fruits turn red on ripening, then black.

It is from the bark of this tree that the drug, Cascara Sagrada,
is obtained. The species and its varieties are planted in shrub-
beries for their pretty foliage and bright fruits. Forms with
deciduous leaves are hardy in Massachusetts gardens.

The Evergreen Buckthorn {Rhamnus crocea, Nutt.) grows
on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California,
south of the upper valley of the Sacramento River. It is more
often a shrub than a tree, and commonly forms thickets on
the shaded sides of ravines. Its leaves are almost round and
spiny- toothed, glossy green above and coppery beneath. Its
scarlet, pea-like fruits are sweet and edible. This buckthorn is
frequently seen in gardens in California. It is not hardy in the
North, but deserves introduction into the Southern and Middle
States.

Numerous k related genera belonging to the buckthorn family
are found in the Southern States and in California. Among them
are trees of unusual interest which deserve brief mention here.

390

■opyrjght, 1905. bv Doubleday. Page at Company

SCARLET HAW {Crataegus Arnoldiana)

Branch taken from type species in the Arnold Arboretum. Boston.

The Buckthorns

Some are remarkable for the hardness of their wood, others for
their flowers.

The Red Ironwood (Reynosia septentrionalis, Urb.), called
also "Darling plum/' grows wild in southern Florida, and is
cultivated to some extent for its fruit. It is a pretty little tree,
clothing its heavy, hard wood with bright red bark. The purple
or black plums are sweet and of pleasant flavour.

The Blue wood, or Logwood (Condalia obovata, Hook.),
grows in thickets in the valley of the Rio Grande River in Texas
and is especially esteemed as fuel. It burns with an unusually
fervent heat. Its leaves are dry and leathery, obovate, entire,
and scarcely an inch long. Its twigs end in sharp thorns. The
sweet berries ripen, turning blue, then black, during the long
summer. The wood is red, but yields a bluish dye. It is an
entirely different tree from the logwood of commerce, Hcema-
toxylon Campechianum, which grows in Central America and the
West Indies and yields a colouring matter used in calico printing
and in the preparation of lake pigments.

The Black Ironwood (Krugwdendron jerreum, Urb.) grows
plentifully in second-growth timber in southern Florida and in
the West Indies. Its velvety green twigs are covered with small,
oval, leathery leaves, and in autumn with solitary black berries.
The bark is pale grey.

This species is notable for having the heaviest wood of all
American trees. A cubic foot of it weighs 81.14 pounds. Its
specific gravity is 1.3020. The ashes, after a stick burns, weigh
8J per cent, of the original weight, proving a remarkably high
percentage of mineral substance in the wood.

The California Lilac, or Blue Myrtle (Ceanothus thyrsi-
florus, Esch.), is related to the shrubby New Jersey tea, or redroot
of the eastern half of the continent. But it is a California species,
and there we shall find it in all stages from a small shrub on the
bleak lower coast to a towering tree 40 feet high among the red-
woods, and on the hillsides of Mendocino County. It keeps to
the western part of the state. The most striking feature of this
plant is the inflorescence. The twigs end in clusters of small,
blue, fragrant flowers (rarely white), which suggest nothing more
than our garden lilac blooms, in v miniature. The leaves are
small with peculiar venation, having three midribs instead of one.
From this native species have been derived forms of showief

391

The Buckthorns

bloom, which are extensively planted. These California lilacs
do poorly in the Eastern States, but much better in Europe.

The Spiny Lilac (Ceanothus spinosus, Nutt.) grows in
canon sides in southern California, and a velvety-branched
species (C. arboreus, Greene) is found only on the Santa Barbara
Islands.

392

CHAPTER LI: THE LINDENS

Family Tiliace^e

Genus TILIA, Linn.

Trees with mucilaginous sap, tough inner bark and broad,
dense head. Wood soft, white. Leaves alternate, deciduous,
broad, unsymmetrical, toothed, with veins branching strongly
on side next to petiole. Flowers creamy, fragrant, perfect,
clustered in cymes; borne on narrow leaf-like blades. Fruit
a dry, i to 2-seeded, globular nut.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Leaves green on both sides.

B. Linings of leaves nearly, or quite, smooth; fruit ovoid.

(T. Americana) American linden
BB. Linings of leaves pubescent; fru^t globose.

(T. pubescetts) downy bass wood
A A. Leaves pale below; fruit globose.

(7\ heterophylla) white basswood

The genus Tilia, comprising sixteen recognised species,
ranges widely in the Northern Hemisphere, omitting only central
Asia, the Himalaya district, and western America. It belongs
to a tropical family of which it is the only northern representative.
America has three Eastern species and one confinea to Mexico.
Three other little-known forms have b&en recently admitted to
the rank of species by Professor Sargent.- a

In classical literature and in folk lore the lindens have an
honoured place. In the south of Europe the impressionable
Greeks and Romans loved them for their beauty and their honey-
laden flowers. The hives of Hybla were sung by poets, and the
honey from the linden trees in the Lithuanian^ forests brought a
price three times asTarge as any other. Linnaeus had his name,
Carl Linne (afterward Carolus Linnaeus), from a favourite linden
tree that stood by his peasant father's house.

393

The Lindens

Scarcely a part has a linden tree that is not turned to good use.
Its fagots make the best of charcoal. The leaves are used, fresh
and dry, as fodder for cattle. The flowers furnish nectar to bees,
and are distilled by makers of perfumes. An infusion of fresh
flowers has long been used as a remedy for indigestion, nervousness,
and for coughs and hoarseness. The seed balls are full of oil
which is esteemed equal to olive oil for cooking and table use.
This oil is also used in perfumeries. The bark of young trees
makes the shoes of the Russian peasant. Ropes, fishnets and
mats are made of this tough "bast fibre" of the inner bark. It
was a favourite tying material in nurseries and greenhouses until
the more adaptable raffia came in to replace it. Basswood is
second only to "tulip poplar" in the wood carver's esteem. The
wood is uniform in colour and texture, does not split easily, and is
free from hard knots and minor imperfections. Dryden describes
it as

" Smooth grained and proper for the turner's trade,

Which curious hands may carve and steel with ease invade."

Sometimes basswood is sawed by holding a short section of a
log so that it revolves against a saw blade. The wood is thus
spirally sawed; that is, a thin, continuous board is made as long
as the log, and as wide as the spiral path pf the saw from bark to
pith. Sometimes this sheet of wood is ioo feet wide. Steaming
and pressing prepare these curved sheets for veneer work. This
method practically eliminates waste, both in the sawmill and in
the cabinet shop.

Famous old trees in Europe include the Neustadt Linden in
Wurtemburg. Its sheltering boughs formed a temple of justice
in the Middle Ages. Public questions were discussed under it.
It lived to be almost a thousand years old, with a crown over
ioo feet in diameter and a trunk 42 feet in circumference. Nearly
200/columns supported it in its dotage.

\j American Linden, Basswood (Ttlia Americana, Linn.) —
Tall, stately tree with spreading round top, 75 to 125 feet high;
trunk 2 to 4 feet in diameter. Bark brown, deeply furrowed,
scaly; inner layer tough; branches grey, twigs reddish. Wood
white or pale brown, soft, tough, close grained, free of knots-;
hard to split. Winter buds smooth, plump, pointed, dark red.
Leaves alternate, obliquely heart shaped, serrate, with prominent

394

veins and paler lining, veins branching mainly on the side next the
petiole; rusty hairy in axils of side veins underneath. Petioles
3 to 4 inches long, slender; blades 6 to 8 inches long, 3 to 4 inches
wide. Flowers, June, July; small, perfect, yellowish white,
very fragrant, full of nectar, clustered on end of flower stalk
borne on narrow leaf-like blade. Peculiar petal-like scale opposite
each petal. Fruit a cluster of woody, pea-like balls, grey, rather
woolly, round or ovoid; seeds 2 to 3. Preferred habitat, moist,
rich woodlands. Distribution, New Brunswick to Dakota; south
to Virginia, along mountains to Alabama; west to Texas. Uses?
An ornamental and shade tree; planted for bee pasture. Wood
used for carriage bodies, bureaus, chair seats, shoe soles, cooperage,
wood carving, paper pulp, charcoal and fuel.

No American tree has more abundant foliage than the linden.
The branches subdivide into very many twigs, all set with
plump buds in winter. These develop into leafy shoots that
lengthen rapidly, carrying the broad leaves out where there is
room for them to expand fully. A dense shade is cast by this
roof of green, and cattle ranging in mixed and open woods are
likely to choose this tree as the best shelter from the heat and
glare of dog days.

The linden's roots are large and fibrous, penetrating deeply
and widely in the soil. The vigour of its growth is not to be
wondered at. It is not dependent on transient soil conditions: it
draws its sustenance from the deeper sources. Its smooth bark
and the lusty symmetry of its frame are revealed in winter. Its
lines are gentle curves; its twigs are stout but supple. Its whole
character suggests the quality of its wood, which the axe cuts
like cheese. Just so the hickory tells by its winter "expression"
of the tough fibres its shaggy bark conceals.

The linden opens late in spring. But watch how it makes
up time, when the ruby buds do stir, and the inner scales lengthen
and reveal the succulent shoots. The flowers wait until the flood
of pink and white has subsided in the orchard. Then they open
by the hundreds, creamy white and honey laden, and we enjoy
them with the bees. Only catalpa and chestnuts will bid for our
attention, and the appeal of the fragrance alone is strong enough
to lead us to the tree. The blossoms are clustered on dainty
pale-green blades. The tree is illuminated, the broad leaf plat-
forms lined with the delicate inflorescence. A bird flying over

395

The* Lindens

looks down upon a tree covered with shingled leaves. It is
from underneath that the full beauty of these trees must now be
seen.

In midsummer the linden grows coarse. The great leaves
are soft and attract hordes of insect enemies. Plant lice cover
them with patches of honey dew, and the sticky surfaces catch
dust and smoke. Riddled with holes and torn by the wind, they
fall in desultory fashion. The faded yellow does not please as
does the gold of beech and hickory leaves.

Before they lose their spring freshness, note the linden leaf,
so you will always recognise it. The heart-shaped blade is unsym-
metrical — one half is bigger than the other. The bases do not
match, if you fold a leaf on its midrib. Then look at the veining.
The main side ribs have large branches only on the lower sides.
Those on the other side are simple and small. This is noticeable
on no other tree as it is in this one. This peculiarity is seen in the
basal half of the leaf, where the side veins are of good size. All
lindens show this characteristic. It is one of the marked family
traits.

In the virgin forests of the Ohio Valley basswoods vastly
outnumbered all other trees. The reasons are easy to discover.
Vigorous seeds, winged for flight, are borne in profusion by these
trees. Their seedlings are content to grow in the shade. Suckers
grow up from the roots of a tree that falls, and every twig the
wind tears off is likely to strike root, and soon to become a tree.
Only man can interfere with the triumph of such a species in the
unceasing battle in the forest. He has distributed Nature's
equilibrium. The giant lindens, hundreds of years old, fell under
the pioneer's axe, and it will take centuries for the second-growth
trees to reach their full stature. Let us hope some of them may
be permitted to live their lives undisturbed, just to show to
coming generations what the linden trees of the Ohio Valley were
in the old days.

The White Bass wood, or Bee Tree of the South {J ilia
heterophylla, Vent.), is an exceptionally handsome tree, for its
bright leaves are pale beneath, often lined with fine, silvery
down. As they flutter in the breeze they make a dazzling play
of white and pale green against a background usually sombre
with hemlocks and mountain laurel.

The white basswood is a lusty forest tree with a preference

396

The Lindens

for the sides of mountain streams. It occurs at Ithaca, New
York, and following the Alleghanies south from Pennsylvania,
extends to Florida and Alabama, and west to Illinois, Kentucky
and Tennessee. The leaves are narrower in most cases than those
of the Northern species, but they vary in size and form, averaging
somewhat larger than those of T. Americana. The fruits are
globular, with two seeds in each.

The Downy Basswood (T. pubescens, Ait.), like the
Northern species, has leaves that are green on both sides, but this
species is distinguished by the rusty hairs that line its leaves
and coat its young shoots. It is a small tree, with leaves, flowers
and fruits reduced in size. It is a basswood in every character,
and need not be confused with the other native species. Its
flower blade is rounded at its base, while the others taper narrowly
to the short stem.

This little basswood follows the coast from the Carolinas to
Texas. It occurs also in Long Island. It is too rare to have any
importance as a lumber tree, and it is not a desirable species for
cultivation.

A large tree, with pubescent leaf linings and flower stalks,
has been discovered growing in various localities from Montreal
to Georgia and Texas. Collectors have assigned it to Tilia
pubescens, because it is a hairy species. It does not fit the de-
scription, having larger features throughout, and the seed bract
being narrowly obovate, tapering to the base. These may be
merely variations from the type species. Professor Sargent
accepts Nuttail's name, Tilia Mickauxii, in his Manual. The
tree is little known as yet.

European Lindens

Under the Linnaean and trade name, Tilia Europata, many
different species of lindens have been imported by American
nurserymen, and these trees are widely planted, especially in the
Eastern States. Tilia vulgaris, with small leaves green on both
sides, is a favourite avenue tree, beside which the American bass-
wood looks coarse indeed. This is the linden that lines the famous
Berlin thoroughfare, "Unter den Linden" — which so disappoints
the average tourist. To judge the lindens of the Continent by
these trees would be like judging American trees by specimens

397

The Lindens

that grow along Broadway in New York. The splendid lime
trees in the rural sections of France and Germany and in the
parks show the linden in its best estate.

In America some fine avenues of this species have attained
great age and size. The season of 1904 found these trees loaded
with flowers and fruit, under a leaf crown of unusual density
and beauty. The lower limbs lie on the ground when the tree
makes a natural growth, and the platforms of foliage, each lined
with the pendant cluster of flowers, fairly dripping with nectar,
form a symmetrical cone worth going miles to see. The ground
under these trees was covered with discarded petals and t\
weakest of the flower clusters, but the limbs above still ben
under the burden of the ripening seed balls. The leaves remain
much later than those of the native basswoods.

There are many fine specimens of Tilia tomentosa and Tilia
argentea, from eastern Europe, now coming into American gardens
and parks. These species deserve more extended cultivation.
Each has its foliage lightened with silky leaf linings. The weeping
silver linden, Tilia petiolaris, is an elegant tree with white-lined
leaves.

The Broad-leaved Linden (Tilia platypbyllos) , very common
in European parks and avenues, soon loses its foliage in dry
weather and is less desirable than other species for America.
It is clipped to form hedges in Europe; the alleys of the Tuilleries
gardens were made of it.

Because lindens submit patiently to pruning, they have long
been clipped into grotesque figures, along with yew and box.
They had a tremendous vogue while the formal garden was
approaching its most elaborate development. A more lasting
popularity was vouchsafed them as avenue and park trees, a
popularity which dates from remote times and is still unchecked.
"The Linden spreadeth forth his branches wide and farre abroad,
being a tree which yieldeth a most pleasant shadow, under and
within whose boughs may be made brave summer houses and
banquetting arbours."

398

CHAPTER LII : THE GORDONIAS

Family Theace^e

Genus GORDONIA, Ell.

Two very interesting and beautiful species of this genus grow
in the South Atlantic States. They are flowering trees that
rank in beauty with the magnolias which they resemble. They
belong, in fact, to the camellia family, whose flowers are famous
in horticulture. The tea plant, Camillia Thea, of commerce,
itself a beautiful flowering shrub, is a member of the family, and
a relative of our gordonias.

The Loblolly Bay (Gordonia Lasianihus, Ell.) grows to
be a tree of 70 feet in height, with slender, straight trunk and
narrow, compact head, in swampy land from tidewater Virginia
along the coast to the delta of the Mississippi. It is most frequent
in eastern Florida and Georgia. Its leaves\are evergreen, leathery
and shining, lanceolate in form and serrate on the margins. Its
flowers are perfect, with fleshy white petals spreading out like
great wild roses often two to three inches across. They begin to
bloom in July and continue several weeks. A dry, woody, ovoid
capsule succeeds the flower. In it are 2 to 8 square, winged
seeds.

The tree thrives in cultivation, though at best it is short
lived. A handsome specimen blossoms freely in the Arnold
Arboretum at Boston.

The Franklinia (G. Altamdha, Sarg.) is a tree rarely seen
over 15 to 20 feet high now. Its flowers, larger than those_of the
loblolly bay, open in September. The leaves resemble those of
the other species in form, but are deciduous, and notable for
their splendid scarlet in autumn. The fruit is globular and the
seeds not winged.

In 1790 William Bartram found this tree growing in groves
along the Altamaha River. Specimens were sent to John Bart-
ram's garden in Philadelphia, and from there were introduced

399

The Gordonias

into cultivation. Strangely, no succeeding explorer has ever
found the trees growing wild, though careful search has been
made to rediscover them. The only specimens known are in
gardens, lineal descendants and sole representatives of those
Bartram described.

400

THE AMERICAN LINDEN (TiJia Americana)

The broad leaves are asymmetrical and the side veins branch only' on the side next to the base of the leaf. The flower

clusters spring in June and July out of pale-green, leafy bracts. The dry seed balls are scattered by wind m winter. The leathery

bracts ?,ve them wings. The outer twig is cf Tilt* heterophxlla leatnery

THE RED MANGROVE {Rhizophora Mangle)
This Flondian tree spreads over marshy coast plains, forming almost impassable stretches of arching roots. It thro\
down aerial roots that hind the treetop to the soil in all directions. The seeds germinate on the tree, then fall and imm
diately become established.

THE WHITE MANGROVE (Laguncularia racemosa)

This tree mingles with the others of its name, but is

net a true mangrove at all. It is the buttonwood. It has

no aerial nor arching roots, hut relies t.n it* dry, flask-shaped

*eeds for multiplication

THE BLACK MANGROVE (Avicennia nitida)
It has grey-green, thick leaves, anil bears continuousl
its small white flowers. The seeds germinate before fallini
There are no aerial roots, but a grove of erect, leaflt
much-branched, projections arise from the roots. The
aerating oreans hold the debris and thus makr soil

CHAPTER LIII : THE MANGROVES

Tbe true mangrove family, Rhi^ophoracece, of fifteen genera,
Is chiefly confined to the tropical regions of the Old World. One
genus with a single species reaches the extreme end of Florida.
Two other species of the genus Rhizophora are found in tide
pools and marshes of Asiatic and African equatorial waters.
The remarkable habit of throwing out aerial roots from trunks
and limbs, and of germinating its seeds before they fall enable
the mangrove to extend its range on all sides, encroaching upon
the surrounding water slowly but surely. The secondary roots
fasten themselves in the soil, and the young plantlets, as they fall,
strike root at varying distances from the parent tree. The
flotsam and jetsam brought in and out by tides lodge among the
network of roots and stems, and thus new soil is formed.

Red Mangrove (Rhizophora Mangle, Linn.) — A round-topped
tree, 1 5 to 25 feet high, with drooping, aerial roots. Occasionally
75 feet high, with small, narrow head. Bark reddish brown or
grey, irregularly broken by shallow fissures; branches smooth.
Wood reddish brown, streaked with paler brown, hard, heavy,
close grained. Leaves persistent, thick, oval, blunt, 3 to 5 inches
long, dark green and shining above, paler beneath; margins entire.
Flowers, axillary, perfect, 2 to 3 on short stalk, petals 4, yellow,
hairy inside; ever-blooming. Fruit berry-like, 1 inch long, with
leathery, rough, brown skin; 4 calyx lobes curl back from base,
and tube of developing cotyledon of germinating seed protrudes
from apex. Preferred habitat, along coasts and rivers in wet soil.
Distribution, Florida from Mosquito Inlet to Cedar Keys, rounding
the southern end of the peninsula, and outlying islands. Uses:
Wood for wharf piles and fuel. Bark yields tannin, and a decoction
of it is used as a febrifuge.

This is the true mangrove of the West Indies and the Florida
coast, found also along the Pacific coast of Mexico and Lower
California. With the coral polyp it co-operates to extend the
borders of island and mainland. It spreads in monotonous green
thickets over marshy coast plains and in the estuaries of rivers,

401

The Mangroves

forming almost impassable stretches of arching roots, accumu-
lating rubbish of all sorts that finally lifts the level above the
tide and makes solid ground that is soon covered with the char-
acteristic vegetation of the tropics. Mangrove islands of varying
sizes now dot the surface of shallow bays which a few years ago
were quite destitute of islands.

The tree reaches its greatest height on dry ground back
from the coast. Here the trees grow tall and bare of limbs for
two-thirds of their height, and almost abandon the habit of
throwing down aerial roots. The wood is used for fuel and built
into wharfs. It is not counted a valuable tree.

The White Mangrove, or Buttonwood (Laguncularia race-
rnosa, Gaertn.), is not a true mangrove at all; it belongs in a
different botanical family, and is related to the aralias. It
mingles with the mangroves, but lacks the aerial roots character-
istic of the latter. The foliage is red when it, unfolds, becoming
dark green and glossy. The flowers are small, in axillary spikes.
The fruit is a flask-shaped, i -seeded drupe with corky flesh and
leathery skin. The wood is hard and dark brown, except for the
wide white sap wood. The bark is rich in tannic acid, and were
the trees located in less miasmic regions they would soon be cut
down for the bark alone.

The buttonwood the Floridian esteems as a fuel tree is
Conocarpus erecta, Linn., whose flowers and fruits are button-like.
It is also esteemed for its bark which yields tannin and a tonic
drug.

The Black Mangrove (Avicennia nitida, J acq.) is an ever-
blooming tree, with inconspicuous white flowers and a dry, i-
seeded capsule, i to i \ inches long. The leaves resemble those of
the true mangrove in form, but have a grey-green colour. The
tree's habit enables it to make soil in much the same way. The
seeds germinate before they fall, and are ready to root as soon
as they lodge in the mud. The roots of the adult trees extend far
out and, branching, send up a grove of leafless projections a foot
or two above the tide level, thus forming a network that holds
the soil, and soon makes land out of what was a tide-swept marsh.
No aerial roots strike downward from the branches of this tree.

The bark of the black mangrove exceeds that of Laguncularia
racemosa in value to tanners. It is certain that were the trees
located in more accessible regions, on solid ground instead of

402

The Mangroves

bottomless swamps, they would fall a prey to the peeler's axe.
The Floridian depends upon a smudge of punky black mangrove
to rid him of mosquitoes and sandflies, the twin scourge of the
summer nights. The range of this tree reaches north to St.
Augustine and Cedar Keys. From the southern end of the
peninsula and the neighbouring keys it extends into the West
Indies, the Bahamas, and on to Brazil.

The black mangrove is a tropical member of the verbena
family, well known to us in its herbaceous representatives that
grow in Northern gardens. The fiddlewood of lower Florida
(Citheraxylon villosum) is its nearest relative. The most important
timber tree in the family is the teak, Tectoria grandis, which
grows in tropical Asia and the East Indies. The catalpas in the
bignonia family are also close tree kin of the black mangrove.

403

CHAPTER XLIV: THE HERCULES' CLUB

Family Araliace^e

Genus ARALIA, Linn.

Fifty genera of aralias compose a great tropical family. The
well-known English ivy (genus Hedera) is perhaps the most
familiar representative. Of the five native species of aralia
the spikenards and sarsaparillas are pretty generally known,
having a striking luxuriance of growth and a reputation for
medicinal properties. There is a single arborescent species.
One tree aralia, the angelica tree of China and Japan, is cultivated
in the Northeastern States, where it proves hardy, and our
native tree is not. In appearance the two species are much alike,
though thornless varieties of the Chinese tree are oftenest met in
cultivation.

Hercules' Club (Aralia spinosa, Linn.) — A spreading,
aromatic, spiny tree, with club-like branches, 25 to 35 feet high,
or an unbranched shrubby cluster of shoots from underground
stems, 6 to 1 5 feet high in one season. Bark dark brown, furrowed
by wide, shallow cracks between rounded ridges. Wood light,
brittle, pale brown, soft. Buds: terminal, large, blunt; lateral,
flat, small, triangular. Leaves clustered near top of branch, 3
to 4 feet long, 1 to i\ feet wide, twice compound, on stout,
spiny petioles; leaflets oval, pointed, with toothed margins;
yellow in autumn. Flowers white, minute, in many-flowered
umbels, forming compound panicles often 3 to 4 feet high
above the leaves in midsummer. Fruits few, berry-like, juicy,
purplish. Nutlets 5, hard, flattened. Preferred habitat, deep,
moist soil near water courses. Distribution, Pennsylvania to
southern Missouri, south to Florida and Texas. Uses:
Handsome and quick-growing ornamental tree. Berries
and fleshy roots have medicinal properties, used in home
remedies.

The Hercules' club certainly earns its name when an under-

4°4

The Hercules' Club

ground stem, stored with plant food, sends up its lusty shoots in
spring. The ailanthus, in its most ambitious efforts, never threw
up such tall, thick sprouts. Fifteen to twenty feet these un-
branched shoots grow, and crown themselves with umbrellas of
leaves, twice compound like those of the Kentucky coffee-tree,
but much larger. In fact, no temperate zone tree has leaves of
such dimensions, though the oval leaflets are moderate in size,
and people are likely to mistake the strong, spiny petiole of this
leaf for a branch.

These leaves deserve more than a passing comment. They
come out with a rich, silky bronze sheen in spring, and turn
to red and gold in autumn. They sway in the summer
winds, giving the tree the look of a royal palm transplanted
from the land of the orange and citron. I have seen a vacant
lot overrun by these headstrong yearlings, and there is no
such sight outside the tropics for unrestrained vegetable ex-
uberance. It would be a hardy person who succeeded in
getting a piece of land away from these outlaws, for the
stems though soft and brittle inside, have a tough, horny
covering, and spines which though but skin deep are formidable
weapons of defence.

The Hercules' club is very late about its blooming, which
makes it horticulturally more valuable. There are few trees
and shrubs in flower to compete with this one when the cloud of
minute white flowers settles above its crown of leaves. What
they lack in size as individuals they make up in numbers.
The flower cluster matches the leaves in its dimensions.
The purplish berries make a fine showing in the fall and
winter.

This tree strongly reminds us of the wild sarsaparilla and the
spikenard of our woodland rambles; and for the best of reasons.
They are all members of the ginseng family, and all have the most
extravagant habits, though but one is arborescent. All have
a well-earned reputation for medicinal properties. The little
plant from which the family name comes is noted the world over.
The Chinese reverence its "man-shaped" root, and pay fabulous
prices for it, believing that it cures all human ills. Since
collectors have almost exterminated our wild ginseng, it
is profitably cultivated for export. If it but grew as do
the roots of Aralia spinosa — but then, the price would

405

The Hercules' Club

shrink accordingly^ - and people would still have to work
for a living! -

The name, Hercules' club, is also applied to the prickly ash,
Fagara clava-her culls, with which this tree may become confused.
Comparison of descriptions of the two will enable one to distinguish
them without difficulty.

40b

; mtfij,, •

THE HERCULES CLUB (.W/a j^moja)

This aromatic, spiny relative cf sarsaparilla and ginseng has club-like branches, leaves a yard long, and a flower cluster four
feet high. In the North it is a rampant shrub; in the South it is a little tree

THE TUPELO (Nyssa syhatica)

Short, twiggy branches at the top of a tall trunk make a very picturesque tree. It ranges from swamp borders to high mounta

slopes, and from Manx- to Florida .ind Texas

CHAPTER LV: THE TUPELOS AND THE

DOGWOODS

Family Cornace^

The cornel family is a large temperate zone group comprising
fifteen genera, a few of which are tropical. Comparatively few
species are arborescent. Two genera in the United States have
species of tree habit. They both include ornamental trees with
showy flowers and fruit, and foliage of exceptional beauty. The
wood of all is extremely hard and close textured.

KEY TO GENERA

A. Leaves alternate; flowers and fruits inconspicuous. .
i. Genus NYSSA, Linn.

THE TUPELOS

AA. Leaves opposite (except alternijolia) ; flowers and fruits
showy.

2. Genus CORNUS, Linn.

THE DOGWOODS

THE TUPELOS
Genus NYSSA, Linn.

Trees of picturesque habit, with twiggy, contorted branches;
growing in wet soil. Wood cross grained, tough. Leaves alternate,
simple, deciduous, leathery. Flowers minute, greenish, in short
racemes or heads. Fruit, a fleshy drupe.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Stones of fruit with rounded ridges; leaves broad, blunt
at apex; fruit small. (N. sylvatica) tupelo

AAi Stones of fruit with sharp, winged ridges; fruit large.

407

The Tupelos and the Dogwoods

B. Leaves blunt pointed; fruit red.

(N. Ogeche) ogeechee lime
BB. Leaves sharp pointed; fruit purple.

(]\. aquatica) cotton gum

Tupelo, Pepperidge, Sour or Black Gum (Nyssa sylvat-
ica, Marsh.) — A medium-sized tree of variable shape, 50 to 100
feet high, with short, rigid, twiggy, horizontal branches. Bark
rough, dark grey, broken into many-sided plates; on younger
trees, pale brown or grey; branches brown; twigs green to orange,
often downy. Wood heavy, tough, cross grained, soft, not durable
in contact with the soil, hard to work. Buds small, brown, with
hairy scales. Leaves alternate, entire, 2 to 4 inches long, oval,
leathery, shining above, pale, often hairy beneath, turning
scarlet above in autumn. Flowers, May, after leaves, yellowish
green, inconspicuous, polygamo-dioecious ; staminate in loose,
pendant heads; pistillate larger, 2 or more in a cluster. Fruits,
October, 1 to 3 in cluster; fleshy drupes ovoid, blue-black, sour,
§ inch long; stone ridged. Preferred habitat, low, wet soil, borders
of swamps, dyers and ponds. Distribution, Maine to Florida;
west to southern Ontario, Michigan, Missouri and Texas. Uses:
Handsome, hardy ornamental trees. Wood used for mauls,
pulleys, hubs, rollers, ox yokes and woodenware.

In early fall the rambler in the woods is often startled to see
on the mossy carpet in front of him a thick, shining leaf, part of
which is still deep green and part as red as blood. It is the
tupelo's signal that winter is on the way. Look up, my friend,
and the branches above show only a few leaves coloured like the
one you found. Come again in a week or two and the tree is
ablaze with reds of every shade. 1 1 is a pillar of fire, indeed, among
the yellowing ashes and hickories; only the reds of the swamp
maples and sumachs compare with it in brilliancy. Who can
fail to know the tupelo in the glory of its dying foliage? Certainly
no rational being, if he has eyes in his head, and the tree in his
neighbourhood. The sight of one, and a few sprays of its lustrous
leaves to put up behind the picture frames at home, are well
worth a Sabbath day's journey.

"Tupelo" is the pretty Indian name. "Pepperidge" cannot
be accounted for. It is probable that the fiery foliage first led
people to suppose this tree to be a relative of the sweet gum.
They grow together — both large trees in the bottom lands of the

408

The Tupelos and the Dogwoods

South. This "black gum" can be readily distinguished from the
red gum, or liquidambar, as far as the colour of the trunks can be
made out. The name, "sour gum," refers to the fruit. Linnaeus
gave to this water-loving genus the name of Nyssa, the water
nymph who reared the infant Bacchus. It was the fashion for
the old botanists to give new plants names derived from classical
mythology, without much thought of appropriateness.

The foliage of the tupelo is without question its chiefest
charm, but there are others which the leaves partially conceal.
The winter aspect of the tree is strikingly picturesque. There is
a central axis, such as we see commonly among evergreens but
seldom among broad-leaved trees. From this tapering shaft the
slender branches spread in level platforms that subdivide into
wiry, angular branchlets and end in a dense, flat twig system. A
young tupelo in winter has as much rigidity of mien as a young
honey locust.

With advancing years the tupelo loses the symmetry of its
youth. The lower branches droop dejectedly. The top is likely
to die. When the wreck blows over it often shows a hollow butt,
for the wood, though tough, is soft and quick to decay. Where
the vitality of the tree is low, agencies of deterioration are quick
to follow up their advantage. Wood-destroying fungi in the soil
rot the trunk off in an incredibly short time. An artist studying
the expression of trees in winter will look in vain for a more
melancholy figure than an aged tupelo, smitten by untoward
fates — the very King Lear of the forest.

In the ponds of the pine barrens in the Carolinas a two-
flowered tupelo is found, variety hi flora. It is smaller than the
parent species, and has a much swollen base, with large roots that
hump themselves out of the water. Its leaves are smaller than
those the tupelo bears in the North.

The Ogeechee Lime, or Sour Tupelo (Nyssa Ogeche,
Marsh.), grows in the river swamps that line the coasts of South
Carolina, Georgia and northern Florida. It takes its name from
the Ogeechee Valley, which is the centre of its limited range.
The trees are small, with bushy tops and hoary grey twigs, which
when young are coated with silky red tomentum. The leaves are
4 to 6 inches long, oval, and firm in texture. The tree is a striking
figure when laden with its red fruits, about the size and shape of
pecan nuts. They hang in profuse clusters from August till late

409

The Tupelos and the Dogwoods

autumn, long after they are ripe and the leaves are fallen. These
juicy fruits are sour, and make excellent preserves. It must be
difficult business to get them, for the trees stand in water.
Nevertheless, the demand for them is good, and justifies the
necessary exertion.

The Cotton Gum (Nyssa aquatica, Marsh.) is the large
tupelo of the swamps, a tree with an unusually broad base, an
abundance of corky roots, and a superb pyramidal crown. Trunks
3 to 4 feet in diameter and 80 to 100 feet high are not at all unusual.
White cottony down is noticeable throughout the treetop as
spring growth begins. The young leaves divest themselves of
this covering as they mature, except as a lining. These leaves
are large, oval, often remotely toothed or lobed. The fruit is
purple, and hangs on long, flexible stalks among the gay-coloured
leaves in autumn. It has not the popularity of the Ogeechee
limes, for the flesh is thin and the skin is tough. The lumber is
largely used for fruit crates, broom handles and other cheap
articles. The tree is seen at its best in the cypress swamps oi
Louisiana and Texas.

THE DOGWOODS
Genus CORNUS, Linn.

Small, slender- twigged trees, with very hard wood. Leaves
simple, entire, opposite (except one). Flowers small, in dense
cymes; perfect. Fruit a berry-like, 2-celled drupe.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Leaves opposite.
B. Fruit red.

C. Flower buds covered; bracts 4, notched.

(C. florida) flowering dogwood
CC. Flower buds naked; bracts 4 to 6, not notched.

(C. NuUalUi) WESTERN DOGWOOD

BB. Fruit white (rarely dark blue); leaves rough above.

(C. asperijolia) dogwood
AA. Leaves alternate; fruit blue.

(C. alternijolia) alternate-leaved dogwood

The dogwoods include about thirty species distributed over
the Northern Hemisphere, with a single species in Peru. They

410

H. Staminate flower A pwMrtB fl<wef

THE TUPELO or Pepperidge (Nyssa syhatica)

Flowers appear after the leaves in May. They are greenish and very small. Stammate trees bear crowded heads of
stamens only Pwtillate trees bear perfect flowers, i to 3 in a cluster. The sour, blue berries ripen in October. The foliar ^
the glory of the tree, dark-green and glossy all summer, scarlet in autumn. The wood is especially dense and heavy

Upper plate, Iruit

icr pl-iie, Tviut.r

THE FLOWERING DOGWOOD (Cornus florida,

Tfc buowy while flowers are but the expanded outer scales that enclosed the winter bud?. The true flowers cluster
vrmre. Tnr snrnrng rra dpttts in October nvai lac brilliance of the foliage. The grey, checkered bark looks like rough ail
skin. The tree is beautiful, winter or summer

The Tupelos and the Dogwoods

are chiefly shrubs, a few small trees, and all hardy and ornamental,
with handsome foliage, flowers and fruits. An attractive char-
acter is the vivid autumn foliage.

From ancient times dogwoods have been planted as orna-
mentals about homes, and in parks and pleasure grounds; tonic
drugs, dyes and inks have been derived from their bark; and the
wood has been used for engravers' blocks, tool handles, and in
turnery. The name Cornus (from cornu, a horn) calls attention to
the hardness and toughness of the wood. " Dogwood" is one
of those unfortunate popular names fastened without reason upon
a family of beautiful trees and shrubs. In the good old times it
was the practice in England to steep the bark of a certain species
and wash mangy dogs with the astringent decoction. Perhaps
the dogs were as indignant at this treatment as we are to be
persistently reminded of it.

There are eighteen American species in the genus Cornus;
one is the little herbaceous bunchberry, scarcely six inches high,
but distinctly a near relative of the tree dogwoods, as anyone can
see.

Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida, Linn.) — A small,
flat-topped, bushy tree, 15 to 40 feet high. Bark dark grey or
brown, broken into squarish plates; branches grey; twigs velvety,
purplish green. Wood heavy, strong, hard, tough; brown, fine
grained. Buds conical; flower buds vertically flattened. Leaves
opposite, simple, 3 to 5 inches long, oval, with midrib and parallel
side ribs indented above; whitish. Flowers, March to May, before
the leaves, in close clusters at ends of branches; greenish, small,
tubular; 4 white or pink involucral bracts, notched at tip, sur-
round the flower cluster. Fruit, October, ovoid, scarlet drupes,
J inch long, few in a cluster; seeds 2. Preferred habitat, woodlands
and rocky hillsides. Distribution, Massachusetts to Florida;
west to Michigan, Missouri and Texas. Uses: Hardy and
handsome ornamental trees. Wood used for bearings in machin-
ery, hubs, tool handles; also for wood engravings and wood
carving. Bark yields a drug like quinine; also a red dye.

The striking thing about the flowering dogwood in winter is
the alligator-skin appearance of its grey, checkered bark. This
identifies it in any stretch of woodland without further aid to the
observer. One notices, too, the greyness and the platformed
stratification of its bushy top, from whose larger branches the

411

The Tupelos and the Dogwoods

twigs rise with curious bendings so as to hold their clustering buds
into the light. The tree has a picturesque waywardness of habit
in the woods: it crouches in the shadows of tall trees, and leans
out to reach the sunshine that sifts through the forest cover.
The twigs are thickly set with buds, formed in midsummer, for
the flowering dogwood is a thrifty, far-sighted tree. The slim
leaf buds are inconspicuous among the squat, box-like buds
that contain the flowers.

I need not tell anyone how beautiful a dogwood tree is when
the thick cloud of white or pink-flushed blossoms covers its bare
branches to their utmost twig. It is a sight to remember to the
end of one's days. Perhaps it may seem pedantic, and even
unkind, to say here that the beauty of the tree is not in its flowers,
but in the four large petal-like scales, or bracts, that surround
the greenish bunch of small, tubular, true flowers. In winter
these four bracts enfold the flowers. They are the outer envelope
of the little flattened and pointed buds. In spring these bud
scales do not fall, but grow at an amazing rate. Only the very
tips of them are too dry to grow. They form the peculiar notch
at the apex, and give the bract an artistic, if rather irregular,
twist.

These bracts are merely leaves changed for the special purpose
of notifying the little mining bee, Andrena, and other insects of
like appetites, that there is nectar in the flower tubes they guard.
Leafy in texture, though white and delicately tinted, these bracts
develop before the flowers, and last beyond their fading; so we
enjoy the dogwood bloom for weeks in spring instead of days,
merely. This is the fact that counts, after all, and the added one
that we may go out again and again and bring home sprays of the
flowers, and yet leave the tree in better state than it was before,
if only we cut judiciously, where the top is thickest. Dogwood
trees suffer from lack of pruning; their flowers are stunted by
crowding.

