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TREES WORTH KNOWING
.. BEND IN ilii. lU.UL
Little Nature Library
TREES
WORTH KNOWING
By JUIIA ELLEN ROGERS
{Author of The Tree Book, The Tree Guide, Trees
Every Child Should Know, The Book of Useful
. Flants» The Shell Book, etc., etc.)
With forty-eight illustrations, sixteen being in color
rmST FR-^n'^TTEITTAN CHURCH
WEbli IKLD, NEW YORK ^-"
PUBLISHED BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
FOR
NELSON DOUBLEDAY. Inc.
1922
Copyright, 1917, by
DOUBLEDAY, PaGE & CoMPANT
Atl rights reserved, including that of
translation into foreign languages^
induding the Scandinavian
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE JPRESS, GARDEN CITV, N. Y.
CONTENTS
VAom
Introduction xi
PARTI
The Life OF THE Trees 5
PART II
The Nut Trees «S
The Walnuts; The Hickories; The Beech; The
Chestnuts; The Oaks; The Horse-chestnuts; The
Lindens
PART III
Water-loving Trees 75
The Poplars; The W^illows; The Hornbeams; The
Birches; The Alders; The Sycamores; The Gum
Trees; The Osage Orange
PART IV
Trees With Shoavy Flowers AND Fruits . . . 101
The Magnolias; The Dogwoods; The Vibur-
nums; The Mountain Ashes; The Rhododendron;
The Mountain Laurel; The Madrona; The Sorrel
Tree; The Silver Bell Trees; The Sweet Leaf; The
Fringe Twja; The Laurel Family; The Witch
vi CONTENTS
PACaB
Hazel; The Burning Bush; The Sumachs; The
Smoke Tree; The Holhes
PART V
Wild Relatives OF Our Orchard Trees . . . 147
The Apples; The Plums; The Cherries; The
Hawthorns; The Service-berries; The Hackberries;
The Mulberries; The Figs; The Papaws; The
Pond Apples; The Persimmons
PART VI
The Pod-bearing Trees 176
The Locusts; The Acacias; Miscellaneous Species
PART VII
Deciduous Trees with Winged Seeds .... 193
The Maples; The Ashes; The Ehns
PART vm
The Cone-bearing Evergreens 217
The Pines; The Spruces; The Firs; The Douglas
Spruce; The Hemlocks; The Sequoias; The Arbor-
vitaes; The Incense Cedar; The Cypresses; The
Junipers; The Larches
PART IX
The Palms 280
General Index 283
LIST OF COLORED ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Canoe or Paper Birch On Cover
A Bend in the Trail Frontispiece
Shagbark Hickory 6
MocKERNUT Fruit and Leaves 7
A Grove of Beeches 22
Chestnut Tree 23
Weeping Beech 30
Black Walnut 31
White Oak 38
Bur or Mossy-cup Oak Leaves and Fruit . . 39
Horse-chestnut in Blossom 54
Weeping Willow 55
Tulip Tree, Flower and Leaves 103
Flowering Dogwood 118
American Elm 215
Eastern Red Cedars and Hickory .... 230
LIST OF OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Black Walnut Shoots 70
Shagbark Hickory 71
American Linden Leaves and Fruit ... 86
Trembling Aspen Catkins and Leaves . . 86-87
Pussy Willow Flowers 86-87
American Hornbeam — A Fruiting Branch . 87
The Tattered, Silky Bark of the Birches 102
Sycamore Bark and Seed-balls .... 102-103
Bark, Seeds, and Seed-balls of the Sweet
Gmi 102-103
Osage Orange Leaves, AND Flowers ... 119
Dogwood Bark, Blossom, Fruit, and Buds 134
Mountain Ash Flowers and Leaves ... 135
Sassafras Flowers, Fruit, and Leaves . . 150
Foliage and Flowers of the Smooth Slmach 150-151
Buds, Leaves, and Fruit of the Wild Crab-
apple 150-151
Canada Plum — Flowers and Trunk ... 151
Wild Black Cherry — Flowers and Fruit 166
Fruiting Branch of Cockspur Thorn . . 167
Service-berry Tree in Blossom .... 182
Hackberry — Flowers, Fruit, and Leaves 183
ix
X LIST OF OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Honey Locust's Trunk, and Black Locust's
Flowers AND Leaves 198
Sugar Maple 19&-199
Red IMaple Flowers 198-199
Seed Keys and New Leaves of Soft or
Silver Maple 199
White Ash Buds and Flowers .... 214
A Group of White Pines 214-215
Shortleaf Pine Cones and Needles . . . 214-215
The Sugar Pine 231
Leaves and Cones of Hemlock and of Nor-
way Spruce 243
Blu-^ck Spruce Cones and Needles . . . 247
Spray of Arbor- vitae 262
American Larch Cones and Needles . . 263
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
OcxjASioNALLY I meet a person who says : "I know noth-
ing 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: "Everybody knows a white birch by
its bark." "Of course, anybody who has ever been chest-
nutting knows a chestnut tree." Most people know Lom-
bardy poplars, those green exclamation points so com-
monly planted in long soldierly rows on roadsides and
boundary hues in many parts of the country. Willows,
too, everybody knows are willows. The best nut trees,
the shagbark, chestnut, and butternut, need no formal in-
troduction. The honey locust has its striking three-
pronged thorns, and its purple pods dangling in win-
ter and skating off over the snow. The beech has its
smooth, close bark of Quaker gray, 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
xiv INTRODUCTION
command. If there is energy to begin the midertaking it will
soon furnish its own motive power. Tree students, like
bird students, become enthusiasts. To understand their
enthusiasm one must follow their examples.
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 foreign, 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 botani-
cal 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 to his work, and woods
for his holiday, though they need not be forests. Arboreta
are for his delight when he has gained some acquaintance
\\ath 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 plan of the yard, locating and naming the
trees you actually know. Extend it to include the street,
and the neighbors' yards, as you get ready for them. Be
very careful 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 f ounda-
INTRODUCTION xv
tion, 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 prominent. 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 arrangement 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 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 recognizable by its mottled appearance winter
or summer. The corky ridges on limbs of sweet gmn and
xvi INTRODUCTION
bur oak are easily remembered traits. The peculiar hori-
zontal 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 dis-
cover 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 glow-
ing 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."
INTRODUCTION xvii
Tree Names
Two Latin words, written in italics, with a cabalistic
abbreviation set after them, are a stumbling block on the
page to the reader unaccustomed to scientific lore. He re-
sents 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.
Thej^ are found in Europe, Asia, and America. Their use-
fulness 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 different kinds, they added a
descriptive word to the name of each. But "plain
English" is not useful to the Frenchman. Chene is his
name for the acorn trees. The German has his Eiclien'
baum, the Roman had his Quercus, and who knows what
the Chinaman and the H ndoo in far Cathay or the Ameri-
can 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 un-
changed in its vocabulary and in its forms and usages.
Scientific names are exact, and remain unchanged, though
xviii INTRODUCTION
an article or a book using them may be translated into all
the modern languages. The word Quercus clears awa/
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
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
unreliable : 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 iVmeri-
can forests. They belong, with two exceptions, to differ-
ent 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 applied 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 wTiter 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 meaning-
INTRODUCTION xix
less, or vulgar. Nicknames like nigger pine, lie 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 inter-
esting histories, and the good ones are full of helpful sug-
gestion 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 differ-
ent species of each group were distinguished by the descrip-
tions 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 monumental work, became the foundation of
the modern science of botany, for it included all the plants
known and named up to the time of its publication. This
was about the middle of the eighteenth century.
The vast body of information which the "SjDecies
Plantarum" contained was systematically arranged. All
the different species in one genus were brought together.
They w^ere described, each under a number; and an
adjective word, usually descriptive of some marked char-
acteristic, 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 con-
venient 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,
XX INTRODUCTION
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, wko
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 Mag-
nolia, named in honor of the great French botanist, Mag-
nol. Robinia, the locust, honors another French botanist,
Robin, and his son. Kalmia, the beautiful mountain
laurel, immortahzes the name of the devoted explorer who
discovered it.
Inevitably, duplication of names attended the work
of the early scientists, isolated from each other, and
far from libraries and herbaria. Any one discovering a
plant he believed to be unknown to science published a
description of it in some scientific journal. If some one
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
supplied. In the "Cyclopedia of Horticulture" the sugar
maple is written : ^^ Acer saccharum, ISlsmsh.. (Acer sacch-
arinumy 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.
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
INTRODUCTION xxi
the American 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 Negimdo, 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 densifiora, 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 beheve 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 con-
stantly being described. Professor Sargent described 567
native species in his "Silva of North America," published
1892-1900. His Manual, 1905, contains 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 piflon and madrofia in the
southwest. Pecanier and bois d'arc came with many other
French names with the Acadians to Louisiana. The In-
dians had many trees named, and we wisely kept hickory,
wahoo, catalpa, persimmon, and a few others of them.
Woodsmen have generally chosen descriptive names
xxii INTRODUCTION
which are based on fact and are helpful to learners. Bot-
anists have done this, too. Bark gives the names to shag-
bark hickor}^ striped maple, and naked wood. The color
names white birch, black locust, blue beech. Wood names
red oak, yellow-wood, and white-heart hickory. The tex-
ture names rock elm, punk oak, and soft pine. The uses
name post oak, canoe birch, and lodge-pole pine.
The tree habit is described by dwarf juniper and weeping
spruce. The habitat by swamp maple, desert willow, and
seaside alder. The range by California white oak and
Georgia pine. Sap is characterized in sugar maple, sweet
gum, balsam fir, and sweet birch. Twigs are indicated in
clammy locust, cotton gum, winged elm. Leaf hnings are
referred to in silver maple, white poplar, and white bass-
wood. Color of fohage, in gray pine, blue oak, and golden
^, Shape of leaves, in heart-leaved cucumber tree and
ear-leaved umbrella. Resemblance of leaves to other
species, in willow oak and parsley haw. The flowers of
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 be-
come the generic botanical ones, as acacia, ailanthus, and
viburnum. Others modify these slightly, as pine from
Finns, 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
INTRODUCTION xxiii
silly and pedantic, even if it falls on scientific ears. Only
persons of very shallow scientific learning use it on such in-
formal occasions.
Let us keep the most beautiful and fitting among com-
mon names, and work for their general adoption. There
are no hard names once they become familiar ones. No-
body hesitates or stumbles over chrysanthemum and
rhododendron, though these sonorous Greek derivatives
have four syllables. Nobody asks what these names are
"in plain English."
TREES WORTH KNOWING
TREES
PART I
THE LIFE OF THE TREES
The swift unfolding of the leaves in spring is always a
miracle. One 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 remarkable 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
3
4 TREES
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 mockemut, 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 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 de-
velopment. 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 con-
cave, oblong leaves, like the two valves of a pea pod. Elm
THE LIFE OF THE TREES 5
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
laboratory, 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 special-
ized 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
together, and perpendicular to the flat surface. There are
sometimes more than one layer of these cells.
In the lower half of the leaf's thickness, between the pal-
isade 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
>
6 TREES
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 ventilation 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.
Bum it now, and ashes remain. The water aad 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 es~
caped 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
fist 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, magnesium, iron, sulphur, nitrogen, and phos-
phorus ai-e brought to the leaf laboratories — some are use-
ful, some useless. The stream of water contributes of
itself to the laboratory whatever the leaf cells demand to
See page S7
S1IAG15AHK IIK'KORY
MOCKEBNUT FRUIT AND LEAVES
See page 40
THE LIFE OF THE TREES 7
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.
Starch contains carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, the last
two in the exact proportion that they bear to each other in
water, H-0. The carbon comes in as carbon dioxide,
CO-. 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 colors 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 reuniting of their free atoms into new and more
complex molecules. These are molecules of starch, C^H ^®0^ .
The new product in soluble form makes its way into the
current 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 per-
fects the buds for the coming year.
Sunset puts a stop to starch making. The power is
turned off till another dav. The distribution of starch
8 TREES
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 continual supply of CO^ sets in from outside.
We find it at last in the form of solid wood fibres. So it is
the leaf's 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. Evaporation does not draw water so
hard in such weather, and there is no danger of excessive
loss. "The average oak tree in its five 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 func-
THE LIFE OF THE TREES 9
tion of respiration, they may properly be called the lungs
of trees, for the respiration of animals differs in no es-
sential 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 splendor
of sunset skies to oblivion on the leaf mould under the
trees.
TJie Groivth of a Tree
The great chestnut tree on the hillside has cast its bur-
den of ripe nuts, flung down the empty burs, and given its
yellow leaves to the autumn winds. Now the owner has
cut dowTi its twin, which was too near a neighbor for the
wxll-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 woodw^ork 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 tliis "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 gar-
ment, covers the tree completely, from tip of farthest root
to tip of highest twig. Under the bark is the slimy,
colorless living layer, the cambium, which we may define as.
10 TREES
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 undergarment, Hning 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 clusters of blossoms in midsumm.er, long yellow
spikes, shaking out a mist of pollen, and falling away at
length, while the inconspicuous green flowers developed
into spiny, velvet-lined burs 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 labors. 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 underground the roots have made a season's
grov/th 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
THE LIFE OF THE TREES 11
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 mis-
sion 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 sub-
stance of the qambium 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 cam-
bium cell is a microscopic object, but in a tree there are
milKons 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 season's growth, the annual ring of
wood on one side of the cambium and the annual layer of
\ark on the other.
^
12 TREES
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 be-
tween 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 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 neighboring ring. The wood gradually merges from a
dark band full of large pores to one paler in color and of
denser texture. It is very distinct in oak and ash. The
coarser belt was formed first. The spring wood, being so
open, discolors by the accumulation of dust when exposed
to the air. The closer summer wood is paler in color and
harder, the pores almost invisible to the unaided eye. The
best timber has the highest percentage of summer wood.