The grace and beauty of the leaves, with their channelled,
curving, parallel veins, must strike one in summertime. Before
they change colour the clustered fruits, standing where the flowers
stood, burn bright against the leafy background. These shining,
waxy berries are never lost to view, even when the foliage takes
on shades of crimson and scarlet. They deepen and intensify
these royal colours until the hungry birds have taken the last one.

412

The Tupelos and the Dogwoods

The leaves have fallen, and left behind a bare grey tree,
set with multitudes of buds, pledge of next year's flowers and
leaves and fruit. The artist will tell you, if you press him (for
he doesn't force his notions upon his friends), that the dogwood
wears its finest colours in the winter time ! Go out into the woods
in late February or early March, just when willows and aspens
show green — just a hint of it! — through their telltale bark. All
the other early trees wear that "rapt, expectant look" that
precedes the bold casting off of bud scales. The silky twigs
and velvety buds of the dogwood, alive and thrilling with the
stir of the sap, show marvellous tones of olive and grey and
lavender, with deeper purple shadows and warm hints of red.
These are the colours that Japanese artists revel in.

Most people miss all of the loveliness of graceful line and
delicate colour harmony revealed by leafless trees. I am happy
to say it is a curable form of blindness. By taking thought, one
can learn to see the beauty of balance and symmetry that give
strength and grace to the frame of a tree, and beauty of form to
the dead teazel and mullein stalks under it. One can learn to see
the purple with the dun in the autumn grain fields, and the blue
in the hemlock shadows on the snow. We may not all be painters,
but we may enter into some of the joys the artist finds in the
common things about us. Next spring will be a good time to
watch the grey bud scales expand, turn green, then pink and
white. From April on we may see the steps by which the miracle
progresses.

Flowering dogwoods do not grow wild in any country but
ours. They are being exterminated in many places. They are
cut for the paltry bit of lumber yielded by their spindling trunks.
It ought to be a capital crime to cut a single one. They are
destroyed for less cause. Here is an example. A hermit lived
alone in a strip of woods along a little Michigan lake. He loved
trees and plants, and kept this area a veritable Nature's garden,
and willed it to the nearby city on his death. The park com-
missioners, when they had spread their thanks upon the records,
took immediate steps "to put the grounds in shape." Two
strong labourers were sent in to clear it up. They cut out all the
dogwoods — "because they didn't trim up straight!" Lower
limbs, small trees and underbrush were all sacrificed to make
straight the paths of picnic parties ; and to get a nice sod started,

4*3

The Tupelos and the Dogwoods

and have a park! The gentle donor of this tract would have
broken his heart over the look of it when these improvements (?)
were completed. Though he "leaned out from the gold bar of
heaven/' I think he must have hurled imprecations down upon
the stupidity which undid all he had so lovingly and intelligently
done, but chiefly upon the slothful and incompetent commissioners
who trusted such work to such hands. Only the people them-
selves, intelligent and vigilant, can defend themselves from such
maltreatment, and save from destruction natural beauty which
belongs to all.

The Dogwood (Cornus Nuttallii, Aud.), of the Pacific
coast, occasionally reaches ioo feet in height in the forest opposite
Vancouver Island. It grows tall and slim, and thus does not
commend itself to gardeners as its Eastern relative does. Its
flowers are very much like it in colouring and form, though much
more conspicuous because twice as large. The bracts do not
cover the flowers in the buds, and are not notched at the tip
when developed. There are often six instead of four of them.

This dogwood seems not to thrive outside its native woods,
on the mountain slopes from British Columbia to southern Cali-
fornia. But here it is easily first in a land of splendid flowering
trees, leaning upon the sombre evergreens, in its snowy spring
robes and its rich scarlet autumnal garb — a spectacle never to
be forgotten once it is seen.

The Rough-leaved Dogwood (C. asperijolia, Michx.) has
long been classed among the shrubby species. It becomes tree-
like in southern Arkansas and eastern Texas, sometimes reaching
a height of 50 feet. As a shrub it is distributed from Ontario
to Minnesota and Nebraska, and south into the Gulf States.

The leaves are dark green, paler below and often softly
pubescent, but made rough above by stubby white hairs. This
is the only tree dogwood with white berries, so it is easily identified
by leaf and fruit.

Alternate-leaved Dogwood {Cornus alternifolia, Linn.) —
A small tree or shrub, 15 to 30 feet high, with low, round head
made of layers of horizontal branches. Bark smooth, reddish
brown; twigs reddish green. Wood heavy, hard, fine textured,
brown. Buds pale brown, acute, scaly. Leaves alternate, 3 to 5
inches long, oval, pointed, entire, whitish beneath, on slim petioles.
Flowers in May, creamy white, small, in flat cymes, ij to 3 inches

4'4

The Tupelos and the Dogwoods

across, ori short lateral-' branches. Fruits', October, dark blue,
berry-like, J inch across, on red peduncles; nutlets i to 2, grooved.
Preferred habitat, moist, well-drained soil. Distribution, Nova
Scotia to Minnesota; south to Georgia and Alabama. Uses:
Handsome ornamental tree.

Dogwoods are among the few native trees with simple and
opposite leaves — this is a fact well worth remembering. It is a
key to many secrets of the woods. The most uninformed person
can know by this simple means that a certain tree he never saw
before is likely a viburnum, a maple or a dogwood. The ashes
and buckeyes have opposite leaves, too, but they are compound.
The dogwood we are now considering is an exception to the rule
of its family; it has alternate, instead of opposite, leaves. The
blades have the general characteristics of the other dogwood
leaves, but hang on longer stems. They turn in autumn to the
soft, melancholy blue-reds, which seem to belong to the shadowy
places the tree commonly frequents. An open situation is
required to bring out the tints of scarlet and orange — the colours
with sunshine and laughter in them.

On the margins of woods this platform dogwood shows to
best advantage its shelving mode of branch arrangement. These
striking and beautiful tiers or platforms of branches, leafy to the
trunk, considered alone would make this tree popular as an
ornamental. The flowers are showy by their numbers, though
they lack the coloured bracts that belong to the other two dog-
wood trees. The black fruits also are profuse and noticeable upon
their coral-red branching stems.

Shrubby Dogwoods

Our American woods are rich in shrubby dogwoods, whose
beauty earns them places in our gardens and shrubbery borders.
There is the white-berried red-osier dogwood (C. stolonifera) ,
whose many smooth stems gleam like red-hot pokers in the winter
sunlight against the background of an evergreen hedge. The
little kinnikinick, or silky cornel (C. Amomum), adds to its
purplish stems the charm of silky leaves, with white flowers
and pale-blue berries in broad, loose cymes. Bailey's dogwood
(C Baileyi) looks grey because of the upturning of the silk-lined
leaves. The rich red of its twigs in winter and the colours of its

415

The Tupelos and the Dogwoods

autumn foliage are uncommonly fine, even for a dogwood. This
species is not quite constant in its characters outside of Michigan.
The European Dogwood, or Cornel (Cornus mas), is the
carnelian, cherry of our parks and gardens. Its button-like
clusters of tiny yellow blossoms cover the bare branches in earliest
spring, preceding even the forsythia and the spice bush. The
scarlet fruits, as large as olives, make a brave show against the
glossy foliage in late summer. Dogwoods of exceeding beauty
come from, Japan and from the Himalayas. But the average
American turns from all exotic species, no matter what their
charms, to his own Cornus florida, and in May votes it the most
beautiful of flowering trees.

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THE SOURWOOD {Oxydendrum arbor turn)

This is a heath, as the long compound raceme of prim little flower bells and the dry little seed capsules prove. TH
foliage is a beautiful bronze-green in spring and becomes a vivid scarlet in autumn. The sour twigs and leaves allay the thin
of hunters lost in southern woods. Hardy to Boston, this little-known species deserves wide cultivation

CHAPTER LVI: THE HEATHS

THE RHODODENDRON AND THE MOUNTAIN LAUREL

Family Ericaceae

Trees usually of small size and high ornamental value.
Leaves simple, alternate, mostly evergreen. Flowers perfect,
regular, in many-flowered clusters. Fruits, dry capsules or
berry-like drupes.

KEY TO GENERA AND SPECIES

A. Leaves evergreen or sub-evergreen.

B. Flowers large, showy; fruit a 5-celled capsule.
C. Capsules conical; flower clusters terminal.

1. Genus RHODODENDRON, Linn.

(R. maximum) great rhododendron
CC. Capsules globular; flower clusters axillary.

2. Genus KALMIA, Linn.

(K. latifolia) mountain laurel
BB. Flowers small, in compound racemes; fruit a fleshy
drupe; bark shed in thin scales.

3. Genus ARBUTUS, Linn.

C. Bark red to brown; leaves oval.

D. Fruit orange red, J inch in diameter.

{A. Menpesii) madron a
DD. Fruit dark red, J inch in diameter.

(A. Xalapensis) Mexican madrona
CC. Bark red to pale grey; leaves lanceolate.

(A. Arifonica) Arizona madrona
AA. Leaves deciduous; flowers small, numerous, in terminal
compound racemes; fruit a conical 5-celled capsule.

4. Genus OXYDENDRUM, DC.

(0. arboreum) sourwood

The heath family is world-wide in distribution, consisting
of more than fifty genera, with over a thousand species, and
modified through centuries of cultivation into unnumbere4

417

The Heaths : the Rhododendron and the Mountain Laurel

horticultural varieties. Heaths are perennials, usually woody,
with a tendency to profuse and showy bloom. The type of the
family is the Scotch heather, immortalised in song and story.
A very few genera are represented by tree forms.

In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, when the
English first took possession of the Cape of Good Hope, they
introduced into England heaths from Australia and South Africa.
Their popularity was instant. People went wild over them.
They became the dominant feature of the indoor horticulture
of the day — the pride of the English gardener. The heydey of
these heaths is past. But even now, in London, half a million
little potted plants of a single species, Erica hyemalis, are sold
each Christmas. An average plant a foot high bears a thousand
tiny flowers, rosy and tipped with white. It is good for a month
of bloom, and costs from twenty-five to fifty cents. It is the
poor man's Christmas flower. The azaleas, which the Belgian
gardeners have brought to such perfection and variety, also
belong to this family.

i. Genus RHODODENDRON, Linn.

Rhododendrons have a hard reputation. Their juice is
considered poisonous to man and beast. Honey made from these
flowers was believed to have crazed Xenophon's retreating host.
Browsing animals were hurt by tasting the leaves and shoots.
In his Herbal, Turner wrote of the Italian rhododendron: "I
care not if it neuer com into England, seyng it in all poyntes is
lyke a Pharesy; that is, beauteus without, and within a rauenus
wqlf and murderer."

The American rhododendrons are our most ornamental
evergreen shrubs. Only one becomes tree-like in size and habit.
It attains its greatest height on the mountain slopes of the Caro-
linas and eastern Tennessee. Here it spreads over considerable
areas, often forming impenetrable jungles of great beauty, winter
and summer.

Great Rhododendron, Rose 'Bay (Rhododendron maximum,
Linn.) — Evergreen shrub or small tree, becoming 35 feet high,
with dense, broad head of twisted branches. Bark reddish brown,
scaly; branches rusty tomentose at first, becoming greyish.

418

The Heaths : the Rhododendron and the Mountain Laurel

Wood light brown, hard, heavy, fine. Buds scaly, prominent;
leaf buds small, axillary, on flowerless branches; flower buds
large, conical, terminal. Leaves narrow oblong, tapering to a
short petiole; apex abruptly pointed; margin entire, leathery,
stiff, dark green, shining above, dull whitish beneath, 4 to 10
inches long. Flowers, June, in large umbels, on viscid stems;
corollas irregular, bell shaped, 5-lobed, ij inches across, rosy,
purplish or white, with hairy and spotted throat; stamens 8 to 12,
curved; pistil simple, with 5-celled ovary and elongated style with
5-lobed red stigma. Fruit a woody, 5-celled many-seeded capsule.
Preferred habitat, sandy, peaty or loamy soil, in somewhat shady
situations. Distribution, New Brunswick to Florida; west to
Lake Erie, through Gulf States to Louisiana and Arkansas.
Mainly along mountains. Rare north of Pennsylvania. Uses:
Valuable hardy ornamental evergreen. Forced for winter bloom
as potted plants.

Rhododendron means "rose tree" — and we wisely cling to
the long, sonorous Greek name. The common English name, rose
bay, seems trivial applied to so beautiful a plant. The traveller
who visits the southern Appalachian Mountains in early summer
sees Rhododendron maximum in its best estate. Above each
umbrella-like whorl of glossy evergreen leaves appears a rounded
cluster of white or rosy blossoms, dimmed only by the bright
green of the new leafy shoots that stand out between the flower
clusters. For miles these tree-like growths illuminate the woods,
as their shrubby relatives, the azaleas, do in woods farther north,
where the rhododendrons dwindle in size and in numbers.

Through late summer the green capsules, each with its curv-
ing style atop, mark the place where the blossoms were. They
hang on all winter, though the seeds fall in autumn. Against
the snow the broad leaves shine brighter than all other
evergreens, and a large scaly bud in the centre of the young
shoots conceals and promises flowers in profusion for the com-
ing summer.

R. Catawbiense, a more brilliant species in bloom, but always
a shrub, is brought by the carload from the high Alleghanies, and
planted on great estates in the North, where it passes R. maximum
in hardiness. The transplanting of these rhododendrons is accom-
plished with a loss of scarcely 1 per cent, if done by responsible
nurserymen.

419

The Heaths : the Rhododendron and the Mountain Laurel

2. Genus KALMIA, Linn.

Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latijolia, Linn.) — Evergreen
shrub or tree, becoming 30 feet high, with dense, round head and
crooked branches. Bark dark brown with tinge of red, scaly,
branches red or yellow, smooth. Wood reddish brown, heavy,
fine grained. Buds large, scaly, sub-terminal ones contain flowers;
leaf buds small, naked, axillary. Leaves alternate or irregularly
whorled, oblong, tapering at both ends, leathery, stiff, dark green
and shining above, yellow-green below; 3 to 4 inches long, on
short petioles ; evergreen, falling during second summer. Flowers
in large terminal compound corymbs, on viscid peduncles; perfect
in June; calyx 5-parted, on 10-lobed disc; corolla, saucer shaped,
rosy or white with purple markings in short tube, 1 o tiny pouches
below 5-parted border; stamens 10, with anthers in pouches, and
filaments bent over until time to discharge pollen, when they
straighten; pistil 1, with head on long style; ovary 5-celled.
Fruit a globular, woody, 5-celled, many-seeded capsule. Preferred
habitat, cool,, moist, well-drained soil that contains no lime.
Sheltered situations in the North. Distribution, Nova Scotia to
Lake Erie (north shore); southward through New England and
New York, and along Alleghanies to northern Georgia. Uses:
Hardy ornamental evergreen. Foliage used for winter decora-
tion of houses and churches, and to trim fruit stands in city
markets.

Along with the rhododendrons in June and July the mountain
laurel hides its shining evergreen leaves with flower clusters larger
than any the rhododendron bears. At least it seems so, for the
clusters lie close, cheek by cheek, quite subordinating the foliage,
making often a great mass a foot across, upon a single slender
branch.

Smaller than the rhododendron in blooms, the laurel shows
more exquisite colouring, and more interesting and beautiful
forms from bud to seed. First, the buds, little fluted cones of
vivid pink, make with the green of the new leaves one of the
finest colour combinations to be found in any shrub. The largest
ones open first, spreading into wide, 5-lobed corollas with ten
pockets in a circle around the base of each. Ten stamens stand
about the free central pistil, and the anther of each is hid in a
pocket, its filament bent back. This is a curious contrivance,

420

:ht, 1905. -■; D.u:;eday. Pais & Com;; ;

M MN LAUREL ( K. >

The Heaths : the Rhododendron and the Mountain Laurel

and well worth looking into. There is a bee lighting on the border,
and probing the tube of the corolla for honey. Her clumsiness
makes her Nature's agent for the fertilising of these flowers.
As she steps on a bent filament, it straightens itself with a spring,
the hidden anther is drawn forth and bangs against her furry
body, dusting her well with the pollen, which comes in a
jet out of a small pore at the top of the anther. The
mountain laurel is not self-fertile. Only insects, gathering
nectar by the hour, fertilise these flowers. They brush
their pollen-laden bodies against the erect pistils, thus
bringing about cross-fertilisation wherever they go. A net
tied over a mass of blossoms, excluding the bees, will defeat
Nature, for the stamens are never released, though the pollen
cells are ripe and waiting, as is the sticky stigma in their
midst. No seed will be set, though all about, on branches
not covered, little flattened green capsules, each waving a
curved green wand aloft, ripen their seeds and cast them in
the fall.

The mountain laurel is being stripped from its native hills in
wholesale quantities: first, by the nurserymen, for the decorative
planting of private estates; second, by collectors of Christmas
greens. In the blossoming season the bushes are mutilated by
thoughtless persons — collectors who will sell the flowers, and
thoughtless, greedy persons who " can't stop picking because they
are so beautiful.' ' The present moment is the only portion of
time these people consider.

The makers of wooden spoons, ladles, rustic furniture and
pipes are despoiling the Southern woods of rhododendron and
laurel. The end of these beautiful heaths is not so far off, unless
the ruthless destruction of them in the wild woods can be checked.
There is no more beautiful garden shrub than Kalmia.
It is easily propagated from seed in nurseries, and should be
obtained from these sources. It is hardy and thrifty farther
north than rhododendron. Transplanting from the wild is pre-
carious business with heaths, and the average person fails
utterly.

In the name of this genus, Linnaeus commemorates the
devoted labours of Peter Kalm, the Swedish traveller and botanist,
through whose eyes "the father of botany" saw the wonderfully
rich and varied flora of the New World.

421

The Heaths: the Rhododendrons and the Mountain Laurel

3. Genus ARBUTUS, Linn.

Madrona (Arbutus Men^iesii, Pursh.) — Evergreen shrub
or tree 40 to 100 feet high, with smooth, reddish brown bark, and
smooth red branches. Wood heavy, hard, strong, reddish brown,
close grained. Leaves alternate, persistent, entire, rounded or
heart shaped at base, oval or oblong, 3 to 4 inches long, smooth,
shining above, glaucous beneath. Flowers white, in erect panicles,
5 to 6 inches long, monopetalous, ovate, J inch long, perfect.
Fruit a globular, many-seeded berry, \ inch long, orange red,
edible. Preferred habitat, well-drained soil in situations protected
from dry winds. Distribution, coast region, British Columbia to
California; on mountain slopes becoming shrubby. Uses:
Valuable ornamental tree in warm-temperate climates. Wood
used for furniture, charcoal, and bark for tanning leather.

"The Madrona, clad in thin, smooth, red and yellow bark
and big glossy leaves, seems in the dark coniferous forests of
Washington and Vancouver Island, like some lost wanderer
from the magnolia groves of the South."

No American tree of considerable size equals this one in
beauty the year around. It bears large conical clusters of white
flowers, above the vivid green of its leathery leaves. The tree is
further lightened by silvery leaf linings. The redrbrown trunk
and bright red branches add a rich colour note, which is intensi-
fied when the copious scarlet fruits appear and the two-year-old
leaves turn to scarlet or orange in the autumn. Even among
the redwoods this arbutus is a tree that commands attention and
admiration at every season. The wood tempts the charcoal
burner to chop down trees whose beauty ought to save them
from destruction. The Japan Current makes them hardy in the
west coast regions, and they thrive in the gardens of western
and southern Europe.

The Mexican Madrona (Arbutus Xalapensis, H. B. K.),
similar to the previous species in essential characters, but small
in stature, has wandered up along the mountains from Mexico,
and grows scattered along the limestone hillsides of western
Texas. Handsome as it is, this tree is not yet known in cultiva-
tion. The Mexicans use its wood to make stirrups. It is also
used for tool handles and mathematical instruments.

The Arizona Madrona (Arbutus Arifonica, Sarg.) is strik-

422

The Heaths: the Rhododendron and the Mountain Laurel

ingly beautiful in the contrast of its white trunk, red branches,
and lustrous pale green leaves, to which are added in spring
feathery plumes of white flowers, and in the fall clusters of deep
orange-red berries. It grows on high mountain slopes, but has
been introduced into cultivation.

The Strawberry Tree (Arbutus Unedo, Linn.), related to
our Madronas, is cultivated in Southern gardens. This brilliant
little European tree bears in the fall its rosy flowers in nodding
clusters along with its large scarlet fruits. It is hardy in warm-
temperate regions, but requires shelter from the wind. It is also
offered by dealers in red-flowered varieties.

4. Genus OXYDENDRUM, D.C.

Sourwood, Sorrel Tree (Oxydendrum arboreum, DC.) — A
slender-stemmed tree, 1 5 to 60 feet high, with oblong, round-
topped head. Bark smooth, reddish grey, scaly. Wood reddish
brown, heavy, fine grained, hard. Buds axillary, small, partly
hidden, red. Leaves alternate, deciduous, membraneous, oblong
or lanceolate, entire, 3 to 6 inches long, smooth. Flowers, June
or July, perfect, in panicles, 7 or 8 inches long, of racemed white
bells, narrowed and frilled at the tops. Fruit a downy capsule,
5-celled; seeds numerous, needle-like. Preferred habitat, moist
woods. Distribution, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana; south
to Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Arkansas. Uses: Orna-
mental tree, valued for its flowers and vivid scarlet autumn foliage.

This little deciduous tree, whose sour-tasting twigs and
leaves temporarily assuage the thirst of the hunter lost in Southern
woods, deserves mention for this, even if it had no other redeeming
traits. Besides, the tree is beautiful in its bronze-green spring
foliage and its long compound racemes of tiny, bell-shaped flowers,
and later, in its autumnal robes of vivid scarlet. It is a heath in
all its characters recognisable by its prim little flower bells and
the dry little capsules that succeed them. Hardy as far north
as Boston, it is occasionally seen in American gardens, and in
western and central Europe.

CHAPTER LVII: THE PERSIMMONS

Family Ebenace^
Genus DIOSPYROS, Linn.

Round-headed trees, with zigzag branchlets and no terminal
buds; wood hard and close grained. Leaves leathery, entire,
simple, alternate, deciduous. Flowers dioecious, axillary; stam-
inate in cymes, pistillate solitary or paired. Fruit a large, juicy
berry, i to io-seeded.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Leaves 4 to 6 inches long, pointed; fruit 1 to 2 inches in
diameter, orange to brown when ripe.

(D. Virginiana) persimmon
AA. Leaves f to ij inches long, blunt; fruit i to 1 inch in
diameter, black when ripe.

(D. Texana) black persimmon

The ebony family has five genera, the most important of
which is Diospyros. This genus contains 180 species, including
among them the two temperate zone trees in America, and others
of horticultural importance in Japan and China. The ebony of
commerce comes from different tropical species. D. Ebenum,
native of Ceylon and the East Indies, produces the most valuable
wood. Beside lumber, ebonies furnish fruit trees and ornamentals
planted for their lustrous foliage and decorative fruits. Some
of the tropical species are grown in Northern greenhouses.

Persimmon (Diospyros Virginiana, Linn.) — A slender,
tall tree with handsome round head, rarely over 50 feet high;
twigs angular, often hollow. Bark broken into thick scaly
plates, dark grey or brown; twigs reddish, pubescent, becoming
grey. Wood very hard, dark brown, with pale sap wood, fine
grained, tough, like hickory; not durable in soil. Buds small,
pointed, reddish. Leaves alternate, simple, oval, pointed, 4 to 6

424

The Persimmons

inches long, thick, shining above, paler beneath; petioles short,
stout. Flowers, June, after leaves, dioecious, small, yellowish
green; staminate in 3-flowered cymes, scarcely opening; pistillate
solitary, wide open, with imperfect stamens. Fruit a reddish-
yellow berry 1 to ij inches in diameter, pulpy, sweet, edible
when ripe; astringent when green. Preferred habitat, light, sandy
soil, or moist woodlands, fence rows and abandoned fields. Dis-
tribution, Rhode Island to Florida; west to Kansas and Texas.
Uses: Worthy of planting for its rich green foliage in late summer,
and its graceful habit. Comes readily from seed, but is trans-
planted with difficulty. Fruit shows little improvement in culti-
vation. Wood is used in turnery, for shoe lasts, plane stocks
and shuttles.

There is no better way to fix the persimmon tree indelibly
in the mind than to yield to the importunities of Southern friends
and taste the fruit before it is ripe. You will be quite willing
after that to wait until the frost (or whatever influence it is)
mellows the puckery little plum. A traveller in the colony of
Virginia wrote his friends in England about "the pessemins that
grow on a most high tree." He describes them, with a fervency
born of experience, as "harsh and choakie and furre in a man's
mouth like allam!" Some of us say, "Amen!"

Possibly some part of the persimmon's popularity is due
to its exclusiveness. Certainly no other tree keeps its fruit so
far out of reach of eager hands and thirsty lips. " The longest
pole takes the persimmon" is a proverb that has passed the bounds
of the Southern States, and taken on a much broader significance
than its originator probably intended.

The persimmon tree is not confined to the South, though
its finest proportions are reached in Oklahoma forests, and it
"feels the cold" in Ohio and New York. Northerners are likely
to content themselves with a taste even when the fruit is at its
best. It is strangely different from other things. But the
Southerner born and bred knows and delights in this native
fruit. The Negro revels in it, and begrudges the opossum all he
steals, forgetting that a 'simmon tree when fruit is ripe belongs
to the first comer. "'Possums an' 'simmons come together, an*
bofe is good fruit." This statement sums up the feelings of the
Negro on two vital topics. The opossum camps down in the
neighbourhood of a well-laden persimmon tree and fattens on its

425

The Persimmons

fruit; but the defrauded darkey who marked that tree for his
own can afford to keep his temper. The fat /possum on his
table on Thanksgiving day is especially delicate for this 'simmon
feast, with which it tops off the season. So there is no question
but that he laughs best who laughs last.

The 'possum is a nocturnal beast, and he likes company.
It is not unusual for three or four to be found by night up a
persimmon tree, hanging on with their bare, prehensible tails,
or bracing themselves in crotches of limbs, within reach of the
soft sugar lumps of fruit. They are lazy, and do not climb up
if enough fruit is to be found under the tree to satisfy their appe-
tites. In a near-by rail heap or a hollow tree the opossums sleep
off the effects of heavy feeding, and return to their quest with
zeal the following night.

The following, from high authority, is conclusive: "Anyone
who has hunted quail through the Carolinas in January or Febru-
ary, when the fruit still hangs on the trees (as it occasionally does
in the woods on young trees only six to eight feet high), knows
that toward the end of a long day's tramp no more delicious or
refreshing morsel can be imagined than these persimmons. They
are thoroughly ripe then, entirely without bitterness or astrin-
gency, sweet, rich and juicy."

It is tannin in the fruit that gives it its astringency. This
is gradually withdrawn, probably quite independent of the action
of frost. The orange colour comes to it long before the fruit is
ripe.

The Black Persimmon, or Chapote (Dwspyros Texana,
Scheele), is a scrubby tree that covers its matted top from Feb-
ruary till the following midwinter with dark, leathery leaves,
which are narrow and scarcely an inch long. The black, insipid
fruit ripens in August, and its juice is used as a black dye. The
wood is black, often streaked with yellow, and handsome when
polished. It is sometimes used for engravers' blocks. The tree
grows in western Texas, and south to the Gulf of Mexico.

The wood of our two persimmon trees somewhat resembles
that of their esteemed tropical relatives, the ebony trees of the
East and West Indies. But, as often is true of temperate-zone
species, the quality is inferior.

In Japan, the native persimmon, Kaki, in the Japanese
language, has been improved, until there are numberless horti-

426

THE PERSIMMON (Diospyros Virginiana)

This may be a broad tree of wayward habit or a tall one with handsome, round head. The bark is broken by deep fur-
r/^c TT1tn smau thjck plates. Winter buds are small and red. The yellow flowers are borne in axils of leaves in June. The
pistillate trees bear orange-coloured berries, itoi| inches in diameter. They are astringent and inedible until dead ripe; after
aeavy frosts thev are sweet and luscious. The Negro and the opossum are devoted to this fruit, and are its most ardent collectors

i Winter hud 2 Fruiting branrh } Fruit: A, st 4 Bark and wood mptocos tin

THE SILVER BELL TREE (Mohrodendron tetraptera)

The pale-green 4-winged seed cases cluster behind the leafy shoots in summer — the wonder of all ubbcrvers. The bark
is coarser and the trunk larger than in the Sweet Leaf, Symplocos tinctoria

The Persimmons

cultural varieties. They bear large, luscious fruits, much better
in all respects than those of the American species. The Depart-
ment of Agriculture at Washington has successfully introduced
several varieties of Kaki into the Southern States. They do
best when grafted upon our own trees.

Prejudice against persimmons results when a stranger to
the fruit attempts to eat it before it is ripe. The handsome
Japanese sorts are often ripe-looking before the tannin has left
them. The experienced person knows that there is no fruit
more delicate than a thoroughly ripe Kaki, so soft it must be
eaten with a spoon.

427

CHAPTER LVIII : THE SILVER BELL TREE AND

THE SWEET LEAF

Family Styrace^

There are seven genera in the storax family, and few species,
scattered over the warmer sections of the north temperate zone.
Benzoin and storax, valuable balsams of commerce, are obtained
from two species, one in the Molucca Islands, the other in Asia
Minor and Europe.

i. Genus MOHRODENDRON, Britt.

Small trees with slender, pithy, pubescent branchlets and
no terminal buds. Leaves simple, alternate, deciduous. Flowers
white, bell-shaped, conspicuous. Fruit corky, 2 to 4-winged,
2 to 4-celled, with 1 seed in each cell.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Fruit 2-winged; corolla deeply lobed.

(M. dipterum) snowdrop tree
AA. Fruit 4-winged; corolla shallowly lobed.

(M. tetraptera) silver bell tree

Silver Bell Tree, Snowdrop Tree (Mohrodendron teirap-
lera> Britt.) — Tree or shrub to 80 feet high, with erect branches
and narrow head. Bark scaly, brown, with shallow furrows and
broad ridges, new shoots pubescent; twigs smooth. Wood pale
brownish, soft, light, close. Buds hairy, small, reddish, blunt.
Leaves ovate, oblong, acuminate entire, 2 to 4 inches long, dark
green above, paler and stellate pubescent beneath, pale yellow in
fall. Flowers in May, white, bell shaped, in lateral clusters of 2 to
4, perfect; stamens 8 to 16, pistil 2 to 4-celled, 4 ovules in each
cell. Fruit 4-winged, dry, oblong drupe. Preferred habitat, well-
drained, rich soil in sheltered situations. Distribution^ja&pitains
of West Virginia to Illinois; south to Florida, nortfB^\kdppma

428

The Silver Bell Tree and the Sweet Leaf

and Mississippi to Arkansas, Louisiana and eastern Texas. Uses:
A beautiful ornamental tree for parks and private grounds.

If the snowdrops from the garden should suddenly quit their
sunny corner and take to the woods and you went out to find
them, you would be sure they had climbed a tree and were looking
down at you with that same meek expression, though you never
looked into their faces before. The little mohrodendron tree
knows better than you do where these white bells come from
that whiten her ruddy twigs so completely that even the tuft of
opening leaves on the end of the shoot is forgotten. With the
opening of the buds little flesh-coloured flowers appear and hang
inconspicuously down for a considerable time. There are rosy
tones in the opening leaf buds and a ruddy glow on the twigs
themselves. Sun and rain work slowly but surely. The corolla
grows to full size, and bleaches, surrendering its colour and its
leathery texture. The sun comes out, and on some fine morning
the carriages that have driven by the tree each day, perhaps for
weeks, are stopped, while the occupants exclaim upon the magic
which has clothed the little tree in a bridal veil —

"Has turned it white
In a single night/'

some will insist, for "we would never have missed it." Yet
the truth is, the miracle has been gradually unfolding, and people
in carriages do miss all but the denouement of such miracles.
They view Nature from afar off, and miss a great deal of good
fun that the pedestrian finds for himself.

The white bells fade and fall, and a queer little green, tapering
thing, with four thin wings in lengthwise lines, ripens into the
seed case. Among the leaves these pale-green fruits are distinctly
ornamental throughout the season.

"The snowdrop tree" is a favourite in gardens, and is per-
fectly hardy north to the Great Lakes. It is easily transplanted
and grows in bush or tree form, according to the pruning it
receives. A variety, Meehani, of handsome, bushy habit and
copious bloom, grows about 12 feet high. It looks in full bloom
somewhat like an apple tree. The flowers are smaller but more
numerous tVi%«|fhc parent tree, and the corollas are more
open and bo^J snajmL The variety has thus far failed to set
perfect seed.

429

The Silver Bell Tree and the Sweet Leaf

A Snowdrop Tree (M. dipiera, Britt.) inhabits swampy
land along the south Atlantic and Gulf coasts and follows the
Mississippi to Arkansas. It is hardy in cultivation no farther
north than Philadelphia. It is smaller in stature than the silver
bell tree, but has larger leaves and more showy flowers. Between
the two species the chief difference is that two of the seed's wings
in this one have become obsolete, leaving it two winged, di-ptera.
The other species has four-winged seeds, expressed in the Greek
word tetra-ptera.

2. Genus SYMPLOCOS, L'Her.

Trees with pithy branchlets, forming open, round head.
Leaves half evergreen, simple, alternate, entire, oval. Flowers
small, perfect, white, bell shaped in axillary clusters. Fruit a
brown berry. (S. tinctoria) sweet leaf

Symplocos is a large genus of trees that grow wild in Aus-
tralia and in the tropics of Asia and America. Many species
belonging to British India yield important dyes and drugs. A
species from Japan has recently created a stir in horticultural
circles in this country. It has profuse white flowers that look
like those of the hawthorns, hence its name, 5. cratcegoides.
These racemed flowers give place to berries which turn on ripening
to a brilliant blue, which make the shrubby tree a most striking
and beautiful object in a garden in the fall. The only American
representative of this genus is a little tree.

Sweet Leaf, Horse Sugar {Symplocos tinctoria, L'Her.) —
A small, open-headed tree, 10 to 30 feet high, with short trunk
and slim, ascending branches. Bark ashy grey with reddish cast,
warty. Buds ovate, with triangular scales. Leaves leathery,
dark green and lustrous above; paler and pubescent beneath;
5 to 6 inches long, 1 to 2 inches wide, tapering at base and apex;
entire or remotely toothed on margins; petioles short, winged.
Flowers white, fragrant, in close axillary clusters; March to May.
Fruit, a brown, nut-like drupe with 1 seed. Preferred habitat,
moist, shady woodlands. Distribution, Delaware to Florida;
west to Blue Ridge Mountains, and in Gulf States to Louisiana
and southern Arkansas. Uses: Rare in gardens, though it
deserves attention for its handsome, swet&gM^g^ foliage. Bark
of stems and roots, bitter and aromatic, yieTOsyeljpw dye and has
tonic medicinal properties. Horses and cattle browse the foliage.

430

right, 1905. by Doubleday, Page & Company

"CTT n\UlTDC r~\TT T"i_jrr nu \rrn r-i r- t t ~t- r-> r~ tr / n/r~i r.

CHAPTER LIX: THE ASHES AND THE FRINGE

TREE

Family OleacejE
i. Genus FRAXINUS, Linn.

Valuable timber and ornamental trees. Leaves deciduous,
pinnately compound, opposite. Flowers small, inconspicuous,
in compound panicles; the two kinds, except in A, borne on
separate trees. Fruit a dry seed, winged like a dart.

KEY TO MOST IMPORTANT SPECIES

A. Twigs 4-angled; flowers perfect.

(F. quadrangulata) blue ash
AA. Twigs round; flowers dioecious.

B. Branchlets, petioles and leaf linings smooth.
C. Buds brown; leaflets stalked.

D. Leaves whitish beneath. t

E. Wings of fruit broad; leaflets blunt.
. , (F. Caroliniana) swamp ash

EE. Wings of fruit narrow; leaflets taper pointed.
t (F. Americana) white ash

DD. Leaves green beneath. (F. lanceolata) green ash
CC. Buds black; leaflets sessile. (F. nigra) black ash

BB. Branchlets, petioles and leaf linings downy.
C. Twigs slender; keys very long and slender.

, (F. Pennsylvanica) red ash

CC. Twigs stout; leaves pale green.
^abifigq £>. Trunk cylindrical. (F. Oregona) Oregon ash

.wolbv "pi DD. Trunk bulging at base. (F. profunda) pumpkin ash

E ; fy

■

Ash trees are easily distinguished in the woods by the opposite
arrangement of their pinnately compound leaves. Hickories,
walnuts, and other trees with similar leaves will be found to have
an alternate arrangement. The snugly fitting bark, broken into
small, often diamond-shaped plates, gives the trunk of an ash
a trim, handsome appearance in the winter woods. The seeds,

431

The Ashes and the Fringe Tree

winged and shaped like darts, are borne profusely, and are quite
sufficient identification. No other tree bears a fruit that can
be confused with this one.

There are thirty known species in the genus Fraxinus, half
of which inhabit North America, covering all sections except the
coldest. The Northern Hemisphere in the Old World is as well
supplied. Cuba, northern Africa and the Orient have tropical
species.

It is not so clear to ordinary people as it is to the botanists
that the ashes belong to the olive family. If we knew all the
tropical members of the group we might not be surprised. The
relationship is established by morphological characters obvious
only to trained observers.

The name ash is applied to several other kinds of trees.
Mountain ashes belong to the rose family. Prickly ash belongs
with the sumachs in the rue family. "Yellow ash" is a Tennes-
see name for Cladrastis luiea, the virgilia, a member of the locust
family. Jhe "hoop ash" of Vermont is the hackberry, a close
relative of the elms.

. White Ash {Fraxinus Americana, Linn.) — A tall, stately
tree, 75 to 125 feet high, with straight, cdroTTTnar trunk reaching
6 feet in diameter^ and high pyramidal or rouadJofiad of erect,
stout branihes. "—■&£*& closely furrowed into many deep, diamond-
shaped ridges and hollows, dark brown or grey, thick. Wood
reddish brown, with paler sap wood, touglj, elastic, ^coarse, heavy,
hard, not durable in soil, becoming brittle with age.- Buds
smooth, dark brown, plump, leathery, on pale twigs. Leaves, y
opposite, pinnate, 8- to 12 inches long, of 5- to 9 leaflets, usualTy 7,
appearing late, falling early; autumn colour purple or yellow;
leaflets stalked, smooth when mature, dark green above, pale,
often silvery beneath, oblong-lanceolate, with entire or wavy
margins. Flowers, May before leaves, dioecious, it) pjmicles, at
first compact, later long and loose; staminate purple, later yellow,
stamens 3 on short filaments; pistillate purple, vase shaped,
with elongated style and spreading, divided stigma. Fruit, r
September, slender, dart-like keys, 1 to 2 inches long, pointed,
wing twice the length of tfie round, tapering body. Preferred
habitat, rich, moist soil." ^Distribution, Newfoundland and Nova
Scotia to Florida; west to Ontario, Minnesota and Texas. Uses:
An admirable park and street tree. Wood used for agricultural

43a

The Ashes and the Fringe Tree

implements, frames of vehicles, tool handles, oars, furniture,
interior finish of houses, stairs, and fuel.

The white ash is one of the trees that holds its own in our
Eastern forests, the peer of the loftiest oak or sycamore or black
walnut. Narrow as its head is when crowded in the company
of other trees, it can broaden out into a canopy of benignant
shade when it has room to grow naturally. The white of its
leaf linings enters into its name. The pale twigs and bark also
justify its name.

The tree is a column of grey in winter, topped by upright
branches and erect, rigid twigs, set with mathematical accuracy
in opposite pairs. There is little grace in such a tree until June
has covered it with supple new shoots, and the leaves droop and
flutter in sun and wind. Then the white ash stands transformed,
and all through the summer the pistillate trees are hung with
bountiful clusters of pale or rosy keys that dance and gleam and
fairly dazzle the eyes of the beholder.

Staminate trees ordinarily shed their flowers as soon as the
bursting pollen cells have turned their purple to gold. A little
mite has discovered some virtue in these flower clusters, and
mite families innumerable are raised therein, causing the dis-
torted blossoms to remain in place, though withered. I once
found an old man carefully gathering these bunches in winter,
thinking them to be se^ed of the tree. He looked incredulous
when I tried to dispel his illusion, and a moment later resumed
his task.

In the South the white ash languishes, is undersized, and its
wood is of poor quality. In the Northeastern and Central States
it is at its best, and is counted one of the most important of our
American timber trees. It is probably put to more uses than any
other species.

In cultivation, the small-fruited white ash (var. microcarpa,
Gray) is often met with. The clustered darts are scarce one-half
inch long. v

Black Ash (Fraxinus nigra, Marsh.) — Slender, upright tree
with narrow head, 50 to 90 feet high; twigs stout. Bark close
textured, dark grey, with interlacing furrows ; twigs smooth, grey,
with pale lenticels. Wood brown, soft, heavy, tough, splitting
into annual layers along the porous spring wood. Buds broadly
ovate, almost black, granular-pubescent; inner scales becoming

433

The Ashes and the Fringe Tree

leaf-like. Leaves in May, 12 to 16 inches long, of 7 to 11 oblong-
lanceolate leaflets, all but terminal one sessile; margins with
incurving teeth, upper surfaces dark green, smooth; lower pale
with rufous hairs in tufts along pale midribs; fall early, after
turning rusty brown. Flowers, May, before leaves, dioecious, in
axillary panicles; stamens dark purple with short filaments;
pistils with long cleft purple stigmas, often with abortive stamens
below. Fruit winged keys in open panicles, 8 to 10 inches long;
seed flat, short, surrounded by wing which is broad, thin and
conspicuously notched. Preferred habitat, deep, cold swamps
and stream borders. Distribution, Newfoundland and north,
shore of Gulf of St. Lawrence to Manitoba; south to Delaware and
the mountains of Virginia, southern Illinois, central Missouri, and
northwestern Arkansas. Uses: Wood especially suited for
baskets, chair bottoms and barrel hoops; also used for fencing and
fuel, for cabinet work and furniture. Saplings used for hop and
bean poles.

, If you have learned to recognise an ash tree at sight, it is
an easy matter to distinguish the black ash at any time of year.
It is the slenderest of them all, rarely more than a foot in diameter,
even though its height be over 50 feet. The trunk looks like a
dark grey granite column, so even and close textured is its bark.
In winter the blue-black buds are our best identification sign.
They are only "exceeded in blackness" by the buds of the Euro-
pean ash (F. excelsior). Tennyson, describing the eyes of the
gardener's daughter, uses this striking simile: "Black as ash
buds in the front of March." The foliage is so dark green it looks
black at a distance and the side leaflets have no stalks.

Like its European cousin, the black ash % unusually late in
coming out in the spring. Often it is the middle of May before the
black outer pair of bud scales fall, and the two inner pairs broaden
and lengthen and turn green to help for a short season the opening
leaves. As a rule the staminate flowers are on different trees
from those bearing the pistillate, and rarely a few perfect ones.

The black ash is not a tree for the lawn. It loves to stand
with its roots submerged, and often dies of thirst in the rich loam
of a garden. It is a short-lived tree, at best, and very slow of
growth; it keeps its foliage but a short time, turning a dull, rusty
hue in early autumn. So we shall not wish to plant it anywhere
unless perhaps in swampy land. The roots range far and wide

434

Winter buds

Pistillate flowers

THE WHITE ASH

Stan'nate flowers

{Fraxin us Americana)

inter shows the framework of it? fine, rounded dome The «tmn t«-; = k» ui t ,

:entJC leaf scars. The flowers are small. Quired purl tZ r ^ **" "f? ^"? buds "^W*** in pairs, above
to yellow when the pollen is ripe. Racm^ of green "TL K "'" * ^ °n the *terile l™»-

^ered,ey fruit, „,h are paie^, ,_ Cln^^

THE BLACK ASH (Fraxinus mgm,

1
Black, blunt buds, dark brown wood and grey bark, fur-
rowed into irregular plates, are characters of this species. Dull,
dark green leaflets, all sessile but the terminal one- make the
foliage mass gloomv

THE RED ASH (Fraxinus Pennsyhanica) 1

The verv slender fruits distinguish this species. T\\d
linings, stems and the youngest shoots are velvetv. ThM

is reddish brown

Flowers

THE BLUE ASH (Fraxinus quadrangulata)
I'erfect flowers and 4-angled twigs s?t this ash apart from all other spe.ics

The Ashes and the Fringe Tree

and drink up the moisture at a marvellous rate. A few trees will
soon cover such a tract, sending their seeds broadcast, and throw-
ing up suckers from their roots.

It was the Indians who taught our forefathers to weave
baskets of black-ash splints. The wood is split into sticks an
inch or so wide and two or three inches thick. These are bent over
a block, and the strain breaks the loose tissue that forms the
spring wood, and separates the bands of dense, tough summer
wood into thin strips suitable for basket weaving.

The grain of black ash is normally straight, but warty excres-
cences called " burls" form on the trunk sometimes, and these
show wonderful contortions of the grain. Innumerable radiating
pins, or abortive branches, keep on growing within the wood,
each the centre of a set of circles or wavy lines, which show
when a "burl" is cut across. Bowls hollowed out of single burls
and polished show exquisitely waved lines as delicate as those in
a banded agate.

European ash sometimes shows a twisted and warped con-
dition of the fibres known to woodworkers as "ram's-horn" and
"fiddle-back" ash. Knotty parts of stems and roots once went
under the trade name of "green ebony," and fancy boxes and
other articles made of it and polished brought extravagant
prices. "When our woodmen light upon it, they make what
money they will of it," says Evelyn. And he tells of a famous
table made of an old ash tree on whose polished surface "divers
strange figures of fish, men and beasts" were discernible in the
grain of the wood ! Another enthusiast, with still livelier imagina-
tion, saw in the cleft trunk of an ash tree, before it was polished
even, "the various vestments of a priest, with the rosary and
other symbols of his office!"

Red Ash (Fraxinus Pennsylvanica, Marsh.) — A small, spread-
ing tree, 40 to 60 feet high, with irregular, compact head of
twiggy branches. Bark reddish, closely furrowed, scaly; young
twigs pubescent. Buds small, dark brown, nodes close together.
Leaies 10 to 12 inches long, of 7 to 9 leaflets, lanceolate, coarsely
serrate, on short stalks, smooth, yellow-green above, silvery
pubescence on petioles and leaf linings; yellow in fall. Flowers,
May, with leaves; dioecious, in hairy panicles; pistillate green-
ish, inconspicuous. Fruit slender, clustered keys, 1 to 2 inches
long, on hairy stems; wing 1 inch long and extending half way

435

The Ashes and the Fringe Tree

around the body. Preferred habitat, moist soil near streams or
lakes. Distribution, New Brunswick to Ontario and the Black
Hills in Dakota; south to Florida, Alabama and Nebraska. Uses:
Inferior to white ash in all ways. Often planted in eastern United
States for shade and ornament.

The red ash thrives best in the Northeastern States, especially
in Pennsylvania. West of the Alleghanies it is an inferior tree.
Its lumber is of poor quality compared with white ash, but being
of the same colour it is often substituted for the latter by unscru-
pulous lumber dealers.

The common name of this species probably refers to the red
inner layer of the outer bark of the branches. This trait alone
is not a distinguishing one, however, for white ash sometimes
shows the same character. The red ash has velvety down that
invests its new shoots. Winter and summer, this sign never
fails. The tree has slimmer twigs and branches than most of
the ashes, and crowds its buds and twigs much more closely.
The silky leaf linings lighten and soften the yellow-green foliage
mass. Red-ash seeds are extremely slender, and vary in size
and form, the most graceful in outline of all the darts the various
ash trees bear. Lingeririgly the tree gives up its seeds in winter.
A breeze strong enough to tear off a few from the cluster will
carry them a considerable distance. The heavy body or seed
end of a key pitches downward, but the thin wing gives the wind
a chance to lift it. So on its dainty sail the seed is borne away
to plant an ash far from the parent tree, if by chance it fall in
good ground. It is easy to understand why ash trees always
grow scattered here and there through the woods. Go out on a
winter day when the wind blows a gale and see the pistillate tree
launching its seeds. It is worth a journey and some discomfort
to see it.

Green Ash (Fraxinus lanceolata, Borkh.) — A handsome,
round-headed tree, 50 to 60 feet high, with slender spreading
branches and grey twigs. Bark grey, furrowed, branches smooth.
Wood heavy, hard, strong, brown, coarse grained, brittle. Buds
rusty brown, very small, blunt. Leaves smooth, 5 to 9 leaflets
on short stalks; ovate or lanceolate, acuminate at apex, sharply
serrate, bright green on both sides, lustrous above. Flowers,
April to May, before leaves, dioecious. Fruit in thick clusters,
1 J inches long, oblanceolate, body round. Preferred habitat, rich

436

The Ashes and the Fringe Tree

soil on banks of streams. Distribution, Lake Champlain to Flor-
ida; west to Utah, Arizona and Texas. Uses: A beautiful
shade tree, especially adapted to the regions of scant rainfall.
Lumber inferior to white ash, but used for the same purposes.

The green ash has its name from the dark, lustrous foliage
which is intensified in its greenness by linings of the same colour,
undimmed by any pubescence or pale bloom. The planter on
the treeless stretches of Nebraska and Dakota loves this ash
which grows with the commoner willow and cottonwood, where
many trees utterly fail. A tree it is that not only lives but
flourishes, showing that it suffers no homesick pangs for a greener
land.

In the East, the green ash and the red are distinct enough,
the latter having velvety, the former smooth, new shoots. In
fhe western part of the Mississippi basin are ash trees that appear
to be intermediate between the two species. Professor Sargent
ranks the green ash as a variety of the red. Other authorities
give it rank as a species ; and it would not be surprising if further
study of the intergrading forms would justify the tree student in
making of these a distinct species, co-ordinate with the two
older ones.

The most important thing, after all, about the green ash is
that it is one of the agencies which is by degrees turning the
Great American Desert into a land of shady roads and comfort-
able, protected homesteads. East of the Alleghanies the tree
is little known. West of this range the tree is one among many
shade trees where variety of planting is unlimited. In the West
the tree comes into its own — and has few rivals. Here people
have a sort of affectionate regard for it.

The Blue Ash (Fraxinus quadrangulata, Michx.) conceals
its bluing in its inner bark. Crush a bit of it in water and the
dye appears. But this is not always a convenient way to identify
a tree. There is a simpler and more satisfactory way. Take a
look at the twigs. Are they 4-sided toward the tips? Quadrangu-,
lata means 4-angled. TtMSjfcyjous trait and th&wwiect flowm}
set the blue ash apart from all the others. The leaves and seeds
might easily be confused with those of the black ash if form alone
were considered. But the foliage mass of a blue ash is yellow-
green, much lighter in colour than that of its sombre cousin of
the swamps.

437

The Ashes and the Fringe Tree

Blue-ash trees are common in the rich bottom lands of the
Wabash River in Illinois, and along other tributaries of the
Mississippi from southern Michigan, through Iowa and Missouri
to Kansas and into Arkansas. It reaches south to the upper
part of Alabama and east to the highlands of Tennessee. Some
of the finest specimens grow on the limestone hills of the Big
Smoky Mountains. /The exact range of this tree is not known at
present^

The French botanist, Michaux, fell in love with this tall,
graceful grey-stemmed ash when he found it growing among
the Alleghany Mountains. He named it for its angled twigs.
and sent seeds, and young trees, perhaps, to be planted in European
gardens. We can do no better than to follow his example, and
plant the blue ash for shade and ornament -in America. It is
hardyT quick of growth, and unusually free from the ills that
beset trees. A well-grown specimen is a constant joy to the
tree lover.

The blue ash ranks high as a timber tree. It is fully the
equal of white ash, and in one particular is better even than this
one. It is more durable than any other ash wood when exposed
alternately to wet and dry conditions. It is used for vehicles,
for flooring, and for tool handles, especially pitchforks.

Oregon Ash (Fraxinus Oregona, Nutt.) — A broad-crowned,
shapely tree, 75 to 80 feet high, with stout trunk and erect,
stout branches. Bark reddish grey or brown, deeply fissured,
with ridges interlacing and shedding papery scales. Wood brown,
coarse, hard, light, porous. Buds small, acute, with rusty or
pale pubescence. Leaves compound, 5 to 14 inches long, of 5 to 7
pinnate leaflets, firm, thick, pale green above, lighter and pubescent
beneath; terminal leaflet on stalk 1 inch long, lateral ones on
shorter stalks or sessile; leaflets oblong or oval, obscurely serrate,
abruptly pointed; autumn colour yellow or russet brown. Flow-
ers, April with leaves, dioecious, in smooth, dense panicles. Fruity
in crowded clusters, each obovate, ij to 2 inches long; body
fusiform, about length of wing. Preferred habitat, rich, moist
soil, near streams. Distribution, Pacific coast from Puget Sound
to Bay of San Francisco, and back to foothills of Sierras. Uses:
A valuable shade tree. Wood used for furniture, interior finish-
ing of houses, frames of vehicles, cooperage and fuel.

This tree has the ash habit of unfolding its leaves late in

438

The Ashes and the Fringe Tree

the spring, and "making up for it," as Oliver Goldsmith would
say, by losing them early in the fall. From the standpoint of
"die landscape gardener, this is a double fault. But the cleanly
habit of the tree, its graceful head during the summer season,
and its valuable lumber, which is counted equal to white ash,
commend it to planters. It has been successfully introduced
into European gardens, and is hardy in the Arnold Arboretum
in Boston.

It is interesting to note that an old tradition recorded by
Pliny has arisen, as if spontaneously, among the Indians of the
Pacific coast. Nuttall wrote after his visit to this region about
the time of the exodus to California in 1849: "An opinion
prevails in Oregon among the hunters and Indians that poisonous
serpents are unknown in the same tract of country where this
Ash grows, and stories are related of a stick of it causing the
Rattle Snake to retire with every mark of fear and trepidation,
and that it would sooner go into the fire than creep over it."
We certainly suspect that the hunters above mentioned, or per-
haps earlier white men visiting the region, imported the Old-
World tradition.

The Pumpkin Ash (Fraxinus profunda, Bush.) is one of
the largest and most beautiful of our ash trees, and leads all
the others in the size of its leaves and keys. The velvety pubes-
cence of its young shoots and leaf linings might confuse it with
the red ash, but that its branchlets are stout. The leaves are
10 to 18 inches long, with broadly lanceolate leaflets, pointed and
wavy margined, leathery, with downy linings and leaf stalks.
The keys are 2J to 3 inches long, with wings that broaden and
round at the tips. They are borne in large, pendulous and very
profuse clusters.

This tree grows in deep river swamps in southeastern Missouri
and eastern Arkansas, and also in western Florida along the
Appalachicola River. It will probably be found in swamps
intermediate between these two regions. It has only been dis-
covered and named within the past eight years. Mr. Bush found
it first in 1893, and four years later gave it a name, profunda,
which probably refers to the almost bottomless bayous in which
it often grows. The common name, pumpkin ash, refers to the
bulging and ridged or buttressed base of the tree from which the
straight trunk rises. This is a character shared by other trees

439

The Ashes and the Fringe Tree

(the tupelos, for instance,) that grow in land subject to inun-
dation.

The Water, or Swamp Ash (F. Caroliniana, Mill.) grows
to 40 feet high in swampy lands skirting the coast from Virginia
to middle Florida, and west to the Sabine River in Texas. It
follows the deep river swamps of the Mississippi north to Arkansas.
It is as well that the white wood of this tree has less value than
that of the other ashes, for it grows in inaccessible places. The
leaves are small, and the little seeds have exceptionally broad
wings.

Some Little Ashes

There are species of ash of small size and limited area that
may be named in passing, but which do not rank among the
important species. Fraxinus anomala, in the corner where Colo-
rado, Nevada and Utah meet, is interesting because its leaf is
reduced to one leaflet, rarely two or three. The winged seed
declares it an ash. Fraxinus Greggii, a little ash on the rocky
bluffs of western Texas, has its leaves and fruits reduced to
miniature size, and exhibits peculiarly webbed or winged petioles.

The Biltmore Ash (Fraxinus Biltmoreana, Beadl.) is a
small tree quite common about Biltmore, North Carolina. It is
closely allied to the white ash, but its leaves and young twigs
are densely coated with fine hairs. Very strangely the seedling
trees are smooth until four or five vears old, after which the young
growth is pubescent.

Another little ash (Fraxinus velutina, Torr.) grows in the
Southwest, extending from Texas to California, climbing to the
tops of dry mesas and the walls of canons, or lending itself to
husbandry by shading irrigation ditches and village streets. Its
leaflets are narrow and tapering, becoming thick and leathery
and occasionally velvety in the hottest, dryest regions. It is
distinctly the friend of man in a region where trees are most
appreciated. Its wood is good for axe-handles and wagons.
X/ The Mountain Ash (F. Texensis, Sarg.) grows on the lime-
stone hills and gravelly ridges of western Texas, a small or medium-
sized tree with broadly oval leaflets, and small broad-winged
seeds. Its wood makes excellent flooring, but is chiefly used as
fuel, as it rarely attains sufficient size for lumber.

The Flowering Ash (F. Ornus) of southern Europe and

440

The Ashes and the Fringe Tree

Asia Minor, yields the manna of commerce, a medicinal wax
which exudes from the leaves and trunk. Chinese white wax
comes from a species in eastern Asia.

The European Ash (F. excelsior) is a large timber tree, native
also to western Asia. Evelyn ranked its wood next to oak in
universal usefulness. Scholars wrote on its inner bark before
paper was invented. Lances and spears, shields, pikes and bows
of it armed the soldier in days of old. Implements of all sorts
were made of ash from the infancy of agriculture and mechanics.
"The husbandman's tree/' it was called, for "ploughs, axle-
trees, wheel-rings, harrows, balls; . . . oars, blocks for
pulleys, tenons and mortises, poles, spars, handles and stocks
for tools, spade trees, carts, ladders. ... In short so good
and profitable is this tree that every prudent Lord of a Manor
should employ one acre of ground with Ash to every twenty
acres of other land, since in as many years it would be more worth
than the land itself."

William Cobbett gives the ash a good character. He com-
mends the keys for fattening hogs. "The seeds of ash are very
full of oil, and a pig that is put to his shifts will pick the seeds
very nicely out from the husks." He says further: "The ash
will grow anywhere." "It is the hardiest of our large trees."
"On the coasts the trees all, even the firs, lean from the sea
breeze, except the ash. It stands upright, as if in a warm, wooded
dell. We have no tree that attains greater height or bears prun-
ing better, none that equals the ash in beauty of leaf or usefulness
of timber. It is ready for the wheelwright at twenty years or
less."

Young ash saplings are cut when only five or six years old
and used in making crates for chinaware. When steamed the
wood may be bent to any shape, which makes it valuable for
hoops. An ash tree 3 inches in diameter is as valuable for spade
and fork handles as it will ever be. Walking sticks and whip
handles use up still smaller stuff, the very tough second growth,
or "stooled" shoots.

The ash is a tree of great reputation in Europe, aside from
its lumber value. It is the World Tree — Igdrasil — of the Norse
mythology, out of which sprung the race of men. It dominated
the whole universe. Did not its roots penetrating the earth
reach even to the cold and darkness of the Under World? Its

441

The Ashes and the Fringe Tree

giant top supported the Heavens. The Fount of Wisdom and
Knowledge was at its base — so were the abodes of the Gods and
the Giants. The Fates, also, dwelt there, who held in their hands
the destinies of men. There were the Nornies "continually
watering the roots of this world-shadowing tree with honey-dew.' '
Hesiod in the South declares that a race of brazen men sprung
from the ash tree. In those days, when the world was new, men
sprang from oak trees, or from the soil, or the rifted rock, according
to the legends and fables handed down to us.

Superstitious parents in rural England used to pass a poor
little babe suffering from rupture through the cleft stem of a
growing ash. Twice the stem must be sprung apart, and the
child passed through. The trunk was then tightly bound, and
when its halves were firmly knit, they believed that the child
would also be whole. An oil distilled from ash chips was counted
a sovereign remedy for many ailments, especially earache. John
Gerarde writes: "It is excellent to recover the hearing, some
drops of it being distilled warm into the ears"

The kernels of ash seeds were credited with having medicinal
value. English apothecaries of Evelyn's time had stock of
"Lingua avis" on their shelves, calling them this because they
were "like almost to divers birds' tongues." Gerarde, citing
the authority of Pliny, says: "Serpents dare not so much as
touch the morning and evening shadows of the tree, but shun
them afar off. . . . Being penned with boughes laid round
about [they] will sooner go into the fire than come near the boughes
of the ash." And he adds: "It is a wonderful courtesie in
nature that the ash should floure before the Serpents appeare,
and not cast his leaves before they be gon again."

As for lightning, the ash is said to attract it. Various warn-
ings are current:

"Beware the oak, it draws the stroke;
Avoid the ash, it courts the flash;
Creep under the thorn — it will save you from harm."

The unfortunate rustic, caught in a shower, probably knows
that beech is the safest tree to stand under, for experience and
tradition both hold that "a beech is never struck by lightning."
The early settlers had this saying from the Indians, and proved
its truth. A quaint recipe from Gerarde may interest some of
my readers, though certain makers of nostrums may frown upon

442

THE RED ASH (Fraxipus Pennsylvania)

The slenderest key and the longest belong to this species. The wing is as long as the pencil-like body, and extends half-way
around it. The winter buds are brown and set above prominent leaf scars

THE GREEN ASH (Fraxinua lanceolata)
The taper-pointed leafets are green on both sides. The slender keys are broader at the top an inch or more long, and borne in

copious clusters; ripe in Autumn.

The tree U transform,:! bv the sh™er of delicate whit, n,™erS tha, every nri, supports in June In *££*» <«"< '
rlums on the tree. They are striking in appearance among the large, yellow-green lea^es

The Ashes and the Fringe Tree

me for quoting it. "Three or four leaves of the ash taken in
wine each morning doe make those lean that are fat." Parkinson
indorses this as "a singular good medicine — with fasting a small
quantity — for those already fat or tending thereunto, to abate
their greatnesse, and cause them to be lancke and gaunt." Who
disbelieves in this will do well to remember that Gerarde was no
mean authority in his day, and Parkinson — was he not the King's
own Apothecarye? I make no doubt, however, that the con-
clusion will be drawn by many that the "fasting a small quantity"
was the effective part of the treatment prescribed.

"Bee-sucken ash," black at the heart, was counted tougher
and harder than the wood of sound trees, and especially desirable
for making mallets. Bees were credited (or blamed) with a
cankered condition produced by a tree-destroying fungus.

Filially, ash wood makes excellent fuel, and its ashes, rich in
potash, make an excellent fertiliser. Certainly the genus as a
whole deserves the good word of the poet Spenser, who, enumerat-
ing trees and their special uses, closes the list with — " the ash, for
nothing' ill."

2. Genus CHIONANTHUS, Linn.

Fringe Tree (Chionanihus Virginica, Linn.) — A slender,
narrow-headed tree, 20 to 30 feet high, or less. Bark reddish,
scaly; branches grey or brown. Wood light brown, close, heavy,
hard. Buds small, brown, ovate; inner scales becoming leaf-like.
Leaves opposite, simple, 4 to 8 inches long, 1 to 4 inches broad,
smooth, except on veins below, dark green, paler below, oval
or oblong on short petioles; yellow in early autumn. Flowers,
May and June, perfect, white, each with 4 slender, curving petals
1 inch long, in graceful, pendulous clusters. Fruit in September,
clustered 1 -seeded drupes, 1 inch long, dark blue, with slight
bloom; flesh dry; skin thick. Preferred habitat, rich, moist soil on
banks of streams. Distribution, southern Pennsylvania to
Florida; west to Arkansas and Texas. Uses: Admirable orna-
mental tree, hardy to New England. Much planted in parks and
gardens.

The fringe tree's beauty when its belated leaves unfold, and
the delicate fringe-like flowers cover it like a bridal veil, is quite

443

The Ashes and the Fringe Tree

sufficient justification for the tree's existence. I do not know
but that it adds to its charm to wait till the orchard has done
blooming and lilacs and all the early things have passed, making
us long for something new and different to come and take their
places. A delicate fragrance comes out of the purple-dotted
hearts of these drooping blossoms and the daintiness of the whole
tree at this supreme moment of its life history is something to be
seen and felt — one cannot put it into words. Later the leaves
broaden and the blue fruits are unusual and quite ornamental in
late summer. But the tree has become substantial looking, and
somewhat commonplace. Its ethereal beauty belongs to its
blooming period.

Chion means snow, anthos, a flower. There is as much beauty
in this Greek name as in the flowers it describes. The light and
graceful clusters of snow-white petals are indeed like feathery
masses of snowflakes. The elegance and singularity of its flowers
and fruit give the fringe tree high rank among the native flowering
trees suitable for lawn and garden. In Europe it is planted as a
beautiful exotic from America. Because it grows wild Americans
have been slower to introduce it into cultivation. A species
with shorter, broader petals in erect, compact clusters has been
found in China. This cannot compare with our own species in
grace and beauty.

AAA

■r I I

CHAPTER LX: THE CATALPAS

Family BignoniacejE
Genus CATALPA, Scop.

Trees with soft coarse-grained, durable wood. Leaves
large, simple, heart shaped, opposite or whorled. Flowers large,
white, showy, perfect, in panicles. Fruit long, cylindrical pods
full of compressed winged and tufted seeds.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Flowers many in .clusters ; leaves thin ; pods slender, thin
walled. (C. Catalpa) catalpa

AA. Flowers few in clusters; leaves thick; pods stout, thick
walled. (C. speciosa) western catalpa

The bignonia family includes among its hundred genera of
tropical plants three of arborescent habit in the United States.
Large flowers and conspicuous fruits are family traits. The
most important timber and ornamental trees are in the genus
Catalpa, which has in all seven species. Two- of these are found
in the United States.

Catalpa, Indian Bean {Catalpa Catalpa, Karst.)— Low,
spreading tree, 25 to 50 feet high, with broad, irregular head of
coarse twigs. Bark light brown, reddish, smooth. Wood coarse
grained, soft, light brown, durable in contact with the ground.
Buds all lateral, above circular leaf scar, minute, globular;. inner
scales grow to 2 inches long. Leaves bright green, opposite or in
three's, 6 to 8 inches long, half as wide, ovate, entire, or some-
times lobed and wavy margined, pubescent beneath ; of unpleasant
odour; petioles stout, long, terete. Flowers, June or July,
perfect; large, white, irregular, the frilled corolla marked with
two yellow stripes and numerous purplish dots; pedicels downy;
panicles loose, 6 to 10 inches long. Fruit a green, cylindrical
pod, 6 to 20 inches long, ^2-valved, filled with flat, tufted seeds.

445

The Catalpas

Preferred habitat, moist, rich soil of river banks or shady woods.
Distribution, Georgia and Florida to Mississippi, but natural-
ised in many other states. Uses: A hardy ornamental
tree; wood valuable for inside finish in houses, for posts and
railroad ties.

The horse chestnut with its thousand pyramids of bloom is
scarcely past its prime when a rival of surpassing loveliness appears.
Out of the deadest-looking branches, which show no sign of life
until spring has sown meadow and wood with blossoms, a lux-
uriant crown of bright foliage comes, and with a rush, as if to
make up lost time, the tree bursts into bloom.

Now the awkwardness of its frame is forgotten, and the
tree looks like a plant from the tropics. The flower clusters are
often 10 inches high, loosely conical and blooming from the base
upward.

A single flower deserves close scrutiny. The green calyx
that enclosed the bud splits in two and the white corolla, with
its spreading, scalloped and ruffled border, unfolds. There are
five lobes turning out from the deep throat of the flower, where
groups and rows of yellow and purple dots adorn the lining.
The bumblebees recognise these markings as an invitation to
explore the nectaries of the flower, and the fragrance further
reassures them. (The two stamens are ripe before the stigma
that rises between them. A bee that alights on the broad plat-
form and pushes into the flower's depths for nectar is well brushed
with pollen as she passes. This she loses to the sticky stigmas
of other blossoms as she pursues her vocation in the honey-laden
treetops. A later comer to that first blossom might note, if she
were observant, that the stamens had wilted in the few hours
just past, and it is the erect stigma that is brushed with pollen
from her hairy body. Thus Nature prevents self-pollination in
this species, and sends the unconscious bees to cross-fertilise
catalpa flowers.

The pods that hang on the trees in late summer look like
long green pencils. The tree is as much a wonder in fruit as in
flower. In .winter time, the two thin valves split, and out tumbles
a multitude of seeds! There is nothing to them — just thin,
papery flakes an inch long, fraying at both ends into silvery hairs.
The wind scatters them far and near, and the streams float them
toward the seas. So the catalpa seeds are spread. The trees

The Catalpas

have also the habit of sprouting from the stump; and lower
branches, lying on the ground, often strike root.

^ The Western Catalpa (C. speciosa, Engelm.) is hardier
than the Southern species, and it grows in more upright form,
promising more and better timber in a given time. It has stout,
thick-walled fruits, thicker, more pointed leaves, and fewer
flowers, less gaily spotted, in a cluster.

This tree ranges in bottom lands from lower Indiana and
Illinois to Missouri, Arkansas and Texas. It occurs in western
Kentucky and Tennessee. This is the best species for the West,
where plantations are becoming more and more common and
profitable. Railroad companies are interested in these enter-
prises. The Bureau of Forestry is investigating the possibilities
and the limitations of catalpa groves as a source of lumber in the
prairie states. The disappearance of American forests has brought
into prominence trees of quick growth and durable wood. The
railroad men are asking where the ties of the future are to come
from. Before the famine comes is the time to lay up stores.
Catalpa trees are large enough for ties in a dozen years of growth.
They often lay on an inch of wood annually. They come quickl)
from seed, so that nursery stock is very cheap. A plantation of
50,000 trees was set out by a Western railroad at a cost of one cent
per tree. In six years catalpa trunks are big enough for fence
posts.

As to durability, tests give very satisfactory results. A
forest was inundated in Missouri by the earthquake of 181 1>*
Sixty-seven years after, the catalpas stood perfectly sound, whil eji
all other trees had utterly disappeared. Catalpa ties, selectee
at random, are sound after a dozen years of use. Fence post?
known to have~i>een set fifty years look as If they were good for
the rest of the century.

The Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis, DC), a little tree
on the boundary between Texas and Mexico, is a member of the
bignonia family. It has white flowers and pods, somewhat like
those of the catalpas, but its leaves are often a foot long, and
narrow as a blade of grass. It is sometimes planted in Southern
gardens. The only species in the genus, it will not be confused
with other trees.

The Black Calabash Tree (Crescentia cucurbitina, Linn.) is
the only other native tree that belongs in the family with the

447

The Catalpas

catalpas. The shores of Bay Biscayne, in southeastern Florida,
form the outpost of its extensive West Indian and Central Amer-
ican range. Its flower is a solitary, purplish-yellow tube with a
flaring border. The leaf is obovate, leathery, dark green, with
perfectly plain margin. The fruit is a berry, 3 or 4 inches long,
and shaped like a peach or plum. Its hard, shiny shell encloses
many flattish seeds.

The gourd-like fruit of the West Indian calabash tree (C.
Cujete, Linn.) is made into drinking-cups and a great variety
of culinary utensils. It is much larger than that of the preceding
species.

The Paulownia (Paulownia imperialis, Sieb. & Zucc.) is
a member of the spurge family, not so far away from the catalpa,
botanically speaking. Indeed, an untrained eye detects the
similarity in foliage, flowers and general habit of the two trees.
In lustiness of growth each excels in many regions where tropical
profusion of leafage and bloom is exceptional.

The paulownia blossoms before the leaves; its clustered
violet flowers ,hung out on the ends of twigs look like foxgloves.
Showy as these are, they need the leaf background — the lack of it
scores against them among critical admirers of ornamental trees.
The clustered seed balls, too, are unsightly in winter, requiring
to be cut off.

A very satisfying screen of verdure is renewed every season
by cutting back to one or two stalks seedlings of paulownia.
The heart-shaped leaves are often a foot across. The hardiness
of the tree commends it. Even as far north as Montreal it comes
up from roots every year, forming long shoots which bear leaves
astonishingly large compared with trees indigenous to the region^

In spite of the drawbacks named, this tree enjoys a growing
popularity in the eastern half of the country. Its flowers are
deliciously fragrant, and no tree blossom has more delicate colour.
Blue is unusual among tree blossoms, and these trees, like great
blue-flowered catalpas, are striking objects in parks and along
avenues. Native of Japan and China, the paulownia feels enough
at home already in America to run wild in some places. A
splendid evergreen species has been found in the Himalayas.

448

CHAPTER LXI: THE VIBURNUMS AND THE

ELDERS

Family Caprifoliace^

i. Genus VIBURNUM, A. L. de Juss.

Small trees with ill-smelling wood, and tough, slender
branches. Leaves simple, opposite, ovate, 2 to 4 inches long,
with margined petioles. Flowers white, in broad terminal
cymes. Fruit a blue, berry-like drupe with flat stone.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Branches slender; winter buds long pointed; petiole mar-
gins wavy, broad. (V. Lentago) sheepberry
A A. Branches stout; winter buds stout; petiole margins narrow,
not wavy.
B. Leaves and petioles rusty pubescent.

{V. rufidulum) rusty nannyberry
BB. Leaves and petioles smooth.

{V. prunifolium) black haw

Viburnums are related to the elders and belong in the honey-
suckle family. They include a multitude of ornamental shrubs,
evergreen and deciduous, grown in gardens and shrubberies the
world over for their showy flowers and^decorative fruits as well
as their handsome foliage which often colours brilliantly in the
fall. Not all viburnums combine all these desirable horticultural
qualities. There are about one hundred species known. They
are distributed in the continents of the Northern Hemisphere
and extend south to Central America, North Africa and Java.
The old-fashioned snowball bush is perhaps the most familiar
representative of the genus. The Japanese snowball, with much
more handsome foliage and flowers, followed by red berries, is
rapidly succeeding the other in popularity.

Sheepberry {Viburnum Lentago, Linn.) — A small, round-
headed tree, of many slender, pendulous branches. Twigs
pubescent, becoming smooth. Bark brown, broken into thick,

449

The Viburnums and the Elders

scaly plates. Wood heavy, hard, brownish yellow, close textured,
bad smelling. Buds red; axillary long pointed, in two pubescent
scales; terminal, button-like, with long, abruptly tapering scales.
Leaves 2 to 3 inches long, ovate, with tapering apex and base,
serrate, shining, leathery, opposite, pitted with black underneath ;
autumn colours orange and red; petioles stout, short, with wavy,
winged margins. Flowers, April to June, in flat cymes, 3 to 5
inches across; white, perfect. Fruit, September, oval, dark blue
drupes, sweetish, juicy, smooth, with pale bloom on red pedicels,
few in a cluster. Preferred habitat, moist soil of rocky stream
borders or edges of swamps. Distribution, Quebec to Saskatche-
wan; south to Alabama along Appalachian Mountains; west to
Nebraska, Kansas and Wyoming. Uses: Ornamental shrubs or
trees in Eastern States.

The sheepberry, with its shining leaves set opposite, is
likely to be mistaken for a dogwood. But the prominent, wavy-
winged margins of the petioles are the best distinguishing char-
acter. The multitudinous tiny flowers are in cymes like the
elders, and after them come a few oval berries of fair size, dark
blue, looking not unlike those of a dogwood, for they hang on
coral-red branching stems. They are good to eat — if one is very
hungry.

The chief merit of this little tree is its beauty, and because
of this it finds its way into many Eastern parks and gardens.
There is no season when it is not good to look upon. It is a
familiar inhabitant of fence rows and the edges of woodlands.
It blooms in late May, and holds its ripe fruits over winter for
birds to feed upon.

The Rusty. Nannyberry {V. rufidulum, Raf.) is easily
distinguished by the rusty hairs on its winter buds, petioles,
and the veins on the lower side of the leaf. It is quite as hand-
some (though not yet as well known) as the smooth species just
described. It has white flowers and large, bright blue berries.
It grows from Virginia to Florida, and west to Illinois and Texas.
In gardens it has proved hardy in Boston.

The Black Haw {V. prunifolium, Linn.), with leaves like
a plum's, and the narrow petiole margin smooth, has ^flowers and
fruits very much like those of the others. The berries are a
trifle smaller, perhaps, and a shade darker. This species is
smaller throughout than the other two; it blooms earlier, ancl has

45o

THE SHEEPBERRY (Viburnum Lentago)
The wavy-winged petioles distinguish the viburnums. The blue-black berries hang on coral red ped,

petioles aibuiiguisui *-im viuunicmo. ^ — . , , , • a i .-,»,

birds take the last one. The leaf buds are long and slender; the large, plump terminal bud contains a flower cluster
ire rusty-downy on the veins

Leaves

THE RUSTY NANNYBERRY (Viburnum rufdulum)

The rusty hairs that cover winter buds, petioles and veins of leaf linings dis-
tinguish this tree. The leaves are lustrous and the fruit bright blue

THE BLACK HAW (Viburnum prunijohum)

Flower buds are large and blunt; leaf buds small
and slim. The twigs are reddish in winter

THE RED-BERRIED ELDER (Sambucus pubens)

The pithy twigs, showy flower cluster and opposite, compound leaves of this shrubby roadside elder are typical of all the eldeB

Two tree forms occur in the West

THE HOP TREE (Ptelca trijoliata)

Pale-green f.uits in clusters, the seeds with circular wings all around, remind us of the rim fruits. They illuminate the glofl
dark foliage all summer. There are few daintier, cooler-looking trees that grow in shade

The Viburnums and the Elders

stout branches, like V '. rufidulum. It is found from Connecticut
to Georgia, and west to Michigan, Kansas, and Texas* In
European parks and gardens and in those of our Eastern States
this little "stag bush" is often cultivated for its handsome flowers
and foliage and its persistent fruit.

2. Genus SAMBUCUS, Linn.

Quick-growing, stout-branched trees and shrubs, with pithy
branchlets and ill-smelling sap. Wood dense, light brown, soft.
Leaves pinnate, of 5 leaflets, opposite, deciduous. Flowers small,
perfect, white, in broad compound cymes. Fruits small, blue or
black, juicy, berry-like, each with 3 to 5 nutlets.

KEY TO SPECIES

A. Leaves and young shoots pubescent; fruit destitute of
bloom. (S. Mexicana) Mexican elder

AA. Leaves and young shoots smooth; fruit covered with a
pale bloom. (S. glauca) pale elder

Our two arborescent species of the genus Sambucus are
found west of the Mississippi, but the family traits are familiar
to Eastern people through their acquaintance with the two
shrubby species, the red-berried and the black-berried elders.