THE LIFE OF THE TREES IS
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."
Fibres of oak are also bound together by flattened
bundles of horizontal fibres that extend from pith to cam-
bium, 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 w-ide or more in oak; these wavy, irregular, gleam-
ing fibre bands are know^n 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
14 TREES
"filling" with varnish or other substance before they can
be satisfactorily poKshed. 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 con-
stantly encountered. The cliief 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 nor-
mally 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 above, as is shown by the clean
break made above a twig when it is torn off, and the stub-
born 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. Bass wood 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
THE LIFE OF THE TREES 15
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 arc 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.
Besides the natural diversion of straight grain by knots,
there are some abnormal forms to notice. Wood some-
times shows wavy grain under its bark. Certain trees
twist in growing, 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 sud-
denly to the right, producing a "cross grain" that defies
attempts to split it.
"BirdVeye" 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 adventitious 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 bod}^ The annual layers preserve all
the inequalities. Dots surrounded by wavy rings are
16 TREES
scattered over the boards when the tree is sawed. This is
bird's-eye grain, beautiful in pattern and in sheen and
coloring when polished. It is cut thin for veneer work.
Extreme irregularity of grain adds to the value of woods, if
they are capable of a high polish. The fine texture and
coloring, combined with the beautiful patterns they dis-
play, give woods a place in the decorative arts that can be
taken by no other material.
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 con-
siderable 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 realizes the
vast importance of the work the leaves of a summer ac-
complish for the tree before their surrender.
The shedding of leaves is a habit broad-leaved trees have
THE LIFE OF THE TREES 17
learned by experience in contact with cold winters. The
swamp magnoha 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 Glouces-
ter, 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 off. 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 run from July until November. The
tree anticipates the coming 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 wdll be. Corky cells form
on each side of this joint, replacing tissues which in the
growing season can be parted only by breaking or tearing
them forcibly. A clean-cut zone of separation weakens the
hold of the leaf upon its twig, and w^hen the moment arrives
the lightest breath of wind — even the weight of the with-
ered leaf itself — causes the natural separation. And the
leaflets simultaneously fall away from their common pet-
iole.
There rre 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
18 TREES
with a delicate, transparent skin — a sort of etherealized
bark. What a vast quantity 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 pro-
portionately. Usually before midsummer the fresh green
is dimmed. Dust and heat and insect injuries impair the
leaf's 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 leaf's 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 marvellous 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 at-
tends the ripening of a leaf. (Leaf ripening is as natural as
the ripening of fruit.) The waxy granules disintegrate,
and a j^ellow liquid shows its colors through the delicate
leaf walls. Now other pigments, some curtained from
view by the chlorophyll, others the products of decom-
position, show themselves. Iron and other minerals the
sap brought from the soil contribute reds and yellows and
purples to the color scheme. As drainage proceeds, with
the chemical changes that accompany it, the pageant of
autumn colors passes over the woodlands. No weed or
grass stem but joins in the carnival of the year.
THE LIFE OF THE TREES 19
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 — sub-
stances that have clogged the leaf and impeded its work.
We have been mistaken in attributing the gay colors of
autumnal foKage 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 be-
long together as cause and effect. Frost no doubt hastens
the process. But the chemical changes that attend the
migration of the carbohydrates 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
colors 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 colors. The most brilliant reds and
yellows often appear long before the first frost. Cold rains
of long duration wash the colors 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 sub-
stance lost to the tree, except as they form a mulch about
its roots. But no tree can afford so expensive a fertilizer,
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
20 TREES
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.
The leaves of certain trees in regions of mild winters per-
sist until tiiey are pushed off by the swelling buds in spring.
Others cling a year longer, in sorry contrast with the new
foliage. Yve may believe that this is an indolent habit in-
duced by climatic conditions.
Leaves of evergreens cling from three to five years.
Families and individuals differ; altitude and latitude pro-
duce variations. An evergreen in winter is a dull-looking
object, if we could compare it with its summer foliage. Its
chlorophyll granules withdraw from the surface of the leaf.
They seek the lower ends of the palisade cells, as far as
they can get from the leaf surface, assume a dull reddish
brown or brownish yellow color, huddle in clumps, their
water content greatly reduced, and thus hibernate, much as
the cells of the cambium are doing under the bark. In
this condition, alternate freezing and thawing seem to do
no harm, and the leaves are ready in spring to resume the
starch-making function if they are still young. Naturally,
the oldest leaves are least capable of this work, and least is
expected of them. Gradually they die and drop as new
ones come on. As among broad-leaved trees, the zone of
foliage in evergreens is an outer dome of newest shoots ; the
framework of large limbs is practically destitute of leaves.
How Trees Spend the Winter
Nine out of every ten intelligent people will see nothing
of interest in a row of bare trees. They casually state that
buds are made in the early spring. They miss seeing the
THE LIFE OF THE TREES 21
strength and beauty of tree architecture which the foKage
conceals in summertime. The close-knit, alive-looking
bark of a living tree they do not distinguish from the dull,
loose-hung garment worn by the dead tree in the row. All
trees look alike to them in winter.
Yet there is so much to see if only one will take time to
look. Even the most heedless are struck at times wdth the
mystery of the winter trance of the trees. They know that
each spring reenacts the vernal miracle. Thoughtful
people have put questions to these sphinx-like trees.
Secrets the bark and bud scales hide have been revealed to
those who have patiently and importunately inquired. A
keen pair of eyes used upon a single elm in the dooryard for
a whole year will surprise and inform the observer. It will
be indeed the year of miracle.
A tree has no centre of life, no vital organs correspond-
ing to those of animals. It is made up, from twig to root,
of annual, concentric layers of wood around a central pith.
It is completely covered with a close garment of bark,
also made of annual layers. Between bark and wood is the
delicate undergarment of living tissue called cambium.
This is disappointing when one comes to look for it, for all
there is of it is a colorless, slimy substance that moistens
the youngest layers of wood and bark, and forms the layer
of separation between them. This cambium is the life of
the tree. A hollow trunk seems scarcely a disability.
The loss of limbs a tree can survive and start afresh. But
girdle its trunk, exposing a ring of the cambium to the air,
and the tree dies. The vital connection of leaves and
roots is destroyed by the girdling; nothing can save the
tree's Hfe. Girdle a limb or a twig and all above the in-
jury suffers practical amputation.
22 TREES
The bark protects the cambium, and the cambium is th«
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 specialized 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
called the stomachs of a tree. They receive crude ma-
terials from the soil and the air and transmute them into
starch under the action of sunlight. This elaborated sap
supplies the hungry cambium cells during the growing
season, and the excess of starch made in the leaf labora-
tories is stored away in empty wood cells and in every
available space from bud to root tip, from bark to pith.
The tree's period of greatest activity is the early sum-
mer. It is the time of growi:h and of preparation for the
coming winter and for the spring that follows it. YV^inter
is the time of rest — of sleep, or hibernation. A bear digs
a hollow under the tree's roots and sleeps in it 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
dorr Aant tree have each ceased to feed. The sole activity
of each seems to be the quiet breathing.
Do trees really breathe.^ As truly and as incessantly as
you do, but not as actively. Other processes are inter-
mittent, but breathing 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
m
A GROVE OF BEECHES
^fc ya<jc
THE LIFE OF THE TREES 23
respiration goes on at a vigorous rate. The leaves also
throw off in insensible vapor a vast quantity of water.
This is called transpiration in plants; in animals the term
used is perspiration. They are one and the same proc-
ess. An average white oak tree throws off 150 gallons of
water in a single summer day. With the cutting off of the
water supply at the roots in late fall, transpiration is also
cut off.
The skin is the efficient "third lung" of animals. The
closing of its pores causes immediate suffocation. The
bark of trees carries on the work of respiration in the
absence of the leaves. Bark is porous, even where it is
thickest.
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 color from the bark. These are lenticels, or breath-
ing pores — not holes, likely to become clogged with dust,
but porous, corky tissue that filters the air as it comes in.
Li 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 sHts, open some-
times, 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 any one 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 imfolding
£4 TREES
on the tender shoots a bud will be found in each angle be-
tween leaf and stem. All summer long its bud is the
especial charge of each particular leaf. If accident destroy
the leaf, the bud dies of neglect. When midsummer 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
recognizable. 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 senti-
mental, but untrue, that study of buds is bound to over-
throw. It is the belief that the woolly and silky linings of
bud scales, and the scales themselves, and the wax that
seals up many buds are all for the purpose of keeping the
bud warm through the cold winter. The bark, according
to the same notion, is to keep the tree warm. This idea
is equally untenable. There is but feeble analogy be-
tween a warm-blooded animal wrapped in fur, its bodily
heat kept up by fires within (the rapid oxidation of fats
THE LIFE OF THE TREES 25
and carbohydrates in the tissues), and the winter condition
of a tree. Hardy 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 pro-
toplasm, 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 d^ath. Nature prepares the cells to be
frozen without any harm. The water of the protoplasm
is withdrawn by osmosis into the spaces between the ceils.
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 summer-
time.
A tree takes on in winter the temperature of the sur-
rounding 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 sohd. 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
f ORES I f<
\\J h^O
26 TREES
out the ice crystals. The bark is actually frozen upon a
stick of green stove 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 sleep-
ing 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 ut-
most 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
THE LIFE OF THE TREES «7
youth. The tree stands decked in its canopy of leaves,
every one of which is ready and eager to assume the re-
sponsibiHties 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 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 dis-
cover the trees' most precious secrets.
PART n
THE NUT TREES
The Walnuts — ^The Hickories — The Beech — The
Chestnuts — The Oaks — The White Oak Group
— The Black Oak Group — The Horse-chestnuts,
OR Buckeyes — The Lindens, or Basswoods
THE WALNUTS
Hickories are included with their near relatives, the
walnuts, in one of the most important of all our native tree
groups. They are distinct, yet they have many traits in
common — ^the flowers and the nut fruits, the hard resinous
wood, with aromatic sap and leaves of many leaflets, in-
stead of a single blade.
The walnuts are decidedly "worth knowing." All produce
valuable timber and edible nuts, and all are good shade
trees. Four native walnuts are well known in this country,
for in October, every tree in every bit of woods is likely to
be visited by school boys with bags, eager to gather the nuts
before some other boy finds the tree, and thus establishes a
prior claim upon it. The curiously gnawed shells outside
the winter storehouse of some furry woods-dweller reveal
the most successful competitor boys have, the constant
watcher of the nut trees, a harvester who works at nothing
else while the season is on.
THE WALNUTS 29
The Southwestern Walnut
Juglans rupestris, Engelm.
The walnut of the Southwest grows into a spreading, lux-
uriant tree, where its roots find water. But on the canyon
sides, and higher on mountain slopes, it becomes a stunted
shrub, because of lack of moisture.
The nut is smaller than that of the eastern walnuts and
has a thick shell, but the kernel is sweet and keeps its rich
flavor for a long time. The Mexicans and Indians are glad
to have this nut added to the stores they gather for their
winter food.
One striking feature of this tree is the pale, cottony down
on its twigs, which sometimes persists three or four
years. The long limbs droop at the extremities, almost
deserving to be called "weeping." But nothing could
be more cheerful in color than the yellow-green foliage,
shining in the sun, against the white bark of the tree.
In autumn the foliage turns bright yellow. A speci-
men, much admired, grows in the Arnold Arboretum in
Boston.
The California Walnut
J. calif ornicuy Wats.
The California walnut is a stocky, round-headed tree,
with heavy, drooping branches, and bark that is white and
smooth on hmbs and on trunks of young trees. Ultimately
the trunk turns nearly black, and i^ checked into broad,
irregular ridges. In bottom lands, along the courses of
rivers, back thirty miles from the coast, these trees are
30 TREES
found, from the Sacramento Valley to the southern slopes
of the San Bernardino Mountains.
The foliage is bright pale green, feathery, the leaflets
often curved to sickle form, showing paler silky linings.
Cahfornians admire and plant this tree for shade and orna-
ment. Its greatest value is as a hardy stock upon which
the "English" walnut is grafted by nurserymen, for plant-
ing orchards of this commercial nut. The fruit of the
native nut is excellent, but it cannot compete with the
thin-shelled nut that came from Persia, via England.
The Butternut, White Walnut, or Oilnut
J. cinerea, Linn.
In eastern woods the butternut is known by its long,
pointed nuts, with deeply and raggedly sculptured shells, in
fuzzy, clammy, sticky husks that stain the hands of him who
attempts to get at the oily meat before the husks are dry.
This dark stain was an important dye in the time when
homespun cotton cloth was worn by men and boys. The
modern khaki resembles in color the "butternut jeans," in
which backwoods regiments of the Civil War were clad.
Butternut husks and bark yield also a drug of cathartic
properties.
Pickling green oilnuts in their husks is a housewifely
industry, on the summer programme of many housewives
still, if the woods near by furnish the raw material for em-
ploying her great-grandmother's recipe, brought from Eng-
land, or perhaps from France. The green nuts are tested
with a knitting needle. If it goes through them with no
difficulty, and yet the nuts are of good size, they are ready.
Vigorous rubbing removes the fuzz after the nuts are
.t^*'
v5%'
CO
«^^^^!ci-^-' >
^ik^:^6l - ■•
BLACK WALNUT
See page SI
THE WALNUTS 31
scalded . Then they are pickled whole, in spiced vinegar, and
are a rare, delectable relish with meats for the winter table.
A butternut tree, beside the road, or elsewhere, with
room to grow, has a short trunk, and a low, broad head,
with a downward droop to tlie horizontal limbs. The bark
is Kght brown, the limbs grayish green, the twigs and leaves
all ooze a clammy, waxy, aromatic sap, and are covered
with fine hairs of velvety abundance.