There are twenty species, all told, in the genus. The golden
elder is a yellow-leaved form of the European species, Sambucus
nigra, Linn. Two other species have produced golden varieties.
These are altogether too much planted, and the handsome shrubby
native species, above mentioned, have not been fully appreciated.

The fruit of the common elder is used in making elderberry
wine, and elderberry pie is a staple viand in many country districts
in the season of the ripening fruit. In fact, the idea of the im-
provement of this species as a small fruit has taken hold upon
some plant breeders. The Brainerd elderberry with fruit as big
as cherries was introduced into the trade in 1890.

Elder shoots are used in toy making and for "spiles" to
draw sap from maple trees. The name of the genus is from the
Greek, Sambuke, a musical wind instrument made of the hollow
stems of the elder.

The Mexican Elder (S. Mexicana, DC.) grows to 30 feet

451

The Viburnums and the Elders

high in the river bottoms of western Texas, and west to California,
and south through Mexico and Central America. It is a squat,
round-headed tree, with its short trunk bulging suddenly at the
base. A soft pubescence covers leaves and twigs. The shiny,
black fruit, borne in loose clusters, is eaten by Indians and Mex-
icans. The tree is often planted near homes for its shade and
fruit.

The Pale Elder (S. glauca, Nutt.) is smooth throughout,
and gets its name from the whitish floury covering of the berries.
The leaves are pale beneath. The berries are edible. This
elder grows from British Columbia to southern California, and
east scantily and reduced in stature as far as Montana and Utah.
It is sometimes planted as an ornamental. Trees from 30 to 50
feet high are seen in dry, gravelly soil in the coast region, especially
in Oregon.

452

PART II
FORESTRY

•

CHAPTER I: FORESTRY IN THE UNITED

STATES

Forestry is the intelligent management of woodlands to
serve some definite purpose. Three distinct types of forests
result from working toward as many different objects, each
legitimate, and serving the country's needs.

i. The Supply Forest is managed upon a commercial basis.
Its object is the production of wood, and Nature's resources are
bent to this end. How to get the highest grade of lumber of the
best kinds, in the greatest quantity and at the lowest cost on a
given area and in a given time — these are the problems of the
supply forest. At the same time, the aim is to improve the
condition of the forest and to make it permanent and self-
sustaining in a physical as well as a commercial sense, paying
good returns for the cost of its maintenance. Such complex
problems tax the judgment of the wisest men. Action, positive
and aggressive, is demanded in the supply forest. Beside it,
other types of forestry seem negative.

2. The Protective Forest is maintained to regulate waterflow
on mountain slopes — the headwaters of streams upon which the
fertility- of the lowlands depends. These forests check tendencies
to flooding in the early spring and consequent drought in summer.
They prevent destructive erosion of sloping ground and damaging
soil deposits in the valleys. Such are many of the state and
national reserve forests, including those that hoard the water
for irrigation ditches in California and other Western states.
Water companies of great cities maintain such forest covers
over the sources of their supplies.

Protective forests may be maintained especially as wind-
breaks in regions subject to damaging winds, hot or cold. Bodies
of trees that drink up stagnant water, thus draining swamps and
reducing malarial troubles, may also properly be designated as
protective. Those whose balsamic exhalations improve climate
are in this class.

3. The Luxury Forest ministers to the aesthetic and spiritual

455

Forestry in the United States

needs of humanity and to their love of sport. It furnishes
recreation, physical and mental, to all. The Park Reservations
belonging to city, state and nation are such. The Yosemite,
Grand Canon and Yellowstone are our most famous national
parks. In the lower Appalachians there will soon be set aside
another to be kept as Nature will keep it for the people of the
whole country. The Adirondacks contain a New York state
park, and other states have similar reserves belonging to all the
people. The Metropolitan Park System of Boston is the best
illustration in this country of a chain of parks and timber reserva-
tions belonging to a city, and devoted to the recreation and
uplifting of its whole population. These parks are a refuge
for wild flowers that agriculture has exterminated, and for
wild birds that towns have driven out. They are the
precious heritage of the people and should never pass out of
their hands.

The Game Preserve is a second type of recreation forest.
It ministers to primitive human instincts — love of pure wildness
and the freedom of outdoor life, and that stronger love for hunting
and fishing.

National parks and reservations are open to hunters, with
certain restrictions. Smaller tracts are owned and maintained
by clubs or individuals. Such game preserves, fenced against the
public, and in charge of wardens the year around, are found in
the Adirondacks and in other Eastern mountains, and along the
coast where wild fowl are the chief attraction. In the shooting
and fishing season these tracts are visited by the owners and their
friends. For the joys of this period great preparations are made.
Lakes and streams are stocked with fish, and not uncommonly
big game and wild fowl are introduced to increase the number
and variety of game in the park.

Mixed forests are best for game of all kinds. Broad-leaved
trees furnish better coverts for beasts and birds than conifers do.
They have denser undergrowth, and they sprout from stumps
and from the roots — a rare thing among evergreens. This
young growth furnishes important forage for herbivorous animals
in winter and summer. Browsing is their chief living. They
do not like the resin of the evergreens, as they do the succulent
twigs and inner bark of poplar and birch and maples. The
buds and the various tree fruits — berries and oily nuts and starchy

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Forestry in the United States

seeds — are the winter store of birds and many of the smaller
woods folk.

Noxious animals, including dogs, the worst enemy of deer,
are exterminated by the wardens, who also keep off poachers,
and do all they can to promote the well-being of big game and
small. In winters of deep snows it is necessary to cut down
trees so that the ruminants may be kept from starvation. Ear
corn and fodder are often scattered on the snow that covers the
natural food supply. The animal mortality in the North Woods
is sometimes appalling in severe winters.

It is most common to find a single forest serving two, or
even all three of these different purposes. Lumbering may be
profitably carried on in protective forests without damaging them
as conservers of the water supply, or interfering to a great extent
with hunting. It takes a long time and very thorough clearing
to overcome the wildness and to expose the floor of our American
forests. Young growth from seed and stumps covers the scars
made by lumbermen who, as a rule, want nothing but good-sized
logs. Fire and grazing are much more effective agents of deforesta-
tion than lumbering, but lumbering fosters fires by the "slash"
it leaves behind.

When forestry is mentioned, commercial forestry is usually
meant. Wood is necessary to civilised life, and the production
of it is a problem that becomes graver as population becomes
denser. The history of European countries may eventually
be repeated in ours. First came the cutting down of trees for
use and for the clearing of land. Then experimental work of a
vague and general nature to check wastefulness, and provide for
the future productiveness of woodlands. Then more definite
plans, more generally effective in their workings, toward the same
end. Last, the growing of wood as a crop, seriously, laboriously,
profitably, as a general farmer may at last take to celery culture
or to strawberries or melons, and make a fortune out of a few
acres. Such forestry and such farming are intensive. They are
specialised to a high degree.

Intensive forestry at its best can be seen in Germany. State
and private forests can be found in which tree crops are grown
as carefully as any agricultural crop. The land is prepared, the
seed selected, the young trees protected, cultivated, pruned and
thinned. Such a forest is as clean and as thickly set as a field

457

Forestry in the United States

of grain, and its value when cut and marketed is beyond belief
to us whose standard of heavy production has been "the virgin
forest/'

The plan followed in the administration of these highly
specialised forests is to cut a certain acreage clean every year, and
replant it. The years required for a crop to mature is the basis
of the rotation system. By the time the whole forest is cut over
the first plot has a second crop ready to harvest. Most of the
German forests are of pine and spruce, with an average rotation
period of eighty to one hundred years.

One-quarter of the land in Germany is forest. Not much
of this land is continuous in one great wooded section of the
country, but is scattered in smaller forests among the thickly
settled districts. Each has its force of workers, its sawmill and a
ready market for all the forest products. It is said that the
thinnings and prunings of these forests pay most of the cost of the
labour put upon them while they are growing. Even twigs are
used, bound into fagots or made into charcoal and sold as fuel.
Mushrooms and truffles are gathered in these forests. The
leafage furnishes fodder for cattle in certain broad-leaf woods, as
those of linden and maple.

The city of Zurich in Switzerland has owned a forest for one
thousand years. It has been so carefully regulated that it has
furnished a definite amount of timber each year for six hundred
years and is to-day in better condition than ever before. Its
plan of management has not changed in all that time. As early
as the year 1300 the peoples of northern Europe applied to their
forests the principles of rational forestry, while southern Europe
ignored these principles, and is still suffering from this folly.

Extensive forestry, adopting improved methods of handling
wooded tracts, without greatly increasing the cost of management,
is the type of forestry American conditions call for at present,
in most sections. In special regions intensive forestry in con-
junction with agriculture is justified. The experimental stage
will gradually bring us to more intensive methods, but it will be
a long, slow evolution. We have seen much destructive lumber-
ing, but forestry is just begun, here and there. Over the bulk
of the country, people have never heard of forestry.

The Government has 60,000,000 acres of land in national
parks and reservations, set apart since 1890. In parks all lumber-

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Forestry in the United States

ing is suspended, game is protected, and troops are stationed
along its borders to insure the carrying out of the laws. In
reservations no such surveillance is maintained; the laws permit
lumbering, hunting and grazing, as the tracts, once open to
settlers, are sprinkled over with privately owned areas. It is
the President's right to withdraw public lands from sale and
settlement at his discretion. This he does to protect the head-
waters of streams and to save valuable timber lands and wild
scenery. Much land now merely reserved by presidential procla-
mation will eventually be made by acts of Congress into national
parks.

The Yellowstone, over 2,000,000 acres in the northwest
corner of Wyoming, is our greatest national park. California
has three: the Yosemite, over 160,000 acres of the most
beautiful and rugged scenery in the world; Sequoia and
General Grant parks, both preserving some fine groves of the
Big Trees. All three parks lie in the great Sierra reservation of
4,000,000 acres, which, with a southern chain of reservations,
occupy one-tenth of the area of the state. Arizona has four large
reserves, one of which includes the famous Grand Canon of the
Colorado. Some of the best of the Pacific coast forests are in
the Mount Ranier, Olympic and Washington reservations in
Washington, and the Cascade Reservation in Oregon. The tract
of over 200,000 acres, including Mount Tacoma, is now a national
park.

Great areas of forest reserves check the map of the Rocky
Mountain states, extending east to the Dakotas and Oklahoma,
and including parks of comparatively small size. State forest
reservations are not so common. New York has set a good
example by providing in 1885 a pleasure ground of 1,000,000
acres for the people in the wilds of the Adirondacks. It is
also a health resort, especially for consumptives. Since 1895,
Pennsylvania has acquired 300,000 acres on which practical
forestry is to be begun. Many states, spurred to action by
the falling off of the timber supply, have established forestry
experiment stations. California has two such stations. State
universities and agricultural colleges now offer courses in forestry,
and have forest laboratories. The state of Michigan set aside a
57,000 acre tract for this purpose when its course in forestry was
established. Even the prairie states have followed suit. Land

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Forestry in the United States

that has been deforested and then abandoned by lumber com-
panies becomes public property in default of taxes. Such lands
to a large extent should belong to the state, and should maintain
protective forests, as they include watersheds, the sources of
streams.

Five years ago the Division of Forestry was an insignificant
branch of the Department of Agriculture, with $ 10,000 a year
to spend. Now it is a Bureau, with nearly half a million a year.
A large body of forestry specialists trained in the best forestry
centres of the Old World, are at work on special American prob-
lems, as members of the staff of the Bureau. Co-operation with
landowners has brought under the Bureau's management almost
10,000,000 acres of privately owned forest. Experts size up the
problems on the ground, and the owners follow the Bureau's
advice. The International Paper Company, controlling over
100,000,000 acres of spruce, are introducing reproductive forestry
under Government direction. Twenty-six thousand acres in
farmers' woodlots are being managed under expert direction.

Teaching forestry in. this country has seriously begun. In
1898 the New York State College of Forestry was established at
Cornell University, with Dr. B. E. Fernow, ex-chief of the Division
of Forestry, at its head. The four years' course provided for
broad as well as technical training. A tract of 30,000 acres,
the forest laboratory, was at Axton, in the Adirondacks. After
five years of healthy growth, this college was extinguished through
state politics, and the hundred undergraduate students scattered
to other schools to finish their studies.

The Yale School of Forestry, established in 1900, offers at
present the most thorough forestry training obtainable. The
Universities of Minnesota and Michigan have very strong courses.
Berea College, Kentucky, and a large number of other colleges
and state universities offer a year or more in forestry. In 1898
the Biltmore Forest School was opened on the Vanderbilt estate
near Asheville, North Carolina, for the instruction and training of
students.

Outside of the schools, a great power for the upbuilding
of public sentiment is vested in the state and national forestry
organisations. The American Forestry Association, formed in
1882, binds together all interests. The official organ of this
association is the monthly publication, Forestry and Irrigation.

460

Forestry in the United States

A significant meeting was the coming together in Washington,
D. C, of the destructive and constructive interests — the lumber-
men and the foresters — in friendly council, each recognising the
claims of the other, and their interdependence and need of co-
operation. The American Forest Congress, of January, 1905,
was an epoch-making event.

The Bureau of Forestry is the efficient head of all our forest
interests. It has places to put all students who are well trained
for the profession of forestry. A large body of strong young men
are entering it. The outlook is extremely encouraging.

The public mind is vague when it encounters the nomenclature
of a new science. Forestry, its subdivisions and synonyms,
and its relation to other sciences, may be briefly set forth.

Forestry is one grand division of the great art of Agriculture,
"the cultivation of the field." Silviculture and forestry are used
as synonyms. Arboriculture includes beside forest trees those
that are grown for their fruit, and for ornament. Hence it
includes a large part of horticulture and landscape gardening —
the growing of trees for any purpose. Silviculture is, properly
speaking, that branch of forestry which deals with the scientific
production of a crop of trees. Forest regulation is the business
branch, which manages the annual outlay and returns of the
forest. It has the lumbering and marketing of the crop in charge.
Dendrology is one of the fundamental sciences upon which forestry
rests. It is the botany of trees, and has three distinct branches of
equal importance to the forester: (1) Tree physiology and
pathology, life processes of trees in health and disease; (2) tree
anatomy and histology, the structure, gross and minute, of trees;
(3) systematic botany, a study of the kinds of trees in order to
know them by name.

461

CHAPTER II: A LUMBER CAMP OF TO-DAY

In a mountainous corner of one of the thirteen original
states is a "patch" of white pine, one of the last remnants of
the forest primeval, Here is a lumber camp with a hundred
men working throughout the year. It is estimated that at the
present rate the cutting will be finished in about fifteen years.
The company is an old, conservative one whose name has been
familiar in the lumber trade for three generations. It owns large
tracts on the Pacific coast, whose forests wait until this Eastern
harvest is done.

Not large, like the great lumbering enterprises that have
stripped the pine from northern Michigan, nor small, like the
patchy lumbering jobs left here and there in neighbouring states,
this busy camp combines the best and most interesting phases
of each. The characteristic activities of the lumbering industry
are all carried forward with modern appliances and modern
methods.

The sawmills are the nucleus of a little community composed
of the families of all the mill folks, from the resident partner who
lives like a feudal lord among his vassals, to the day labourer.
Nobody lives here except those employed by the company.
Beside the houses, there is a general store, with postoffice and
express office, a church and school, a barber shop, carpenter shop,
and blacksmith shop, and two boarding houses for the men
without families. All real estate is the company's property
and is under company management.

A stage carries mail, express and passengers between the
village and the railroad station three miles down the valley.
There the mountain stream that floats logs down to the mills
in the spring freshets joins the river, which is deep enough for
big flat-bottomed lumber barges. A stub of the railroad runs
up to the mills, and switches run conveniently among the piles
of lumber.

A private railroad climbs the hills, through hard woods and
scattering second growth of pine and hemlock, to the upper

462

A Lumber Camp of To-day

camp eight miles away, where the "falters" are at work cutting
pine trees that count their years by centuries. The road gives
off a branch half way up, that goes into the hemlock woods.

There is no higher land in the vicinity than these pine-
crowned hills, which looks down benignantly on the landscape that
slopes away on every side. A cluster of rude cabins about the
end of the railroad house the families that form this ever-shifting
temporary upper camp. There is wood to burn and water
from the springs, and supplies are sent up from the store. The
men keep their axes and saws sharp and use them eleven hours a
day. They get f 1.75 a day — more if they furnish a team. There
is a "head falter" set over the men who cut the timber. Another
"boss" manages the loading of the logs into the skidways and
from them into the cars.

Having read "The Blazed Trail," I was ready to embrace
with fervour the invitation to spend three days at the upper
camp. Accommodations were ample, if primitive ways were
no objection. So the day was set and transportation bespoken,
though this is an unnecessary formality. At 4:30 a. m. the mill
whistle screamed in the ears of the sleeping settlement, and the
little engine began puffing and snorting to get up steam for its
toilsome uphill drag of the empty log cars. It was well we had
dressed for inclement weather, for a drizzling rain dampened our
clothing, if not our zeal. We attached ourselves like leaches to
the trucks of the bottomless cars, with a determination to enjoy
the ride.

The road followed the course of a brook which twisted like
an agitated garter snake. The rails made only gentle curves,
so that the train crossed the water more than fifty times in the
eight miles.

The one bark car was switched off on a siding half way up,
and its passengers, mostly berry pickers bound for the higher
valleys, had to follow our example and chose seats on the running
gears of the log cars, to which we all clung with some apprehension
as they lurched and joggled over the uneven road bed. At inter-
vals great gridiron-like "skids," built of logs and worn smooth
by long use, ran alongside the track. The lower ones had fallen
into disuse — abandoned when the woods were cleared of pine.
The higher ones we passed were still in working order, the last
ones piled with fresh logs waiting for the cars.

463

A Lumber Camp of To-day

The panting little engine reached the camp and rested from
its labours. The engineer, posing as a good-natured Santa
Claus, handed out parcels to those who came expecting them.
A scarlet sweater to one burly chopper, a double-bitted axe to
another, a new pair of brogans to a third. There were canned
and boxed provisions for the boarding house, and papers and
letters from the postoffice.

Off in the woods I heard a sound as of an explosion. Leaving
our superfluous belongings on the engine we set out toward the
big noise, following a "skid road" down which logs were being
dragged. We soon came within the sound of a saw. Two men
knelt on opposite sides of a giant pine whose fall we had heard.
They were sawing it into lengths according to marks chipped by
the axe of a third man who carried also a measuring stick. He
had in his hand orders for bridge timbers — the " bill " for the day —
and this log, being as he had judged it, a sound tree, about three
feet in diameter, had furnished the seventy-foot "stick" requisite
to "fill the bill," and two or three twelve-foot logs beside. The
top was a mere rosette of leafy branches, above the clear, straight
trunk. Such a tree is worth a dollar for each one of its three hundred
years, if no defects are discovered as it goes through the mill.

There are trees standing among these with a trunk diameter
exceeding four feet. These venerable pines do not make the
best lumber. They are over ripe, and almost certain to be hollow
at the base and to show "punky" spots of cheesy unsound wood,
which has to be discarded in the mill.

This head faller is a man of long experience and ripe judg-
ment. He must choose the trees most likely to fill the orders
sent him by the manager froni the office. His eye measures the
standing tree, selects one, and decides which way it shall fall.
While his two sawyers are busy cutting the last one into proper
lengths, he chops a long notch low on the butt of the next to fall.
It is as deep as his axe head — a smooth, two-lipped trough, whose
angle is a straight line terminating in the bark each way. As the
tree falls the two lips meet. There must be no log nor stump
across its path, or the falling tree breaks. Often a tree is broken
by the impact of its fall on boggy ground, but this usually is due
to decay that has weakened its trunk in certain spots.

The tree must fall where the "skidders" who come with
horses to "snake" its logs to the railroad can get at it with least

464

A Lumber Camp of To-day

troub! of clearing away other obstructions. It must lie, if
possible, with its butt toward a skid road. Young trees, espe-
cially pines, are saved as far as possible. But I saw a cucumber
tree fifty feet high shattered to kindling wood by a falling pine.

The axe of the head faller chips the thick bark off in a circle
around the tree, joining the ends of the wedge. This bark is
full of dirt that would dull the saw much more than the hard wood.
Now the sawyers come and kneel to their task. Men with horses
and massive log chains come to get the fresh logs.

The long cross-cut saw has ragged teeth and a handle on
each end. Its blade was sprayed well with kerosene before work
began, for the resin of the bleeding tree has to be "cut" with oil, or
it binds the saw and stops the work. The saw began on the side
opposite the notch, and fared steadily toward it. The rhythm
of its song and the perfect co-operation of the two men were
good to hear and see. Once or twice they stopped, took off one
handle, drew the saw out and oiled it on both sides. When half
way through they drove in a wedge, that gave the saw more
room.

There was no anxiety on the part of the crouching men, no
least tremour of the tree, until the trunk was almost severed.
Then the sawing suddenly doubled its speed. When within a
few inches of the notch it ceased, the men sprang away, the tree
trembled, swayed, and fell, its top sweeping through the air
with a mighty sigh. The lips of the notch closed with crushing
impact as the shaft shook the earth that shuddered under the
blow.

The men stood aside, oiling their saw, and set it into the
fallen trunk as the marker indicated the place. The absence
of conversation was oppressive — the understanding of each
sawyer with the other made talk unnecessary. Were they
overcome by the presence of visitors? "No," the head faller
told us, "they are always quiet." The work among the pines
has this strange effect upon the men. They do not raise their
voices when they speak, even to their horses. The hemlock
peelers are a noisy, quarrelsome crew, given to profanity and
coarse joking; but the fallers in the upper camp are thoughtful and
pensive, while at their work. In that cathedral woods we felt
the presence of something that discouraged speech. We did not
understand it — any more than the labourers did. Three days we

465

A Lumber Camp of To-day

spent among the pines, each day repeating the events of the
first, and deepening its impressions.

The nights in camp were full of new sights and sounds.
A rasping sound as of something gnawing off the very foundations
of the house was silenced by the gun of the householder. Next
morning we heard it was "nawthin' but a couple o' porkypines
that come around chawin' on the sills/' The housewife bewailed
the invasion of her turnip patch by wild deer. A black bear had
recently contested the claims of berry pickers in one of the upland
spaces cleared of timber.

The logs are piled in order down on the skidways by men
who scamper over them like ants, teasing them into parallel
position, fitting them into solid phalanx, with peavy and cant
hook — difficult and dangerous tools to the learner, but wonder-
fully effective when mastered.

From early morning till two o'clock the gang is loading cars
from the skids. Three long logs rest on two trucks set far enough
apart to support the two ends of the load, which are solidly
chained to prevent any slipping. Short logs are fitted in pyra-
midal piles on regular cars. They usually bind each other, the
upper logs fitting into the troughs between the lower ones. If
the fit does not suffice, a chain binds them into a solid unit.

A warning whistle after dinner gave notice that in an hour
the train started for the valley. We found the cars all full, and
I looked inquiringly into the engineer's little cubby. It had
scarcely room for himself and various boxes and bundles. "On
top of the logs?" It seemed incredible. But there were women
with berry baskets — and babies — perched on those wooden
pinnacles. There is no other way of getting down to the settle-
ment, not even a trail.

It wasn't bad at all. We perched on a round log terrace and
leaned luxuriously back against another which formed the key-
stone of the arch of the load. Berry pickers gathered in, the
manager himself joined us, introducing the Catholic priest, who
had spent the day among his isolated parishioners. A jovial, if
scattered, company of passengers waved a farewell to the camp.

The long logs went first, making the curves safely, though
their chains groaned. A man with a peavy rode erect upon them,
watching anxiously for trouble. It was a silly short car behind
that ran one wheel off the track over a boggy spot where the

466

A Lumber Camp of To-day

track sagged. The passengers kept their seats, even on that
car. A short length of rail was laid under the offending wheels,
the little engine at the upper end of the train pulled suddenly
and the wheel got back to the rail. There was just time to
pick a bunch of scarlet hobble berries which the kindly genius
of the short rail heard me crave; then the descent began again,
the little engine halting violently to overcome and to gauge
properly the mighty force of gravitation, in whose power we were
hurrying to the valley. And we drew in alongside the mill slough
while the autumnal sun still shone through the hemlocks on the
western hill.

There was one stop at a siding to attach a car piled high
and solid with sheets of dry hemlock bark, and to add a number
of extra passengers from the woods and berry patches. This
hemlock furnishes a valuable side line to the main lumbering
business. The wood is not highly rated, but the bark is valuable
for tanning. All through the summer, work is active among the
hemlocks. The bark slips until September, and a gang of peelers
works through the growing season. Then it disbands. There
is only the bark to market, and the logs to get to the mills.

The bark is checked into uniform sheets four feet long before
it is stripped from the fresh-cut log. It is stacked and loaded on
cars by the stripper, who gets $2 per cord for his work. The
tanneries pay ?io or more per cord for it. The force of 150
men get out 1 0,000 cords of bark in a summer.

The hemlock logs, too slippery for handling by men, are
loaded on cars by machinery. A big iron thumb and finger —
a derrick — lifts them and places them on the cars. They are
sawed into building timbers of the cheaper sorts, and the small
stuff goes to the shingle mill. Most of the bark is consumec^
by a tannery in the neighbourhood. Green hides from the
Argentine Republic are shipped to this establishment, which does
also a great business with Western hides.

It is the proud boast of the owners that in their mills there
is no waste. It is indeed remarkable how little good pine goes
out over the dam to feed the ever-burning slab pile on the other
side of the river. The course of one log is easily followed in the
great open mill.

The pine logs, bleeding red at both ends, are rolled from the
cars into the mill slough. A man on a raft with a long pike

467

A Lumber Camp of To-day

leads a leviathan to the bottom of an inclined plane at the door-
way of the mill. An endless chain set with sharp teeth drags
it to the elevated skidway on a level with the saw. In its turn
it rolls down, and is clamped solidly to the carrier on the side
of a car that runs back and forward past the saw, and lays the
whole log, a slice at a time, on a table beyond. The saw itself
is a slender, flexible ribbon of steel with one toothed edge, thirty
feet long, its ends joined, and hung between two cylinders of
steel, one above, the other below the floor level, that keep it in
a state of high tension and tremendous speed, about these two
revolving axes. This saw slices a log as easily as if it were a
potato. The eye can hardly follow the car as it races forward
and the saw takes off a board. It fairly leaps back to position,
and then as swiftly forward, ^tsif eager for the game.

They had shut dowr>i:he mill activities for two minutes —
the exact time requirea to replace a dull saw with a sharp one.
Everybody relaxed, except the five men who hung the saw.
The machinery was all out of gear. But at a signal everyone was
alert again. The car springs forward, the saw takes a slab from
the long log and lays it on the table beyond. Next a two-inch
plank comes off, and follows the slab. Then the log is flopped over
and the opposite side loses a slab and a plank. The two remaining
sides are similarly treated, the carrier lets go its burden, and a
vast squared timber, 20 by 20 inches by 70 feet, rides forward on
the moving table, and trucks carry it on to the freight car.

It is the pale, thin man whom I took for an onlooker who
cut this timber to order. The peg under his foot and the lever
in his hand controlled that powerful machinery. A short log
is next. It is sawed into two-inch planks, but a punky spot is
revealed, and the balance is cut into inch lumber. All planks
and boards go through the edger, which removes the bark and all
unevenness, making the edges true and parallel. Rip saws set
by foot cut the wide boards into the desired widths. These
boards are later sorted as to length and width in the yards. The
inferior qualities are piled to season outdoors. The best stock
goes to the kiln, where it is dried by artificial heat in forty-eight
hours. This process checks decay, and seasons the wood without
the warping and checking which the slow and variable open-air
process involves.

The course of the slabs is interesting. To the slab pile to

468

A Lumber Camp of To-day

burn? Not yet, and not all. They are cut into six-foot lengths
on the table, by saws that jump up in response to foot pressure.
Then they are ripped into 2 by 2 inch sticks and descend to the
lath mill on the lower floor. The fragments left behind follow two
paths. The bark and rotten stuff go by a shute to the bonfire.
The good wood fragments are dropped into a hopper — the cavern-
ous maw of "the hawg." An awful roar issues from this beast's
throat whenever it is fed. It is the noise of grinding wood into
sawdust. A stream of it flows to the furnace room, where it
accumulates above two doors that open into the fire boxes.
Tilting the lid lets this light fuel slide into the fire. A man lies
on the hot sawdust here operating the two circular lids and so
regulating the heating of the engines. His is the vision of Dante
all day long.

In summer hemlock logs cut near the main stream are piled
into it. The freshets bring them down in spring to the mills.
The streams are but brooks up where the pine stands, and the
railroad, which follows the camp of the "fallers," carries logs
to mill without delay and without the inevitable deterioration
that water transportation involves.

There is no atmosphere of hurry in the woods nor about the
mills. The hum of industry is heard from seven o'clock until
six. Then the night watchmen go on duty, and the day men
enjoy the library and reading room above the main office, or
talk things over in the store or barber shop, or go home to rest for
the next day's work. No liquor is sold in the place, and a case
of drunkenness means a workman's discharge. Each day's
work is the quiet filling of orders from the mill or the yards.
Supply and demand are at proper tension and prices keep strong.
Big timbers for bridge work are a paying specialty. Fair treat-
men and good wages keep a good class of workers in permanent
employ, and it is the boast of the company that it has never had
a strike.

469

CHAPTER III: PROFITABLE TREE PLANTING

The establishment of the date palm in Arizona is one ol
the latest triumphs of the Department of Agriculture. Out of
the oases of Arabian and African Saharas — out of antiquity
itself — this Old- World "tree of life" has been set down in the
irrigated oases of the Great American Desert, in the dawn of the
twentieth century. It thrives and fruits in its new home, and
gives every promise of continued prosperity. Behind the date
palm is a list, indefinitely long, of fruit and ornamental trees
introduced from other countries. Distant parts of America
have exchanged species through seed distribution and otherwise.
The result is infinite variety in our planting — vast fortunes in
orchard and garden products every year and in the enhanced
values of land well planted. There is no doubt thatjwhere
horticulture is concerned, tree planting has proved^prbfitable,
in spite of losses that experimentation has inyj

DOES IT PAY TO^ PLANT TREES FOR TIMBER?

This is another question. Fifty years ago it would generally
have been answered in the negative. The pioneer was still
clearing land for his farm, the great lumber companies were
but beginning their work, and the Great Plains were not yet
peopled. Conditions have changed. The virgin forests are
about gone. The question is no longer: "How can we get rid
of this superfluous timber?" It is now: "Where is the lumber
supply of the immediate future to come from?" It is no longer
a problem for children's children. It concerns us all to-day.
The man who builds a fence, a house or a railroad reads the warning
in the price list of the lumber dealer.

The forests of the country are not gone yet, nor nearly gone.
In regions originally in woods Nature is the great planter. Land
lying idle "goes back to forest" in a few years. Local wants are
supplied from the woodlots of farmers. No general alarm over
shortage in the lumber supply will break out in such communities.

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Profitable Tree Planting

The Bureau of Forestry has a "Co-operative Tree-planting
Plan," simple as the Woodlot Plan, in fact a phase of it, by which
owners of land who wish to put some acres into a wood crop can
have expert advice as to selection of kinds, and care of the crop.
An agent of the Bureau visits the neighbourhood, and meets in a
conference all who may be interested in planting. Advice is
based on examination of soil, drainage, exposure, climatic con-
ditions, and a study of the experience of planters in like regions
and under like conditions.

Of the many plans now in force the majority are on the
prairies, but many are in the "abandoned farm" regions of
New England. The great treeless belt from the Dakotas to
Texas has been the inevitable centre of activity in general tree
planting. Forty acres planted to trees entitled a man to a
quarter section of land under the Homestead Law. Failure
marked much of this "tree-claim" work, some honestly, some
dishonestly done. Cottonwoods, box elders, silver maples and
willows, quick-growing but short-lived trees, were generally
planted because they could be depended upon to grow. Grad-
ually better trees were introduced, with higher timber and fuel
value, as well as ability to stand against the winds and to give
shade and protection to homes, orchards and crops. Altogether,
tree planting has been vague and unsystematic but persistent
in the treeless belt. It has been an evolution and an education
to the people, and it is going to become a financial success.

The forests of the Mississippi Valley are giving out, but the
demand for posts and railroad ties and telegraph poles increases
as the country develops. Telephone and trolley lines are threading
the country, doubling the demand for poles and cross ties. The
Kansas farmer cannot afford to buy fence posts grown in Canada,
Oregon or Maine. Neither can he do without. His shrewdest
move is to raise his posts as he would any other crop, and sell
the surplus to his less provident neighbours.

The growing of wood crops for profit is the logical outcome
of Western experimentation. Railroad companies have begun
to raise their own ties. Landowners have put some of their best
land into tree crops. Among the latter are many farmers. The
quickest crop is fuel; the next, posts; next, cross ties; and last,
poles for telegraph, telephone and trolley lines.

The search has been for a tree that can stand hot, dry winds

47*

Profitable Tree Planting

and occasional drought, and produce in the shortest possible
time wood that is durable in contact with the soil. The tree
that comes nearest to fulfilling all these requirements is the hardy
catalpa, native of the Mississippi Valley, which reaches its best
development in the Ohio Valley and in Arkansas. It needs a
porous soil, for its root system is large, ranging widely for food
and water, and anchoring the trees securely against wind. On
tough clay soil these trees are a failure.

RAISING CATALPA TIMBER

The Yaggy plantation of 440 acres of catalpa trees is the
best example of what a Kansas farmer's woodlot can yield. It
is reported in Bulletin 39 of the Bureau of Forestry, and from this
source the following facts are taken:

The land lies in Reno County, near Hutchinson, Kansas, in
the valley of the Arkansas River. It is a rich, deep, sandy loam,
underlaid by soft, sandy clay. Both surface soil and subsoil
are several feet thick, and give free range to water and tree roots.
The water table is from four to six feet below the surface.

In this excellent cultivated farm land seedling catalpas one
year old were set in rows, three and a half feet apart east and
west, six feet apart north and south. Mr. Yaggy grew his own
stock from seed. The planting covered three years: 120 acres in
1890, eighty acres in 1891, and 240 acres in 1892. Corn was
planted between the rows the first year, and the cultivation of the
corn three times served the growing trees. They branched and
made bushy tops and good root growth. Next year they were
cut off at the ground, except strips of three rows each, for
each twenty rows, reserved for windbreaks throughout the planta-
tion. Strong unbranched shoots six to twelve feet high came up
the second year, with no cultivation. All but the best one of
these sprouts were cut off at the end of the second season — this
one to become the trunk. Cultivation was thorough the third
summer. The trees branched at eight to twelve feet high, shading
the ground and keeping out grass. The leaves formed a mulch
this third winter, and cultivation was thereafter discontinued.

After six years of growth thinning was begun, the largest
trees being taken out; in the winter of 1897-8 one-eighth of the
total number of trees were removed. These trees made two

472

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Profitable Tree Planting

posts each, the larger one four to six inches in diameter, the
smaller one two to four inches. There were 15,500 trees cut on
the eighty-acre tract in these two years, making twice that number
of posts. The lower posts brought ten cents each, the upper cuts
four to six cents. The tops yielded some fuel.

The Division of Forestry made some measurements of
typical half-acre blocks on Mr. Yaggy's farm, in 1900. The
plantation was eight to ten years old, and a part had been yielding
posts and fuel for four years. Careful records of the height,
diameter, number and condition of all the trees on the tracts were
made. These were reduced to terms of posts, stakes and fuel,
at current market prices. To this record was added the results
of four years of thinning, and the total showed a gross value of
$267. 1 5 per acre for the crop produced in ten years.

An equally careful record was kept of the cost of every
step in the development of the plantation. To the expense list
was added rent of the land and compound interest on the invest-
ment of each year. The cost per acre by this record is shown
to have been $69.90 for the ten years. This deduction from the
gross value leaves a net gain of $197.55 per acre, at ten years.

The cutting off of all the trees would bring in this handsome
return, but it would be the greatest folly. As posts bring better
prices than fuel, so railroad ties are better than posts, and telegraph
poles than ties. Trees big enough for cross ties are salable for
general lumber purposes. A post worth ten cents can be grown
in six years. At fifteen years the same trunk makes a tie worth
fifty cents and two or three posts besides. At twenty-five years
it is fit for a telegraph pole, at not less than a dollar. The general
market quotations run from $1 to $50 per pole. The wise owner
of a catalpa plantation thins his stand for posts and stakes, holding
his best trees until they command the prices of ties or telegraph
poles. The wood is as durable as any timber known. It is not
inferior when most rapidly grown, as many woods are. While
the large trees are maturing, young ones are coming on from
stumps. The plantation is thus a permanent forest.

Hardy catalpa is successfully grown on the deep, porous
soil of eastern Kansas and Nebraska, south into Arkansas, and
east to the Wabash Valley. Outside of this catalpa belt, locust,
osage orange and Russian mulberry, all quick-growing post and
tie timbers, are beginning to be commercially grown. Tamarack,

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Profitable Tree Planting

bur oak, white and green ash, grow farther north. Black walnut,
post and white oak, and the red juniper are all worth growing
for profit in the states bordering the Missouri. In fact, the
whole upper valley of the Mississippi is in need of tree planting
to supply the local needs in the next two or three decades, until
a definite forest policy is adopted. There will be demand for
all such tree crops, as long as wooden posts and ties and poles
are used.

EUCALYPTUS PLANTATIONS

The "blue gum" is but one of forty species of the Australian
genus, Eucalyptus, which have been naturalised in this country.
In the tree-planting experiments of California and the semi-arid
Southwestern States these immigrant trees are comparable to
the catalpa in Kansas. They are propagated from seeds, which
are light and abundant. They grow with astonishing vigour
and rapidity, sprouting from the stump indefinitely. Most of
them have very hard wood, and its durability under water and
in the soil justifies the growing of it for paving blocks, railroad
ties, posts, telegraph poles and piles for wharves. Some species
have wood like hickory, used for tool handles, implements of
agriculture and vehicles. Much is consumed as fuel.

Added to the wood value of these trees are such products
as gums and resins useful in medicine and in the arts. The oil
expressed from the leaves is exceptionally valuable in the drug
trade. The flowers of many species furnish copious bee pastur-
age. The trees have beautiful evergreen leaves, graceful habit,
handsome bark, and finally, curious, nut-like fruits — all char-
acters that give the trees popularity among available ornamental
kinds. As a forest cover and a windbreak the eucalypts have a
serious work to do. Denuded slopes that threatened the exhaus-
of water supply have been planted with these trees with most
gratifying results. They have drained swamps, thus removing
miasma and, as many believe, improving the climate in other
tangible ways.

Waste land planted to blue gum (Eucalyptus globosus) is
transformed in five years into a beautiful grove from which fuel
may be cut. Successive clean cuttings, six to eight years apart,
are followed by sprouting from the stumps. An average yield

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Profitable Tree Planting

of an acre in this wood harvest is sixty cords of four-foot wood.
"One seven teen-acre grove near Los Angeles, set in 1880 and
cut for the third time in June, 1900, produced 1,360 cords, an
average of eighty cords per acre. On poor land the yield is only
a third to a half the above amount. In a grove near Pasadena
set in 1885 and cut for fuel in 1893, there were in July, 1900,
some trees two feet in diameter and many over one hundred
feet in height/' — Bulletin No. 35, Bureau of Forestry.