Because it is low and rather wayward in growth, late to
leaf out in spring, and early to shed its leaves in summer,
the butternut is not a good street tree. It breaks easily
in the wind, and crippled trees are more common than
well-grown specimens. Insect and fungous enemies beset
the species, and take advantage of breaks to invade the
twigs through the chambered pith. Short-lived trees
they are, whose brown, satiny wood is used in cabinet
work, but is not plentiful.
The Black Walnut
J. nigra, Linn.
The black walnut (see illustratioyis, pages SI, 70) is the
second species east of the Rocky Mountains, and the tree
chiefly depended upon, during the century just closed, by
the makers of furniture of the more expensive grades.
Black walnut wood is brown, with purplish tones in it, and
a silvery lustre, when polished. Its hardness and strength
commend it to the boat and ship builder. Gunstock
factories use quantities of this wood. In furniture and in-
terior woodwork, the curly walnut, found in the old stumps
of trees cut long before, is especially sought for veneering
panels. Old furniture, of designs that have passed out.
32 TREES
are often sold to the factories, and their seasoned wood cut
thin for veneering.
Walnut trees one hundred and fifty feet high were not
uncommon in the forests primeval, in the basin of the Ohio
and Wabash rivers. These giants held up their majestic
heads far over the tops of oaks and maples in the woods.
They were slaughtered, rolled together, and burned by the
pioneers, clearing the land for agriculture. These men had
a special grudge against walnut trees, they were so stub-
born — so hard to make away with. How unfortunate it is
that our ancestors had the patience to go forward and con-
quer the unconquerable ones. Had they weakly sur-
rendered, and let these trees stand, we should have had
them for the various uses to which we put the finest lumber
trees to-day.
Unhappily, the growing of young trees has not been ex-
tensively undertaken to replace those destroyed. The
newer forestry is awake to the need, and the loss may be
made good, from this time forward.
The black walnut is nearly globular, deeply sculptured,
with a sweet nut rich in oil, very good if one eats but a few
at a time. Locally, they find their way to market, but
they soon become rancid in the grocer's barrel. At home,
boys spread them, in their smooth, yellow-pitted husks, on
the roof of the woodshed, for instance, so the husks can
dry while the nuts are seasoning. No walnut opens its
husk in regular segments, as the hickories all do. But the
husking is not hard. The thick shells require careful man-
agement of the hammer or nut-cracker, to avoid breaking
the meats.
Dark as is its wood and bark, no walnut tree in full leaf
is sombre. The foliage is bright, lustrous, yellow-green.
THE WALNUTS 33
graceful, dancing. A majestic tree, with a luxuriant
crown from May till September, this walnut needs room
to display its notable contour and size. It deserves more
popularity than it enjoys as a tree for parks. No tree is
more interesting to watch as it grows.
The bitter spongy husk deters the squirrels from gnaw-
ing into the nut until the husk is dry and brittle. Hidden
in the ground, the shell absorbs moisture, and winter frost
cracks it, by the gentle but irresistible force of expanding
particles of water as they turn to ice. So the plantlet has
no hindrance to its growth when spring opens.
Imitating nature, the nurseryman lays his walnuts and
butternuts in a bed of sand or gravel, one layer above an-
other, and lets the rain and the cold do the rest. In
spring the "stratified '' nuts are ready for planting. Some-
times careful cracking of the shell prepares the nut to
sprout when planted.
The Japanese walnuts (J. Sieboldiana and J. cordiformis)
are grown to a Hmited extent in states where the EngHsh
walnut is not hardy. They are butternuts, and very
much superior to our native species. A Manchurian wal-
nut has been successfully introduced, but few people
but the pioneers in nut culture know anything about these
exotic species. South America and the West Indies have
native species. So we shall not be surprised, in our
travels, to find walnuts in the woods of many continents.
The English Walnut
J. regiuy Linn.
Originally at home in the forests of Persia and north-
western India, the Enghsh walnut was growTi for its ex-
34 TREES
cellent nuts in the warm countries of Europe and Asia.
It was a tree of great reputation when Linnaeus gave it the
specific name that means royal. Indeed, this is the tree
which gave to all the family the name ^'Juglans,^' which
means, "Jove's acorn," in the writings of Roman authors.
Kings made each other presents of these nuts, and so the
range of the species was extended, even to England, by the
planting of nuts from the south.
It became the fad of gardeners, before the fifteenth
century, to improve the varieties, and to compete with
others in getting the thinnest shell, the largest nut, the
sweetest kernel, just as horticultiu-ists do now. In 1640
the herbalist Parkinson wrote about a variety of "French
wallnuts, which are the greatest of any, within whose shell
are often put a paire of fine gloves, neatly foulded up to-
gether." Another variety he mentions "whose shell is so
tender that it may easily be broken between one's fingers,
and the nut itsself is very sweete."
In England, the climate prevents the ripening of the
fruit of walnut trees. But the nuts reach good size, and
are pickled green, for use as a relish; or made into catsups —
husks and all being used, when a needle will still puncture
the fruit with ease.
In America, the first importations of the walnuts came
from the Mediterranean countries, by way of England,
"the mother country." In contradistinction to our
black walnuts and butternuts, these nuts from overseas
were called by the loyal colonists "EngUsh walnuts,"
and so they remain to this day in the markets of this
country.
It was natural and easy to grow these trees in the South-
ern states. But little had been done to improve them, or
THE WALNUTS 35
to grow them extensively for market, until California
undertook to compete with Europe for the growing Amer-
ican trade. Now the crop reaches thousands of tons
of nuts, and millions of dollars come back each year
to the owners of walnut ranches. Hardy varieties have
extended the range of nut-orcharding; and so has the
grafting of tender varieties on stock of the native black
walnut of California.
The beauty of this Eurasian walnut tree would justify
planting it merely for the adornment of parks and private
grounds. Its broad dome of bright green foliage in sum-
mer, and its clean gray trunk and bare branches in winter,
are attractive features in a landscape that has few de-
ciduous trees. A fine dooryard tree that bears delicious
nuts, after furnishing a grateful shade all summer, is de-
serving the popularity it enjoys with small farmers and
owners of the simplest California homes.
As a lumber tree, the walnut of Europe has long been
commercially important. It is the staple wood for gun-
stocks, and during wars the price has reached absurd
heights, one country bidding against its rival to get con-
trol of the visible supply. Furniture makers use quanti-
ties of the curly walnut often found in stumps of old trees.
The heart wood, always a rich brown, is often watered and
crimped in curious and intricate patterns, that when
polished blend the loveliest dark and light shades with the
characteristic walnut lustre, to reward the skilled crafts-
man.
In the United States this wood is rarely seen, because
the trees are grown for their nuts. They require several
years to come into bearing, are long-lived, have few ene-
mies, and need little pruning as bearing age approaches.
36 TREES
THE HICKORIES
Americans have a right to be proud that the twelve
hickory species are all natives of this country. Eleven of
the twelve are found in the eastern half of the United
States; one, only, strays into the forests of Mexico. No
other country has a native hickory.
Indians of the x\lgonkin tribe named this tree family, and
taught the early colonists in Virginia to use for food the
ripe nuts of the shagbark and mockernut. After cracking
the shells, the procedure was to boil and strain the mixture,
which gave them a rich, soupy liquid. Into this they
stirred a coarse meal, made by grinding between stones
the Indian corn. The mush was cooked slowly, then made
into cakes, which were baked on hot stones. No more
delicious nor wholesome food can be imagined than this.
Frequently the soup was eaten alone; its name, "Powco-
hicora," gave the trees their English name, part of which
the botanist, RaflSnesque, took, Latinized, and set up as the
name of the genus.
Cut a twig of any hickory tree, and you realize that the
wood is close-grained and very springy. The pith is solid,
with a star form in cross-section, corresponding to the
ranking of the leaves on the twigs. The wind strevv^s no
branches under a hickory tree, for the fibres of the wood are
strong and flexible enough to resist a hurricane. (See illus-
trations, pages 6, 71.)
Hickory wood is unequalled for implements which must
resist great strain and constant jarring. The running-ge^r
of wagons and carriages, handles of pitchforks, axes, and
like implements require it. Thin strips, woven into bask-
THE HICKORIES 37
ets for heavy market use, are almost indestructible. No
fuel is better than seasoned hickory wood.
Shagbark or Shellbark d'O rU3 O/^^'fe?
Hiemia ovata, Britt.
The shagbark has gray bark that is shed in thin, tough,
vertical strips. Attached by the middle, these strips often
spring outward, at top and bottom, giving the bole a most
untidy look {see illustrations , pages, 6, 71), and threatening
the trousers of any boy bold enough to try cHmbing into
the smooth-barked top to beat off the nuts.
In spite of the ragged-looking trunk, a shagbark grown
in the open is a noble tree. The limbs are angular, but
they express strength to the utmost twig, as the bare ob-
long of the tree's lofty head is etched against a wintry sky.
The nuts are the chief blessing this tree confers upon the
youngsters of any neighborhood. Individual trees differ
in the size and quality of their fruit. The children know
the best trees, and so do the squirrels, their chief com-
petitors at harvest time.
Frost causes the eager lads to seek their favorite trees,
and underneath they find the four-parted husks dropping
away from the angled nuts. There is no waiting, as with
walnuts, for husking time to come. The tree is prompt
about dropping its fruit. Spread for a few weeks, where
they can dry, and thieving squirrels will let them alone,
hickory nuts reach perfect condition for eating. Fat,
proteid, and carbohydrates are found in concentrated form
in those delicious meats. We may not know their dietetic
value, but we all remember how good and how satisfying
they are. No tree brings to the human family more val-
S8 TREES
uable offerings than this one, rugged and ragged though it
be.
The Big Shellbark
H. lacinata, Sarg.
The big shellbark, like the little shellbark, is a common
forest tree in the Middle West and Middle Atlantic states.
It has a shaggy trunk, stout limbs, picturesquely angular,
and it bears nuts that are sweet and of delicious flavor. In
winter the orange-colored twigs, large terminal buds, and
persistent stems of the dead leaves are distinguishing
traits. These petioles shed the five to nine long leaflets
and then stay on, their enlarged bases firmly tied by fibre
bundles to the scar, though the stems writhe and curve as
if eager to be free to die among the fallen blades.
"Ejng nuts," as the fruit of this tree is labelled in the
markets, do not equal the httle hickory nuts in quality,
and their thick shells cover meats very little larger. But
the nut in its husk on the tree is often three inches long — •
a very impressive sight to hungry nut-gatherers.
In summer the downy leaf -linings and the uncommon
size of the leaves best distinguish this tree from its near
relative, whose five leaflets are smooth throughout, small,
very rarely counting seven.
The Pecan
H, Pecan, Britt.
The pecan tree bears the best nuts in the hickory family.
This species is coming to be a profitable orchard tree in
in^y sectic^QS of the South. Most of the pecan nuts in the
See page J^O
"WHITE OAK
See page 51
BUR, OR MOSSY-CUP, OAK — LEAVES AND FRUIT
THE mCKORIES 39
market come from wild trees in the Mississippi Basin.
But late years have seen great strides taken to establish
pecan growing as a paying horticultural enterprise in
states outside, as well as within, the tree's natural range.
And these efforts are succeeding.
Experiment stations have tested seedling trees and
selected varieties of known merit, until they know by
actual experiment that pecans can be raised successfully
in the Carolinas and in other states v/here the native
species does not grow wild. Thin-shelled varieties, with
the astringent red shell-lining almost eliminated, have
been bred by selection, and propagated by building on
native stock. The trees have proved to be fast-growing,
early-fruiting, and easy to grow and protect from
enemies.
The market pays the highest price for pecans. The
popularity of this nut is deserved, because by analysis it
has the highest food value combined with the most deli-
cate and delicious flavor. No nut is so rich in nutriment.
None has so low a percentage of waste. The demand for
nuts is constantly increasing as the public learns that the
proteid the body needs can be obtained from nuts as well as
from meat.
Pecans have suffered in competition with other nuts be-
cause they are diflicult to get out of the shells w^ithout
breaking the meats. The old-fashioned hammer and
block is not the method for them. A cracker I saw in use
on the street corner in Chicago delighted me. Clamped
to the nut-vendor's stall, it received the nut between two
steel cups and, by the turn of a wheel, crowded it so that
the shell buckled and broke where it is thinnest, around
the middle, and the meat came out whole.
40 TREES
The Mockernut
H, alba, Britt.
The mockernut is a mockery to him who hopes for nuts
like those of either shagbark. The husk is often three
inches long. Inside is a good-sized nut, angled above the
middle, suggesting the shagbark. But what a thick, ob-
stinate shell, when one attempts to "break and enter!"
And what a trifling, insipid meat one finds, to repay the
effort! Quite often there is nothing but a spongy remnant
or the shell is empty. {See illustration, 'page 7.)
As a shade tree, the mockernut has real value, showing
in winter a tall, slender pyramidal form, with large termi-
nal buds tipping the velvety, resinous twigs. The bark is
smooth as that of an ash, with shallow, wavy furrows, as if
surfaced with a silky layer of new healing tissue, thrown up
to fill up all depressions. Mockernut leaves are large,
downy, yellow-green, turning to gold in autumn. Crushed
they give out an aroma suggesting a delicate perfume.
The flowers are abundant, and yet the most surprising
show of colors on this tree comes in late April, when the
great buds swell. The outer scales fall, and the inner ones
expand into ruddy silken sheathes that stand erect around
the central cluster of leaves, not yet awake, and every
branch seems to hold up a great red tulip! The sight is
wonderful. Nothing looks more flower-like than these
opening hickory buds, and to the unobserving passerby
the transformation is nothing short of a miracle. In a day,
the leaves rise and spread their delicate leaflets, lengthen-
ing and becoming smooth, as the now useless red scales
fall in a shower to the ground.
THE HICKORIES 41
The Pignut
H, glabra, Britt.