Hon. Elwood Cooper has 200 acres of broken land planted
to several species of gums. He estimates that he can cut 1,000
cords a year indefinitely without detracting from the appearance
of his groves or from their usefulness in other ways. Fuel brings
$3 to $5 per cord in the local markets. The depletion of the
natural forests in many sections of the Southwest has made a fuel
famine, which the Eucalyptus has averted. In some places the
oily leaves, pressed into bricks with crude oil, have proved an
acceptable fuel for cooking. It is as timber that these trees
bring the highest prices. Masts, piles, bridge timbers and tele-
graph poles, tall, straight, hard and durable — these are in demand
at good prices. The best Eucalyptus produces in but twenty
years a log equal to an oak that takes 200 years to grow. Blue
gum lasts twice as long as redwood and Douglas spruce in the
piers of Santa Barbara and other coast cities.

Eucalyptus oil and eucalyptol, distilled from the fresh leaves,
form important by-products when trees are cut down. One
ton of leaves yield 500 ounces of oil. This is extensively used in
lung and throat troubles, and is proving beneficial in the treat-
ment of many other disorders.

WHITE-PINE PLANTATIONS

"Between the years 1820 and 1880 was a period of enthu-
siastic white-pine planting in New England. Men were then able
to foresee the time when the marketable native white pine would
be gone, and the rise in prices would make the planted timber of
economic importance. ... At the end of this period there
were said to be in Massachusetts alone forest plantations of
white pine to the extent of 10,000 acres. About 1880 the interest
began to decline, largely because it was found possible to bring
lumber from the immense supply in the region of the Great

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Profitable Tree Planting

Lakes at a lower transportation rate than was expected." —
Bulletin 45, Bureau of Forestry, 1903.

It will be noticed that pine planting in New England has
been going on for almost a century. The Bureau of Forestry
has made careful investigations of various tracts, and publishes
facts and figures which prove that land that is worthless for
ordinary agriculture has yielded valuable crops of timber, and
this in from thirty-five to fifty years after planting. Individual
plantations in various states have furnished the data embodied
in the bulletins, published for the guidance and encouragement
of landowners who are uncertain as to the best way of employing
unproductive tracts.

The planting of pine has proved profitable on five types
of land: (1) watersheds, (2) sand barrens and dunes along
the seashore, (3) bare and worn-out land, (4) cut-over forest
land, and (5) woodlots. Water companies and the state at large
are benefited by the planting of trees at the headwaters of streams.
Shifting sand held by tree roots and accumulating the leaves
and other debris of tree growth, is converted into good soil. So
is worn-out land of any kind. Growing trees enrich the soil
that feeds them. These types of reforestation are justified,
even if the trees do nothing but hold the soil and restore it to
fertility.

The raising of a crop of trees has been the main object in
planting the last two types of ground. In the three species
before mentioned examples are numerous to prove that trees
set out for other purposes have served these purposes well, and
yielded a valuable lumber crop beside. There have been failures,
many of them, but they are traceable in most cases to ignorance
or neglect. White pine grows in a white-pine country if it has
half a chance.

An encouraging fact for the planter to contemplate is that
he may reap the harvest of his own sowing. It takes only thirty-
five years to grow marketable pine. If the land is good and well
prepared the trees grow faster and are of better quality in a given
time. Better timber is produced by pruning the trees, thinning
them and cutting when the trees are big enough for first-class
lumber. For this they must grow sixty years or more. The
father must plant for his sons to reap this harvest. No
better legacy, no more judicious investment could be made

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Profitable Tree Planting

than this. A few years doubles the value of a plantation thus
coming on.

About 1835 Mr. F. A. Cutter, of Pelham, New Hampshire,
took charge of a farm on which there was a forty-acre tract
seeded to white pine by a few old trees. He determined to care
for it properly. As need was, the trees were thinned, the weakest
removed to give room for the others to grow. A close forest
crown of foliage was maintained to prevent the trees from spread-
ing by side branches. Every year an acre was gone over and
the trees pruned of their branches as high as the hand axe
could reach. This prevented the formation of large knots,
and enhanced the value of the timber. A second pruning all
around, and continuous thinning kept the tract in good health
and growth.

That ;tract has recently yielded a harvest which averages
25,000 feet, B. M., per acre. The father sowed and his son
reaped 1,000,000 feet of prime white-pine lumber from forty
acres! This is five times the average yield in the Michigan
pineries. It proves that husbandry in a crop of trees is rewarded
as certainly as in a crop of corn.

Another lot on the same farm has a stand of white pine on
it about sixty years old that experts estimate will cut 200,000
feet of lumber. The average log measures over sixty feet.

In the Massachusetts town of Tyngsborough is a plot of
fifty-three acres that was a rye field within the memory of men
now living. It grew up to young white pine, and was bought
for $400. The timber is not yet of marketable age, though by
selection the owner has taken out over 600,000 feet of lumber
during his life. His estate was recently appraised, and the stand
of pine estimated at 100,000 feet. As white pine is becoming
scarcer and the demand for it urgent, the price has risen
steadily.

Hon. J. D. Lyman, of Exeter, New Hampshire, gives the
reasons for his success with white pine. He gathers cones in
early September, spreads them in a dry, airy room, and when
they open beats out the seeds. This is about a fortnight after
they are gathered. He prefers to sow the seed at once in beds.
For three years the young seedlings are cultivated, lath screens
protecting them from the hot sun. Then they are ready to set
out. If they are to grow unpruned and be cut at forty years

477

Profitable Tree Planting

or so for boxboards they are set nine or ten feet apart each way.
If clear timber of the best quality is desired, they are set four
feet apart each way so that they will grow tall and lose their
lower limbs. This kind of timber requires longer time to grow,
and it must be pruned and thinned as it needs it. The price
it brings is higher. Access to market and cost of the necessary
labour determine which course to pursue. Mr. Lyman believes
that a thickly planted young forest properly thinned will in fifty
years produce as much lumber as it would produce in twice that
time if left unthinned.

Hon. Augustus Pratt of Massachusetts once planted thirteen
acres of blueberry thicket to white pines. It took one man eight
days to do it. Forty years later he went in and cut from eight
acres between forty and forty-five cords of box-board logs which
he sold at the mill for $6 per cord. He got considerable fuel
out of the tops. The five acres remaining he held untouched
for a few years — then sold them for more than $1,000.

A small pine forest in Enfield, Connecticut, is noteworthy.
Two quarts of pine seed per acre were sown in September broad-
cast with rye on the worn-out sand plain, which had been first
ploughed and harrowed, then rolled. No further attention was
paid to either crop. The rye shaded the seedlings as long as
they required shade. The slow, imperfect growth achieved is
not what it would have been if Mr. Cutter had had it in his care.
But the soil has been enriched by the litter of the forest, and
there is considerable good timber. Desert land has been
reclaimed.

Certain facts have been learned from the study of white-
pine plantations. They are worth bringing together and empha-
sising.

i . Cleared land is the best for a pine plantation.

2. Hilly, rolling or level land, moderately dry, with not too
dense a ground cover, is best.

3. Swampy land will not do at all.

4. Land with scattering brush gives young seedling pines
the shade they need.

5. Land thickly set with stumps of hardwoods which produce
dense coppice growth will kill out the young pines.

6. White pine grows well in sandy and exposed situations
if protected from the direct influence of salt winds.

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Profitable Tree Planting

7. Seedlings may be successfully taken from the forest.

8. Planted white pine uncrowded grows faster than native
pine for twenty years, perhaps longer.

9. Trees set 4 x 4 feet apart should be thinned by removing
half of them at fifteen years. Set 4x6 feet, remove half at
thirty years.

10. Pruning lower limbs as high as axe can be used converts
third-grade pine trees into first grade. It should be done in mid-
summer, when resin will cover the wounds completely. The
trees need pruning ten years after planting. They will be fifteen
feet high, with lower limbs still alive. The cut should be clean
and close to the bark.

11. It pays to prune only trees intended for first-class lum-
ber— trees to grow at least sixty years. Knots do net
lower the price of trees cut at thirty to forty years for box
boards.

12. Chestnut, rock maple and red oak are first-class trees
to plant with white pine. They furnish protection to growing
seedlings, they prune the pines by rubbing lower limbs, and are
ready for removal when they begin to crowd. They are then
big enough for posts and fuel.

13. The best way to fix shifting sand or gravel is to get tree
roots established in it. Washing and gullying of the soil of
farms is best remedied by the same means. Worn-out soil is
best restored to fertility by growing a crop of trees on it.

An estimate, summarising the facts obtained by the special
agent of the Bureau of Forestry, and averaging the actual cost
and profits of intelligent white-pine culture in various parts of
New England, is herewith set down:

Average cost of land per acre $4.00

Average cost of raising seedlings and planting . . 4.84
Average taxes at 2 per cent, for 40 years . . . .3.20

Total $12.04

Compounding interest on each item for forty years brings
the total cost per acre to $50.99. An average yield is forty
cords of box-board timber worth $4 per cord from each acre.
This is worth on the stump $160. Deducting the cost, $50.99, a
balance of $109.01 remains as net profit. This is a net annual
return of $1.15 per acre, with 4 per cent, compound interest

479

Profitable Tree Planting

computed for forty years. Twenty years added greatly increases
the profits.

The New England farmer cannot help the Kansas farmer,
except to prove that principles are universal in application. For-
estry is not alone for the corporation and the state. It is practic-
able also on a limited area, and the smaller the woodlot the more
simple the problem and the more perfectly it may be solved.

FRUIT AND AUTUMN LEAVES OF FLOWERING DOGWOOD {Comus florlda)

CHAPTER IV: THE WOODLOT THAT PAYS

One might think the farmer's woodlot unworthy of mention
in a grave conference over the forest problems which now con-
front the American people. Yet a recent census report gives
630,000,000 acres of land in farms in the United States. Of
this, 200,000,000 acres is wooded, almost one-third of the whole.

From this vast acreage the farmers get cordwood to burn
and to sell. They haul logs to the sawmills and get cash or
lumber in return. Telegraph and telephone poles, posts, railroad
ties, nuts, Christmas trees — all these are sold from the woodlot.
Beside fuel and fencing, the farmers get timbers for their barns,
sheds and corn cribs. Their wagon tongues, axe handles and
whifHetrees are largely made from sticks of seasoned timber,
furnished by the woodlots. If strict account of sales were kept
and credit were given for things sold and used at home, the wood-
lot would often prove itself the most profitable part of the farm.

The passing of the virgin forests is but a matter of a few
years. The work of the big lumber companies is about done.
Dearth of lumber is already felt in a marked rise of prices. The
supply of pine in North and East is practically exhausted. The
South is sacrificing its pine forests at a suicidal rate. White oak,
black walnut and other valuable hardwoods are alarmingly
scarce. The question of the lumber supply for the future has
reached a critical stage.

The reservation of public lands began in 1891, when Congress
authorised the President to withdraw tracts of forest from sale
and occupation by settlers. Fifty million acres of Western
lands have thus been set apart. States, too, have reserved
lands, with the aim of saving forests on mountains where rivers
take their rise. They have undertaken to reforest denuded
areas. Pennsylvania furnishes a notable instance of this.

It is not surprising that the Department of Agriculture,
fully realising the close relation between agriculture and forestry,
and the dependence of the farm upon its woodlot, has, through
the Bureau of Forestry, attacked the problem strongly on this

481

The Woodlot that Pays

side. It is proposed to prove in a very practical, convincing
way that it pays a farmer to raise wood. No radical change,
such as introducing the intensive forestry methods of European
countries, is contemplated. The gradual introduction of improved
methods suited to varied American conditions is the plan. This
means an educative process that must move slowly. Every
woodlot is a miniature forest. The smaller the forest the more
simple and definite the problem of making it pay. That forest
husbandry pays in America is proved by numberless examples
of farmers working out plans of their own devising. Large
profits have been realised on very slight investments of time
and money, often by people who did not know that they were
practising scientific forestry. The plan is to substitute good for
bad methods, to make the wood harvest pay a good interest on
the plot as an investment, and at the same time to keep the
forest in good condition, and year by year to increase its pro-
ductivity.

Any farmer, or other owner of a woodlot, may place it under
the supervision of the Bureau of Forestry, free of cost. The
Bureau sends an expert forester to go over the land carefully.
With data thus obtained, a working plan is formulated and sub-
mitted to the owner. If it is accepted, the owner carries it out
under the supervision of the forester who has it in charge. The
owner does the work, or hires men to do it. He receives all
money returns. The Bureau asks only that the plan be carried
out and accurate records kept. It pays the expenses of its agent's
visit, and asks nothing for his services.

The agreement entered into is very simple, and may be
abandoned on ten days' notice by either party. It is binding,
therefore, only as long as it is perfectly satisfactory to both.

The owners of woodlands need instruction in the manage-
ment of their property, down to the least detail. They need
definite, typical examples of what has been accomplished in
their own section of the country. A balance sheet is a very con-
vincing argument. The forester's method cf tackling the problem
is an eye-opener and an inspiration to the average farmer of
intelligence.

In exchange for the making and supervising of these woodlot
plans the Department obtains a body of facts of inestimable
value. The various sections of the country are represented by

482

The Woodlot that Pays

typical woodlot problems. These results will be published in
bulletins. Failures will teach no less than successefrrhe response
to the government offer has been most gratifying. As fast as
the Bureau of Forestry is able to get to them the applications
have been taken up. From woodlots to state forests, the plans
include tracts of widely divergent types and sizes. They prom-
ise to help to tide over the expensive experimental stage of a
vast national forest polk}'.

Bulletin 42 of the Bureau of Forestry, 1903, is "A Handbook
for Owners of Woodlands in Southern New England." It is full
of practical, every-day advice for practical, every-day men. It
is based on extensive investigations in this region. It urges that
the following steps be taken:

I. Thinning in woods not yet mature to improve the con-
ditions for growth, and to utilise material, much of which would
otherwise be wasted.

II. Cutting in mature woods in such a way that the succeeds
ing growth will follow quickly, will be composed of good species,
and will be dense enough to produce not only trees with clear
trunks, but also the greatest possible amount of wood and timber.

III. Pruning which is only practicable under certain special
conditions.

IV. Protecting forest property against fire and, in some
cases, against grazing.

V. Re-stocking waste land by planting, or sowing.

These are practices that fit any region and any woodlot.
Under them, a forest is returned to health and efficiency of pro-
duction, from a state of poverty wherein every cutting harms
rather than improves it.

"The virgin forest" is often understood to be a synonym
of the best possible stand of timber. In fact, Nature is a wasteful
forester, as all second-growth woods show when left to them-
selves. Such a forest as the state of Saxony grows for papei
pulp reminds one of a field of grain. The spruces stand, tall
and slim and close, and without a weed, bearing at eighty years
a tree crop beside which a patch of second-growth trees here would
look like volunteer grain come up by chance in a fallow field.
Gradually we shall come to imitate the European foresters and
demand of our forest lands the highest possible yield and quantity
of timber.

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The Woodlot that Pays

The following suggestions are for the correction of abuses
that comrfloflfy keep woodlots in a bad condition. Not one of
them is hard to follow:

1. Don't let the woodlot be graced. Browsing destroys young
growth, gnawing injures older trees, trampling packs and hardens
the leaf mould, kills seedlings and prevents seed germination.

2. Don't burn the wood's floor over. It destroys the rich
leaf mould, main food of trees; it causes the soil to cake and dry;
it injures the old trees and kills the young ones; it makes inroads
of fungi and insects easy.

3. Destroy dead and dying trees and rubbish. They are full
of diseases that infect sound timber. They harbour insects.
They invite and spread fires.

4. Remove gnarled and otherwise imperfect trees that over-
shadow young growth.

5. Take out undesirable kinds of trees and give better kinds
their places.

6. Plan to have a tree fall so as to injure as little as possible
the surrounding trees. "Brushing out" around a tree and its
final fall often destroy its natural successors.

7. Cut with low stumps. This is economy, and with trees
that sprout from the stump it gives the sprout close connection
with the root system which in time becomes its own.

8. Make smooth, slanting cuts for stump reproduction. If
the cut is ragged (through wood or bark) or trough-shaped, it
accumulates water which induces decay. Sprout timber after
such cutting is mostly unsound at the butt, and useless except
as fuel.

9. Plant young trees raised in the garden or transplanted from
the woods in open spaces in the woodlot.

10. Sow seeds of desirable kinds where they will improve the
stand. Pick up white-oak acorns and walnuts and hickory nuts,
push them into the leaf mould, one here, one there, and step on
them. Treat thus the thinly planted parts of your woods. It
takes thought but very slight expense of time or work, to do a
great deal of this supplementary forest planting.

1 1 . Leave seed trees of good kinds, when cutting logs or cord-
wood. They will save you a great deal of work.

12. Plant waste land with trees. On almost every farm is
some land that is non-productive. It may wash in rainy weather.

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The Woodlot that Pays

Or it may be too rocky to plough, or too sandy, or have too
much clay. It will always grow trees. Stop trying to farm it.
Let Nature clothe it and make good soil of it. It will add to the
value of the place in the eyes of any prospective buyer, in addition
to the timber it produces. It will convert a blemish into a beauty
spot.

13. Study local lumber markets. Is there a pulp mill or a
tannery in your neighbourhood? Then spruce and hemlock
are paying crops. Poplars and basswood bring good prices at
paper mills. Birches pay near a toy or spool factory. Hickory
and ash are in great demand in vehicle and implement factories.
Walnut, maple, oak and cherry bring good prices where furniture
is manufactured. Fuel commands good prices near large cities;
so do Christmas trees. In a newly developing country, telegraph
poles, fence posts and railroad ties are in brisk demand. Pine
and many other staple lumber trees are a safe crop at any time.

It is almost as easy to grow good trees as poor ones, to cut
out the right ones as the wrong ones, to cut down a tree properly
as to do it improperly. A bit more time and thought, only, and
the result is a vast improvement. Leave a sprout forest to itself
and you get defective, crooked trees unfit for any use but fuel.
Take out some of the sprouts and the rest grow at greatly acceler-
ated speed into straight trees bringing much higher prices. An
increased yield of 20 per cent, to 40 per cent, is recorded in ex-
periments made by farmers working at odd days with no outside
help. The farmer's great advantage is that during the winter
he has leisure to improve his woodland, and with boys to help him,
need hire no labour. Then, too, a series of improvements may
extend over a period of years. Harvesting is always to be done
as a part of the maintenance of the woodlot. This means a
constant income. It is the man who goes to his woodlot only
to chop and haul out poles and firewood that gets the lowest rate
of interest on his investment, and who declares truthfully that his
woodlot doesn't pay.

485

CHAPTER V: TRANSPLANTING TREES

FROM THE WOODS

Perhaps it is a primitive instinct, though it is a defensible
and lovable one, that impels the home-maker to straighten his
back after digging an ample hole in the ground and betake him to
the woods to get a tree to set out in it. The handsomest and the
most grotesque of cultivated trees came originally from the wilds,
somewhere and at some time.

Competition is sharp, and growth slow in thickly settled
places. A little tree that grows in the open has the best chance
for symmetry and normal development. The roots are not tangled
with others. Choose it, unless it be one of those tap-rooted
kinds whose probings extend deeper than strength and patience
can dig. If it is one of the fibrous-rooted tribe, dig on, in all
carefulness and faith. Cut a circle as wide as the tree's crown.
This will leave most of the roots in the earth ball. There is
tough sod above, which you will discard when the planting is
finished. It helps to hold the earth intact now. It is a long
job, but at last the tree is loose, and an extra bucketful of its
familiar earth may be dug out for use in planting. A wheel-
barrow or a stone boat brings the tree home; and, if equal care
surrounds the ceremonial of planting, it need never know of
the change. Most trees submit to transplanting as if it were no
ordeal. The safest way is to move them in their sleep — before
the spring awakening, and while the earth is still solid and dry
about the roots.

The capricious ones with long tap roots and few bushy side
branches must have special treatment. Small trees only are
safely moved. It is wise to select the tree a year beforehand, and
to cut off its tap root by a thrust of a sharp spade at a moderate
depth. It is thus forced to branch above the cut, and the next
spring you know just how deep to dig to get this new root system.

The magnolias and the tulip tree have fleshy, brittle roots
which are easily bruised and broken if carelessly handled. Most

486

Transplanting Trees

evergreens die if their roots are exposed to the air. Yet all are
successfully transplanted if pains are taken. The rhododendrons
on Southern mountains are brought by carloads to Northern
estates where they are set out with a loss of less than one per cent.
Evergreens of middle age and large size are successfully trans-
planted in the growing season. It requires careful work and
proper mechanical appliances to do these things, but there is no
secret method. Whatever grows in the neighbouring woods may
be safely trusted to thrive in home grounds unless violent changes
in soil, shade and moisture conditions are made. Even then,
some surprises are in store for the experimenting planter. Such
water-loving trees as black ash, cottonwood, willow, sycamore
and red maple do well in upland soil. Where transplanting from
the wild is practicable, one is justified in experimenting at the
cost of occasional failure. It is a part of wild gardening; it has a
piquant charm that can't be bought with money. "Cheaper at
the nursery," calls a neighbour, but the man with the spade and
wheelbarrow goes along to the woods. This is his heart's holiday.

Trees differ by families and species in the tenacity of their
hold on life. Those with a tendency to strike root from joints
of the stem bear much abuse of roots. Such are most willows
and poplars, basswood, osage orange and mulberry. In general,
trees with many fibrous roots are most successfully transplanted.
If the main branches are short and extend laterally, making a
shallow but dense root system, the chances are best. If there
is a long tap root going straight down, with but sparse side branches
for feeding roots, difficulties and danger beset the transplanting.
The maples and elms illustrate the first class; hickories and white
oaks the second. "You can't transplant an oak too early nor
an elm too late," is Evelyn's assurance, very old but still true.

A comparatively recent discovery is that certain families of
plants depend for their soil food upon the ministrations of fungi,
whose threads invest the rootlets completely, and have long been
mistaken for the root hairs themselves. So intimate is the contact
of this tnycorhi%a with the rootlets that the crude sap absorbed
by the fungus from the soil is conducted to the leaves for manu-
facture into sugar and starch. The return current of sap nourishes
not only the plant above ground and its root system, but also
the mycorhiza, which has no green tissues, and therefore no way
of elaborating plant food taken in the raw state. Each organism

487

Transplanting Trees

serves the other's vital need. Without the fungus the tree
would probably die, and vice versa.

The beech exhibits this notably among trees. So do the
oaks, most of the conifers, and even certain of the willows and
poplars. The great heath family, including laurels, rhododen-
drons, wintergreen and trailing arbutus, are believed to exhibit
this "symbiosis," or interdependence between fungi and roots.

Moving such trees is precarious work, because the welfare
of both tree and fungus must be looked after. If the mycorhiza
dries out, the tree dies. If the tree is planted in soil destitute
of this fungus, that brought in the earth ball often proves in-
adequate to the demands of the treetop. Most trees of this
type grow naturally in great colonies, crowding out other kinds.
The soil under beech woods is one great network of delicate
fungous threads. An isolated beech tree taken to your garden
sustains a great shock and a trying deprivation. No wonder
trailing arbutus usually dies in domestication. The range of
species exhibiting symbiosis is not very definitely known yet.
It is certainly very large, and students are busy upon the problem.
Many plants, however, feed with their own roots, and are therefore
independent of organisms in the soil. So far as we know, most
trees belong to the latter class.

The whole philosophy of transplanting is the keeping of the
root system in ignorance of the change. The ideal way is to
save all the roots. The practical way is to save as many as
possible.

The trunk roots and their branches are important as a frame-
work to support the tree in the ground and the rootlets at their
extremities. But only the season's rootlets absorb plant food.
Next year they, too, will pass the feeding function on to newer
filaments of more delicate structure. The year-old roots become
conductors but no longer gatherers of food. Each year's growth
underground has had its turn, since the main branches were the
tender first branchings of the radicle of the germinating seed.

FROM THE NURSERY

Nursery trees have been grown in rich soil and cultivated as
they grew. Their root systems are, or should be, compact because
the trees have been transplanted yearly in the nursery rows.

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Transplanting Trees

First-class trees cost a little more than second-class, but are
cheaper in the end.

Nursery trees are delivered for fall or spring planting. If
in fall, they should come early enough for the roots to become
established in the ground before winter. For spring planting
they should arrive early enough to be planted and have the ad-
vantages of early sunshine and shower in getting a good start
during this first year in their permanent places.

Nurserymen ship trees in boxes or bundles, tied securely,
their roots wrapped in damp straw or other protective covering.
It is too expensive to ship much dirt. Trees often arrive before
it is fit weather to plant them. The care of them during this
interval is important. They should be "puddled" and "heeled
in." Before the boxes are unpacked, and the bundles loosened
by cutting their cords, a trench is dug with a sloping side away
from prevailing winds. A pot hole is dug and a thin batter of
mud prepared in it. Into this puddle the trees are dipped, a few
at a time, and stirred about until every root has a mud coating.
Now they are laid in the trench, their tops away from the wind,
and a cover of earth shovelled over the roots. In this trench they
are safe and comfortable until planting time comes.

Below are some rules for tree planting. They appl,y to all
trees, and involve considerable more painstaking than some trees
demand. But it is doubtful whether the man who expects the
best results will dare to take less time and trouble than is here
advised. After all, it is almost as easy to plant a tree right as to
plant it wrong. If it is worth while to invest in a tree at all it is
worth while to plant it well, inasmuch as tree planting is a job
which if done well need not be done over for a century or two.

HOW TO PLANT A TREE

I. Dig the hole wider and deeper than the tree requires. The
root tips are the feeders, and they cover the periphery of the
root system. They will reach out during the growing season,
forming a new set of feeding roots. They should find only
mellow, rich soil in all directions. If the tree just fits into the
socket, its roots will meet a hard wall which the delicate tips
cannot penetrate and hold fast to, nor feed in. The first year is
the critical one.

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Transplanting Trees

II. Be sure that the surface soil is hoarded at one side when
the hole is dug. This soil is mellow and full of plant food. The
under soil is more barren and harder. Some rich garden soil
can well be brought over and used instead of this subsoil.

III. Take up as large a root system as possible with the tree
you dig. The smaller the ball of earth, the greater the loss of
feeding roots and the danger of starvation to the tree.

Prevent the drying of the exposed roots. When root hairs once
shrivel they never revive. This is the general rule. A tree may
survive but be greatly debilitated by careless handling in this
particular.

IV. Trim all torn and broken roots with a sharp knife. A
ragged wound above or below ground is slow and uncertain in
healing. A clean, slanting cut heals soonest and surest.

V. Set the tree on a bed of mellow soil with all its roots spread
naturally.

VI. Let the level he the same as before. The tree's roots must
be planted, but not buried too deep to breathe. A stick laid
across the hole at the ground level will indicate where the tree
" collar " should be.

VII. Sift rich earth, free from clods, among the roots. Hold
the tree erect and firm. Lift it a little to make sure the spaces
are well filled underneath. Pack it well down with your foot.

VIII. // in the growing season, pour in water and let it settle
away. This establishes contact between root hairs and soil
particles, and dissolves plant food for absorption. If the tree
is dormant, do not water it.

IX. Fill the hole with dirt. Tramp in well as filling goes on.
Heap it somewhat to allow for settling. If subsoil is used, put
it on last. Make the tree firm in its place.

X. Prune the top to a few main branches and shorten these.
This applies to a sapling of a few years whose head you are able
to form. Older trees should also be pruned to balance the loss
of roots. Otherwise transpiration of water from the foliage would
be so great as to overtax the roots, not yet established in the
new place. Many trees die from this abuse. People cannot bear
to cut back the handsome top, though a handsomer one is so
soon supplied by following this reasonable rule.

XI. Water the tree frequently as it first starts. A thorough
soaking of all the roots, not a mere sprinkling of the surface soil,

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Transplanting Trees

is needed. Continuous growth depends on moisture in the soil.
Drainage will remove the surplus water.

XII. Keep the surface soil free from cakes and cracks. This
prevents excessive evaporation. Do not stir the soil deep enough
to disturb the roots. Keep out grass and weeds.

491

CHAPTER VI: HOW TREES ARE MULTIPLIED

Nature begrudges man all the land he has cleared of forests,
and if he relaxes his vigilance — lets a field lie fallow a year or two —
the forest begins to encroach, and takes it back. Every year
trees flower and fruit, and young saplings come up wherever there
is room and a chance in the woods. But here there is crowding
and struggling even among the large trees, and the saplings die
unless they can live under the shade of larger trees.

I. THE NATURAL WAY

The fortunate trees are those with abundant seeds, so light
or so winged that they can sail off on the winds and fall in new
places less crowded than the forest. The birches have such
seeds — little heart-shaped discs with thin, papery webs on their
edges all around. The pencil-like cones are packed with hundreds
of these seeds, and the trees hang full of cones. What wonder,
then, that birches so often follow in the wake of the lumbermen
in New England woods. Pines and the other narrow-leaved
evergreens are known by their cones. Have you ever shaken or
beaten the seeds out of an opening cone of white pine? This is a
typical conifer. The heavy brown seed has a wing by which the
wind carries it. That very field now grown up to birches was
once covered with virgin forests of pine. The neighbouring
woods scatter pine seeds with birch and many other kinds. The
birch gets the start. But in a few years you will see the little
pines coming up in the shade of the birches. The "nurse trees"
are short lived; they give way in time, and a pine forest follows
the brief sway of the birches.

Why does poplar follow pine woods in many places? Note
the poplar trees in early June. They are discharging seeds from
long strings of green beads, burst open and turning brown. A
puff of cottony substance, light as down, encloses each minute
seed. There are millions on every tree. Wafted forth, these
seeds lodge all over the neighbourhood. The cleared ground

492

How Trees are Multiplied

offers an opportunity. They spring up vigorously — a poplar
forest. But under them are other slower, longer-lived trees
loving the shade in their first years, but prepared to replace their
poplar nurses in due season.

Look at the thin, round disc of the elm seed and you will
see how the trees cater to their distributing friend, the wind.
How copiously the tree sheds its seeds in early summer! Notice
the young elms that come up about the neighbourhood, if Nature
is let alone. Observe the keen-pointed, winged dart an ash tree
bears. What a burden of seeds one tree yields! Watch the
tree on a windy day in October and on into winter. Study the
winged key of the maples, the catalpa's thousands of thin, papery
seeds in its hundreds of long pods that the wintry breezes shake
and loosen and scatter every year. How much the willows'
fuzzy seeds look like the poplars' — for willows and poplars are
own cousins!

How different is the wing on the basswood's cluster of woody
balls. The wind whirls them abroad and basswoods come up
unexpectedly here and there. Sycamores bang their balls, and
every loosened seed sails away on its own hairy parachute. The
abundant ailanthus seed is balanced on a tipsy raft, that the
wind carries long distances. The hornbeam seed sails in a shallop.
The hop hornbeam seed is shut into an inflated balloon. The
wind is the staunch ally of the forest in its policy of expansion.

So are the birds. The trees with fleshy fruits depend upon
them. All the berries with small seeds, the sassafras, haws,
Juneberries, hackberries, dogwoods, mountain ash, hollies and
the cedars are in this group; cherries, too, and apples are dis-
tributed by birds to some extent. The larger fruits must wait for
the larger creatures of the woods; they carry off the plums for
the flesh and thin nut-like pits. There are the acorns and nuts
that fall heavily, rolling down hillsides, if the parent tree is on
the slope, but lodging soon, and waiting for squirrels and their
kin to come and carry them off. The animals are selfish in this
hoarding of nuts. They do not mean to leave one. But those
that are hidden in the runways and not eaten, after all, sprout
the next spring, and so the old nut tree is parent to scattered
offspring, as well as to many that come up under its own shadow.
The locusts fling their pods abroad to go careening over snow-
banks in winter, and so to break open at length and spill their

493

How Trees are Multiplied

flinty seeds. The witch hazel bursts open its woody pods in
October and the seeds are shot out like bullets from a gun.

Thousands of tree seeds are sown where but tens may hope
to germinate and grow. Some seeds (e. g., willow) must germinate
at once or they lose their vitality and die. Most of these cannot
start unless they fall in very moist soil. So each has its peculiar
limitations, and these keep the number of seedlings down. Fortu-
nate kinds are not particular as to soil. This is especially true
of those whose seeds will wait till a second year if the first does
not offer them a chance to grow.

The willows illustrate better than other trees another method
of reproduction. They rise superior to the limitations of their
feeble seeds, and cast off twigs which strike root and grow into
trees. Many willows have twigs that are brittle at the base.
Touch one lightly and off it snaps in your hand. Every wind
breaks off these natural willow cuttings and scatters them.
Stream banks are lined for miles with trees of one kind. The
twigs floating down stream lodged and grew. Sandbanks are
covered by the same means. Even willow posts set green follow
the twig habit and grow into trees. Osage orange and mulberry,
poplar and basswood root quickly as cuttings. Theoretically,
any plant will do the same. In practice, few trees are economically
propagated in this way.

Young chestnut and oak trees follow old ones by the sprouting
of the old stumps. It is not uncommon to find an ancient stump
with a whorl of young trees circling its base — from five to a dozen
of them. Foresters call this the coppice method of renewing
woodlands. It is a cheap way to reproduce timber. These
"suckers" grow rapidly, for they have the whole root system of
the parent tree to feed them. Such trees, however, are short
lived. Most of the familiar hardwoods sprout from the stump —
maples, elms, beech, ashes and locusts. Also the softer-wooded
birches, basswoods, willows and poplars. The only conifers
that do this are the redwood and the pitch pine.

It is common to see a white poplar or a Lombardy poplar
or a garden plum tree growing neglected in the midst of a crowd
of youngsters. These are not seedling trees, but suckers from
the parent roots. They resemble coppice growth where they
spring out close to the tree's "collar," but they have not waited
for the removal of the old trunks. Such trees are nuisances on a

494

How Trees are Multiplied

lawn or in a fence row. However, they illustrate one more of
the methods that trees resort to to insure the perpetuation of
their kind. In the race for life the trees with these secondary
means of propagation, reinforcing the seed, are winners. Con-
sider, for instance, the pines. The one species in the East which
comes up from the stump is the pitch pine. It rises like the
Phoenix, from devastating fires, and after the sawmill has de-
parted, when other species must rely on seeds alone. The result
is marked. Though not the most valuable Eastern pine, it is
the one best able to hold its own in the race for life.

By seeds, by sprouts and by cast-off twigs the forest has
ever renewed its youth and extended its boundaries. By these
means it has resisted the forces which work toward its extermina-
tion.

II. THE ARTIFICIAL WAY

From Nature man learned the three ways of propagating
plants: by seeds, by sprouts and by cuttings; and he invented
grafting, for which there is little suggestion in Nature. In all
these he improved upon Nature, for he threw his energies into
one single enterprise, sacrificing everything to its success. Look
at the wild fruit trees in the woods; then look at the orchards,
their lineal descendants. Look at the wild grasses scattered over
the earth; the fields of grain have come from them. Look at
the scattered cedars in an old pasture; then consider the serried
ranks of them in the forests of Germany, standing close like
rye in a field, waiting for the harvest that converts their wood
into cedar pencils. The forester replants the ground, cultivates,
weeds, thins and prunes the young trees for another harvest a
century hence.

The growing of young trees from seed makes a large nursery
business in all civilised countries. The seed is selected to discard
the inferior qualities. The growing is in rows that are cultivated.
Again the poorest are discarded, and only the thrifty seedlings
transplanted. When set in their permanent places they are
tended and defended against anything that encroaches upon
their rights. So they thrive, and yield vastly better returns than
their wild relatives, whose life is a long fight for mere existence.

A fallen willow twig strikes root. Why not strip the tree
to its trunk and plant every bit? It is done. The old stump

495

How Trees are Multiplied

covers itself again with a thicket of suckers, and every twig it
lost is a hale yearling tree on its own roots. This is the way to
get willows and poplars in the nursery rows. It is quicker and
surer and easier than planting the seed.

Any tree that sends up suckers from the root will yield young
trees as fast as you can dig them up. Loss stimulates the parent
tree to greater feats of production.

The highest form of tree multiplication is grafting, and its
kindred practice, budding. It is among the oldest arts, dis-
coursed upon by writers since the dawn of literature. It consists
in setting a part of one plant upon another in order that the two
may become united by growth into one living structure. The
rooted plant is the stock; the added part, a piece of a twig with
one or more buds, is called the cion.

Grafting is the act of making this union. The graft is the
union, or joint, thus formed. Budding is essentially the same
process. The difference is that instead of a cion a single bud is
joined to the stock, only enough of the twig being used to give
the bud a foundation.

The object of grafting and budding is to produce a tree
whose character shall be twofold. The top that grows above
the graft or bud shall have the better fruit or other character-
istics of the tree from which the cion or bud came. The stock
retains its own character, for example, straight growth, deep
root system or resistance to diseases. The stock is the nurse
tree, feeding the top, which flowers and fruits after its own kind.
Its leaves and mode of branching are characteristic of the new,
ingrafted variety, else the process would be useless.

Cultivated trees rarely "come true" from seed. They
"revert" to the original wild species from which varieties have
so recently sprung. For seedlings change their natures very
gradually, and the forming of varieties in plants is a modern
innovation, compared with the unnumbered centuries during
which seed bearing has gone on in the wilds.

Grafting and budding serve four purposes: i. The per-
petuation of a desired variety. 2. The multiplying of its num-
bers. 3. The production of dwarfs. 4. The production of hardy
varieties.

A nurseryman's business is largely the accomplishment of
these ends, and the supplying of planters with the results of his

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How Trees are Multiplied

labours. Flowers and fruits and ornamental plants are his
products. Let us consider an illustration ot each: i. The
bellflower apple is a choice variety. Mixed seeds from a cider
mill are planted in the nursery rows. They come up as little
whips, and are budded with buds from bellflower trees. What-
ever their lineage, these trees will be bellflowers when they come
into bearing, for the whole treetop came out of that one bellflower
bud. 2. The number of young trees of bellflower a nurseryman
can supply depends on the number of seedlings he buds success-
fully. An old tree spares hundreds of buds, so the multiplication
is wonderfully rapid. 3. It is possible to dwarf a variety by
budding or grafting it upon a slow-growing stock. Thus, the
stunted quince is used as a stock for varieties of pears, and dwarfs
result. The law of its growth enables the stock to curb the
ambitions of the top. 4. Tender-rooted varieties that are winter
killed in cold climates are often made hardy by grafting them
upon stocks of native kinds. For instance, the wild plum and
the sand cherry of Dakota and Nebraska are successfully grafted
with varieties of peaches, apricots and Japanese plums, which
have failed repeatedly in this dry, cold region "on their own
roots/' Native crabs have proved good stocks for imported
varieties of apples. Nursery stock is oftener budded than grafted,
the trees being but yearling whips, as a rule. Stone fruits are
generally budded. Apple trees are commonly budded in the
East, but root grafting is the rule in Western nurseries. Older
trees are grafted, to save time and labour.

"There are as many ways of grafting as there are of whit-
tling/' a wise horticulturist has remarked. The object in each
case is to fit the cion (or bud) to the stock with the cambium of
the two in close contact. A tied band of raffia or a covering of
grafting wax, or both, excludes the air and injurious substances
and holds the parts securely.

Cleft grafting is very common in changing the variety of a
fruit tree. For other methods see Bailey's "Nursery Book/'
or any other horticulturist's guide. Cleft grafting is typical.
The end of a branch is sawed squarely off. It should be less than
two inches in diameter. A special grafting knife is used next.
Its blade, set across the stub, is driven in by the stroke of a mallet.
A tooth on the end of the knife is inserted in the split thus made,
to hold the cleft open. A cion is inserted at each end of the

497

How Trees are Multiplied

split, so that there may be two chances for it to "stick" fast
and grow, instead of one. Each cion is a bit of a twig, bearing
two or three buds, and sharpened by two slanting cuts to fit
the cleft stub. When set, there should be a bud on a level with
the top of the stub. It should be held tight between the lips
of the cleft, by the "spring" of the two sides (the tooth being
removed now), and the green cambium of cion and stock should
pinch. Now grafting wax is moulded about the graft and the
work is complete.