The pignut deserves the better name, "smooth hickory,"
a more ingratiating introduction to strangers. A graceful,
symmetrical tree, with spreading limbs that end in deli-
cate, pendulous branches, and gray bark checked into a
maze of intersecting furrows, it is an ornament to any park,
even in the dead of winter. In summer the tree laughs in
the face of the sun, its smooth, glossy, yellow-green leaflets,
five to seven on a stem, lined with pale green or yellow. In
spring the clustered fringes among the opening leaves are
the green and gold stamen flowers. The curiously angled
fertile flowers, at the tips of twigs, are green, with yellow
stigmas. Autumn turns the foliage to orange and brown,
and lets fall the pear-shaped or rounded fruit, each nut
obscurely four-angled and held fast at the base by the thin,
4-ridged husk, that splits scarcely to the middle. The
kernel is insipid, sometimes bitter, occasionally rather
sweet. Country boys scorn the pignut trees, leaving their
fruit for eager but unsophisticated nut-gatherers from the
towns.
Pigs used to be turned into the woods to fatten on beech-
and oak-" mast." They eagerly devoured the thin-shelled
nuts of H. glabra, and thus the tree earned the friendly re-
gard of farmers, and a name that preserves an interesting
bit of pioneer history.
The range of the pignut is from Maine to Florida on the
Atlantic seaboard, west to the middle of Nebraska and
Texas, and from Ontario and Michigan south to the
42 TREES
THE BEECH
The American Beech
Fagus Americanus, Sweet.
One of the most widely distributed trees in our country,
this is also one of the most useful and most beautiful in any
forest. It is the sole representative of its genus in the
Western Hemisphere. One species is a valuable timber tree
in Europe. Three are natives of Asia. A genus near of kin
includes the beech trees of the Southern Hemisphere,
twelve species in all. There is closer resemblance, however,
between our beeches and their next of kin, the chestnuts
and oaks.
From the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, from Florida
to Texas, from New England to Wisconsin, beech trees grow;
and where they grow they are very hkely to form "pure for-
ests," on the slopes of mountains and rich river bottoms.
The largest specimens grow in the basin of the lower Ohio
River, and on the warm slopes of the Alleghany Mountains.
Standing alone, with room for full development, the
beech is a fine, symmetrical tree, with horizontal or sHghtly
drooping branches, numerous, thickly set with slender,
flexible twigs. The stout trunk supports a round or
conical head of very dense foliage. One hundred and
twenty feet is the maximum height, with a trunk diameter
of three to four feet. (See illustrations , pages 22, 30.)
The older the trees, the greater the amount of red heart
wood in proportion to the white sap-wood, next to the
bark. Red and white beech wood are distinguished by
Imnbermen. Red beech makes suDerior floors, tool-
THE BEECH 43
handles, chairs, and the like, and there is no more perfect
fuel than seasoned beech wood.
It is unreasonable to think that any but the blind could h ve
where beech trees grow and not know these trees at a glance.
The bark is close, unfurrowed, gray, often almost white, and
marked with blotches, often nearly round of paler hue.
The branches are dark and smooth and the twigs pol-
ished to the long, pointed winter buds. Throughout, the
ti*ee is a model of elegant attire, both in color and texture
of the investing bark.
In the growing season the leaves are the tree's chief at-
traction. They are closely plaited, and covered with
silvery down, w^hen the bud scales are pushed off in the
spring. In a day, the protective fuzz disappears, and the
full-grown leaf is seen, thin, strongly feather-veined, uni-
formly green, saw-toothed. Summer shows the foliage
mass almost as fresh, and autumn turns its green to pale
gold. Still unblemished, it clings, often until the end of
winter, lighting the woods with a ghostly glow, as the rain
fades the color out. The silky texture is never quite lost.
The delicate flowers of the beech tree are rarely seen,
they faJe so soon; the stamen tassels drop off and the
forming nuts, with their prickly burs, are more and more in
evidence in the leaf angles near the ends of new shoots.
With the first frost the burs open, the four walls part, re-
leasing the two nuts, three-angled, like a grain of buckwheat.
The name of this grain was suggested by its resemblance
in form to the beechnut, or "buck mast," sweet, nutritious
food of so many dwellers in the forest. Buck mast was the
food of man when he Uved in caves and under the forest
cover. We know that beechnuts have a rich, delicate
flavor tliat offsets the disadvantages of their small size
44 TREES
and the difficulty of opening their thin but leathery shells.
All along the centuries European peoples have counted on
this nut, and oil expressed from it, for their own food and
the dried leaves for forage for their cattle in winter.
The American pioneer turned his hogs into the beech
woods to fatten on the beech-mast, and Thanksgiving
turkeys were always finer if they competed with the wild
turkey on the same fare.
Birds and lesser mammals do much to plant trees when
they carry away, for immediate or future use, seeds that
are not winged for flight. Beechnuts are light enough to
profit, to some extent, by a high wind. And beech trees in
their infancy do well under the shade of other trees. So
each fruiting tree is the mother of many young ones. But
the seedling trees are not so numerous and important as
the sapling growth that rises from the roots of parent
trees. By these alone, a few isolated beeches will manage
to take possession of the ground around them and to
clothe it with so dense a foliage screen that all young
growth, except certain ferns and grasses, dies for lack of
sun. Before we can realize what is going on, the tract is a
pure forest of beech, rapidly enlarging on all sides by the
same campaign of extension.
THE CHESTNUTS
Chestnut and Chinquapin
Casianea dentata, Borh., and C. pumila. Mill.
Our native chestnut and its little brother, the chin-
quapin, are the American cousins of the sweet chestnut of
THE CHESTNUTS 45
southern Europe. Japan has contributed to American
horticulture a native species which bears large but not
very sweet nuts, that are good when cooked. Our two
trees bear sweet nuts, of a flavor that no mode of cooking
improves. In truth, there is no finer nut; and the time to
enjoy it to the highest degree is a few weeks after the frost
opens the burs and lets the nuts fall. "Along about
Thanksgiving," they have lost some of their moisture and
are prime.
In foreign countries the chestnut is a rich, nourishing
food, comparable to the potato. Who could go into
ecstasies over a vegetable that is a staple food for the
peasants of Europe, Asia, and North Africa? Our chestnut
is no staple. It is a delicacy. It is treasure trove from the
autumn woods, and the gathering of the crop is a game in
which boys and squirrels are rivals.
Ernest Thompson Seton, always a boy, knows the im-
patience with which the opening of the burs is watched for,
as the belated frosts keep off, and the burs hang tantahz-
ingly closed. The cruel wounds made by the spines and
the raw taste of the immature nuts are poor recompense
for the labor of nutting before Nature gives the sign that
all's ready.
Here is Mr. Seton's estimate of the chestnut of "brown
October's woods."
"Whenever you see something kept under lock and key,
bars and bolts, guarded and double-guarded, you may be
sure it is very precious, greatly coveted. The nut of this
tree is hung high aloft, wrapped in a silk wrapper, which is
enclosed in a case of sole leather, which again is packed in a
mass of shock-absorbing, vermin-proof pulp, sealed up in a
waterproof, iron-wood case, and finally cased in a vege-
46 TREES
table porcupine of spines, almost impregnable. There is
no nut so protected; there is no nut in our woods to com-
pare with it as food."
What a disaster then is the newly arisen bark disease
that has already killed every chestnut tree throughout
large areas in the Eastern states. Scientists have thus far
struggled with it in vain and it is probable that ail chest-
nuts east of the Rockies are doomed.
Chinquapins grow to be medium-sized trees in Texas
and Arkansas, but east of the Mississippi they are smaller,
and east of the Alleghanies, mere shrubby undergrowth,
covering rocky banks or crouching along swamp borders.
They are smaller throughout, but resemble the chestnut
in leaf, flowers, and fruit. The bur contains a single
nut.
The chestnut tree grows large and attains great age, its
sturdy, rough gray trunk crowned with an oblong head of
irregular branches, hidden in summer by the abundant
foliage mass. (See illustration, page 28.) The ugly cripple
that lightning has maimed covers its wounds when May
wakes the late-opening buds and the leaves attain full
size.
Each leaf tapers at both ends, its length three or four
times its width. Strong-ribbed and sharp-toothed, and
wavy on the midrib, dark, polished, like leather, these
units form a wonderful dome, lightened in midsummer by
the pencil -like plumes of the staminate flowers, with the
fertile ones at their bases. As autumn comes on the leaf
crown turns to gold, and the mature fruits are still green
spiny balls. The first frost and the time to drop the nuts
are dates that every schoolboy knows come close together.
When a chestnut tree falls by the axe, the roots restore
THE OAKS 47
the loss by sending up sprouts around the stump. The
mouldering pile nourishes a circle of young trees, full of
vigor, because they have the large tree's roots gathering
food for them. No wonder their growth is rapid.
Besides this mode of reproduction, chestnut trees, grow-
ing here and there throughout a mixed forest, are the off-
spring of trees whose nuts were put away, or dropped and
lost by squirrels. When spring reheves the danger of
famine, many of the rodent class abandon their winter
stores before they are all devoured. Such caches add
many nut trees to our native woods.
THE OAKS
This is the great family of the cup-bearers, whose fruit,
the acorn, is borne in a scaly cup that never breaks into
quarters, as does the husk that holds a chestnut, beechnut,
or hickory nut. All oak trees bear acorns as soon as they
come to fruiting age. This is the sign by which they are
known the world over. Seldom is a full-grown oak without
its little insignia, for the cups cling after the nut falls, and
one grand division of the family requires two seasons to
mature its fruit. For this reason, half-grown acorns are
seen on the twigs after the ripe ones fall.
We cannot say of oak trees that they all have sturdy
trunks, rough bark, and gnarled limbs, for not all of them
have these characteristics. But there is a certain likeness
in oak leaves. They are simple, five-ranked, generally
oval, and the margins are generally cut into lobes by deep
or shallow bays. INIost oak leaves have leathery texture,
strong veins, and short petioles. They are leaves that out-
48 TREES
last the summer, and sometimes persist until spring
growth unseats the stalks; sometimes, as in the "live oaks,"
they hang on three to five years.
The twigs of oak trees are more or less distinctly five-
angled, and the winter buds cluster at the ends. This in-
sures a group of young shoots, crowded with leaves, on
the ends of branches, and a dense outer dome of foliage on
the tree.
Nearly three hundred distinct species of oaks are recog-
nized by botanists, and the Hst is growing. New species
are in the making. For instance, a white oak and a bur
oak grow near enough for the wind to "cross-fertilize"
their pistillate flowers. The acorns of such mixed parent-
age produce trees that differ from both parents, yet reveal
characteristics of both. They are "hybrids," and may be
called new varieties of either parent. Other species of oak
are intercrossing by the same process — the interchange of
pollen at the time of blossoming. This proves that the oak
family is young, compared with many other families, whose
members are too distantly related to intercross.
Though geologically young, the oak family is one of the
most important, furnishing timber of superior strength and
durability for bridge-building, ship-building, and other
construction work. Tanning has depended largely upon
oak bark. As fuel, all oak trees are valuable.
Fifty species of oak are native to North American
forests. Twice as many grow east of the Rocky Moun-
tains as west of the Great Divide. No species naturally
passes this barrier. The temperate zone species extend
southward into tropical regions, by keeping to high alti-
tudes. Thus we find American oaks in the Andes and
Colombia; Asiatic species occur in the Indian Archi-
THE OAKS 49
pelago. No Old World species is native to America.
Each continent has its own.
East of the Rocky Mountains the oaks hold a place of
preeminence among broad-leaved trees. They are trees of
large size, and they often attain great age. They are
beautiful trees, and therefore highly valued for ornamental
planting. This has led to the introduction of oaks from
other countries. We have set European, Japanese, and
Siberian oaks in our finest parks. Europe has borrowed
from our woods the red oak and many others. All coun-
tries are richer by this horticultural exchange of trees.
Our native oaks fall into two groups : the annual-fruit-
ing and the biennial-fruiting species. The first group
matures its acorns in a single season ; the second requires
two seasons. It happens that annuals have leaves with
rounded lobes, while biennials have leaves with lobes that
end in angles and bristly tips. The bark of the annual
trees is generally pale; that of the biennials, dark. Hence
the white oak group and the black oak group may be
easily distinguished at a glance, by the bark, the leaf, and
the acorn crop.
THE WHITE OAK GROUP
The White Oak
Quercus alba, Linn.
The white oak has no rival for first place in the esteem
of tree-lover and lumberman. Its broad, rounded dome,
sturdy trunk, and strong arms (see illusirafiofi, page SS),
and its wide-ranging roots enable a solitary tree to resist
50 TREES
storms that destroy or maim other kinds. Strength and
tenacity in the fibre of root and branch make it possible for
individuals to live to a great age, far beyond the two cen-
turies required to bring it to maturity. Such trees stir
within us a feeling of reverence and patriotism. They are
patriarchs whose struggles typify the pioneer's indomitable
resistance to forces that destroyed all but the strong.
White oak trees in the forest grow tall, lose their lower
branches early, and lift but a small head to the sun. The
logs, quarter-sawed, reveal the broad, gleaming "mir-
rors" that make a white oak table beautiful. The
botanist calls these the medullary rays — thin, irregular
plates of tissue-building cells, that extend out from the
central pith, sometimes quite to the sap-wood, crowding
between the wood fibres, which in the heart-wood are no
longer alive. A slab will show only an edge of these mir-
rors. But any section from bark to pith will reveal them.
The pale brown wood of the white oak distinctly shows
the narrow rings of annual growth. Each season begins
with a coarse, porous band of ''spring wood," followed by a
narrower band of fine, close-grained ''summer wood."
White oak is streaked with irregular, dark lines. These
are the porous lines of spring wood, discolored by foreign
matter. Count them, allow a year for each, and you know
how long one white oak tree required to make an inch of
wood.
The supreme moment in the white oak's year comes in
spring, when the gray old tree wakes, the buds swell and
cast off their brown scales, and the young leaves appear.
The tree is veiled, not with a garment of green, but mth a
mist of rose and silver, each twig hung with soft Hmp
velvety leaves, red-lined, and covered with a close mat of
THE OAKS 51
silky hairs. It is a spectacle that seems unreal, because it
is so lovely and gone so soon. The protecting hairs and
pigments disappear, and the green leafage takes its place,
brightened by the yellow tassels of the stamen flowers, and
the growing season is on.
In autumn the pale-lined leaves of the white oak turn
slowly to sombre violet and dull purplish tones. Clinging
there, after the acorns have all fallen and been gathered by
squirrels, the foliage fades into the gray of the bark and
may persist imtil spring growth sets in.
The Bur Oak
Q. macrocarpa, Michx.
The bur oak {see illustration, page 39) is called the mossy-
cup on account of the loose, fringed scales about the rim of
the cup that holds the large acorn — largest in the whole
oak family. Often the nut is completely enclosed by the
cup; often it is small. This variable fruit is sweet, and it
is the winter store of many furry wood-folk.
The leaf has the rounded lobing of the family, with the
special peculiarity of being almost cut in two by a pair of
deep and wide opposite sinuses, between the broad middle,
and the narrow, tapering base. Not all leaves show this
odd form, but it is the prevailing pattern. The dark green
blade has a pale, fuzzy lining, that lasts until the leaves
turn brown and yellow.
The bur oak is a ruf::ged, ragged tree, compared with the
white oak. Its irreguhir form is picturesque, its wayward
limbs are clothed in a loose garment of untidy, half-shed
bark. The twigs are roughened with broad, corky wings.
52 TREES
The trunk is brownish, with loosened flakes of gray, sep-
arated by shallow fissures.
The wood is classed with white oak, though darker in
color. It has the same ornamental mirrors, dear to the
heart of the cabinet-maker. It serves all the purposes for
which a tough, strong, durable wood is needed.
The range of the species is from Nova Scotia to Mon-
tana, and it grows in large tracts from Winnipeg to Texas,
doing well in the arid soil of western Nebraska and
Dakota. Suckers from the roots spread these trees till
they form the "oak openings" of the bluffs of the Missouri
and other streams of Iowa and Minnesota. In Kansas
it is the commonest oak tree. The largest trees of this
species grow in rich bottom lands in the Ohio Valley.
The Post Oak
Q. minor, Sarg.
The post oak has wood that is noted for its durability
when placed in contact with the soil. It is in demand for
fence posts, railroad ties, and for casks and boat timbers.
*'Iron oak" is a name that refers to the qualities of the
wood. "Knees" of post oak used to be especially in
demand.
In the Mississippi Basin this tree attains its largest
size and greatest abundance on gravelly uplands. It is
the commonest oak of central Texas, on the sandy plains
and limestone hills. Farther north, it is more rare and
smaller, becoming an undersized oak in New York and
westward to Kansas.
In winter the post oak keeps its cloak of harsh-feeling,
thick, coarse- veined leaves. Tough fibres fasten them to
THE OAKS 53
the twigs. In summer the fohage mass is almost black,
with gray leaf-linings. The lobes and sinuses are large
and squarish, the blades four or five inches long. The
limbs, tortuous, horizontal, form a dense head.
The Chestnut Oak
Q. Prinus, Linn.
The chestnut oak has many nicknames and all are descrip-
tive. Its leaves are similar in outline and size to those of
the chestnut. The margin is coarsely toothed, not lobed,
like the typical oak leaf. "Tanbark oak" refers to the
rich store of tannin in the bark, which makes this species
the victim of the bark-peeler for the tanneries wherever
it grows. "Rock chestnut oak" is a title that lumbermen
have given to the oak with exceptionally hard w^ood, heavy
and durable in soil, adapted for railroad ties, posts, and the
like.
Unlike other white oaks, the bark of this tree is dark in
color and deeply fissured. Without a look at the leaves,
one might call it a black oak.
The centre of distribution for this species seems to be the
foothill country of the Appalachian Mountains, in Ten-
nessee and North Carolina. Here it predominates, and
grows to its largest size. From Maine to Georgia it
chooses rocky, dry uplands, grows vigorously and rapidly,
and its acorns often sprout before falling from the
cup!
The chestnut oak is one of the most desirable kinds of
trees to plant in parks. It is symmetrical, with handsome
bark and foliage. The leaves turn yellow and keep their
fine texture through the season. The acorn is one of the
54 TREES
handsomest and largest, and squirrels are delighted with
its sweet kernel.
The Mississippi Valley Chestnut Oak
Q. acuminata, Sarg.
In the Mississippi Valley the chestnut oak is Q. acu-
minata, Sarg., with a more slender and more finely-toothed
leaf that bears a very close resemblance to that of the
chestnut. The foliage mass is brilliant, yellow-green, each
leaf with a pale lining, and hung on a flexible stem.
"Yellow oak" is another name, earned again when in
autumn the leaves turn to orange shades mingled with red.
On the Wabash River banks these trees surpass one
hundred feet in height and three feet in diameter. The
base of the trunk is often buttressed. Back from the rich
bottom lands, on limestone and flinty ridges, where water
is scarce, these trees are stunted. In parks they are
handsome, and very desirable. The bark is silvery white,
tinged with brown, and rarely exceeds one half an inch in
thickness.
The Swamp White Oak
Q. platanoides, Sudw.
The swamp white oak loves to stand in wet ground,
sometimes even in actual swamps. Its small branches
shed their bark like the buttonwood, the flakes curling
back and showing the bright green under layer. On
the trunk the bark is thick, and broken irregularly
into broad, flat ridges coated with close, gray-brown
scales often tinged with red.
-JJ"«^3i*'»> ,
See page 65
HORSE-CHESTNUT IN BLOSSOM
!See page 6' J
WEEPING WILLOW
THE OAKS 55
In its youth the swamp white oak is comely and sym-
metrical, its untidy moulting habit concealed by the
abundant foliage. One botanist calls this species bicolor,
because the polished yellow-green upper surfaces contrast
so pleasantly with the white scurf that lines each leaf
throughout the summer. Yellow is the autumn color.
Never a hint of red warms this oak of the swamps, even
when planted as a street or park tree in well-drained
ground.
The Basket Oak
Q. Michauxii, Nutt.
The basket oak is so like the preceding species as to be
listed by some botanists as the southern form of Q.
jplatanoides. They meet on a vague line that crosses
Maryland, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Both have large
leaves silver-lined, with undulating border, of the chestnut
oak pattern. Both are trees of the waterside, tail, with
round heads of gnarled limbs. The red-tinged white
bark sets the basket oak apart from all others. Its head
is broader and its trunk stouter than in the other species.
The paired acorns are almost without stalks, the nuts
large, the kernels sweet. In autumn, farmers turn their
hogs into the woods to fatten on tliis oak-mast. The
edibility of these nuts may account for the common name,
"cow oak."
The wood splits readily into thin, tough plates of the
summer wood. This is because the layer formed in
spring is very porous. Bushel baskets, china crates, and
similar woven wares arc made of these oak splints. The
wood is also used in cooperage and implement construc-
tion, and it makes excellent firewood.
56 TREES
The Live Oak
Q. Virginiana, Mill.
The live oak with its small oval leaves, without a cleft
in the plain margins, looks like anything but an oak to the
Northerner who walks along a street planted with this
evergreen in Richmond or New Orleans. It is not
especially good for street use, though often chosen. It
develops a broad, rounded dome, by the lengthening
of the irregular limbs in a horizontal direction. The
trunk becomes massive and buttressed to support the
burden.
The "knees" of this oak were in keenest demand for
ship-building before steel took the place of wood. In all
lines of construction, this lumber ranks with the best white
oak. The short trunk is the disadvantage, from the
lumberman's viewpoint. Its beauty, when polished,
would make it the wood 'par excellence for elegant furni-
ture, except that it is difficult to work, and it sphts
easily.
The Spanish moss that drapes the limbs of live oaks in
the South gives them a greenish pallor and an unkempt
appearance that seems more interesting than beautiful
to many observers. It is only when the sight is familiar,
I think, that it is pleasing. Northern trees are so clean-
limbed and so regular about shedding their leaves when
they fade, that these patient hosts, loaded down with the
pendent skeins of the tillandsia, seem to be imposed upon.
In fact, the "moss" is not a parasite, sapping the life of
the tree, but a lodger, that finds its own food supply with-
out help.
THE OAKS 57
California White Oak
Q. lobatay Nee.
The California white oak far exceeds the Eastern white
oak in the spread of its miglity arms. The dome is often
two hundred feet m breadth and the trunk reaches ten
feet in diameter. Such specimens are often low in pro-
portion, the trunk breaking into its grand divisions within
tw^enty feet of the ground. The ultimate spray is made of
slender, supple twigs, on which the many-lobed leaves
taper to the short stalks. Dark green above, the blades
are lined with pale pubescence. The acorns are slender,
l^ointed, and often exceed two inches in length. Their cups
are comparatively shallow, and they fall out when ripe.
The bare framework of one of these giant oaks shows a
wonderful maze of gnarled branches, whose grotesque
angularities are multiplied with added years and com-
plicated by damage and repair.
It is hard to say whether the grace and nobility of the
verdure-clad tree, or the tortuous branching system re-
vealed in winter, appeals more strongly to the admiration
of the stranger and the pride of the native Calif oniian,
who delights in this noble oak at all seasons. Its com-
paratively worthless wood has spared the trees to adorn the
park-like landscapes of the wide middle valleys of the
state.
Pacific Post Oak
Q. Garryatia, Hook.
The Pacific post oak is the only oak in British Columbia,
whence it follows down the valleys of the Coast Range to
58 TREES
the Santa Cniz Mountains. It is a tree nearly one
hundred feet high, with a broad, compact head, in western
Washington and Oregon. Dark green, lustrous leaves,
with paler linings, attain almost a leathery texture when
full grown. They are four to six inches long and coarsely
lobed. In autumn they sometimes turn bright scarlet.
The wood is hard, strong, tough, and close-grained. It
is employed in the manufacture of wagons and furniture,
and in ship-building and cooperage. It is a superior fuel.
THE BLACK OAK GROUP
A large group of our native oaks require two seasons to
mature their acorns; have dark-colored bark and foliage,
have leaves whose lobes are sharp-angled and taper to
bristly points and tough acorn shells lined with a silky -hairy
coat.
The Black Oak
Q> velutinay Lam.
The black oak of the vast region east of the Rocky
Mountains is the type or pattern species. Its leathery,
dark green leaves are divided by curving sinuses into
squarish lobes, each ending in one or more bristly tips.
The lobes are paired, and each has a strong vein from the
midrib. Underneath, the leaf is always scurfy, even when
the ripening turns its color from bronze to brown, yellow
or dull red.
Under the deep-furrowed, brown surface bark is a yellow
layer, rich in tannin, and a dyestuff called quercitron. This
makes the tree valuable for its bark. The wood is coarse-
THE OAKS 59
grained, hard, difficult to work, and chiefly employed as
fuel.
A distinguishing trait of the bare tree is the large fuzzy
winter bud. The unfolding leaves in spring are bright red
above, with a silvery lining.
The autumn acorn crop may be heavy or light. Trees
have their "off years," for various reasons. But always,
as leaves and fruit fall and bare the twigs, one sees, among
the winter buds, the half -grown acorns waiting for their
second season of growth.
The pointed nut soon loosens, for the cup though deep
has straight sides. The kernel is yellow and bitter.
The Scarlet Oak
Q. coccinea, Moench.
The scarlet oak is like a flaming torch set among the dull
browns and yellows in our autumnal woods. In spring the
opening leaves are red ; so are the tasselled catkins and the
forked pistils, that turn into the acorns later on. This is a
favorite ornamental tree in Europe and our own country.
Its points of beauty are not all in its colors.
The tree is slender, delicate in branch, twig, and leaf —
quite out of the sturdy, picturesque class in which most
oaks belong. The leaf is thin, silky smooth, its lobes sep-
arated by sinuses so deep that it is a mere skeleton com-
pared with the black oak's. The trimness of the leaf is
matched by the neat acorn, whose scaly cup has none of
the looseness seen in the burly black oak. The scales are
smooth, tight-fitting, and they curl in at the rim.
There is lightness and grace in a scarlet oak, for its twigs
are slim and supple as a willow's, and the leaves flutter on
60 TREES
long, flexible stems. Above the drifts of the first snowfall,
the brilliance of the scarlet foliage makes a picture long to
be remembered against the blue of a clear autumnal sky.
The largest trees of this species grow in the fertile up-
lands in the Ohio Valley. But the most brilliant hues are
seen in trees of smaller size, that grow in New England
woods. In the comparatively dull-hued autumn woods of
Iowa and Nebraska the scarlet oak is the most vivid and
most admired tree.
The Pin Oak
Q. palustris, Linn.
The pin oak earns its name by the sharp, short, spur-
like twigs that cluster on the branches, crowding each
other to death and then persisting to give the tree a bristly
appearance. The tree in winter bears small resemblance
to other oaks. The trunk is slender, the shaft carried up
to the top, as straight as a pine's. The branches are very
numerous and regular, striking out at right angles from the
stem, the lower tier shorter than those directly above
them, and drooping often to the ground.
On the winter twigs, among the characteristic "pins,"
are the half-grown acorns that proclaim the tree an oak
beyond a doubt, and a black oak, requiring a second sum-
mer for the maturing of its fruit. It is likely that there
will be found on older twigs a few of the full-grown acorns,
or perhaps only the trim, shallow saucers from which the
shiny, striped, brown acorns have fallen. Hunt among the
dead leaves and these little acorns will be discovered for,
though pretty to look at, they are bitter and squirrels leave
them where they fall.