The best time to graft is just before the buds swell in the
spring. If all is well, leaves will shoot upon the cions as Apri!
comes on; if one fails, no matter. By grafting one-third of the
limbs each year for three years the whole treetop can be changed
from one variety to another. Several varieties may be grafted
on one tree.

Budding is usually done in summer or early fall. Shield
budding is the common nursery method. A T-shaped cut through
the bark of the slender whip is made on the north side just above
the grpund. A twist of the knife loosens the four corners of the
bark. An oval bit of bark with a bud in its centre is cut from a
twig of the desired variety; a leaf stem serves as a convenient
handle. The disc of bark bearing the bud is slipped down under
the thin flaps of bark on the stock. They hold the bud in place
against the cambium of the stock. A wrapping of raffia protects
and binds the wound. It is cut as soon as the bud "sticks," or
it would impede the growth. The stem above is cut off, so that
the treetop formed later may be the outgrowth of this bud.
Budding is usually done upon seedlings of one season's growth,
and is ordinarily intrusted to an expert, with a helper to tie the
buds he sets. A record of three thousand buds a day is not un-
usual. .

Weeping forms are propagated by grafting cions from weep-
ing trees upon erect stocks. The popular notion that they are
produced by inserting the buds upside down is entirely false.
Horticultural varieties are all grafted, e. g,, cut-leaved, variegated,
pyramidal and double-flowered varieties of standard species.
These peculiarities are originally discovered as seedling varia-
tions in the nursery rows or "freak" branches on normal trees.
A good character is hoarded, emphasised and multiplied; then
exploited as a new variety. It would not come true from seed

498

How Trees are Multiplied

even if it appeared first in a seedling. It is too new to be fixed,
except by grafting cions from the original tree.

The extent to which grafting and budding can be practised
was at first much exaggerated. Virgil prophesied thus:

"Thou shalt lend
Grafts of rude arbute unto the walnut tree:
Shalt bid the unfruitful plane sound apples bear,
Chestnuts the beech, the ash blow white with the pear,
And under the elm, the sow on acorns fare."

Pliny's report of "cherry growing upon the willow, the plane
upon the laurel, the laurel upon the cherry, and fruits of various
tints and hues all springing from the same tree at once," is like
other of his vain imaginings.

Abram Cowley, in 1666, comes nearer the truth, as he should
with centuries of experience to lean upon, in these lines:

"We nowhere Art do so triumphant see,
As when it Grafts or Buds the Tree;

He bids the ill-natur'd Crab produce
The gentle Apple's Winy Juice

• • • • • •

He does the savage Hawthorn teach
To bear the Medlar and the Pear
He bids the rustic Plum to rear
A noble Trunk and be a Peach."

The modern rule of "seed on seed and pit on pit' is embodied
in this account. The species named are all in the same botanical
family at least. Plums are budded upon peach stocks in the
South. Peach-rooted trees thrive better in the hot, sandy soil
than plum-rooted trees do. In the Northern States peaches are
budded on plum stocks which are hardier in the native kinds.
Crab apples, native to various regions, prove good stocks for
introduced varieties of apples.

The limits of grafting are not very well defined yet. The
safest and most practicable method is to inter-graft varieties of
one species. Remoter relationships admit of union sometimes,
as the peach and plum, which are of different species; by some
authorities these are considered of diiferent genera. The moun-
tain ash has served as a stock for apples — again, two different
genera. But these instances are plainly beyond safe limits.

The origination of new varieties by hybridisation is an entirely

499

How Trees are Multiplied

different subject. Its variations come through the seeds. Here
the pollen, scattered in various ways when plants blossom, falls
on the pistils of flowers somewhat indiscriminately. Especially
is this true of wind-fertilised flowers which produce pollen in
abundance and of a dry, powdery sort. The pollen lies inert on
the stigmas of alien species. It fertilises those of its own kind.
There are intermediate varietal relationships and very closely
related species in certain families. In these cases natural crosses
occur, flowers being fertilised by pollen of another species. Seeds
thus set produce hybrid plants, new kinds having characters of
their two parents. Thus the species of willows are hopelessly
intermixed. Natural crosses between oaks are frequently dis-
cernible in the woods. The white oak crosses with several
species in its own (annual) group. The biennial or black oaks
also intercross among themselves. But black and white oaks
do not cross.

Artificial crosses are frequently made by plant breeders
for scientific and economic reasons. Some of the best horticultural
varieties of fruits and flowers are artificial hybrids. Among these
are the Kieffer pear, the wild goose plum, and various roses,
grapes, begonias, cannas and pelargoniums. Hybrids are propa-
gated by division.

500

CHAPTER VII: HOW TREES ARE MEASURED

I was walking one day with a forester trained in the Black
Forest. A beautiful shagbark of unusual height attracted my
attention. I asked how tall he thought it was. Imagine my
surprise when he shut up like a jack-knife — his hips the hinge,
his head between his knees, his back to the tree. Not satisfied
with the first inverted glimpse he thus obtained, he moved a step
or two nearer to the tree and looked again. Then he straightened
up, smiled at my bewilderment, paced the distance to the foot
of the tree, and said that it was about ninety feet high.

MEASURING HEIGHT

This method of estimating the heights of trees is common
among German foresters. At a distance just equal to the tree's
height, the observer, with his head between his knees, sees the
top of the tree and no higher. To get this location is very easy;
then there is left nothing to do but to pace off the distance.

The tree's shadow on bright days may be measured, then

the shadow of any short object standing erect — a man, a fence post

or a sapling. As the man's shadow is to his height, so is the tree's

shadow to its height. Suppose a six-foot man casts a ten-foot

shadow, and the tree's shadow is seventy feet. The proportion

reads:

6 x 70
10 : 6 1:70: x; then — =x. The tree is forty-two feet high.

A third simple method is interesting. Set a perpendicular
pole about five feet high in the ground at a distance about equal
to the tree's height from the base of it. Between this short
pole and the tree, in line with both, set a taller pole, near enough
so that, sighting from the top of the short pole to the top of the
tree, the line of vision crosses the tall pole. Have this point
marked. Now sight the base of the tree, and mark the place
where the line of vision crosses the taller pole. Measure now the

501

How Trees are Measured

distance between the poles, the distance between the short pole
and the tree, and the distance between the two marks on the tall
pole. Suppose the marks on the pole to be six feet apart, the
poles five feet apart, and the short pole forty feet from the tree.
Then we have two similar triangles and a proportion with three
known quantities. The distance between the poles is to the
distance from the short pole to the tree as the distance between
the marks on the tall pole is to height of the tree. 5 : 40 :: 6 : x.

Solved, =48. The tree is forty-eight feet high.

A fourth method involves a right-angled isosceles triangle
and a plumb line, but it is extremely simple, and is in common
use by men who go out to estimate standing timber in terms
of board measure. Take a square of pasteboard or shingle, and
cut it in two diagonally. One of these halves is your tool. To
the square corner hang a plumb line — a string with a weight
attached — to indicate when you hold the triangle so that its
sides areexactly vertical and horizontal. Sight along the diagonal,
stepping backward or forward until the top of the tree is in line
with the diagonal and your eye. Now sight along the horizontal
base line of the triangle to get the point on the tree trunk at the
height of your eye. The tree's height above this point is
equal to your distance from the tree, for it is one base of
an isosceles right-angled triangle similar to your tool. Pace
the distance to the tree, add your height, and you have
the tree's height. In this method of measurement, level
ground is necessary to the amateur. The practised eye makes
due allowance for inequalities, which must be taken as they
come in the woods.

The Faustman "mirror hypsometer" is a clever little instru-
ment by which the observer may get the height of trees by simply
pacing the distance from its base to the point where the treetop
is in line with an eye piece and a hair line set six inches away.
The treetop appears to the observer, a slide is moved up to the
figure corresponding to the distance, a plummet swings over a
scale, and the figure it covers, reflected by a mirror to the observer's
eye, is the tree's height. This convenient tool does away with
computations, and enables the user to accomplish much in a
short time.

502

How Trees are Measured
MEASURING DIAMETER

A tree's diameter is measured by calipers, which consist
of a graduated rule, marked in inches and fractions, a fixed arm
forming a right angle at one end, and a movable arm, parallel
with the first one, sliding on the rule. The rule is set against a
tree above the bulge of the base. The fixed arm touches it at
one point, and the sliding arm comes up to a point on the bark
diametrically opposite. The base of this arm indicates the
diameter of the tree on the scale of inches.

Logs and standing timber are measured by this tool. Calipers
for ordinary work have rules four to five feet long. Few trees
require longer ones.

MEASURING VOLUME

Standing trees are assumed to be regular geometrical solids,
resting on a circular base and tapering to the limbs, a compromise
between a cone and a cylinder.

To get the solid contents of a trunk, the area of the base is
multiplied by one-half the altitude. With a pair of calipers
and any one of the four methods of obtaining the tree's height
its cubical contents are easily computed. The forester cannot
stop to multiply and compute the circular base on which the tree
rests. He uses a table where these are worked out.

Timber is measured in board feet oftener than by volume.
A board foot is a foot square and one inch thick; there are twelve
board feet in one cubic foot. It is generally estimated that one-
third to one-half of a log is sawdust, slabs and defective wood.
Allowance is therefore made for these losses. Much depends
upon how the logs are sawed.

A "cruiser" was an old-time woodsman who went into the
forest with a compass, and, pacing off the distances, located and
estimated the timber in tracts with obscure boundaries. Once
is was saw stuff only that he calculated. Now not only sawlogs,
but ties and poles and fuel are taken account of in these estimates.

By tables known as "Log Scales" the number of feet, board
measure, a given tree will yield is quickly found. Height and
diameter being known, the table gives the contents. In measuring
standing timber it is customary for two measurers to go ahead

503

How Trees are Measured

and a tally keeper to record their work. Each tree is marked to
prevent counting it twice. Sheets for different kinds of trees
and columns and lines for different heights and diameters of
trees are provided in the record book. From this notebook and
its tally marks the solid contents of a tract of woods is easily
estimated at home or in the field, in terms of board measure or
by cord measure. A cord is 128 cubic feet.

"Log scalers" or measurers record how many board feet
a log will cut. These men carry a scale rule, which they apply
to the small end of the log. From the diameter it measures
four inches are deducted. The square of the balance is the
log's contents in board feet, provided the length is sixteen feet.
Allowance is made for logs longer or shorter than the standard.
The table with these results worked out for logs from ten to
sixty inches in diameter, and for twelve, fourteen and sixteen
feet in length, constitute the Doyle-Scribner Log Scale in common
use. It is a compact table, containing in four columns, of fifty
lines depth, results that save much toilsome multiplying. It is so
simple, however, that any intelligent woodchopper can reconstruct
his own table in an evening, if he loses one. The four inches
deducted allow for ordinary waste in sawing. Very crooked,
knotty or otherwise defective logs have a greater deduction made
at the discretion of the scaler.

MEASURING ANNUAL GROWTH

Cut down a tree, measure the diameter of its stump and
count the rings in the outside inch of wood — the first inch inside
the bark. Multiply the diameter by the number of rings to this
inch. Divide 400 by the product obtained by this multiplication.
The quotient is the percentage of yearly increase of the tree.

This seems like an arbitrary formula, and it is not accurate
to a hair. But it is a practical method for estimating the yearly
accretion that a tree makes. It is the method used by the Bureau
of Forestry in estimating the annual growth of woodlots, and it
is so simple that anyone can use it. Farmers can tell how much
interest they are getting by letting their trees grow, and when
they are cutting into their wood principal in harvesting the crop.
It replaces guessv/ork by knowledge.

One tree does not make a forest, nor a woodlot. But one

504

How Trees are Measured

tree is a key to the rest. Take each kind of tree by itself. Cut
sixteen or twenty white oaks of different sizes and grown under
varying conditions at different places on the woodlot. Their
average will fairly represent the individuals of this species. T^ke
the tulip trees in the same way, and get the increase of the average
tree. When the different species have been considered separately,
they may be averaged to get the general per cent, of growth for all.
Then the owner knows about what amount of wood cut in a
winter will be replaced by the growth of the following summer.
The secret of success in the best-kept forests of Germany and
France is the management that does not cut more than the
annual increase will restore. It explains the perennial vigour
and productiveness of these secular forests.

505

CHAPTER VIII: THE PRUNING OF TREES

Pruning is the cutting out of parts of a tree for the improve-
ment of the parts that remain. Cleaning might better designate
the removal of dead wood. Trimming is the shaping of the out-
line, as the shearing of hedges and individuals of box and yew
into formal or grotesque figures. Training is the bringing of the
tree to some desired arrangement of its limbs, as the espalic
fruit trees, that lie flat against a wall in European gardens.

All green plants need sun and air, as well as room for roots.
Trees crowd out other plants in close forests. Where thousands
of saplings start in a plot of woodland, only hundreds reach middle
life, and only tens, maturity. In every tree top the story of
continuous thinning is repeated. The trunk and limbs are full
of knots which the bark has healed over. They are records of
twigs and large branches that failed. A dozen apple blossoms
make up a single cluster. Two or three apples at most mature, and
they are inferior to the apple that grows alone, sole survivor of the
dozen May promises. Every well-grown leaf nurses a bud at its
base. Next year these buds send out shoots, each with leaves
that nurture other buds. These twigs are stifled by the crowding.
The weaklings die. On the stronger ones the leaves in the shade
turn yellow and fall. The weak buds fail even to start in spring.
As the tree's crown grows larger, many branches are overshadowed.
Their leaves languish and die. The whole bough declines, and at
length snaps off. Nature sacrifices the many to the few — the
weak for the good of the strong. It is the law of the survival of
the fittest.

Pruning is a practice we learn directly from Nature. Yet
there are those who decry it as " unnatural"! The difference
is that man does a much better job — where he knows what he is
about. The quack tree doctor, alas! too often takes the case,
and then it were far better to have let Nature manage the affair
herself. The peripatetic tree pruner is almost always a tree
butcher, a menace to the well-being of any self-respecting, tree-
loving community. He preys upon the good intentions and the

506

The Pruning of Trees

credulity of the public. His glibness passes for scientific knowledge
with people who are themselves ignorant of the life and the needs
of their trees. Too often they succumb to his arguments and let
him scrape and hack and doctor the trees as he sees fit. It is
probably an indignant neighbour who expatiates on the havoc
wrought. The dazed owner, with flattened purse and a sense
of failure and disillusion, bewails what cannot be undone. The
tree pruner is gone, so the vengeance that should cut short his
profitable career follows him afar off.

This is plain justice to the family and to the community and
to the trees: — If a tree is worth pruning at all it is worth the
owner's while to inform himself as to the best method and then
stand by and see that his directions are carried out, unless there
is some man of well-known intelligence who can be trusted to do
it properly. We shall come to recognise one day that the trees
of a community are common property in the best sense, and no
man has a right to prune them or cut them down unless he acts
as a duly appointed representative of all the people.

HOW TO CUT OFF A LIMB

"The best pruning tool is the thumb and finger." So it is,
even for trees in their infantile stages. Pinching back tender shoots
forms the tree's head to the owner's liking, and yearly attention
keeps it under control. This is the ideal way. In practice,
however, limbs must be cut off — sometimes very large ones.
Pruning knives and shears and the long-armed, strong-jawed
pruners will easily cut limbs to an inch or a little more in thickness.
After this, a good saw is the right tool. Axes and hatchets are
unfit for use in pruning, as they leave the cut surface uneven and
tear the bark.

The limb should be sawed off smooth and clean on a level
with the surrounding bark. There will be some projection, inevit-
ably, for the limb has a flaring base. But no projecting stub
of the branch itself should be permitted to remain. Better far a
larger wound made by sawing well down in the enlarged basal part.
If any tearing of the bark has occurred, unevennesses should be
trimmed with a sharp knife.

The healing of the wound must be a slow process, for the
inner bark has to iorm a layer of new tissue that gradually rolls

507

The Pruning of Trees

in and closes over the solid wood at the centre. There is no
union between the wood and the healing bark, for the former
is practically dead. Being porous, it absorbs rain that follows
down its tubular wood fibres. Germs of wood-destroying fungi,
afloat in the air from rotting trees and twigs in the neighbourhood,
lodge in the exposed wound, germinate, and send their filamentous
hyphae down into the stub and on toward the heart of the tree.
Sugary, starchy cell contents moistened by the rain make the best
possible soil for such fungi. Better leave the tree unpruned than
to expose the inert heart wood by careless work.

A covering of any waterproof substance protects the helpless
tree against invasion by its worst enemies. A cheap oil paint
like linseed oil and white lead fills the surface pores and lasts a
long time. It should be generously applied, so that no entrance
is left for disease. It likewise checks the bleeding, or flow of sap,
which dries the exposed stub and makes more room for rain to enter
with its accumulation of dirt and disease spores. Meanwhile,
the new bark rolls in, and when it meets over the wound the paint
has served its purpose. The covered wood has been kept sound.
It is often years before the process is complete, depending on the
size of the wound and the rate of the tree's growth. In many
cases the paint needs renewing.

THAT VICIOUS LONG STUB

Hired men set to pruning trees are almost sure to leave stubs.
They will argue that this is the best way. Go for your answer
to trees thus pruned in previous years. They are plenty in any
neighbourhood. The stub decays, its bark sloughs off at length,
and the bark at the base can never hope to heal the wound until
it swallows the stub entire, or the latter rots off at the base. In the
first case it is a delay of years. In the last, it means the invasion
of rot into the heart of the tree. A long stub, therefore, always
threatens the health of the tree, is a blot upon its beauty, and a
monument to the laziness and ignorance or dishonesty of the
man who pruned by this pernicious method.

TEN PRINCIPLES OF PRUNING

I . Pruning the roots lessens the food supply, and so retards
top growth.

508

The Pruning of Trees

2. Pruning the top invigorates the branches that remain,
the root system being unchanged.

3. Removing terminal buds induces forking, thus thickening
the branching system. It checks wood production, and en-
courages the production of flowers and fruit.

4. Unpruned trees tend to wood production.

5. Summer pruning reduces the struggle among leaves and
twigs for light and produces stronger buds for spring.

6. Winter pruning removes superfluous buds, inducing
greater vigour in those that are left to develop.

7. Dead wood should be taken out at any season and burned.

8. The best time to prune, generally speaking, is just before
growth starts in spring.

9. Early winter pruning is undesirable because the healing
of wounds must wait till spring.

10. Yearly pruning is better than pruning at less frequent
intervals.

PRUNING SHADE TREES

An ideal shade tree has the character of its species or variety,
as the oval of the hard maple or the broad dome of the white oak
or the fan top of the elm. It has the greatest possible foliage
mass on a sturdy framework of trunk and limbs. To keep this
dome intact, losing just enough for the health of the leaves, is the
object of pruning. It needs only the removal of dead and broken
limbs and of those that interfere and crowd. Wayward limbs
are cut back to preserve the tree's symmetry. Long, heavy
limbs that threaten to split away from the trunk by their weight
are cut back.

In fact, shade trees take care of themselves almost altogether.
Accidents to their limbs are usually responsible for conditions that
make pruning necessary.

PRUNING ORNAMENTAL TREES

Here is a wide range of choice. If foliage is the ornamental
feature, or a multitude of flowers, no matter how small, little
thinning of branches will be required. If size of flowers is more
important than numbers, thinning should be thorough. Late-
blooming kinds are best pruned in spring; early-blooming kinds,

509

The Pruning of Trees

directly after the fading of the flowers. The energies of bud
formation are thus concentrated on the branches that remain.

Dwarf forms of trees are kept in trim by pruning the roots
with a sharp spade, and by "heading in" the branches severely.
Shearing keeps a tree in formal shape. Weeping trees and others
of peculiar habits are trimmed to preserve their characteristics.

In all ornamental trees care must be taken to cut off shoots
that start below the bud or graft. The stock is of a different
kind, and these low shoots therefore introduce a false note into
the top grown from the cion or bud.

PRUNING EVERGREENS

The best form a conifer can have is its natural, pyramidal
one, tapering to the sky. The end bud, or leader, should never
be cut. When this is destroyed the central shaft branches, and
the tree's beauty gives place to oddity. The lower limbs of
evergreens should lie upon the ground, if they can be kept green
and healthy. Spruces especially hold these branches late. If
limbs are sparse, pinching out terminal buds on the lateral branches
will force out new shoots from side buds, soon producing a compact
dome of foliage. Symmetry should be preserved by heading in
wayward branches. Formal shapes are produced by clipping and
shearing. Evergreens generally have resinous sap which covers
wounds. Such need no paint to prevent inoculation by fungous
diseases while healing.

PRUNING FRUIT TREES

This is a very large and special subject. Methods depend
upon the aims of the owners. While the trees are young they
are pruned to shape and thinned to induce vigour. As fruiting age
comes on they are checked by heading back terminal buds.
This diverts the tree's forces from wood production to fruiting.
If the best fruit is desired, thinning of twigs and especially of
fruit clusters while green is practised.

Pruning is an annual practice with the best fruit growers.
A fruit tree left to its own devices for years produces firewood.
The severe pruning that follows this neglect produces a forest of
"water sprouts" or "suckers" the next year. It takes a long
time to get such a tree checked and back into bearing.

5">

The Pruning of Trees

The cutting off of lower limbs to overcome the interfering of
neighbouring trees in an orchard is a bad practice. It elevates
the bearing area, until ladders are necessary to reach the lowest
fruit. Better take out alternate trees, or best of all, plant origin-
ally at the proper distances, setting short-lived fruits between.

Yearly pruning will prevent interference by training the
orchard trees to a narrower habit. By the "thumb-and-finger"
pruning mentioned before, a tree may be shaped to the low, round
head, or sent upward into a tall, narrow one. It takes the heaviest
tools to convert them into the Japanese parasol form. Such an
orchard tree makes life miserable for the pickers and is a living
witness of the obtuse and neglectful character of the owner.

PRUNING FOREST TREES

This is a practice that belongs to intensive forestry. It is a
part of a type of silviculture that crops land with trees as the
careful farmer does with grain. If a dense stand does not "clean
itself" of lower limbs by Nature's pruning, there is cheap labour
to do the work, and sale for the limbs as fagots, or as charcoal.
Thus in various European forests it pays to prune trees. In
America it rarely pays yet. The illustration of pruning white-pine
seedlings in small woodlots (see page 477) is a notable exception.
White pine does not clean itself of branches, even dead ones,
as most trees do. This fact greatly impairs the quality of the
timber, for dead knots abound in it. Only trees intended for a
mature first-grade crop can be pruned with profit.

Judicious selective cuttings which keep the forest cover
intact bring about natural pruning by the choking out and chafing
of lower limbs.

GENERAL TREE SURGERY

Capital operations in tree surgery are performed with notable
success nowadays. When a great limb cracks away from the
trunk, threatening the admission of water and disease germs
into the cleft, an iron bolt of proper length and strength is pro-
vided. An auger hole is bored through the limb a foot or two
above its base, and another in line with it through the main trunk.
Inserting the bolt, through both limb and trunk, the nut is

The Pruning of Trees

screwed on as tight as possible. This brings the lips of the crack
together and holds them. A wise precaution is to wash the wound
with some antiseptic, as coal tar or paint, or a mixture of both.

Lightning often tears away part of a tree, exposing the heart
wood over an area so large that the tree cannot be expected to
heal it. When it is desirable to save the tree, several methods
are possible. Thorough painting of the wound is effectual if
repeated as the paint wears off. A hollow, as of a limb torn out,
may be filled with cement after an antiseptic dressing. The
outer bark has to bring its edges together over the cement. A
very successful protection is tar. Sheet iron, tar paper, etc.,
tacked on over wounds that have not been treated to check
invasion of tree diseases, are of doubtful advantage. Outside
they look snug and neat, but underneath insects harbour and
fungi thrive in the moist darkness which is the most favourable
condition for their development. A tree thus protected (?) often
goes over in a storm, revealing a rotten heart that has developed
since the accident that tore off its limb.

A hollow tree, or one with a cheesy heart, may be opened
(if there is no opening on the side), scraped clean of its corrupt
interior substance, and filled with cement. With this pillar
of stone fitted inside it, the tree is no longer a hollow shell weak
enough for wind to overthrow it. Its disease checked, it may
take on a new lease of life. Historic trees, especially, justify
thorough renovation and bolstering inside; but the average old
tree, weakened by accident and disease, is best cut down and a
young one given its place.

512

•T -T T T> -J'l 1 T^T

CHAPTER IX: THE ENEMIES OF TREES

In every tree top we can read the story of a long fight. Leaf,
flower and fruit, bud, twig and branch, contest unceasingly for
room and food and sun. Underground, the roots have their own
struggle for the bounty of the soil. Always the struggle is un-
equal, the weak succumbing to the strong. Where tens succeed,
hundreds and thousands fail.

In the woods the story is the same. Neighbour trees contend
as do neighbour branches. Nature thins and prunes, discarding
all but the fittest. Many people understand that the best forests
are those in which Nature has her own way. But only from
Nature's point of view. She is the great impartial all-Mother,
and is as much interested in the well-being of a fungus that de-
stroys a tree as in the tree itself. A virgin forest is a battleground
where varied and multitudinous natural forces meet and fight for
supremacy.

The noble forests of the Cascade range in Washington and
Oregon best illustrate the victory of trees over all other forms
of vegetation. The pine forests of the Great Lakes and of the
South, the broad-leaved forests of the Ohio and lower Mississippi
Valleys, all showed how trees triumphed in days gone by over
inimical forces of Nature. The meagre fringe of trees along streams
in the arid West, the stunted growth of northernmost woods,
show how trees are affected by drought and cold. The dis-
tribution of forests and their condition are traceable to well-
known causes.

Some of the enemies of the forest are natural; some are
attributable to man and his civilisation. In many instances
responsibility is divided. One enters and leaves the door open
for others.

The chief enemies of forests are fires and insects. Winds,
frost, lightning, snow, hail, ice, drought and flood are atmospheric
in origin. Fungi decompose dead wood, doing the forest a service
by enriching the soil. But many of them menace sound trees
wherever their bark is broken. Grazing and wasteful lumbering

513

The Enemies of Trees

are two abuses of the first magnitude. Beside these, man is
responsible for most forest fires.

Cold is the barrier that sets a limit to each species of trees
at a certain degree of latitude and at a certain altitude above the
sea. Few species are hardy enough to reach into British America,
or to climb high up on mountains.

Frost damages forests by nipping the buds and tender shoots,
by actually causing tree trunks as well as branches to burst open
after the freezing of sap in spring, and by heaving the porous soil
so that saplings of all ages are uprooted. Frost often destroys
seeds before they are ripe, and while they are germinating.

Snow and ice burden trees in winter time, doing great damage
to their tops — often maiming young trees for life. Broad-
leaved trees avoid much injury by their deciduous habit, but
evergreens suffer where snows are heavy and winters long. Ex-
treme toughness and flexibility of limb characterise trees that
successfully throw off their snow burdens spring after spring.
The Western mountain hemlock, crouching on the most exposed
ridges of the coast mountains, is a good example.

Hail beats off the leaves and tender shoots of trees, especially
in the warmer states. It destroys flowers and unripe fruits,
and bruises young growth.

Lightning shatters trees, and leaves them a prey to the
attacks of insects and fungi. The chief harm caused by it is the
starting of forest fires. Compared with this, the other damage it
does is slight.

Winds lash the trees, breaking and maiming them. Hurri-
canes plough their paths through the woods. This exposes the
trees left on the border of the swath to a new danger. Their
support on the open side is gone ; they fall by reason of the inade-
quacy of their roots to hold them securely in the ground. Roots
do not go deep unless they must. Winds fan small fires into
conflagrations. Beneficent carriers of pollen and distributors
of seed, they also carry infection from diseased trees to sound
ones, lodging spores in fresh wounds to eat down to the tree's
heart or to prey upon leaf or twig or bark. Each species finds
its habitat.

Fungi are flowerless vegetable organisms that multiply by
spores. The mushrooms are the familiar fruiting organs of under-
ground species. Rust, mildew, blight and rot of fruit or of

5*4

The Enemies of Trees

wood are also among the well-known fungous growths that
disfigure trees. The shelf fungi are the largest. Many kinds of
destroying fungi may attack a single tree. Every enfeebled tree
is increasingly vulnerable. Dead trees are gradually devoured
by fungous organisms.

Protection against fungous diseases is not practicable yet
in the forests. In orchards and home grounds and parks spraying
is used as a preventive. Compounds of copper destroy the spores
of fungi. It is asserted that one part of copper sulphate in ten
thousand parts of water will prevent the germination of a spore
of apple scab or pear-leaf blight. Lime water is added to keep the
copper sulphate from burning the foliage. Copper, lime, and a large
proportion of water make the so-called "Bordeaux mixture" —
the standard fungicide in the orchards and vineyards of Europe and
America. Two or three sprayings a year, the first just before the
leaves open, will keep a healthy forest tree free from fungous
troubles, while neighbour trees and their fruit are bad y damaged
by rot and other fungous attacks.

Bacterial diseases that enter the growing shoots oi trees and
develop within them are well illustrated by the "fire blight" of
the pear. No fungicide can reach and check this disorder. The
affected parts should be cut off and burned. Often burning the
whole tree is the only safe method, as otherwise contagion will
spread to other trees.

Constitutional diseases are found among trees, as well as in
the human family, and no explanation of their causes nor hint
of proper treatment has been discovered. "Peach yellows"
is an example. It is the moral, if not the legal, obligation of every
owner of a tree thus afflicted to dig it out and burn it, root and
branch, in order that the disease may be kept from spreading.
Tree diseases are not all disseminated by the wind. Some live
underground, carrying infection by contact of root tips from
unsound to sound trees.

Insects form a large body of the enemies of trees, inflicting
untold damage each year upon orchards and forests, and upon
trees everywhere. Each species has its insect enemies, not one,
but more — often many. There are borers that infest the solid
wood, channelling it and ruining it for timber, or working just
under the bark, sapping the cambium, which is the tree's life.
Some borers work in the twigs, causing the young shoots to die

5*5

The Enemies of Trees

and snap off. Black locust, one of the most valuable post timbers,
is ruined wherever it grows now in the East by the locust borer.

Sucking insects are a vast aggregation of species whose bond
of similarity is the beak or proboscis, by means of which they
puncture the skin of fruits, leaves, twigs or roots and suck the
juices there found. To this class belong the deadly scale insects,
the plant lice, bark lice, true bugs, weevils, etc.

Chewing insects eat the substance of the leaf or other parts.
The caterpillars of many butterflies, moths and beetles are
chewers. Borers belong to this class.

It is quite out of the question to attempt in this volume a
discussion of a subject so vast as the insect enemies of trees and
the methods science has devised to combat them. Horticulture
has led the way, of course. Publications covering all that is
known on the subject are issued by the Department of Agriculture.
Experiment stations in the different states are investigating this
subject and reporting progress in bulletins, which anyone within
the state may have for the asking. Besides, a growing body of
literature on the subject is being issued by various publishers of
scientific books.

Spraying and fumigation are the two methods now in use
for the wholesale destruction of insects. They are developed to a
high degree by fruit growers. Power spraying has been intro-
duced by park commissioners in a few large cities for the protection
of shade trees. It promises to grow in popularity wherever
public spirit is strong and trees are threatened, as they are
with the gypsy-moth plague near Boston. Study of the life
history of different insects and fungi reveals their various weak
points and helpless stages. The principles and practice of spray-
ing depend for success upon this intimate knowledge.

Boring insects cannot be reached by spraying. They are dug
out of fruit trees or destroyed by running a wire up the burrows.
It is the grub that does the damage.

Chewing insects thai live on trees are hilled by spraying poison
on their food. Paris green, dissolved in water, and arsenate of
lead are commonly used. The younger insects are sprayed the
better.

Sucking insects are killed by spraying with kerosene and water,
or with an emulsion of whale-oil soap, and with lime and sulphur
washes. The oil chokes the breathing tubes which are along the

516

The Enemies of Trees

sides of the body. The whale-oil soap chokes and is also injurious
to the delicate body wall. So is the lime and sulphur solution.
Scale insects, plant lice and all soft-bodied insects of whatever
eating habits are thus treated.

Fumigation chokes the insects with poisonous gas. Hydro-
cyanic-acid gas, confined by a canvas tent that completely covers
a tree, destroys all insect life in a few minutes. This is an ex-
pensive method, but it is used in orange groves in California as
the best means of checking scale insects. As these insects do not
fly nor walk, but settle down after birth, a tree once cleared of
the nuisance is not likely to become infested again for some time.

man's damage to the forests

Clearing of wooded lands was the pioneer's duty and necessity.
He had to make room for the civilisation that followed him.
The Eastern country was so generally covered with forests that
farms could be made only by clearing the land. This made
trees the chief enemy to be overthrown — the greatest of all the
weeds that the farmer battled against.

Wasteful lumbering came next, and took the best logs from
the virgin forests, leaving all the "slash" behind to dry and feed
terrible forest fires. An unreasonable rate of taxation dis-
couraged the buying and holding of lands by lumber companies.
When the sawmills left, the land was waste, unfit for the use of
man.

Fire is the greatest enemy of forests in this country. Hunters
carelessly leave their campfires still alive; cinders from locomotives
ignite dry rubbish; farmers burning brush over cleared land let
the fires get beyond control. Spite against the owners sometimes
finds expression in firing a forest. Lightning sets fires and
winds spread them.

Fortunes are swept away each year in standing timber; lives
and property are destroyed in the track of the fire. Young
growth of seedling trees, the forests of the future, are wiped out.
Tree seeds are consumed, and the leaf mould, that precious porous
blanket that holds the food and drink for all the trees, that is the
nursery of seedlings and the anchorage of the old trees — this is
reduced to an ash heap. All the organisms of the soil that con-
verted the forest litter into loam are killed; and the litter is also

517

The Enemies of Trees

gone, so that there is no means of restoring promptly the supply
of humus necessary for seed to germinate.

Trees fall over in such a "burn." Grass, one of the forest's
ancient enemies, creeps in. The sun and wind steal the soil water :
it runs off as floods in spring rains, overflowing streams that run
dry in summer. Gullies are formed where the cracked soil
washes. Insects and fungi attack trees, young and old, which
were crippled but not killed by the fire. A severe fire destroys
the forest equilibrium utterly, reducing the area to a desert state.

Fires under control are sometimes justified in forests of
indifferent quality. Tracts covered with blueberry and black-
berry are systematically burned in Maine and other states because
the new growth fruits better than the old canes. In other
regions forests are fired to open them and improve the grazing.
A great many fires are set for this purpose by sheep men in remote
mountainous woodlands belonging to the Government or to
private parties who know nothing of this systematic wholesale
stealing.

PROTECTION AGAINST FIRE

Practically no attention has been given to providing fire
lanes through American forests for the checking of fires when they
start. This belongs to intensive forestry, and we have not come
to that yet. Consequently fires find us unprepared. A small
ground fire can usually be put out near its beginning by beating
it with branches bearing mops of green leaves. A narrow track
of dirt or sand thrown about the burning area will help to keep
it within bounds. Throwing earth or sand on the smouldering
leaf mould is one of the best means of choking out fire. If there
is time, a belt can be burned across the path of the fire which will
end it. Digging narrow trenches is also effective.

Fires that sweep the forest crown can be stayed only by
openings that they cannot bridge — broad, natural fire lanes.
With a wind blowing, such a conflagration flings firebrands in
all directions, lighting new fires in the rubbish that litters the
forest floor.

Fighting a forest fire is almost hopeless after it once gets
under way. A ground fire may be impossible to locate, though
the smoke indicates its existence, and approximately its place.
Slash makes progress and fire fighting in the woods very toilsome

5.8

The Enemies of Trees

work. After a fire is believed to be extinguished it often smoulders
and breaks out with renewed violence later on. Or it may seem
under control over most of its area, and by suddenly climbing
a dead tree be out of reach, start a fresh blaze among the treetops
and threaten a much larger territory. The broad-leaved trees
are less likely to spread a fire than the inflammable, resinous
conifers.

Gracing as practised in this country is sometimes as destruc-
tive to forests as fire. Over-gracing is the proper term, for a
flock of sheep is generally kept in a section of woods until every-
thing green within reach has disappeared. Sheep nibble and
gnaw and crop roots and saplings, and their little feet pack and
tear open the leaf mould, trampling out the life of all young growth
they do not eat. They are especially destructive to young
coniferous growth. A lease of a tract for grazing generally
means desolation in the wake of the flock, as far as all under-
growth is concerned. Government lands have been grazed
to their lasting damage by sheep men without leave from
any authority. This is being stopped wherever reservations
are patrolled.

Cattle do less harm in grazing than sheep and goats. They
do not keep so close together, their feet do not cut into the soil
so deep, nor do they strip all growths clean as they go, unless
driven to it by drought. Horses do less harm than cattle. Hogs
prevent much young growth by eating tree seeds, especially those
of beech, oak and other nut trees.

Grazing should be prohibited in young woods, and permitted
but sparingly in old forests. In fact, a forest should have no
openings in its roof, and so no grass on the forest floor.

ENEMIES OF CITY TREES

Trees in cities lead a hard life. The air is charged with smoke,
soot and noxious gases. These clog the leaf doorways, thus
interfering with the tree's life processes. Paved streets and side-
walks prevent the proper ventilation and watering of the soil.
The roots need to breathe as well as the leaves. Leaks in sewer
pipes and gas mains often suffocate a tree through its roots.

Regrading and filling in change the ground level, and trees
are left with roots exposed or buried deeper than before. Either

519

The Enemies of Trees

is a distinct damage, which lowers the tree's vitality, and in
extreme cases kills it outright. The soil of towns is often "made,"
containing refuse, such as tin cans, glass bottles, ashes and cinders
— anything but good soil. Roots obliged to batten on such pas-
turage can hardly be expected to keep the top growing well.

Excavations for buildings and for the laying of sewer pipes,
water and gas mains generally ignore the trees whose roots lie
in the way. Whatever interferes is cut out without thought of
the rights of the community in the trees that give beauty and
shade to its streets.

Horses gnaw the bark and kill by girdling unguarded trees
used as hitching posts in front of stores. This may be seen in
small towns where no public sentiment in defense of street trees
has been aroused. Bruising and scraping of the bark by contact
with loaded wagons and other heavy vehicles produce the disabled,
ugly trees one sees along streets and in congested market places.

GUARDS FOR STREET TREES

The cheap and effective roll of heavy woven wire is often
seen in, this country. The wooden boxing of erect slats is strong
but ugly. Iron rods secured by iron hoops are developed in
ornamental designs in many of the parks of European cities,
and oftenest in connection with an iron grill or circular openwork
plate that lies under the tree in paved streets that have had their
grade raised. The tree has its old level for the space of the
diameter of the grill, through which air and water are admitted
to the soil about the roots. It is common in more obscure streets
to use wicker guards or to make jackets of small upright poles
wired securely together around young trees. Old trees are often
merely set around with short stone pillars to keep vehicles away.
Grills and guards of iron around park trees are sometimes made
less conspicuous by a seat that encircles the tree protected. On
country roads in France thorn branches are tied on young trees
as guards.

In all cases guards should be roomy enough to allow of
many years of growth before they could fit snugly. As these
protections are permanent necessities to exposed trees they
should be strongly made, and secured to the trees so that they
will not work loose.

q2o

The Enemies of Trees
INJURIES TO TREES FROM ELECTRIC WIRES

The damage done to roadside trees offsets to an alarming
degree the benefits derived by the public from the telephone
and the trolley. The poles are set in the line of the trees, and
the wires threaded between them. The limbs that might strike
the wire when the wind is high are hacked off. Miles of road are
lined with trees ruthlessly beheaded and utterly ruined under
the direction of the foreman in charge of the pole setting. The
workmen proceed rapidly through a section of country, passing
from one property to another. They keep an eye out for ob-
jections; the owners could make them a great deal of trouble.
But rarely is there concerted action, unless it be a mass meeting
to bewail the damage after it is done. Then things settle down,
and the poor maimed trees do their best to heal their wounds
and to grow new tops. As they reach up they encounter
the wires, and this interferes with the service. The offend-
ing trees are shorn again. They finally become stunted old
pollards, throwing up groves of straight water sprouts,
year by year, if they are by nature inclined to sprout from
stubs.

"Burns" that cost the lives of large limbs are proved to
result from contact with electric wires passing through treetops.
Proofs are also indubitable that trees are killed by the same
cause. Investigations made by the Experiment Station of the
Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1903 led to the following
conclusions (Bulletin No. 91):

1 . The high resistance offered by trees serves as a protection
against death from an electrical contact.*

2. There are cases where the direct current, used in operating
street railways, has killed large shade trees.

3. Electrical currents act as stimulants to growth up to a
certain degree of intensity. Beyond that degree, growth is
retarded, and the death current is the maximum.

4. The greatest damage caused by alternating and direct
currents is by local burnings. The stronger the voltage the
greater the injury.

5. There is practically little or no leakage from wires during

* Wood is a non-conductor when dry, but when wet it is a partial conductor. After a
rain one often sees sparks in trees caused by electric wires that touch the branches.

521

The Enemies of Trees

dry weather. In wet weather a film of water covers the tree
and leakage is likely to occur. If insulation is defective and
contact between wire and tree exists, grounding results, and the
tree is burned where the wire touches it.

6. While no instance has shown death produced by alternating
current, yet the proofs are absolute that this cause maims and
disfigures young trees so badly that it amounts to their
destruction.

7. Arc lights in close proximity to trees cannot be discovered
to be accountable for any sickliness these trees exhibit. Poverty
of the soil, paving, etc., are generally the causes.

8. Linemen's spurs do great damage to the bark of young
trees.

9. Wounds caused by climbing and ill-advised pruning
and by burning leave trees an easy prey to insect and fungous
enemies.

10. There is no permanent recovery possible to the trees
while the wires remain in place and in use.

What will mitigate this trouble?

1. In cities, the laying of wires underground.

2. In villages, carrying the wires across the back of lots
instead of the front.

.3. Lifting wires higher by using taller poles.

4. Giving a competent committee power to act for the com-
munity to prevent the defacing of roadside trees by corporations
owning franchises, and ignoring the law and the rights of property
owners along their rights of way.

5. Forcing corporations to put necessary pruning in the
hands of competent men.

6. Forcing trolley and electric light companies to preserve
the beauty of the highway, even at a sacrifice of short cuts and
conveniences they customarily exact without payment from a
long-suffering public.

7. Organising in every community in the interests of civic
beauty, with a strong, fearless committee to defend the trees
against the vandalism of pole-setting, wire-stringing corporations.
Let them be well informed on the legal side of their cause, and
vigilant to have the law enforced.

522

The Enemies of Trees

8. Emphasising in and out of season the fact that the beauti-
fying of grounds adds to the market value of real estate. Ordering
their rights of way well planted and well kept is not mere philan-
thropy on the part of railway corporations. It is paying business.
Trolley companies may eventually learn to count avenues of
trees as valuable assets.

5^3

PART III
THE USES OF WOOD

CHAPTER I: THE USES OF WOOD

" It is certain and demonstrable that all arts and artisans whatsoever must
fail and cease, if there were no timber and wood in a nation (for he that shall take
his pen, and begin to set down what art, mystery, or trade belonging any way to
human life, could be maintained and exercised without wood, will quickly find
that I speak no paradox). . . . We had better be without gold than without
timber." — John Evelyn.

This is the age of steel. Yet it is not to be expected that
metal will take the place of wood much more than now. Although
steel frames have replaced timbers in ships, bridges and many-
storied buildings, the demand for wood in the bulk of the world's
industries grows stronger and prices are rising. The fires of
factory, mill and household in this country are more than half
of them fed to-day with wood. Coal (a fossil wood), oil and gas,
happily come in to check the too rapid consumption of our forests
for fuel.

Trees grow, therefore wood is cheaper than metals. It is
easily worked with tools into desired shapes and sizes. It is
held securely by nails and by glue. It is practically permanent
when protected by paint ; under water or in the ground it outlasts
metal. Its strength and lightness adapt it to varied uses. Its
lightness makes it easy to handle. It preserves the flavour of
wines as no other material can do. It is a non-conductor of
heat and electricity. Many woods are marked by patterns of
infinite variety and beauty, whose very irregularities constitute
an abiding charm. To this is added a fine blending of colours
and a lustre when polished that give woods a place in the decorative
arts that can be taken by no other substance.

Precious woods, worth their weight in gold, are not unknown
to-day. A wagonload of satinwood worth $75,000 was delivered
to an English furniture manufactory recently. It was cut for
veneer work, sixteen thin sheets to the inch. The price paid
per square foot was one pound sterling. Peacocks' feathers,
arabesques, and wonderful mythological beasts are revealed by
the saw that cuts through the gnarled butts of maple, birch and

527

The Uses of Wood

yew, and through the burls that stand out like excrescenses on
ash and other trees. Imperfections in the normal grain are
responsible for these figures and colouring. It is the sawing
that makes the most of these good points. In woods like oak
there are broad, radial bands of "medullary rays," which quarter-
sawing reveals. They are fully exposed by sawing through the
centre of a log, and when polished gleam with "mirrors," the
cabinetmaker's delight. The larger the log the larger proportion
of this valuable mirrored wood it will yield.

White oak, which contains a large percentage of pith rays
and reveals these mirrors to perfection when "quarter-sawed,"
is now largely used in veneering. So are the curly and bird's-eye
maples and birches, and the exotic woods, mahogany, rosewood
and satinwood. The layer glued on the cheap frames of piano
cases and all manner of furniture is often but a sixteenth of an
inch in thickness. Black-walnut stumps are bought for veneer
wherever they can be found.

It is hopeless to try to list the uses of wood — even of our
native kinds — with fulness and accuracy. The lumber trade is in
unstable equilibrium. Certain kinds of lumber are giving out —
the black walnut, for instance. Substitution of cheaper woods
by" furniture factories is a symptom that the supply of good
lumber is running low and prices high. A few years ago red
oak was discarded. Only white oak was suitable for furniture
and oak interior finish. To-day no distinction is made between
these two species. White oak is scarce and is used for the most
expensive work. Red oak is the bulk of the supply. To the
general public oak is oak, and the manufacturer and retailer
are not inclined to bother the buyer with hair-splitting distinctions.
In fact, most "oak" furniture that sells at low prices is elm,
whose coarse, muddy grain is a poor imitation of oak.

Spruce forests were ignored by lumbermen and esteemed
worthless by the general public twenty-five years ago. Then the
pulp industry sprung up, and spruce wood made the best paper.
The pulp men bought tracts of spruce forests, and the mills
now consume thousands of acres a year. So great has been the
drain upon these forests that already pulp makers are looking
to Canada as the source of future supplies. Regenerative forestry
is being put into force in many thousand acres to maintain the
spruce crop on the same land. Spruce wood brings $6 to $7

528

The Uses of Wood

per cord at the pulp mills, and even spruce stumps are bought
at I15 per thousand feet. This revolution of values brings
spruce up until it costs more than Southern pine in the market —
a condition of affairs unthinkable in the lumber trade a few years
ago.

Paper making has raised cottonwood and other soft, white
woods to a rank above ordinary hardwoods, among which they
were counted by foresters as mere nurse trees and forest weeds.
A state forester recently said: "If I could change all the trees
in the state forests to poplars I would add greatly to the wealth
these acres represent. The pulp and paper mills would take
every stick we could cut and beg for more. We could set our
own price."

Twenty years ago white pine was still king of soft-wood
lumbers. Its day is past, partly owing to the exhaustion of the
virgin growth in great Northern pineries, partly by reason of the
exploitation of Southern pines. The "black sap" of Southern
pines, seasoned slowly in the lumber pile, darkened the wood and
made it impossible as a competitor of white pine in the markets.
But kiln-drying makes yellow pine white, so that the yellow
pines of the South now furnish handsome flooring, interior finish
and general building material in vast quantities. It is also used
for furniture and for ties.

FOREST BY-PRODUCTS

The Naval-Stores Industry. Turpentine gathering in the
longleaf pine woods began with the settlement of the country,
and forms one of its greatest forest industries. Vast quantities
of tar, rosin and turpentine have been consumed, chiefly in ship-
yards in this and other countries, until the steel craft replaced
the wooden. Now other industries consume the surplus output
of these turpentine orchards.

A pocket several inches wide and deep is cut near the base
of a tree, ft holds two or three pints of the resin.* The bark and
the outer wood to the depth of an inch are chipped of? for a consider-
able distance above the pocket. The exposed wood bleeds resin,
which is regularly dipped from the pocket by a man with a ladle

* Re sin is the crude liquid ; rosin is the hard, brittle substance left after the turpentine
is extracted.

529

The Uses of Wood

and a pail, who gathers the flow and carries it in barrels to the
still. Once a week from March till November the chipping is
repeated, and two inches are added to the height of the chipped
area. If this fresh wounding did not occur, the flow would cease
by the hardening of the resin.

One man tends ten thousand "boxes," and should get forty
barrels at each round, or "dip." Eight to ten circuits are made
for collecting in the thirty-two weeks the resin flows. The hard
gum that accumulates in cold weather is also gathered. The
yield of "dip" to "scrape" in this first season is as four to one.
As the trees are drained, the surface exposed, becoming larger,
yields more of the hardened gum, and the grade of the products
deteriorates. The fourth year the orchard is abandoned by the
largest operators, who move to pastures new. Small owners
box their trees much longer, rest them a few years, then box
again on bark before untouched.

In the still, the resin is melted and the volatile turpentine
driven off and collected in barrels. The fire goes out and the
residue in the retort is drawn off through strainers into barrels,
where it solidifies when cool into rosin. The price of turpentine
varies from twenty-eight cents to forty cents per gallon; that of
rosin is about |2 per barrel.

The wastefulness of the old boxing methods shocks every
intelligent observer. Better ways are being introduced, which,
while more expensive, yet pay for the trouble in the generous
increase in yield and the improving of the quality of the turpentine
and rosin. The cup devised by Mr. Schuler (see Bulletin 13,
Division of Forestry) takes the place of the deep, injurious pocket
made in old-fashioned boxing and does away with dirt and chips
in the crude turpentine.

While the timber is not directly injured by the boxing, the
pine orchards fall a prey to fungi and insects, the trunks are
weakened by deep boxes, and the wounds destroy the cambium,
semi-girdling the trees and necessarily lowering their vitality.
The demoralised condition of an abandoned orchard under the
ordinary careless management points to the trees' early death.

Pine tar has long been extracted from the longleaf by piling
dry wood, limbs, roots, and stumps, cut in small sizes, closely
in a clay-lined pit, covering it with sods and earth, and burning
it with smouldering fires lit below at small apertures. A passage-

53o

The Uses of Wood

way provided from the pit leads the oozing resin to the barrels.
After a week or more this pine tar begins to flow and continues
/or several weeks. The quality is much lower than that produced
in retorts, for it is mixed with dirt. Boiling down pine tar until
it loses one-third its weight makes a sticky mass called pitch.
The wood in the pit is transformed into charcoal.

This pit method of extracting tar and making charcoal is a
crude prototype of the process of dry or destructive distillation
of wood.

The Dry-Distillation Process. — What the oil mill is to the
cotton field the still is to the forest. Its work is to dispose of the
refuse and to turn it into gold. Crooked branches, knots, root
stubs — sound wood the lumberman ignores — is cut up and
packed into a retort. A furnace underneath heats this air-tight
chamber to 6oo°-8oo° F. The water goes off as steam in a coil or
worm, upon which cold water is played in order to cool and condense
its contents. A wood gas is next driven off. Then a brownish
liquid flows out. This contains wood vinegar, used extensively
in dyeworks, and acetic acid, which is made into vinegar. There
is also present wood alcohol, useful to the manufacturing chemist,
and in many other industries. Tar and creosote are also
yielded by maple, beech, and birch, the preferred woods at
the regular acid mills. After twelve hours, the retort is
emptied and refilled. The wood is found to be transformed
into charcoal. Many acid mills are located in New York and
Pennsylvania.

In the longleaf pine woods the crooked, knotty top stuff and
root stubs are the richest in resin. These yield in distillation
the greatest quantity of tar and turpentine and the highest
qualities of these products, also the best charcoal. Beside this
process the old method of burning the wood in kilns or pits in
hillsides and ladling the tar into barrels was most slovenly and
wasteful. Many valuable volatile substances that are now
captured in the coil formerly escaped in smoke.

The most remarkable invention is a method by which ethyl-
alcohol, the highest grade known, is derived by distillation from
sawdust, and an equally high grade of charcoal is left. It is
the Classen method, introduced from Germany a year ago, and it
promises to utilise the greatest nuisances of the sawmill, the
sawdust and slabs.

531

The Uses of Wood

SOME INTERESTING MINOR INDUSTRIES

"Top stuff" in European forests is cut and bound in neat
bundles of fagots. Even small twigs are utilised as fuel. In the
Southern pineries a similar industry has cut "fat pine" into
small kindling wood for use in Northern cities.

Brushwood is used in the construction of earthworks and
jetties to keep the channels of rivers narrow and deep. The
lower course of the Mississippi has been improved by sinking
out from shore latticework of limbs bound together. These
sink, become loaded with silt, and act as a barrier to prevent the
crumbling of the banks. The force of great waves, striking a
latticework of branches, is broken into innumerable harmless
ripples. Jetties are much cheaper to build than retaining walls.

The great wickerware industry of Europe, now beginning to
establish itself in this country, consumes only the year's growth
on certain supple varieties of willow.

Young growth of white birch that springs up in low ground
in New England is being consumed in quantities by spool factories
and manufactories of toys and other small wares. The trees
are used when scarcely larger than cornstalks in some of these
factories.

Christmas trees for cities of the East strip hundreds of acres
of young hemlock and balsam firs each year. In the South
young longleaf pines are shipped North, and hollies and magnolias
of all sizes are cut and stripped of their branches for Christmas
decoration.

In all this we see that the lumberman has left behind much
forest wealth, and people are learning to gather up the refuse
and turn it to account. The small sawmill is having its day in
many wooded regions of the country, making money in ways
which the big mill overlooked. There is much good stuff in
slabs, albeit sap wood is less sound and harder to season than heart
wood. Lath and shingles can be got out of logs unfit for first-
class boards. Tops of trees contain posts, stakes and hop and
bean poles. There is no better firewood than limbs from one to
two inches in diameter. Fuel which consumes much crooked
hardwood-stuff yields at last one of the best of fertilisers.

Tanbark comes from many oaks and from hemlock in this
country. Chestnut and the black oaks are richest in tannin.

532

The Uses of Wood

The tanbark oak of California is exceptionally rich, and its ex-
ermination by peelers is inevitable unless protective measures
ire adopted soon. The same may be said of hemlock in many
egions, though hemlock has a much more extensive range. In
;ections of Pennsylvania and New England hillsides are covered
vith peeled hemlocks of all ages, the trees being destroyed for
:heir bark alone.

There are many tropical trees and other plants that yield
.annin. Quebracho wood, a South American tree, is the source
)f tannin extract that is imported by American tanneries to a
:onsiderable extent. Our native black mangrove or blackwood,
Dn the Florida coast and neighbouring keys and in the delta of the
Mississipi, is a valuable source of tannin, though it grows in
inaccessible swamps, full of fever and other dangers.

The method of getting out hemlock bark is described in the
chapter: "A Lumber Camp of To-day."

Among the products of native trees the nuts are important.
Their food value is coming to be appreciated at home and abroad.
The hickories include the pecan and two shagbarks, both nuts
of commercial importance. Walnuts and chestnuts are secondary.
Beech and acorn mast fatten hogs and furnish a living to in-
numerable birds and wild game, as also do berries, plums and other
tree fruits. Flowers of locust and basswood, plum and cherry
pasture honey bees. So do many trees of less conspicuous
inflorescence.

Gums of balsam fir and other conifers, sweet gum and wax
myrtle, berries of buckthorns, wild cherry and holly, roots of
sassafras, twigs of witch hazel, all yield drugs. Our Southern
silva furnishes valuable dyewoods. Sugar from the sap of maples
forms an important and delicious food product.

In the Old World and in the tropics are trees whose great
value to the human race is suggested by the mere mention of their
names. The cinchona tree yields quinine from its |?ark. The
juice of certain trees hardens into rubber. Para, the Brazilian
seaport, is the great distributor of rubber to the world, and the
silvas of the Amazon the great producers. Lacquer varnish is the
juice of a sumach in Japan. Nutmeg and mace and cloves and
allspice grow on trees in tropical countries. The palms feed,
clothe and house people.

It is an endless story — the useful products of trees, cultivated

533

The Uses of Wood

and growing wild on the earth. The tropical woods are full of
undiscovered possibilities. Our own rich forest flora has but
begun to show its value to man.

THE FOREST AS A UNIT

In a literal and an emphatic sense the wooden walls of a
nation are its forests. The trees on mountain slopes restrain the
waterflow in the valleys, preventing flood and drought, and thereby
hoarding for cities their supply of water. Trees temper climate,
drain swamps, add a stimulating tonic to the air, and take from
it the poisonous carbonic-acid gas. The pine forests are sought
by invalids for the healing of lung troubles in every country.
Our Adirondacks and the Colorado mountains have their proto-
types in the pine-clad health resorts of southwestern France and
the region around Baden in Germany, whose famous Black
Forest has a balsamic breath.

European nations that have cut down their forests and failed
to store them have proved their national weakness and their
dependence upon wiser neighbours. The Mediterranean countries
are among the foolish — buying lumber continually from Norway,
Sweden and Germany, and suffering in climate, water supply and
in the poverty of the peasant class, the results of having no home
forests.

Tree roots are rock breakers, able to make their way even
through granite boulders. The root hairs excrete an acid that
eats away limestone and disintegrates rock particles, while the
mighty pressure of growth is crowding the sides of cracks apart.
In time, with water and frost and other forces co-operating, the
forbidding rock ledges have a crumbling layer kept from blowing
away by the falling leaves and sheltering undergrowth. The
leaf carpet rots, earthworms mingle its substance with this
"rock meal," and the name of the mixture is soil — broken-down
vegetable and mineral substance yielding plant food to the
hungry roots of trees.

Thus a forest makes soil, deepening and enriching it the more
the roots take from it. "Virgin soil" is that which has been
covered with trees for hundreds of years. Waste land moist
enough to grow trees may be reclaimed by this agency in a few
years. Even semi-arid regions will grow trees if only the proper

534

The Uses of Wood

ones are chosen. This is the lesson Kansas and Nebraska are
learning after long experiment and repeated failure.

The meaning of trees in a landscape— the beauty value of
them — is oftenest overlooked by those who have always seen
them. When crossing such a monotonous stretch of treeless
country as the plains of Arizona that wait for irrigation, the
Easterner for the first time has a full appreciation of the beauty
of his familiar wooded hillsides, and tree-lined streets. Out of
homesickness for forest scenery, as well as the necessity for pro-
tection and wood supply, came the great tree-planting crusade
that swept over the Middle West and will yet dot every state
with homes surrounded by groves.

It is proper to recognise here the influence that men have
unconsciously drunk in from trees. Myth and song have remem-
bered and repeated the feelings of primitive races to whom trees
gave shelter and raiment and food. The old Druids worshipping
the oak expressed a veneration which we all inherit, whatever
our race and line. Contact with trees is a purifying, uplifting
experience. Work in the woods develops a hardy, clean and
intelligent race. When we lose our wonted strength of mind and
body go to to the woods to find it.

535

CHAPTER II: WOOD PRESERVATION

The tendency of wood to rot when exposed to the weather,
and especially when placed in contact with the soil, and when
partially submerged in water, fresh or salt, is something every-
body knows. Season a stick of timber, then build it into your
house where it never gets damp and it is practically imperishable.
But lay it in the sill, and unless the foundation is exceptionally
high, dampness may creep up and fungous disease attack and
ultimately destroy the timbers upon which your house rests.
No matter how long the albuminous substance in the cells of sap
wood has been dry and inert, moisture softens it and it becomes
a favourable soil for wood-destroying fungi. Rot is the result.
Every decayed twig in the woods is a menace to the healthy trees.
In time it scatters disease far and wide.

A telegraph pole a few years old breaks off at the ground in a
stiff wind storm. It is rotten to the heart. But the wood above
ground is sound; so it is below the surface. This is not a marvel.
Rot is an organism that breathes while it grows. Oxygen avail-
able for growth is not found far below the entrance. Rot is
dependent on moisture; the wind keeps the exposed parts of the
pole dry. Hence the rot is restricted to a narrow zone — the
surface of the soil — and the broken ends show how far its growth
has proceeded. Posts break off at the ground for like cause.
Piles in wharves rot off at some point between high and low water
mark. Railroad ties and paving blocks suffer a more general
decadence. Mine timbers fall a prey to their own particular
subterranean fungi.

Weathering boards turn grey in the alternation of sun and
rain, heat and cold. The outer fibres weaken and disintegrate.
Oak can be scraped off with the finger nail. Hornets chew it into
pulp to build their paper castles.

The protection and preservation of wood has been one of
the problems of civilisation. A vast body of experience has
accumulated, and we are nearer to-day to a satisfactory, a trium-

536

Wood Preservation

phant, solution of the problem than ever before. Decay is some-
thing that enters wood from the outside, at some time. To
prevent the entrance of the spores of the disease into sound
timber is to save it. A protective covering that will effectively
do this is the quest of science and of all the wood-consuming
industries. One of the earliest hints came to men before the
days of Plato and Aristotle. The lasting qualities of charred
wood were observed. So they learned to char the lower parts of
all stakes, posts and poles before setting them in the ground.
The ancient practice is still held to in many regions. The timbers
in salt mines last indefinitely. So the suggestion to soak posts
in brine has been eagerly followed. But the salt soon leaches out
in contact with soil water. Impregnation of timbers with chemi-
cals has been practised commercially for about one hundred
years. Numerous preparations and processes have been tried
with varying success. Chloride of zinc and of mercury, sulphate
of iron and of copper, and other things have had their advocates.
Most of them fail because the preservatives are lost to the sur-
rounding soil or water, in a short time. Some are too expensive
to be practical. Impregnation by soaking, steeping, boiling
and pressure has been tried. High temperature, while it produces
thorough impregnation, has a disintegrating effect upon the wood
fibres as a whole. Soaking takes too much time. Pressure
requires elaborate and expensive machinery. Each seems to
have its drawbacks.

Creosote oil, a by-product of illuminating gas, is believed now
to be the best substance available for impregnation, and the
following the best method of treating the timbers. Seasoned
railroad ties are placed in a tank in the hot oil until a high temper-
ature is reached. The oil is drawn off, and a cold supply pumped
in. The sudden cooling and condensing of gases and vapour in
the wood cells produce a vacuum suction, to which is added the
force of capillarity. Thus oil is forced into the wood.

Creosote oil has the following good points: (i) It fills the
cells with oil, thus keeping water out. (2) It does not leach or
lose strength in water or soil. (3) It is a fungicide, and is also
poisonous to boring insects and crustaceans, like the white ants,
the ship worm, and the Limnoria, creatures that honeycomb
furniture, ship bottoms and wharves, giving no visible warning
until the structure is a wreck. Creosote prevents the rusting of

537

Wood Preservation

spikes and nails driven into timbers treated. They remain tight
whatever happens. Creosote can be thoroughly applied with
moderate cheapness. It can be had in large quantities from gas
works. The average tie of white oak costs sixty cents and thirty
cents to lay it. Creosoting costs but twenty cents additional.
Treated ties are still sound after untreated ones have been replaced
several times.

A very fortunate coincidence was discovered in the course
of the investigations on wood preservation. Hard woods, like
white oak and longleaf pine, do not absorb preservatives as
rapidly nor as thoroughly as cheaper, more porous woods, with
thicker sap wood, like red oak and Cuban pine. Therefore, the
cheap woods, well saturated, outlive the dear ones. White oak,
for which railroads offer fifty cents a tie, will. bring double that
sum at the furniture factory. Railroads cannot longer afford
to use white oak. Beech, properly impregnated, will outlast
white oak. Its normal life of five years can be extended to
twenty-five years.

The Bureau of Forestry, with the co-operation of railroad
corporations in different sections of the country, has elaborate
experiments in progress bearing upon the preservation of wood.
The work is disinterested and scientific, and creosoting is the
method that has proved best. The important railroad systems
of England and the Continent have reached the same conclusion.
Creosoting ties is there as much a matter of course as laying them.
The higher prices and greater scarcity of timber in Europe ex-
plain why they are so far in advance of us in the practice of wood
preservation.

The importance of thoroughly seasoning wood before im-
pregnating it with chemicals cannot be over-estimated. Green
wood, full of sap, resists the entrance of any substance, especially
oils. Even if this difficulty could be surmounted, the seasoning
of wood produces cracks through which decay gets in, and im-
pregnation counts for naught. Before treating, railroad ties are
bored with holes for the entrance of the spikes, so that even
these small apertures offer no untreated surfaces for water
containing disease spores to enter.

Creosoting paving blocks, piles for bridges, wharves and
cribs and the exposed hulls of wooden vessels is successfully
and extensively done nowadays. The ship worm does not

538

Wood Preservation

like the taste of treated wood, though this attenuated crustacean
bores his way through the hardest of wood (except green heart)
that is not medicated to discourage him.

Trees that fall in bogs and lakes lie too far down for destruc-
tion by fungous organisms. The water-soaked fibres have their
protoplasmic contents dissolved out, and mineral substances
held in the water are deposited by slow degrees. Bog oak of
Ireland is black as ebony from bark to pith. It is also heavy
by the weight of the mineral substance that impregnates its
cells. Wood impregnation by natural processes reaches its
highest perfection in the petrifactions that occur. The petrified
forest of Arizona contains trees which preserve their form and
structure, even to wood rings, but silica has been infiltrated to
the utmost cell, turning the whole tree into agate, chalcedony
or other forms of quartz. Montana has an extensive forest of
trees turned to stone of a translucent, opaline character. The
colours are blue, white and smoky black. Doctor Merrill of the
National Museum found this forest in 1903, and his report wisely
withholds its location. It is scarcely desirable that this remark-
able opalised wood should be nabbed by a syndicate and cut up
into paper weights — a fate that has overtaken the fossil forest of
Arizona.

Paint gives effectual protection to wood exposed to the
weather, with its alternation of heat and cold, sun and rain.
It needs renewing every few years. The basis of paint is oil —
pure linseed oil being the best. Ground pigments mixed into
the oil until it has the consistency of rich cream supply colour
and filling. The paint applied, the oil soaks in and fills the wood
cells, while the pigments form a protective layer, or film, over
the surface. When this layer cracks and scales off, a fresh
painting is needed Oil alone is a protective covering. Or oil
may be left out, and pigments dissolved in other liquids may be
applied. Whitewash is a familiar example of this treatment.
All such applications last but a short time. In the chapter
that follows some account is given of the processes that preserve
wood and at the same time beautify it.

539

CHAPTER III: THE FINISHING OF WOODS

The various processes to which wood is treated under this
head accomplish one or more of these results: (i) They preserve
it; (2) they make it easy to keep clean; (3) they beautify it, by
bringing out the grain or by covering it with a uniform colour.

Paint has long been the standard finish for woods of cheap
quality exposed to the air, for inside and outside work. It is a
preservative, filling the pores of the wood with pigments mixed
with oil ; and it satisfies the tastes of all, being made in an infinite
variety of colours, shades and tints. It conceals knots, cracks
and other defects, producing a smooth, shining, uniform surface.

"Graining" is a base imitation of the natural grain of oak
and other woods. As a child I watched a man at this work.
Yellow paint had dried fairly on a cheap, white-pine door. A
light brushing of brown paint was spread unevenly over one
panel. Then one thumb, wrapped with a rag, was dipped into
the brown paint, and a knot with radiating brown streaks was
set in each end of the panel. One or two scattered little knots
were thrown in for good measure. Then the artistic thumb
retired, and a comb came into commission. The blade of it
drawn over the plain brown field scraped off narrow lines of the
dark colour and left the yellow showing through in parallel,
alternating lines. An agitated sidewise motion of the comb
produced a "curly" patch on a field intended to imitate the
grain of oak with its spring and summer wood of alternating
yellow and brown.

There may be such a thing as good graining. I can see only
ugly, insincere imitation in it. A painted door makes no pretence
to be a hard wood, therefore it is honest. A grained door is not.

Staining. Pigments dissolved in water or in other liquids
stain wood to any desired colour. Nut galls and various dyestufls
are used for this purpose. Creosote oil, properly coloured, is
a popular stain for shingles. It is a preservative, and gives a
soft, dull finish, being absorbed without concealing the texture
of the wood. This sort of staining is a far more artistic colour

540

The Finishing of Woods

process than painting, when the outside finish of houses is con-
sidered. Being a rough finish, it is not employed on interiors
unless a rustic scheme is being followed.

Staining is also an important part of the finishing of ex-
pensive hardwood interiors. Even the best white oak is treated
to a little yellow to give it a creamier colour. "Weathered oak"
owes its age to fumes of ammonia or to burnt umber as a rule, and
Flemish oak to darker dyes. The bog oak of Ireland is black as
soot, but an imitation is produced by staining any of our oaks
black. It takes a connoisseur to tell the genuine from the bogus.
Ebony and teak are easily imitated. Elm masquerades as oak,
birch as mahogany. Yet staining is a legitimate practice. The
handsomest of mahogany has had a little Venetian red worked into
its pores to brighten the grain and make the colour even.

Filling. Coarse-grained woods are very porous and easily
dented, and do not take a good polish unless a filler is used. A
great many different substances are used to replace the air in
these wood cells. In fact there are very few woods that are not
both filled and stained before they are ready to be polished.
"White fillers " are tinted before they are applied. Some woods
are filled with plaster of Paris, moistened with water or spirits
after being rubbed into the surface as a powder. Whiting and
pumice are also used. Glue and patent wood sizings, even tallow
with plaster of Paris, are used. A popular filler is ordinary
varnish. When the filler is dry the surface is hard and ready
for the finishing process.

Varnishing. Varnish is made by dissolving shellac in spirits.
The volatile liquid elements dry away, and a shiny, hard coating
of the shellac remains. It shows white lines when scratched with
a pin. Varnish combined with stain is a popular finish for
cheap woodwork. The best varnish is made of white shellac;
through it the grain of the wood shows as if through a pane of
polished glass.

After the filler, which raises the grain into a rough surface,
there is a rubbing down with pumice or fine sandpaper. Other-
wise the varnish emphasises the roughness.

Polishing. Every fine piece of furniture or of woodwork is
polished to bring out the beauty of its grain and colouring. The
marvellous lustre of piano cases and rich furniture is due as
much to the faithful rubbing with an old rag as to any other trick

541

The Finishing of Woods

of the trade. Not just any old rag, but one specialised and
mellowed by long years of use. "French polish" is the highest
art in the finishing of woods.

Good taste prefers the soft, waxy lustre to the gleaming
surface of new varnish. A rag. with rotten stone to dip it in
occasionally, and patient, long-continued rubbing, eliminates
"the vulgar shine." Soft pine, stained red, varnished, then
"pummied" (rubbed with powdered pumice stone), gives a very
satisfactory cherry finish.

Wax polishing is a dull finish, made simply by saturating
the surface of coarse-grained woods with melted beeswax mixed
with turpentine. Rosin added makes a harder surface. One
rag rubs in the polish. Another wipes off all excess. A third
rag polishes the surface. It is a laborious method, but it pays
in utility and looks. Oak dining tables, if varnished, turn white
where hot dishes touch them. Wax polishing is not discoloured
by heat, so it is preferable.

Oil polishing is very often seen in the finishing of handsome
hard pine. As much pure linseed oil as the smoothed surface
will absorb; then rub, rub, rub! This brightens the rich orange
red of the grain and makes the intricate and beautiful patterns
of it stand out with striking clearness through the transparent
dressing. A soft lustre follows persistent rubbing. This process
is by no means restricted to pine. Any wood with handsome
grain warrants the oil finish.

Glaring is a process used in finishing fretwork which cannot
be reached by the polishing rag or that is too frail to be rubbed.
Spindles of fancy chairs and cabinets, grilled archways and the
like require it, while the rest of the article is polished. Inlay
work is often glazed. The preparation is made of some choice
gum dissolved in methylated spirits. This enamelling of wood
to a china-like finish is comparable to the lacquer work of the
Japanese artisans, a secret process which produces, from the
milky juice of a tree closely related to our own poison sumach, a
coating that resembles patent leather on boxes and innumerable
fancy articles made out of the soft, white magnolia wood.

542

yright, 1905, by Doubleday, Page & Company

X>WER AND BUD OF GREAT RHODODENDRON {Rhododendron maximum)

CHAPTER IV: WOODEN PAPER

Once upon a time paper grew on trees, and within the past
quarter of a century the world has turned again to the forests
as the source of its supply. Thin sheets of the inner bark of
birch in America and Europe, and of the paper mulberry in
Asiatic countries preserved the crude characters by which primitive
peoples expressed themselves. The names — beech, beece, boc,
bok, bucb, book — link the past with the present in the races sprung
from Teutonic stock. They sent messages from tribe to tribe
written in symbols on thin beechen boards — their first written
communications. Afterward, the old Scandinavian and Icelandic
runes were written on the same sort of wood, and many boards
constituted a book. The word "liber," Latin for "book," is the
name of the inner bark of trees; in botany the term has always
been used. The word "library/' therefore, has a long and
interesting pedigree.

The reed, papyrus, was harvested for paper in the days of
antiquity, along the banks of the river Nile. Thin sheets of the
pith of this slender plant formed the books of early Egypt.
Libraries of these ancient writings were preserved in the Pyramids.
The narrow, thin strips of pith were joined by overlapping their
margins and by lining each sheet thus formed with a similar
one whose strips were at right angles with the strips of the
first one. The two sheets, made one by pressure, formed a
page beside which the boards of the beechen books seem very
clumsy indeed.

The fibres of cotton, wool, flax, and silk, gathered as rags,
cleaned, bleached and shredded, furnished the better qualities
of paper in later times. They still do. But such paper is ex-
pensive. The crude materials cannot be gathered in sufficient
quantity to supply the demand for it. Straw, hemp and other
grass fibres serve for paper of coarse grades.

To-day, as of old, our paper grows on trees, for nothing has
been discovered to substitute for rags; so wooden paper, not so
good, but the best thing so far to be had, has come to fill the

543

Wooden Paper

demand. No longer the liber, merely, but the whole bulk of the
wood substance is used.

The first manufacturers of paper from wood pulp were the
white-faced hornets, whose grey nests are sedulously let alone
by the sophisticated rbamer of the woods in summer, and often
ignorantly, in winter, too, though the citadel is empty and might
be taken. The wavy lines of shaded colour, each about an inch
long and one-eighth of an inch wide, are mouthfuls of wood
fibre gathered from the surface of unpainted posts or rails, or
dead limbs weatherworn but not decayed. Chewed into a ball
by the tireless wasp, this pulp is skilfully spread and attached
to the thin edge of the wall that is building. It dries into tough
paper, whose texture and colour vary with the species of wood
the insect collects from. Men were slow to learn of the hornet,
but they were driven to it. The immense increase in the demand
for paper has had to be met. Forests of spruce are raised in Europe
like any other crop for the supplying of the paper mills. The
trees grow uniform like corn in a field. They are thinned and
tended throughout their lives. A certain part of the forests
are cut clean each year and the land reset with seedling trees.
By the time its turn comes round again, this area has another
crop ready for harvest. The limbs even, and the trees taken out
by the thinning process, go to the pulp factory.

In America great quantities of spruce and other woods are
yearly cut for pulp. A single large New York daily newspaper
consumes 180 tons of spruce paper in a single issue. It takes
250 cords of wood to make this much paper. In course of a year
this one order will clear 18,000 acres of spruce timber, as it averages
among our Northern mountain forests. When we consider
the newspapers and books each day brings forth, the paper used
in other ways — the manifold uses to which paper pulp is put
beside paper making — we are not surprised that the pulp makers
are concerned as to the future sources of the raw materials that
feed their mills.

PAPER FROM GROUND WOOD

Ordinary news paper is made by grinding the wood, cleared
of bark and knots, and pressing it into thin sheets. It is not
strong nor durable, but it outlasts the interest of the reader who

544

Wooden Paper

buys it. It goes from the rubbish heap in vast quantities back
to the paper mill, to be bleached and used over and over again.

THE MAKING OF SULPHITE

There is a new process of separating the wood fibres from
other organic substance by chemicals. Everything but the
tough cellulose is removed, and it makes a strong paper. I
visited one of these mills. The chemicals used produce a pulp
called in trade "sulphite."

The Wood. This mill, on the bank of the Delaware, soon
consumed all the available wood on the hill slopes of the
neighbourhood. Now the supply comes in on cars from regions
more remote. Hemlock and spruce are the only kinds used
here. They are sound and green and cost at the mill about $6
per cord. The sticks average six inches to eight inches in
diameter, and are sawed in two-foot lengths. The smaller the
sticks, the greater the bulk of clear stock per cord and the less
waste in bark.

The blocks of wood are stored in the basement and go in their
turn to the peeling machine, whose knives remove the bark in
thin slivers, leaving the blocks white and smooth. The bark is
carried into the furnace, for it has considerable fuel value, and
must be put out of the way. The blocks next pass to a machine
where they are chipped into flakes, much like chips on a woodpile.
These are carried to a great cauldron called the "Digester,"
with capacity of four or five tons of chips.

The Acid Solution. In the end of the building farthest
away from the stored blocks of wood are the raw materials
that combine to convert wood into sulphite. In one bin is dry
sulphur, or brimstone, shovelled in by the ton. In another is
air-slacked lime. Mfffio a large tank of lime water the fumes
of burning sulphur are introduced. The acid solution thus
produced is the liquor poured over the chips in the digester.
Under a pressure of eighty pounds of steam the chips cook for
about twelve hours or longer. The judgment of an experienced
tester is needed to decide when the cooking is done.

To scoop out this mass of hot pulp, reeking with strong
chemicals, would seem a dangerous as well as difficult operation.
On the contrary, it is very simply done. A tube at the bottom
of the digester is now opened. It leads to an empty receiving

545

Wooden Paper

Vat. The steam pressure is increased above, and the mass is
driven out by the blast, leaving the walls of the digester as clean
as if they had been scrubbed.

The cooking has chemically freed the wood fibre from every-
thing else. It remains to get the delicate white threads separated
from the mass of waste with which they are now associated in the
vat. Washing and screening are the means of freeing the fibres.
The processes now are purely mechanical. Water is introduced,
and by churning and draining alternately the acid solution is
washed out. Then the pulp passes, thinly spread, over sets of
screens that take out the coarsest of the impurities, brown flakes
of pith rays, uncooked knots, and bits of foreign matter.