THE OAKS 61
The leaves match the slender twigs in delicacy of pat-
tern. Thin, deeply cut, shining, with pale linings, they
flutter on slender stems, smaller but often matching the
leaves of the scarlet oak in pattern. Sometimes they are
more like the red oak in outline. In autumn they turn red
and are a glory in the woods.
One trait has made this tree a favorite for shade and
ornament. It has a shock of fibrous roots, and for this
reason is easily transplanted. It grows rapidly in any
moist, rich soil. It keeps its leaves clean and beautiful
throughout the season. Washington, D. C, has its streets
planted to native trees, one species lining the sides of a
single street or avenue for miles. The pin oaks are superb
on the thoroughfare that reaches from the Capitol to the
Navy Yard. They retain the beauty of their youth be-
cause each tree has been given a chance to grow to its best
estate. In spring the opening leaves and pistillate flowers
are red, giving the silvery green tree- top a warm flush
that cheers the passerby. In European countries this
oak is a prime favorite for public and private parks.
The Red Oak
Q. rubra, Linn.
The red oak grows rapidly, like the pin oak, and is a
great favorite in parks overseas, where it takes on the rich
autumnal red shades that give it its name at home. Such
color is unknown in native woods in England.
The head of this oak is usually narrow and rounded;
the branches, short and stout, are inclined to go theh- own
way, giving the tree more of picturesqueness tlian of
symmetry, as age advances. Sometimes the dome is
62 TREES
broad and rounded like that of a white oak, and in the
woods, where competition is keen, the trunk may reach one
hundred and fifty feet in height.
The red oak leaf is large, smooth, rather thin, its oval
broken by triangular sinuses and forward-aiming lobes,
that end in bristly points. The blade is broadest between
the apex and the middle, where the two largest lobes are.
No oak has leaves more variable than this.
Under the dark brown, close-knit bark of a full-grown
red oak tree is a reddish layer that shows in the furrows.
The twigs and leaf -stems are red. A flush of pink covers
the opening leaves, and they are Hned with white down
which is soon shed.
The bloom is very abundant and conspicuous, the fringe-
like pollen-bearing aments four or five inches long, droop-
ing from the twigs in clusters, when the leaves are half-
grown in May.
The acorns of the red oak are large, and set in shallow
saucers, with incurving rims. Few creatures taste their
bitter white kernels.
The Willow Oak
Q. PhelloSy Linn.
The willow oak has long, narrow, pointed leaves that
suggest a willow, and not at all an oak. The supple twigs,
too, are willow-like, and the tree is a lover of the waterside.
But there is the acorn, seated in a shallow, scaly cup, like
a pin oak's. There is no denying the tree's family con-
nections.
A southern tree, deservedly popular in cities for shade
and ornamental planting, it is nevertheless hardy in
THE OAKS 63
Philadelphia and New York; and a good little specimen
seems to thrive in Boston, in the Arnold Arboretum. As
a lumber tree, the species is unimportant.
The Shingle, or Laurel, Oak
Q. imbricaria, Michx.
The shingle or laurel oak may be met in any woodland
from Pennsylvania to Nebraska, and south to Georgia and
Arkansas. It may be large or small; a well-grown speci-
men reaches sixty feet, with a broad, pyramidal, open head.
The chief beauty of the tree, at any season, is the foliage
mass — dark, lustrous, pale lined, the margin usually un-
broken by any indentations. In autumn the yellow,
channelled midribs turn red, and all the blades to purplish
crimson, and this color stays a long time. It is a wonder-
ful sight to see the evening sunlight streaming through the
loose, open head of a laurel oak. No wonder people plant
it for shade and for the beauty it adds to home grounds and
public parks.
The Mountain Live Oak
Q. chrysolepis, Liebm.
The mountain live oak cannot be seen without chmbing
the western slopes of the mountains from Oregon to Lower
California, and eastward into New Mexico and Arizona.
On levels where avalanches deposit detritus from the
higher slopes, sufficient fertihty and moisture are found to
maintain groves of these oaks, wide-domed, with massive,
horizontal branches from short, buttressed trunks — the
64 TREES
Western counterpart of the live oak of the South, but lack-
ing the familiar drapery of pale green moss.
The leaves are leathery, polished, oval blades, one or two
inches in length, with unbroken margins, abundant on in-
tricately divided, supple twigs, that droop with their bur-
den and respond to the lightest breeze. The leaves per-
sist until the bronze-green new foliage expands to replace
the old, and keep the tree-tops evergreen.
The acorns are large, and their thick, shallow saucers are
covered with yellow fuzz. For this character, the tree is
called the gold-cup oak. In June, the copious bloom is
yellow. Even at an altitude of eight thousand feet the
familiar gold-cup acorns are borne on shrubby oaks not
more than a foot high !
The maximum height of the species is sixty feet. The
wood is the most valuable oak of the West Coast. It is
used for wagons and agricultural implements.
The Live Oak
Q, agrifolia. Nee.
The live oak (Q. agrifolia, Nee.) called also "Encina," is
the huge-limbed, holly-leaved live oak of the lowlands,
that reaches its greatest abundance and maximum stature
in the valleys south of San Francisco Bay. The giant oaks
of the University campus at Berkeley stretch out ponder-
ous arms, in wayward fashion, that reach far from the
stocky trunk and often rest their mighty elbows on the
ground. The pointed acorns, usually exceeding an inch in
length, are collected by woodpeckers, and tucked away for
further reference in holes they make in the bark of the
same oaks.
THE HORSE-CHESTNUTS 65
From the mountain slopes to the sea, and from Mendo-
cino County to Lower California, groves of this semi-
prostrate giant are found, furnishing abundant supply of
fuel, but no lumber of any consequence, because the
trunks are so short and the limbs so crooked.
THE HORSE-CHESTNUTS, OR BUCKEYES
The Horse-chestnut
Aesculus Hippocastanum, Linn.
At the head of this family stands a stately tree, native of
the mountains of northern Greece and Asia Minor, which
was introduced into European parks and planted there as
an avenue tree when landscape gardening came into
vogue. By way of England it came to iVmerica, and in
Eastern villages one often sees a giant horse-chestnut, per-
haps the sole remnant of the street planting of an earlier
day.
Longfellow's "spreading chestnut tree" was a horse-
chestnut. And the boys who watched the smith at his
work doubtless filled their pockets with the shiny brown
nuts and played the game of "conquerors" every autumn
as regularly as they flew their kites in spring. What boy
has not tied a chestnut to each end of a string, whirled
them round and round at a bewildering rate of speed and
finally let them fly to catch on telegraph wires, where they
dangle for months and bother tidy folks .^^
The glory of the horse-chestnut comes at blooming
time, when the upturning branches, like arms of candel-
abra, are each tipped with a white blossom-cluster, pointed
66 TREES
like a candle flame. (See illustration, page 5^.) Eacli
flower of the pyramid has its throat-dashes of yellow and
red, and the curving yellow stamens are thrust far out of
the dainty ruffled border of the corolla.
Bees and wasps make music in the tree-top, sucking the
nectar out of the flowers. Unhappily for us humans,
caterpillars of the leopard and tussock moths feed upon
the tender tissues of this tree, defacing the fohage and
making the whole tree unsightly by their presence.
Sidewalks under horse-chestnut trees are always littered
with something the tree is dropping. In early spring the
shiny, wax-covered leaf buds cast off and they stick to slate
and cement most tenaciously. Scarcely have the folded
leaflets spread, tent-like, before some of them, damaged by
wind or late frosts or insects' injury, begin to curl and drop,
and as the leaves attain full size, they crowd, and this
causes continual shedding. In early autumn the leaflets
begin to be cast, the seven fingers gradually loosening from
the end of the leaf -stalk; then comes a day when all of the
foliage mass lets go, and one may wade knee deep under
the tree in the dead leaves. The tree is still ugly from
clinging leaf -stems and the slow breaking of the prickly
husks that enclose the nuts.
With all these faults, the horse-chestnut holds its popu-
larity in the suburbs of great cities, for it lives despite
smoke and soot. Bushey Park in London has ^lyq rows of
these trees on either side of a wide avenue. When they are
in bloom the fact is announced in the newspapers and all
London turns out to see the sight. Paris uses the tree ex-
tensively; nearly twenty thousand of them line her streets,
and thrive despite the poverty of the soil.
The American buckeyes are less sturdy in form and less
THE HORSE-CHESTNUTS C7
showy in flower than tlie European species, but they
have the horse-shoe print with the nails in it where the leaf-
stalk meets the twig. The brown nuts, with the dull white
patch which fastens them in the husk, justifies the name
"buckeye." One nibble at the nut will prove to any one
that, as a fruit, it is too bitter for even horses. Bitter,
astringent bark is characteristic of the family.
The Ohio Buckeye
Ae. glabra, Willd.
The Ohio buckeye has five yellow-green leaflets, smooth
when full grown, pale, greenish yellow flowers, not at
all conspicuous, and bitter nuts in spiny husks. The
whole tree exhales a strong, disagreeable odor. The
wood is peculiarly adapted to the making of artificial
limbs.
The great abundance of this little tree in the Ohio Valley
accounts for Ohio being called the "Buckeye State."
The Sweet Buckeye
Ae. octandra. Marsh.
The sweet buckeye is a handsome, large tree with green-
ish yellow, tubular flowers and leaves of five slender,
elliptical leaflets. Cattle will eat the nuts and paste
made from them is preferred by bookbinders; it holds
well, and book-loving insects will not attack it. These
trees grow on mountain slopes of the Alleghanies from
western Pennsylvania southward, and west to Iowa and
Texas.
68 TREES
The California Buckeye
Ae. californica, Nutt.
The California buckeye spreads wide branches from a
squat trunk, and clothes its sturdy twigs with unmistak-
able horse-chestnut leaves and pyramids of white flowers.
Sometimes these are tinted with rose, and the tree is very
beautiful. The brown nuts are irregular in shape and en-
closed in somewhat pear-shaped, two-valved husks.
This western buckeye follows the borders of streams
from the Sacramento Valley southward; they are largest
north of San Francisco Bay, in the canyons of the Coast
Range.
Shrubby, red-flowered buckeyes, often seen in gardens
and in the shrubbery borders of parks, are horticultural
crosses between the European horse-chestnut and a
shrubby, red-flowered native buckeye that occurs in the
lower Mississippi Valley.
THE LINDENS, OR BASSWOODS
This tropical family, with about thirty -five genera, has
a single tree genus, tilia, in North America. This genus
has eighteen or twenty species, all told, with representa-
tives in all temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere,
with the exception of Central America, Central Asia, and
the Himalayas.
Tilia wood is soft, pale-colored, light, of even grain,
adaptable for wood-carving, sounding-boards of pianos,
woodenwares of all kinds, and for the manufacture of
THE LINDENS 69
paper. The inner bark is tough and fibrous. It has been
used since the human race was young, in the making of
ropes, fish nets, and lilve necessities. It was a favorite
tying material in nurseries and greenhouses until the more
adaptable raflia came in to take its place. The bark of
young trees is stripped in spring to make the shoes of the
Russian peasantry. An infusion of basswood flowers has
long been a home remedy for indigestion, nervousness,
coughs, and hoarseness. Experiments in Germany have
successfully extracted a table oil from the seed-balls. A
nutritious paste resembling chocolate has been made from
its nuts, which are delicious when fresh. In winter the
buds, as well as the tiny nuts, stand between the lost trap-
per and starvation. The flowers yield large quantities of
nectar, and honey made near linden forests is unsurpassed
in delicacy of flavor.
About the time of Louis XIV, the French fashion arose of
planting avenues to lindens, where horse-chestnuts had
formerly been the favorite tree. The fashion spread to
England of bordering with "lime trees" approaches to the
homes of the gentry. "Pleached alleys" were made wit);
these fast-growing trees that submitted so successfully to
severe pruning and training. All sorts of grotesque figures
were carved out of the growing lime trees in the days before
topiary work in gardens submitted to the rules of land-
scape art, and slower growing trees were chosen for such
purposes.
In cultivation, lindens have the virtues of swift growth,
superb framework, clean, smooth bark, and late, profuse,
beautiful and fragrant bloom, which is followed by interest-
ing seed clusters, winged with a pale blade that lightens
the foliage mass. One fault is the early dropping of the
70 TREES
leaves, which are usually marred by the wind soon after
they reach mature size. Propagation is easy from cut-
,tings and from seed.
The American Linden, or Basswood
Tilia Americana^ Linn.
The American linden or basswood is a stately spreading
tree reaching one hundred and twenty feet in height and a
trunk diameter of four feet. The bark is brown, furrowed,
and scaly, the branches gray and smooth, the twigs ruddy.
The alternate leaves are obliquely heart-shaped, saw-
toothed, with prominent veins that branch at the base,
only on the side next to the petiole. (See illustration,
page 86.) Occasionally the leaf blades are eight inches
long. A dense shade is cast by a linden tree in midsum-
mer.
The blossoms, cream-white and clustered on pale green>
leaf-like blades, open by hundreds in June and July,
actually dripping with nectar, and illuminating the plat-
forms of green leaves. A bird flying overhead looks down
upon a tree covered with broad leaf blades overlapping
like shingles on a roof. It must look underneath to see the
flowers that delight us as we look up into the tree-top from
our station on the ground.
In midsummer the linden foliage becomes coarse and
wind- whipped; the soft leaf -substance is attacked by
insects that feed upon it; plant lice deface them with
patches of honey-dew, and the sticky surfaces catch dust
and soot. Riddled and torn, they drop in desultory
fashion, their faded yellow not at all lik€ the satisfying
gold of beech and hickory leaves.
Str i,Uijc Jl
Till'; l'.l.\('K WAl.N'UT
The youii^ ^Ik.oIs arc vclvcly aii<l aininal ic. The pistillalc flowers. 111
j,M-(.ii|)s (.1' ;! Id .••). arc on Icriiiiiial spikes
See page 37
SHAGBARK HICKORY IS KNOWN AND NAMED BY ITS
LOOSE, STRIPPING BARK
THE LINDENS 71
The flight of basswood seeds on their wing-hke blades
goes on throughout the winter. This alone would account
for the fact that basswoods greatly outnumbered all other
trees in the virgin forests of the Ohio Valley. The seeds
are not the tree's sole dependence. Suckers grow up
about the stump of a tree the lumberman has taken, or the
lightning has stricken. Any twig is likely to strike root,
and any cutting made from a root as well.
The finest specimen I know grew from a walking-stick
cut in the woods and thrust into the ground, by a mere
chance, when the rambler reached home. It is the roof
tree of a mansion, tall enough to waft its fragrance into the
third-story windows, and to reach high above the chimney
pots.
The range of this tree extends from New Brunswick to
Dakota and south to Virginia and Texas. Its wood is
used for carriage bodies, furniture, cooperage, paper pulp,
charcoal, and fuel.
The Bee Tree, or White Basswood
T, heterophylla, Vent.
The bee tree or white basswood of the South has nar-
rower leaves than the species just described, and they
vary in form and size; but always have Hnings of fine,
silvery down, and the fruits are fuzzy. A wonderful,
dazzling play of white, pale green, and deeper shades is
seen when one of these trees flutters its leaf mass against a
background, sombre with hemlocks and an undergrowth
of rhododendron. The favorite haunts of this species are
the sides of mountain streams. Wild bees store their
hoard of honey in the hollow trunks of old trees; and it is
72 TREES
the favorite holiday of many countr}^ folk to locate these
natural hives and despoil them. In order to do this the
tree must come down, and the revenge of the outraged
swarm is sometimes a high price to pay for the stolen
sweets.
This linden is found from Ithaca, New York, southward
along the Appalachian Mountains to northern Alabama,
and westward into Illinois and Tennessee. It is best and
most abundant in the mountains of eastern Tennessee
and North Carolina, at a considerable altitude.
The Downy Basswood
T. pubescens, Ait.
The downy basswood has leaves that are green on both
sides, but its young shoots and leaf -linings are coated with
rusty hairs. It is a miniature throughout of the American
basswood, except that the blade that bears the flower-
cluster is rounded at its base, while the others taper nar-
rowly to the short stem. This species occurs on Long
Island, and is sparingly seen along the coast from the
Carohnas to Texas.
The Common Lime
T. vulgaris
"Unter den Linden," the famous avenue in Berlin, is
planted with the small-leaved common lime of Europe, be-
side which the American basswood is a coarse-looking tree.
Very disappointing docked trees they are, along this
thoroughfare; for city streets are never places where a tree
can reach its best estate. In the rural sections of France
THE LINDENS 7S
and Germany this tree reaches noble stature and great
age.
Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist, had his name from a fine
hnden tree, when his peasant fatlier rose to the dignity of a
surname. "Linn" is the Swedish word for Hnden.
"Carl Linne," meaning "Charles of the linden tree," it was
at first when he played as a boy in the shadow of its great
branches. "Carolus Linnaeus" he became when he was
appointed professor of the university at Upsala, and
through all time since.
Gerarde discourses quaintly upon the linden tree in his
"Crete Herball" published in England in 1597. "The
male tree," he says, "is to me unknown." We smile at
his notion that there are male and female trees in this
family, but we wonder at the accuracy of observation
evinced by one who lived and wTote before the science of
botany had any existence. Evidently Master Gerarde
had a good pair of eyes, and he has well expressed the
things he saw. I quote a paragraph:
"The female line, or linden tree waxeth very great and
thicke, spreading forth its branches wide and fare abroad,
being a tree which yieldeth a most pleasant shadow, under
and within whose boughs may be made brave siunmer
houses and banqueting arbors, because the more that it is
surcharged with weight of timlxn* and such like, the better
it doth flourish. The bark is brownish, very smooth and
plaine on the outside, but that which is next to the timber
is white, moist and tough, serving very well for ropes,
trases and halters. The timber is whitisli, ])hiine, and
without knots; yea, very soft and gentle in the cutting and
handhng. The leaves are smooth, greene, shining and
large, somewhat snii)t or toothed about the edges: the
floures are little, whitish, of a good savour, and very many
74 TREES
in number; growing clustered together from out of the
middle of the leaf: out of which proceedeth a small whitish
long narrow leaf e : after the floures succeed cornered sharp
pointed nuts, of the bignesse of hasell nuts. This tree
seemeth to be a kinde of elme, and the people of Essex
(whereas great plenty groweth by the waysides) do call it
broad-leafed elme."
PART III
THE WATER-LOVING TREES
The Poplars — The Willows — The Hornbeams — The
Birches — The Alders — The Sycamores, or But-
TONwooDs — The Gum Trees — The Osage Orange
THE POPLARS
The poplars are plebeian trees, but they have a place to
fill and they fill it with credit. They are the hardy, rude
pioneers that go before and prepare the way for nobler
trees. Let a fire sweep a path through the forest, and the
poplar is likely to be the first tree to fill the breach. The
trees produce abundant seed, very much like that of
willows, and the wind sows it far and wide. The young
trees love the sun, and serve as nurse trees to more valu-
able hardwoods and conifers, that must have shade until
they become established. By the time the more valuable
species are able to take care of themselves, the poplars
have come to maturity and disappeared, for they are quick-
growing, short-lived trees. The wind plays havoc with
their brittle branches. Seldom has a good-sized poplar
tree any chiim to beauty.
Tenacity of life, if not of fibre, belongs to the poplar
tribe. Twigs strike root and the roots send up suckers
from underground; cutting off these suckers only en-
75
76 TREES
courages them to fresh activity. The only way to get rid
of the young growth that springs up about an old tree is to
use the grubbing-hoe thoroughly and patiently.
Poplar blossoms, borne in catkins, show the close re-
lationship between this genus and the willows. The
leaves, however, are always broad and leathery, and set on
long stems. Twenty -five species are known, twelve of
which are American.
The White Poplar
Populus alba, LinUo
The white poplar is sometimes called the silver-leaved
poplar because its dark, glossy leaves are lined with cot-
tony nap. This sprightly contrast of light and shade in
the foliage is most unusual, and very attractive in early
spring; but the leaf -linings collect soot and dust, and this
they carry to the end of the season — a fact which should
not be forgotten by those considering the advisability of
planting this tree in a city where much soft coal is
burned.
The white bark of this European poplar reminds us of
the birch family, though it has no silky fringe shedding
from the surface. The leaves often imitate the maple in
the divisions of their margins, justifying the name "maple-
leaved poplar."
As a dooryard tree this species has a wider popularity
than it deserves. The wind breaks the brittle branches,
and when these accidents threaten its life, the tree sends up
suckers which form a grove about the parent trunk, and
defy all efforts to eradicate them, until the grubbing-hoe
and axe have been resorted to.
THE POPLARS 77
The Black Poplar
P. nigra, Linn.
The Lombardy poplar, a variety of the black poplar of
Europe, is a familiar tree figure along roadsides, and often
marks boundary lines between farms. Each tree is an
exclamation point, its branches short and numerous,
rising toward the zenith. The roundish leaves that twinkle
on these aspiring branches make the tree pretty and in-
teresting when young — just the thing to accent a group of
round-headed trees in a park. But not many years are
attained before the top becomes choked with the multitude
of its branches. The tree cannot shed this dead wood and
the beauty of its youth is departed. The trunk grows
coarse, warty, and buttressed at the base. Suckers are
thrown up from the roots. There is little left to challenge
admiration. Since the tree gives practically no shade, we
must believe that the first planters were attracted by its
odd shape and its readiness to grow, rather than by any
belief in its fitness for avenue and highway planting.
The Cottonwood
P. delfoidea, Marsh.
The Cottonwood justifies its existence, if ever a tree did.
On our Western plains, where the watercourses are slug-
gish and few and often run dry in midsummer, few tree^
grow; and the settler and traveler is grateful for the cotton-
woods. The pioneer on the Western prairie planted it for
shade and for wind-breaks about his first home. !Maiiy
of these trees attain great age and in protected situations
78 TREES
are magnificent though unsymmetrical trees, shaking out
each spring a new head of bright green, glossy f ohage, each
leaf responsive to the lightest breeze.
"Necklace-bearing poplar," it has been called, from
the fact that children find pleasure in stringing for beads
the green, half-grown pods containing the minute seeds.
They also delight in gathering the long, red caterpillar-
like catkins of the staminate flowers, the pollen bearers,
from the sterile trees, A fertile tree is sometimes counted
a nuisance in a dooryard because its pods set free a great
mass of cotton that collects in window screens, to the
annoyance of housewives. But this seed time is soon over.
Just these merits of quick growth, prettiness, and te-
nacity of life, belong to the Carolina Poplar, a variety of
native cottonwood that lines the streets of the typical
suburban tract opened near any American city. The
leaves are large and shine with a varnish which protects
them from dust and smoke. But the wind breaks the
branches, destroys the symmetry of the tree's head, and in
a few years the suburban community takes on a cheap and
ugly look. The wise promoter will alternate slow-growing
maples and elms with the poplars so that these permanent
trees will be ready to take their places in a few years.
The Aspen
P. tremvloides, Michx.
The trembling aspen, or quaking asp, is the prettiest tree
of all the poplar tribe. Its bark is gray and smooth, often
greenish and nearly white. An aspen copse is one of the
loveliest things in the spring landscape. In March the
bare, angular limbs show green under their bark, one of the
THE POPLARS 79
first prophecies of spring; tlien the buds cast their brown
scales and fuzzy gray catkins are revealed. There are few
shades of olive and rose, few textures of silk and velvet
that are not dupHcated as the catkins lengthen and dance
like chenille fringe from every twig. With the flowers, the
new leaves open; each blade limp, silky, as it unrolls, more
like the finest white flannel than anything else. (See illus-
trations, pages 86-87.) Soon the leaves shed all of this hairy,
protective coat, passing through various tones of pink and
silver on their way to their lustrous, bright green maturity.
Their stems are flattened in a plane at right angles with the
blade. Being long and pliant besides, they catch the breeze
on blade or stem, and so the foliage is never still on the
quietest of summer days. "Popple" leaves twinkle and
dance and catch the sunlight like ripples on the surface of a
stream, wliile the foliage of oaks and other trees near by
may be practically motionless.
The Balsam Poplar
P. halsamifera, Linn.
The balsam poplar is the balm of Gilead of the early
settlers, the Tacamahac of the Northern Indians. They
squeezed the fragrant wax from the winter buds and used it
to seal up the seams in their birch-bark canoes. The bees
taught the Indian the uses of this glutinous secretion,
which the tree used to seal the bud-scales and thus keep out
water. When growth starts with the stirring of the sap,
this wax softens; then the bees collect and store it against a
day of need . Whether their homes be hollow trees or patent
hives, weather-cracks are carefully sealed up with this water-
proof gum, which the bee-keeper knows as ^^ propolis.''*
80 TREES
Forests of balm of Gilead cover much of the vast British
possessions north of the United States, and reach to the
ultimate islands of the Aleutian group. They dip down
into the states as far as Nebraska and Nevada. In culti-
vation, the species has proved itself a tree of excellent
habit, easily propagated and transplanted, and of rapid
growth. It has all the good points of the Carolina poplar
and lacks its besetting sin of becoming so soon an unsightly
cripple.
Narrow-leaved Cottonwood
P. angustifolia, James.
Lance-leaved Cottonwood
P. acuminata, Rydb.
Mexican Cottonwood
P. Mexicana, Wesm.
These three cottonwoods line the banks of mountain
streams at high elevations in the great system of mountain
chains that stretch from British Columbia southward.
The dancing foliage, bright green in summer, golden in
autumn, lends a charming color note to the dun stretches
of arid plain and the sombre green of pine forests. These
trees furnish the settler fuel, shade, and wind-breaks while
he is converting his "homestead" into a home.
Black Cottonwood
P. trichocarpa. Hook.
Farther west, covering the mountain slopes from Alaska
to Mexico, and liking even better the moist, rich low-
lands, is the black cotton wood, the giant of the genus,
THE POPLARS 81
reaching two hundred feet in height, and seven to eight feet
in trunk diameter. Tall and stately, it lifts its broad
rounded crown upon heavy upright limbs. In the Yo-
semite the dark, rich green of these poplar groves along the
Merced River makes a rich, velvet margin, glorious when it
turns to gold in autumn.
Swamp Cottonwood
P. Iieterophylla, Linn.
The swamp cottonwood of the South has leaves of varia-
ble but distinctly poplar form, always large, broadly ovate,
with slim round petioles. The white down of the un-
folding leaves often persists into midsummer. On ac-
count of the fluttering leaves the trees were called, by the
early Acadians, " Langiies de Jemmes''' a mild calumny trace-
able to the herbalist, Gerarde, who compares them to
"women's tongues, which seldom cease wagging."
The wood of poplars, soft, weak, and of slight value for
fuel or lumber, has within two decades come into a position
of great economic importance. Wood pulp is made of it,
and out of wood pulp a thousand articles, from toys to
wheels of locomotives, are made. A state forester de-
clared: *'If I could replace the maples in the state forest by
poplars to-day, I would do it gladly. It would be worth
thousands of dollars to the state."
THE WILLOWS
Along the watercourses the willow family finds its most
congenial habitat. It is a very large family, numbering
more than one hundred and seventy species, which are,
82 TREES
however, mostly shrubs rather than trees. America has
seventy species of willows, and new forms are constantly
being discovered, which are the results of the crossing of
closely related species. These "natural hybrids" have
greatly confused the botany of the willow family.
Not more than half a dozen American willows ever at-
tain the height of good-sized trees, and many of these are
more commonly found in the tangled shrubbery of river
banks, or covering long semi-arid strips of ground far to
the north, or on mountain sides where their growth is
stunted. Little trees, six inches high, bearing the char-
acteristic catkins and narrow leaves of the willow, are
found on the arctic tundras.