Water streams over and through the screens, carrying the
fine white fibres with it. There is a wide, endless apron of linen,
like a gigantic roller towel, that revolves at right angles with
the screening tables. As the water pours over this the fibres
lodge on the cloth, and as the dripping, tightly stretched sheet
of linen passes between the two big steel rollers at the end the
filmy layer of fibres has most of the water squeezed out, and
adheres as a damp, matted sheet of cotton wool to the upper
wheel.

A continual winding of this coating of fibres thickens the
roll on the steel cylinder until it is like table felt of heavy quality.
The machinery need not stop while it is removed. A pocket
knife is run from end to end of the cylinder of steel. The next
revolution lays the white sheet of sulphite on the table in front of
the machine. The thin film on the steel is the beginning of another.

This is sulphite. It has the colour of unbleached linen or
muslin. In fact, it looks much like felt, its fibres being merely
pressed together — not woven. It is folded clumsily and stacked
for the present. In this form it dries gradually for use or ship-
ment later, or it may be used at once.

The Making of Paper. In this mill manufacture goes further
than in many. Sulphite is made into paper. Not the highest
grades, for the refuse of a woollen mill up stream pollutes the
water, so that an expensive system of filters would be required if
the manufacture of the better papers were attempted.

The first step in the process of paper making is to bring out
the rolls of sulphite and throw them into a tank with plenty of
water, A central revolving shaft bears heavy arms under water

546

Wooden Paper

that mix the contents of the tank into a uniform, pulpy consis-
tency. The motion is continuous and vigorous, giving the tank
its name — "the beater." This is the stage in paper making
where the character of the product is determined. Usually a
definite order limits both quality and quantity. Here colouring
is put in. "Fillers" of clay, talc or starch add consistency and
weight. "Sizing" of alum and rosin or of animal glue bind the
fibres and make the paper take a higher polish. There is a recipe
for each paper in the sample book. The beater corresponds to
the cook's mixing bowl in the kitchen.

From the beater the pulp is drawn off into the "stock chest,"
another vat with a slowly moving paddle that keeps the ingre-
dients thoroughly mixed. This is close to the paper machine,
and the liquid contents of it are screened again to take out still
smaller impurities, if the paper is required to be free from specks
and other small blemishes.

The Mill. The paper mill is long and narrow, with many
cylindrical rollers, some covered with revolving bands of cloth that
act as carriers — others of bare, shining steel. The fluid pulp that
drains through the screens falls on a moving sheet of bronze wire
netting, woven so fine that only the water goes through. This
netting is like the linen roller towel under the first screens — it is an
endless apron, and leads around the lower one of a pair of rollers,
bringing to them a thin but continuous layer of wet wood fibre.
The upper roller is wrapped with cloth, to which the film of fibres
sticks while the wire net turns back clean to the point of begin-
ning. Its sole duty is to bring the pulp to the first pair of rollers,
and there, giving it up, return for more. Pressed into a sheet
by the close-set rollers, the fibres cling to each other and give up
more water to the absorbent cloth. The sheet may now be
called paper. It gains strength and compactness as it is drawn
from one set of rollers to another; it ceases to drip water into the
trough below. Taut and firm it winds through a maze of a dozen
hot rollers, and the last sign of moisture rises in steam. Next it
goes through rollers called calendars, whose high pressure gives
the paper a polished surface almost equal to their own. Now
knives trim the margins, cut the sheet into required widths, and
wind it on wooden spools for market. The machine relinquishes
these to men who weigh and mark the spools and stack them aside.

There is need of but few men in a mill where the machinery

547

wooaen ±*aper

is so intelligent. They are needed when the sheet breaks, which
occasionally happen;. Ordinarily the machine makes pulp into
paper in an incredibly short time, and without help or guidance.
There seems to be no waste in this mill. The first screen-
ings are made into coarse wrapping paper such as hardware and
furniture are done up in. Though ugly and spotted, it is fairly
strong. The second screenings make a finer grade of paper.
The trimmings and broken sheets go back into the beater, and
come to the mill again as pulp. Each sort of waste accumulates,
waits its turn, and is in time converted into paper that matches
it in quality.

There is much paper making along our northern border,
and much grief that there is a duty that restricts the importation
of wood from the ample spruce forests of Canada. The American
paper makers would have the duty taken off their wood sup-
plies and laid on Canadian paper, sulphite, etc. This is "human
nature" — self interest.

The mills of northern New York are often highly specialised.
Paper mills all about Carthage get their sulphite and ground
wood from a single factory. A firm in Watertown makes exclu-
sively the coloured, super-calendered paper used for the covers of
magazines. There is a mill in Carthage which makes nothing
but tissue paper. It is a new mill and a growing business, but
its daily output already averages seventeen tons of marketable
product. Some of the largest mills make only wall papers. Others
make in vast quantities the paper on which the great dailies are
printed.

Certain woods are adapted to special uses. Our postal
cards are all made of the soft yellowish wood of the tulip tree,
also known as the tulip poplar or whitewood. Cottonwoods and
their relatives — the true poplars — likewise the basswoods or
lindens, make excellent paper. Their wood is white and soft
and the fibres are small and uniform in size.

A pulp mill or paper plant cannot be shifted from place to
place as a sawmill can. It is too elaborate and expensive. The
forests about it are soon stripped of suitable material, and then
the item of transportation of wood enters the expense account,
and adds greatly to the cost of pulp and paper. A Fond du Lac,
Wisconsin, mill, having exhausted its own woods, is now making
pulp out of spruce that grows on the mountains of Virginia.

548

PART IV
THE LIFE OF THE TREES

CHAPTER I: THE WORK OF THE LEAVES

The swift unfolding of the leaves in spring is always a miracle.
Dne day the budded twigs are still wrapped in the deep sleep of
winter. A trace of green appears about the edges of the bud
scales — they loosen and fall, and the tender green shoot looks
timidly out and begins to unfold its crumpled leaves. Soon the
delicate blade broadens and takes on the texture and familiar
appearance of the grown-up leaf. Behold ! while we watched the
single shoot the bare tree has clothed itself in the green canopy of
summer.

How can this miracle take place? How does the tree come
into full leaf, sometimes within a fraction of a week? It could
never happen except for the store of concentrated food that the
sap dissolves in spring and carries to the buds, and for the remark-
able activity of the cambium cells within the buds.

What is a bud? It is a shoot in miniature — its leaves or
flowers, or both, formed with wondrous completeness in the
previous summer. About its base are crowded leaves so hardened
and overlapped as to cover and protect the tender shoot. All the
tree can ever express of beauty or of energy comes out of these
precious little "growing points," wrapped up all winter, but
impatient, as spring approaches, to accept the invitation of the
south wind and sun.

The protective scale-leaves fall when they are no longer
needed. This vernal leaf fall makes little show on the forest
floor, but it greatly exceeds in number of leaves the autumnal
defoliation.

Sometimes these bud scales lengthen before the shoot spares
them. The silky, brown scales of the beech buds sometimes add
twice their length, thus protecting the lengthening shoot which
seems more delicate than most kinds, less ready to encounter
unguarded the wind and the sun. The hickories, shagbark and
mockernut, show scales more than three inches long.

Many leaves are rosy, or lilac tinted, when they open — the
waxy granules of their precious "leaf green" screened by these

55*

The Work of the Leaves

colored pigments from the full glare of the sun. Some leaves have
wool or silk growing like the pile of velvet on their surfaces. These
hairs are protective also. They shrivel or blow away when the
leaf comes to its full development. Occasionally a species retains
the down on the lower surface of its leaves, or, oftener, merely in
the angles of its veins.

The folding and plaiting of the leaves bring the ribs and veins
into prominence. The delicate green web sinks into folds between
and is therefore protected from the weather. Young leaves
hang limp, never presenting their perpendicular surfaces to
the sun.

Another protection to the infant leaf is the pair of stipules
at its base. Such stipules enclose the leaves of tulip and magnolia
trees. The beech leaf has two long strap-like stipules. Linden
stipules are green and red — two concave, oblong leaves, like the
two valves of a pea pod. Elm stipules are conspicuous. The
black willow has large, leaf-like, heart-shaped stipules, green as
the leaf and saw-toothed.

Most stipules shield the tender leaf during the hours of its
helplessness, and fall away as the leaf matures. Others persist,
as is often seen in the black willows.

With this second vernal leaf fall (for stipules are leaves) the
leaves assume independence, and take up their serious work.
They are ready to make the living for the whole tree. Nothing
contributed by soil or atmosphere — no matter how rich it is —
can become available for the tree's use until the leaves receive
and prepare it.

Every leaf that spreads its green blade to the sun is a labora-
tory, devoted to the manufacture of starch. It is, in fact, an
outward extension of the living cambium, thrust out beyond the
thick, hampering bark, and specialised to do its specific work
rapidly and effectively.

The structure of the leaves must be studied with a microscope.
This laboratory has a delicate, transparent, enclosing wall,
with doors, called stomates, scattered over the lower surface.
The "leaf pulp" is inside, so is the framework of ribs and veins,
that not only supports the soft tissues but furnishes the vascular
system by which an incoming and outgoing current of sap is kept
in constant circulation. In the upper half of the leaf, facing the
sun, the pulp is in "palisade cells," regular, oblong, crowded

552

The Work of the Leaves

together, and perpendicular to the flat surface. There are some-
times more than one layer of these cells.

In the lower half of the leafs thickness, between the palisade
cells and the under surface, the tissue is spongy. There is no
crowding of cells here. They are irregularly spherical, and cohere
loosely, being separated by ample air spaces, which communicate
with the outside world by the doorways mentioned above. An
ordinary apple leaf has about one hundred thousand of these
stomates to each square inch of its under surface. So the ventila-
tion of the leaf is provided for.

The food of trees comes from two sources — the air and the
soil. Dry a stick of wood, and the water leaves it. Burn it now,
and ashes remain. The water and the ashes came from the soil.
That which came from the air passed off in gaseous form with the
burning. Some elements from the soil also were converted by the
heat into gases, and escaped by the chimneys.

Take that same stick of wood, and, instead of burning it in
an open fireplace or stove, smother it in a pit and burn it slowly,
and it comes out a stick of charcoal, having its shape and size and
grain preserved. It is carbon, its only impurity being a trace of
ashes. What would have escaped up a chimney as carbonic-acid
gas is confined here as a solid, and fire can yet liberate it.

The vast amount of carbon which the body of a tree contains
came into its leaves as a gas, carbon dioxide. The soil furnished
various minerals, which were brought up in the "crude sap."
Most of these remain as ashes when the wood is burned. Water
comes from the soil. So the list of raw materials of tree food is
complete, and the next question is : How are they prepared for the
tree's use?

The ascent of the sap from roots to leaves brings water with
mineral salts dissolved in it. Thus potassium, calcium, mag-
nesium, iron, sulphur, nitrogen and phosphorus are brought to the
leaf laboratories — some are useful, some useless. The stream
of water contributes of itself to the laboratory whatever the leaf
cells demand to keep their own substance sufficiently moist, and
those molecules that are necessary to furnish hydrogen and oxygen
for the making of starch. Water is needed also to keep full the
channels of the returning streams, but the great bulk of water that
the roots send up escapes by evaporation through the curtained
doorways of the leaves.

553

The Work of the Leaves

Starch contains carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, the last two
in the exact proportion that they bear to each other in water,
H2O. The carbon comes in as carbon dioxide, CO2. There is no
lack of this familiar gas in the air. It is exhaled constantly from
the lungs of every animal, from chimneys and from all decaying
substances. It is diffused through the air, and, entering the leaves
by the stomates, comes in contact with other food elements in the
palisade cells.

The power that runs this starch factory is the sun. The
chlorophyll, or leaf green, which colours the clear protoplasm of the
cells, is able to absorb in daylight (and especially on warm, sunny
days) some of the energy of sunlight, and to enable the protoplasm
to use the energy thus captured to the chemical breaking down of
water and carbon dioxide, and the re-uniting of their free atoms
into new and more complex molecules. These are molecules of
starch, CeHioOs.

The new product in soluble form makes its way into the cur-
rent of nutritious sap that sets back into the tree. This is the
one product of the factory — the source of all the tree's growth — for
it is the elaborated sap, the food which nourishes every
living cell from leaf to root tip. It builds new wood layers,
extends both twigs and roots, and perfects the buds for the
coming year.

Sunset puts a stop to starch making. The power is turned
off till another day. The distribution of starch goes on. The
surplus is unloaded, and the way is cleared for work next day.
On a sunless day less starch is made than on a bright one.

Excess of water and of free oxygen is noticeable in this making
of starch. Both escape in invisible gaseous form through the
stomates. No carbon escapes, for it is all used up, and a con-
tinual supply of CO2 sets in from outside. We find it at last in
the form of solid wood fibres. So it is the leafs high calling to
take the crude elements brought to it, and convert them into food
ready for assimilation.

There are little elastic curtains on the doors of leaves, and
in dry weather they are closely drawn. This is to prevent the
free escape of water, which might debilitate the starch-making
cells. In a moist atmosphere the doors stand wide open. Evapo-
ration does not draw water so hard in such weather, and there is
no danger of excessive loss. "The average oak tree in its five

554

The Work of the Leaves

active months evaporates about 28,000 gallons of water" — an
average of about 187 gallons a day.

In the making of starch there is oxygen left over — just the
amount there is left of the carbon dioxide when the carbon is
seized for starch making. This accumulating gas passes into the
air as free oxygen, "purifying" it for the use of all animal life,
even as the absorption of carbon dioxide does.

When daylight is gone, the exchange of these two gases ceases.
There is no excess of oxygen nor demand for carbon dioxide until
business begins in the morning. But now a process is detected
that the day's activities had obscured.

The living tree breathes — inhales oxygen and exhales carbonic-
acid gas. Because the leaves exercise the function of respiration,
they may properly be called the lungs of trees. For the respira-
tion of animals differs in no essential from that of plants.

The bulk of the work of the leaves is accomplished before
midsummer. They are damaged by whipping in the wind, by
the ravages of fungi and insects of many kinds. Soot and dust
clog the stomates. Mineral deposits cumber the working cells.
Finally they become sere and russet or "die like the dolphin,"
passing in all the splendour of sunset skies to oblivion on the leaf
mould under the trees.

CHAPTER II : THE GROWTH OF A TREE

The great chestnut tree on the hillside has cast its burden
of ripe nuts, flung down the empty burs, and given its yellow
leaves to the autumn winds. Now the owner has cut down its
twin, which was too near a neighbour for the well-being of either,
and is converting it into lumber. The lopped limbs have gone
to the woodpile, and the boards will be dressed and polished and
used for the woodwork of the new house. Here is our opportunity
to see what the bark of the living tree conceals — to study the
anatomy of the tree — to learn something of grain, and wood rings
and knots.

The most amazing fact is that this "too, too solid flesh" of
the tree body was all made of dirty water and carbonic-acid gas.
Well may we feel a kind of awe and reverence for the leaves and
the cambium — the builders of this wooden structure we call a
tree. The bark, or outer garment, covers the tree completely,
from tip of farthest root to tip of highest twig. Under the bark
is the slimy, colourless living layer, the cambium, which we may
define as the separation between wood and bark. It seems to
have no perceptible diameter, though it impregnates with its
substance the wood and bark next to it. This cambium is a
continuous under garment, lining the bark everywhere, covering
the wood of every root and every twig as well as of the trunk
and all its larger divisions.

Under the cambium is the wood, which forms the real body
of the tree. It is a hard and fibrous substance, which in cross
section of root or trunk or limb or twig is seen to be in fine, but
distinctly marked, concentric rings about a central pith. This
pith is most conspicuous in the twigs.

Now, what does the chestnut tree accomplish in a single
growing season? We have seen its buds open in early spring
and watched the leafy shoots unfold. Many of these bore clus-
ters of blossoms in midsummer, long yellow spikes, shaking out
a mist of pollen, and falling away at length, while the incon-
spicuous green flowers developed into spiny, velvet-lined burs

556

The Growth of a Tree

that gave up in their own good time the nuts which are the seeds
of the tree.

The new shoots, having formed buds in the angles of their
leaves, rest from their labours. The tree had added to the height
and breadth of its crown the exact measure of its new shoots.
There has been no lengthening of limb or trunk But under-
ground the roots have made a season's growth by extending
their tips. These fresh rootlets clothed with the velvety root
hairs are new, just as the shoots are new that bear the leaves
on the ends of the branches.

There is a general popular impression that trees grow in height
by the gradual lengthening of trunk and limbs. If this were
true, nails driven into the trunk in a vertical line would gradually
become farther apart. They do not, as observation proves.
Fence wires stapled to growing trees are not spread apart nor
carried upward, though the trees may serve as posts for years,
and the growth in diameter may swallow up staple and wire in
a short time. Normal wood fibres are inert and do not lengthen.
Only the season's rootlets and leafy shoots are soft and alive and
capable of lengthening by cell division.

The work of the leaves has already been described. The
return current, bearing starch in soluble form, flows freely among
the cells of the cambium. Oxygen is there also. The cambium
cell in the growing season fulfils its life mission by absorbing food
and dividing. This is growth — and the power to grow comes
only to the cell attacked by oxygen. The rebuilding of its tissues
multiplies the substance of the cambium at a rapid rate. A cell
divides, producing two "daughter cells." Each is soon as large
as its parent, and ready to divide in the same way. A cambium
cell is a microscopic object, but in a tree there are millions upon
millions of them. Consider how large an area of cambium a
large tree has. It is exactly equivalent to the total area of its
bark. Two cells by dividing make four. The next division
produces eight, then sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, in geometric
proportion. The cell's power and disposition to divide seems
limited only by the food and oxygen supply. The cambium
layer itself remains a very narrow zone of the newest, most active
cells. The margins of the cambium are crowded with cells whose
walls are thickened and whose protoplasm is no longer active.
The accumulation of these worn-out cells forms the total of the

557

The Growth of a Tree

season's growth, the annual ring of wood on one side of the cam-
bium and the annual layer of bark on the other.

What was once a delicate cell now becomes a hollow wood
fibre, thin walled, but becoming thickened as it gets older. For
a few years the superannuated cell is a part of the sap wood and
is used as a tube in the system through which the crude sap
mounts to the leaves. Later it may be stored full of starch,
and the sap will flow up through newer tubes. At last the walls
of the old cell harden and darken with mineral deposits. Many
annual rings lie between it and the cambium. It has become a
part of the heart wood of the tree.

The cells of its own generation that were crowded in the
other direction made part of an annual layer of bark. As new
layers formed beneath them, and the bark stretched and cracked,
they lost their moisture by contact with the outer air. Finally
they became thin, loose bark fibres, and scaled off.

The years of a tree's life are recorded with fair accuracy in
the rings of its wood. The bark tells the same story, but the record
is lost by its habit of sloughing off the outer layers. Occasionally
a tree makes two layers of wood in a single season, but this is
exceptional. Sometimes, as in a year of drought, the wood ring
is so small as to be hardly distinguishable.

Each annual ring in the chestnut stump is distinct from
its neighbouring ring. The wood gradually merges from a dark
band full of large pores to one paler in colour and of denser texture.
It is very distinct in oak and ash. The coarser belt was formed
first. The spring wood, being so open, discolours by the accumu-
lation of dust when exposed to the air. The closer summer wood
is paler in colour and harder, the pores almost invisible to the
unaided eye. The best timber has the highest percentage of
summer wood.

If a tree had no limbs, and merely laid on each year a layer
of wood made of parallel fibres fitted on each other like pencils
in a box, wood splitting would be child's play and carpenters
would have less care to look after their tools. But woods differ
in structure, and all fall short of the woodworker's ideal. The
fibres of oak vary in shape and size. They taper and overlap
their ends, making the wood less easily split than soft pine, for
instance, whose fibres are regular cylinders, which lie parallel,
and meet end to end without "breaking joints."

558

The Growth of a Tree

Fibres of oak are also bound together by flattened bundles
of horizontal fibres that extend from pith to cambium, insinuated
between the vertical fibres. These are seen on a cross section of
a log as narrow, radiating lines starting from the pith and cutting
straight through heart wood and sap wood to the bark. A
tangential section of a log (the surface exposed by the removal
of a slab on any side) shows these "pith rays," or "medullary
rays" as long, tapering streaks. A longitudinal section made
from bark to centre, as when a log is "quarter-sawed" shows
a full side view of the "medullary rays." They are often an
inch wide or more in oak; these wavy, irregular, gleaming fibre
bands are known in the furniture trade as the "mirrors" of oak.
They take a beautiful polish, and are highly esteemed in cabinet
work. The best white oak has 20 per cent, to 25 per cent, of its
substance made up of these pith rays. The horny texture of its
wood, together with its strength and durability, give white oak
an enviable place among timber trees, while the beauty of its
pith rays ranks it high among ornamental woods.

The grain of wood is its texture. Wide annual rings with
large pores mark coarse-grained woods. They need "filling"
with varnish or other substance before they can be satisfactorily
polished. Fine-grained woods, if hard, polish best. Trees of
slow growth usually have fine-grained wood, though the rule is
not universal.

Ordinarily wood fibres are parallel with their pith. They
are straight grained. Exceptions to this rule are constantly
encountered. The chief cause of variation is the fact that tree
trunks branch. Limbs have their origin in the pith of the stems
that bear them. Any stem is normally one year older than the
branch it bears. So the base of any branch is a cone quite buried
in the parent stem. A cross section of this cone in a board
sawed from the trunk is a knot. Its size and number of rings
indicate its age. If the knot is diseased and loose, it will fall
out, leaving a knot hole. The fibres of the wood of a branch are
extensions of those just below it on the main stem. They spread
out so as to meet around the twig and continue in parallel lines
to its extremity. The fibres contiguous to those which were
diverted from the main stem to clothe the branch must spread
so as to meet above the branch, else the parent stem would be
bare in this quarter. The union of stem and branch is weak

S59

The Growth of a Tree

above, as is shown by the clean break made above a twig when
it is torn off, and the stubborn tearing of the fibres below down
into the older stem. A half hour spent at the woodpile or among
the trees with a jack-knife will demonstrate the laws by which
the straight grain of wood is diverted by the insertion of limbs.
The careful picking up and tearing back of the fibres of bark
and wood will answer all our questions. Basswood whose fibres
are tough is excellent for illustration.

When a twig breaks off, the bark heals the wound and the
grain becomes straight over the place. Trees crowded in a forest
early divest themselves of their lower branches. These die for
lack of sun and air, and the trunk covers their stubs with layers
of straight-grained wood. Such timbers are the masts of ships,
telegraph poles and the best bridge timbers. Yet buried in
their heart wood are the roots of every twig, great or small,
that started out to grow when the tree was young. These knots
are mostly small and sound, so they do not detract from the
value of the lumber. It is a pleasure to work upon such a "stick
of timber."

A tree that grows in the open is clothed to the ground with
branches, and its grain is found to be warped by hundreds of
knots when it reaches the sawmill. Such a tree is an ornament
to the landscape, but it makes inferior, unreliable lumber. The
carpenter and the wood chopper despise it, for it ruins tools and
tempers.

Beside the natural diversion of straight grain by knots,
there are some abnormal forms to notice. Wood sometimes
shows wavy grain under its bark. Certain trees twist in grow-
ing, so as to throw the grain into spiral lines. Cypresses and gum
trees often exhibit in old stumps a veering of the grain to the
left for a few years, then suddenly to the right, producing a
"cross grain" that defies attempts to split it. ^

"Bird's-eye" and "curly maple" are prizes for the furniture
maker. Occasionally a tree of swamp or sugar maple keeps
alive the crowded twigs of its sapling for years, and forms adven-
titious buds as well. These dwarfed shoots persist, never getting
ahead further than a few inches outside the bark. Each is the
centre of a wood swelling on the tree body. The annual layers
preserve all the inequalities. Dots surrounded by wavy rings
are scattered over the boards when the tree is sawed. This is

560

SILVER POPLAR (Populus alba)

GREAT-TOOTHED ASPEN NARROW-LEAVED
{Populus gratididentata) COTTONWOOD

(Populus angusti folia

COTTONWOOD (Populus Fremontit)

SWAMP COTTONWOOD (Populus heterophylla) '

BALM OF GILEAD (Populus balsam if era)

f*Rsr3&f;

THE COTTONWOOD (Populus deltoidea)

The quick-growing tree assumes i ignity with age, though wind breaks its limbs. The leaves keep fresh despite the smoK*
aid dust. The catkins appear before the leaves in March. On pistillate trees the seeds ripen in green balls, which open to r'ls-
charge their flurTv contents in May. The buds are sealed with wax. The wood is row being used for boxes

The Growth of a Tree

•ird's-eye grain, beautiful in pattern and in sheen and colouring
/hen polished. It is cut thin for veneer work. Extreme irreg-
ilarity of grain adds to the value of woods, if they are capable
if a high polish. The fine texture and colouring, combined
vith the beautiful patterns they display, give woods a place in
:he decorative arts that can be taken by no other material.

561

CHAPTER III: THE FALL OF THE LEAVES

It is November, and the glory of the woods is departed.
Dull browns and purples show where oaks still hold their leaves.
Beech trees in sheltered places are still dressed in pale yellow.
The elfin flowers of the witch hazel shine like threads of gold
against the dull leaves that still cling. The trees lapse into
their winter sleep.

Last week a strange thing happened. The wind tore the
red robes from our swamp maples and sassafras and scattered
them in tatters over the lawn. But the horse chestnut, decked
out in yellow and green, lost scarcely a leaf. Three days later,
in the hush of early morning, when there was not a whiff of a
breeze perceptible, the signal, "Let go!" came, and with one
accord the leaves of the horse chestnut fell. In an hour the
tree stood knee deep in a stack of yellow leaves; the few that
still clung had considerable traces of green in them. Gradually
these are dropping, and the shining buds remain as a pledge
that the summer story just ended will be told again next year.

Perhaps such a sight is more impressive if one realises the
vast importance of the work the leaves of a summer accomplish
for the tree before their surrender.

The shedding of leaves is a habit broad-leaved trees have
learned by experience in contact with cold winters. The swamp
magnolia is a beautiful evergreen tree in Florida. In Virginia
the leaves shrivel, but they cling throughout the season. In
New Jersey and north as far as Gloucester, where the tree occurs
sparingly, it is frankly deciduous. Certain oaks in the Northern
States have a stubborn way of clinging to their dead leaves all
winter. Farther south some of these species grow and their
leaves do not die in fall, but are practically evergreen, lasting
till next year's shoots push them oft. The same gradual change
in habit is seen as a species is followed up a mountain side.

The horse chestnut will serve as a type of deciduous trees.
Its leaves are large, and they write out, as if in capital letters,
the story of the fall of the leaf. It is a serial, whose chapters

562

<vi

S-^jB««ifc~,w**^'|SE^

\ r ^ <&.*&

Copyrigiu, 1905, by Doubleday, Page & Company

IG TREES IN THE GIANT FOREST OF THE SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK
CALIFORNIA (Sequoia W ellingtonia)

The Fall of the Leaves

run from July until November. The tree anticipates the com-
ing of winter. Its buds are well formed by midsummer. Even
then signs of preparation for the leaf fall appear. A line around
the base of the leaf stem indicates where the break will be. Corky
cells form on each side of this joint, replacing tissues which in
the growing season can only be parted by breaking or tearing
them forcibly. A clean-cut zone of separation weakens the hold
of the leaf upon its twig, and when the moment arrives the light-
est breath of wind — even the weight of the withered leaf itself —
causes the natural separation. And the leaflets simultaneously
fall away from their common petiole.

There are more important things happening in leaves in
late summer than the formation of corky cells. The plump green
blades are full of valuable substance that the tree can ill afford
to spare. In fact, a leaf is a layer of the precious cambium
spread out on a framework of veins and covered with a delicate,
transparent skin — a sort of etherealised bark. What a vast quan-
tity of leaf pulp is in the foliage of a large tree !

As summer wanes, and the upward tide of sap begins to
fail, starch making in the leaf laboratories declines proportion-
ately. Usually before midsummer the fresh green is dimmed.
Dust and heat and insect injuries impair the leafs capacity for
work. The thrifty tree undertakes to withdraw the leaf pulp
before winter comes.

But how?

It is not a simple process nor is it fully understood. The
tubes that carried the products of the laboratory away are bound
up with the fibres of the leafs skeleton. Through the transparent
leaf wall the migration of the pulp may be watched. It leaves
the margins and the net veins, and settles around the ribs and
mid vein, exactly as we should expect. Dried and shrivelled
horse-chestnut leaves are still able to show various stages in this
Tiarvellous retreat of the cambium. If moisture fails, the leaf
bears some of its green substance with it to the earth. The
" breaking down of the chlorophyll" is a chemical change that
attends the ripening of a leaf. (Leaf ripening is as natural as
the ripening of fruit.) The waxy granules disintegrate, and a
yellow liquid shows its colours through the delicate leaf walls.
Now other pigments, some curtained from view by the chlorophyll,
others the products of decomposition, show themselves. Iron and

563

The Fall of the Leaves

other minerals the sap brought from the soil contribute reds
and yellows and purples to the colour scheme. As drainage
proceeds, with the chemical changes that accompany it, the
pageant of autumn colours passes over the woodlands. No
weed or grass stem but joins in the carnival of the year.

Crisp and dry the leaves fall. Among the crystals and
granules that remain in their empty chambers there is little but
waste that the tree can well afford to be rid of — substances that
have clogged the leaf and impeded its work.

We have been mistaken in attributing the gay colours of
autumnal foliage to the action of frost. The ripening of the
leaves occurs in the season of warm days and frosty nights, but
it does not follow that the two phenomena belong together as
cause and effect. Frost no doubt hastens the process. But
the chemical changes that attend the migration of the carbohy-
drates and albuminous materials from the leaf back into twig
and trunk and root for safe keeping go on no matter what the
weather.

In countries having a moist atmosphere autumn colours
are less vivid. England and our own Pacific coast have nothing
to compare with the glory of the foliage in the forests of Canada
and the Northeastern States, and with those on the wooded
slopes of the Swiss Alps, and along the Rhine and the Danube.
Long, dry autumns produce the finest succession of colours. The
most brilliant reds and yellows often appear long before the first
frost. Cold rains of long duration wash the colours out of the
landscape, sometimes spoiling everything before October. A
sharp freeze before the leaves expect it often cuts them off before
they are ripe. They stiffen and fall, and are wet and limp next
day, as if they had been scalded ; all their rich cell substance lost
to the tree, except as they form a mulch about its roots. But
no tree can afford so expensive a fertiliser, and happily they are
not often caught unawares.

Under the trees the dead leaves lie, forming with the snow
a protective blanket for the roots. In spring the rains will leach
out their mineral substance and add it to the soil. The abundant
lime in dead leaves is active in the formation of humus, which
is decayed vegetable matter. We call it "leaf mould." So
even the waste portions have their effectual work to do for
the tree's good.

564

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How Trees Speud the Winter

The bark protects the cambium, and the cambium is the
tissue which by cell multiplication in the growing season produces
the yearly additions of wood and bark. Buds are growing points
set along the twigs. They produce leafy shoots, as a rule Some
are specialised to produce flowers and subsequently fruits Leaves
are extensions of cambium spread in the sun and air in the season
when there is no danger from frosts. The leaves have been

frn^h Tmfhu °f a T- They reCeive crude materials
from the soil and the air and transmute them into starch under

the action o sunlight. This elaborated sap supplies the hungry
cambium cells during the growing season, and the excess of
starch made in the leaf laboratories is stored away in empty
wood eel s and in every available space from bud to root tin
from bark to pith. v'

U i JJ6 t ^reeS fperiodI.of S^1^ activity * the early summer.
It is the time of growth and of preparation for the coming winter
and for the spring that follows it. Winter is the time of rest-K>f
sleep or hibernation. A bear digs a hollow under the tree's roots
and sleeps ,„ ,t all winter, waking in the spring. In many ways
the tree imitates the bear. Dangerous as are analogies between
plants and animals it is literally true that the sleeping bear and
the dormant tree have each ceased to feed. The sole activity
ot each seems to be the quiet breathing

Do trees really breathe? As truly 'a„d as incessantly as you

£ath* "! ^ °ther pr°CeSSeS are intermittent, but

breath ng must go on, day and night, winter and summer, as long
as life lasts Breathing is low in winter. The tree is not growing
There is only the necessity of keeping it alive

Leaves are the lungs of plants. In the growing season
respirat.on goes on at a vigorous rate. The learn also SZ
off in insensible vapour a vast quantity of water. This is called
transptraUon in plants; in animals the term used is PersptmSn
They are one and the same process. An average white^k t£
throwsoff. 50 gallons of water in a single summer day Wkh thT

SChewatersupply at the roots in Iatefall> ^t£

closin^V1? ^ tHe effldent "tWrd lunS" of ™™^- The
closing of its pores causes immediate suffocation. The ba- ~

leatr rTT5 °n thC W°rk °f reSpirati0n in the abs«nce of tl
leaves. Bark is porous, even where it is thickest.

567

How Trees Spend the Winter

Look at the twigs of half a dozen kinds of trees, and find
the little raised dots on the smooth surface. They usually vary
in colour from the bark. These are lenticels, or breathing pores —
not holes, likely to become clogged with dust, but porous, corky
tissue that filters the air as it comes in. In most trees the smooth
epidermis of twigs is shed as the bark thickens and breaks into
furrows. This obscures, though it does not obliterate, the air
passages. Cherry and birch trees retain the silky epidermal
bark on limbs, and in patches, at least, on the trunks of old trees.
Here the lenticels are seen as parallel, horizontal slits, open
sometimes, but usually filled with the characteristic corky sub-
stance. They admit air to the cambium.

There is a popular fallacy that trees have no buds until
spring. Some trees have very small buds. But there is no tree
in our winter woods that will not freely show its buds to anyone
who wishes to see them. A very important part of the summer
work of a tree is the forming of buds for next spring. Even
when the leaves are just unfolding, on the tender shoots a bud
will be found in each angle between leaf and stem. All summer
long its bud is the especial charge of each particular leaf. If
accident destroys the leaf, the bud dies of neglect. When mid-
summer comes the bud is full grown, or nearly so, and the fall of
the leaf is anticipated. The thrifty tree withdraws as much as
possible of the rich green leaf pulp, and stores it in the twig to
feed the opening buds in spring.

What is there inside the wrappings of a winter bud ? "A
leaf," is the usual reply — and it is not a true one. A bud is an
embryo shoot — one would better say, a shoot in miniature. It
has very little length or diameter when the scales are stripped
off. But with care the leaves can be spread open, and their
shape and venation seen. The exact number the shoot was to
bear are there to be counted. Take a horse-chestnut bud
— one of the biggest ones — and you will unpack a cluster
of flowers distinct in number and in parts. The bud of the
tulip tree is smaller, but it holds a single blossom, and
petals, stamens and pistil are easily recognisable. Some buds
contain flowers and no leaves. Some have shoots with both
upon them. If we know the tree, we may guess accurately
about its buds.

There is another popular notion, very pretty and sentimental,

568

How Trees Spend the Winter

ut untrue, that study of buds is bound to overthrow. It is the

>elief that the woolly and silky linings of bud scales, and the

cales themselves, and the wax that seals up many buds are all for

he purpose of keeping the bud warm through the cold winter.

he bark, according to the same notion, is to keep the tree warm.

This idea is equally untenable. There is but feeble analogy

)etween a warm-blooded animal wrapped in fur, its bodily heat

cept up by fires within (the rapid oxidation of fats and carbo-

rydrates in the tissues), and the winter condition of a tree.

-lardy plants are of all things the most cold blooded. They are

defended against injuries from cold in an effective but entirely

different way.

Exposure to the air and consequent loss of its moisture by
evaporation is the death of the cambium — that which lies under
the thick bark and in the tender tissues of the bud, sealed up in its
layers of protecting scales.

The cells of the cambium are plump little masses of proto-
plasm, semi-fluid in consistency in the growing season. They
have plenty of room for expansion and division. Freezing
would rupture their walls, and this would mean disintegration and
death. Nature prepares the cells to be frozen without any
harm. The water of the protoplasm is withdrawn by osmosis
into the spaces between the cells. The mucilaginous substance
left behind is loosely enclosed by the crumpled cell wall. Thus
we see that a tree has about as much water in it in winter as in
summer. Green wood cut in winter burns slowly and oozes
water at the ends in the same discouraging way as it does in
summertime.

A tree takes on in winter the temperature of the surrounding
air. In cold weather the water in buds and trunk and cambium
freezes solid. Ice crystals form in the intercellular spaces
where they have ample room, and so they do no damage
in their alternate freezing and thawing. The protoplasm
stiffens in excessive cold, but when the thermometer rises,
life stirs again. Motion, breathing and feeding are essential
to cell life.

It is hard to believe that buds freeze solid. But cut one
open in a freezing cold room, and before you breathe upon it take
a good look with a magnifier, and you should make out the ice
crystals. The bark is actually frozen upon a stick of green stove

569

How Trees Spend the Winter

wood. The sap that oozes out of the pith and heart wood was
frozen, and dripped not at all until it was brought indoors.

What is meant by the freezing of fruit buds in winter, by
which the peach crop is so often lost in Northern States? When
spring opens, the warmth of the air wakes the sleeping buds. It
thaws the ice in the intercellular spaces, and the cells are quick
to absorb the water they gave up when winter approached.
The thawing of the ground surrounds the roots with moisture.
Sap rises and flows into the utmost twig. Warm days in January
or February are able to deceive the tree to this extent. The
sudden change back to winter again catches them. The plump
cells are ruptured and killed by the " frost bite."

It is a bad plan to plant a tender kind of tree on the south
side of a house or a wall. The direct and the reflected warmth of
the sun forces its buds out too soon, and the late frosts cut them
off. There is rarely a good yield on a tree so situated.

There is no miracle like "the burst of spring." Who has
watched a tree by the window as its twigs began to shine in
early March, and the buds to swell and show edges of green as
their scales lengthened? Then the little shoot struggled out,
casting off the hindering scales with the scandalous ingratitude
characteristic of infancy. Feeble and very appealing are the limp
baby leaves on the shoot, as tender and pale green as asparagus
tips. But all that store of rich nutritive material is backing the
enterprise. The palms are lifted into the air; they broaden and
take on the texture of the perfect, mature leaf. Scarcely a day
is required to outgrow the hesitation and inexperience of youth.
The tree stands decked in its canopy of leaves, every one of which
is ready and eager to assume the responsibilities it faces. The
season of starch making has opened.

Cut some twigs of convenient trees in winter. Let them be
good ones, with vigorous buds, and have them at least two feet
long. You may test this statement I have made about the storing
of food in the twigs, and the one about the unfolding of the leafy
shoots. Get a number of them from the orchard — samples from
cherry, plum and apple trees; from maple and elm and any
other familiar tree. Put them in jars of water and set them where
they get the sun on a convenient window shelf. Give them
plenty of water, and do not crowd them. It is not necessary to
change the water, but cutting the ends slanting and under water

570

How Trees Spend the Winter

every few days insures the unimpeded flow of the water up the
stems and the more rapid development of the buds you are
watching When spring comes there are too many things that
demand attention. The forcing of winter buds while yet it is
winter is the ideal way to discover the trees' most precious secrets.

S71

Date Due

All library items are subject to recall at any time.

MAH 1 0 ZU09

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Full text of "The tree book; a popular guide to a knowledge of the trees of North America and to their uses and cultivation"

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