The wood of willows is pale in color, soft in texture, and
of very little use as lumber or fuel, except in localities where
trees are scarce. The Indian depended upon the inner
bark of the withy willow for material for his fish nets and
lines, and farmers in the pioneer days took the tough, supple
stems, when spring made the sap run freely, for the binding
together of the rails of their fences. Emotted tight and
seasoned, these twigs hardened and lasted for years.
In Europe the white willow has long been used for the
making of wooden shoes, artificial limbs, and carriage
bodies. Its wood makes the finest charcoal for gunpowder.
Willow wares, such as baskets and wicker furniture, are as
old as civilization, and that in its primitive stages. It is
a common sight in Europe to see groves of trees from
which the long twigs have been taken yearly for these uses.
The stumps are called "pollards" and the trees "pollarded
willows" whose discouraging task has been to grow a
yearly crop of withes for the basket-makers; yet each
spring finds them bristling with the new growth.
THE WILLOWS 83
The hosts of Caesar invading England in the First
Century found the Britons defending themselves behind
willow- woven shields, and living in huts of wattled willows,
smeared with mud. From that time to the present the
uses of these long shoots have multiplied.
The roots of willows are fibrous and tough as the shoots.
For this reason they serve a useful purpose in binding the
banks of streams, especially where these are liable to flood.
Nature seems to have designed these trees for just this
purpose, for a twig lying upon the ground strikes root at
every joint if the soil it falls on is sufficiently moist. The
wind breaks off twigs and the water carries them down
stream where the}' lodge on banks and sand bars, and these
are soon covered with billows of green.
Willows start growth early in spring, putting out their
catkins, the two sexes on different trees, before the opening
of the leaves. Before the foliage is full gro^vn, the light
seeds, each a minute speck, floats away in a wisp of silky
down. Its vitality lasts but a day, so it must fall on wet
ground at once in order to grow. But the willow family is
quite independent of its seeds in the matter of propaga-
tion. Chop the roots and twigs into bits and each will
grow. Chop a young willow tree into sticks and fence
posts and each one, if it is stuck green into the ground,
covers itself with a head of leafy twigs before the season is
over.
Weeping Willow
Salix Bahylonica
The weeping willow, nmch planted in cemeteries and
parks, came originally from Asia and is remarkable for its
84 TREES
*
narrow leaves that seem fairly to drip from the pendulous
twigs. (See illustration, page 55.) The foliage has a
wonderful lightness and cheerfulness of expression, despite
its weeping habit.
The Pussy Willow
S. discolor, Muehl.
The pussy willow is the familiar bog willow, whose gray,
silky catkins appear in earliest spring. A walk in the
woods in late February often brings us the charming sur-
prise of a meeting with this little tree, just when its gray
pussies are pushing out from their brown scales. We cut
the twigs and bring them home and watch the wonderful
color changes that mark the full development of the
flowers. Turning them in the light, one sees under the
sheen of silky hairs the varied and evanescent hues that glow
in a Hungarian opal. In midsummer a pussy willow tree is
lost among the shrubby growth in any woods. It is only
because it leads the procession of the spring flowers that
every one knows and loves it. {See illustrations, pages 86-87,)
THE HORNBEAMS
Two genera of little trees in the same family with the
birches are frequently met in the woods, often modestly
hiding under the larger trees. One is the solitary repre-
sentative of its genus: the other has a sister species.
The hornbeams grow very slowly and their wood is close-
grained, heavy, and hard. In flexibility, strength, and
ability to stand strain, it rivals steel. Before metals so
THE HORNBEAMS 85
generally became competitors of woods in construction
work, hornbeam was the only wood for rake teeth, levers,
mallets, and especially for the beams of ox yokes. It out-
wore the stoutest oak, the toughest elm. Springiness
adapted it for fork handles and the like. Bowls and dishes
of hornbeam lasted forever, and would never leak nor
crack. *' Iron wood" is the name used wherever the wood
was worked.
American Hornbeam
Carpi?ius Carolinianum, Walt.
The American hornbeam has bluish gray bark, very fine
in texture, from which the name "blue beech," is common
in some localities. "Water beech" points out the tree's
preference for rich swamp land.
The trunk and limbs are strangely swollen, sometimes
like a fluted column, oftener irregularly, the swelling
under the bark suggesting the muscular development of a
gymnast's arm.
In favorable places the hornbeams grow into regular
oval heads, their branches dividing into a multitude of
wiry, supple twigs. Crowded under oaks and other forest
growth, they crouch and writhe; and their heads flatten
into tangled masses of foliage.
The delicate leaves, strong-ribbed, oval, pointed, turn to
red and orange in autumn. (See illustration, page 87.)
The paired nutlets are provided with a parachute each, so
that the wind can sow them broadcast. This wing is leafy
in texture, shaped like a maple leaf, and curved into the
shape of a boat. After they have broken apart, the nut-
lets hang by threads, tough as hornbeam fibres always are.
86 TREES
At last, away they sail, to start new trees if they fall in
moist soil.
The European hornbeam was a favorite tree for making
the "pleached alleys," of which old-world garden-lovers
were proud. A row of trees on each side of a promenade
were pruned and trained to cover an arching framework,
and to interlace their supple branches so that at length no
other framework was needed, and one walked through a
tunnel of green so closely interlaced as to make walls and
roof that shut out light and wind and rain! Hedges,
fences, and many fancies of the gardener were worked out
with this hornbeam, so willingly did it lend itseK to cutting
and moulding into curious forms.
Hop Hornbeam
Ostrya Virginiana, Willd.
The hop hornbeam has habits like the other iron wood and
an equal reputation for the hardness of its wood. The
tree, however, wears scaly, shaggy brown bark, suggesting
in its manner of scaling off the shagbark hickory. Its
nutlets are packed separate in loose papery bags, and to-
gether form a loose, cone-like cluster, like the fruit of a
hop vine. The wind scatters these buoyant little bags,
that travel far.
This tree often twists in growing, and the trunk shows
spiral furrows. "Hard-tack," "beetle- wood," "lever-
wood" — all take us back to the pioneer who put this wood
to such good uses, and who was glad to have these little
trees growing in his woodlot. In hickories, even, he had
not the equal of them for strength and hardness.
See page 85
THE AMERICAN HORNBEAM
A fruiting branch showing the thin beech-hke leaves and the seeds on
their leafy triangular bracts
THE BmCIIES 87
Knowlton's Ironwood
0. Knowlloniy Co v.
Knowlton's iron wood is found nowhere but in a thi'^'^
grove on the southern slope of the canyon of the Colorado
in Arizona, about seventy miles north of Flagstaff. Here
these trees are numerous, crouching under oaks, their
twisted branches ending in drooping twigs, bearing the
characteristic pale green hops in autumn, small oval leaves,
and the catkin flowers in spring. Such a restricted dis-
tribution for a distinct species of trees is unmatched in the
annals of botany.
THE BmCHES
Grace and gentility of appearance are attributes of this
most interesting, attractive, and valuable family of trees.
Shabby gentility, one may insist, tliinking of the untidy,
frayed-out edges that adorn the silky outer bark of almost
every birch tree in the woods. (See illustration, page 102.)
Not one of them, however, but lends a note of cheerfulness
to the landscape. There is beauty and daintiness in leaf,
flower, and winged seed, and despite the inferiority of most
birch wood, the history of the family is a long story of use-
fulness to the human race.
About thirty species of birches grow in the Northern
Hemisphere, ten of them are North American. The white
birch of Europe extends across the northern half of Asia,
and is cultivated in delicate cut-leaved and weeping forms,
as a lawn and park tree in this country.
88 TKEES
The Canoe Birch
Betula papyrifera, Marsh.
The canoe birch or paper birch is the noblest member of
the family. (See cover of book.) Ernest Thompson
Seton calls it "The White Queen of the Woods— the
source of food, drink, transport, and lodging to those who
dwell in the forest — the most bountiful provider of all the
trees." Then he enumerates the sweet syrup yielded by
its sap; the meal made by drying and grinding the inner
bark; the buds and catkins upon v/hich the partridge feeds;
and the outer bark, which is its best gift to primitive
man.
"The broad sheets of this vegetable rawhide, ripped off
when the weather is warm, and especially when the sap is
moving, are tough, light, strong, pliant, absolutely water-
proof, almost imperishable in the weather; free from in-
sects, assailable only by fire. It roofs the settler's shack
and the forest Indian's wigwam. It supplies cups, pails,
pots, pans, spoons, boxes; under its protecting power the
matches are safe and dry; split very thin, as is easily done,
it is the WTiting paper of the woods, flat, light, smooth,
waterproof, tinted, and scented; but the crowning glory of
the birch is this — it furnishes the indispensable substance
for the bark canoe, whose making is the highest industrial
exploit of the Indian life."
From the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from our northern
tier of states to the arctic seas, woodsmen, red and white,
have found this white-barked tree ready to their hand,
their sure defense against death by cold and by starvation.
The weather is never so wet but that shreds of birch bark
TIIE BIRCHES 89
burn merrily to start a campfire, and the timber of the
trunk burns readily green or dry.
The White Birch
B, populifolia. Marsh.
The wliite birch is a small, short-lived tree that grows in
swampy ground, its bark chalky white or grayish, with
triangular rough patches of black, where branches are or
have been. (The canoe birch has a clean bole, challvy
white, with none of these ugly black patches.)
A vagabond tree it is, with thin pointed leaves and long
pencil-like catkins and seed cones. The chief contributions
of the poplar-leaved birch to the well-being of men are that
it clothes with beauty the most uniniviting situations, and
that it comes again, after fire or other general slaughter,
promptly and abundantly, from stump and scattered seed.
The Yellow Birch
B. lutca, INIichx.
The yellow birch shows gleams of yellow under every rent
in its gray, silky, frayed-out surface. Here is a timber tree
of considerable size and value: its hard wood furnishes the
frames of northern sledges; the knots and burs make good
mallets; the curiously knotted roots show a curly grain,
valuable to the cabinet-maker. From New England to
Minnesota, and south along the Appalachian range, this
tree is found, always telling its name by the color of its
shaggy bark.
90 TREES
The Red Birch
B. nigra, Linn.
Red birch or river birch wears its name in its chocolate-
hued or terra-cotta bark, whose scaly surface flaunts a
series of tattered fringes to the very twig ends. Tall and
graceful fountains of living green, these birches lean over
stream borders from Minnesota and New York to the Gulf
of Mexico, and reach westward to the foothills of the
Rockies. Close-grained and strong, the pale brown wood
is used for furniture, shoe lasts, and a multitude of wooden-
wares. In the bayous of the lower Mississippi, where it;^
roots and the base of the trunk are inundated for half the
year, the tree reaches its greatest size. The cones stand
erect and shed their heart-shaped, winged seeds in June —
an exception to the autumn-fruiting of all other birches.
The Cherry Birch
B. lenta, Linn.
The cherry birch has dark, irregularly checked bark like
the wild cherry, but the oval, pointed leaf, the catkin
flowers, and the cone fruits of its family. Birch beer is
made of its aromatic sap and wintergreen oil is extracted
from the leaves. Indians shred the inner bark and dry it in
the spring when it is rich in starch and sugar. These
shreds, like vermicelli, are boiled with fish and form a
nourishing dish. The wood is heavy, hard, and close-
grained, valuable for the manufacture of furniture and
implements, especially wheel hubs, and for fuel. It is
one of the handsomest, most symmetrical, and most lux-
THE ALDERS 91
uriant of all our birch trees, and a worthy addition to any
park.
THE ALDERS
Closely related to the hornbeams and birches is a genus
of small water-loving trees that grow rapidly and serve
definite, special uses in the Old and New World. The
genus alnus includes tw^enty species, nine of which grow in
North America; six of these reach the height of trees.
The Black Alder
Alnus glutinosa, Gaertn.
Of the alders, the black alders of Europe is the largest
and most important timber tree. Its range includes west-
ern Asia and northern xlfrica. It was introduced success-
fully into our Northeastern states in colonial times and has
become naturalized in many localities. These trees some-
times reach seventy feet in height and a trunk diameter
of three feet. Their dark green foliage, glutinous when
the leaves unfold in the spring, ranks these giant alders
among the beautiful and picturesque trees.
The lumberman esteems alder wood only for special
purposes. It grows in w^ater and its wood resists decay bet-
ter than any other kind when saturated through indefinite
periods. In the old days it was the wood for the boat-
builder. The i)iles of the Rialto in Venice and along the
canals of Amsterdam and other Dutch cities are of black
alder. Water pipes and troughs, pumps, barrel staves,
kneading troughs, sabots and clogs were made of alder
wood. The bark and cones are rich in tannin and a vellow
92 TPtEES
dye used in making inlv. Willow and alder make the best
charcoal for gunpowder. Warty excrescences on old
trees and twisted roots furnished the inlayer with small
but beautifully veined and very hard pieces, beautiful
in veneer work when polished. In America the black
alder is often met in horticultural varieties. The daintiest
are the cut-leaved forms, of which imperialism with leaves
fingered like a white oak, is a good example.
One of the best uses to which alders are put in Europe
is planting in hedges along borders of streams, where their
closely interlacing roots hold the banks from crumbling
and keep the current clear in midstream. No English
landscape is more beautiful than one through which a little
river winds, its banks and the boggy spots tributary to it
softened by billows of living green. "He who would see
the alder in perfection must follow the banks of the Mole
and Surrey through the sweet vales of Dorking and Wickle-
ham."
Seaside Alder
A. maritima, Nutt.
The seaside alder shares with the witch hazel the pe-
culiar distinction of bearing its flowers and ripening its
fruit simultaneously in the fall of the year. 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 seaside alder follows stream borders near but not
actually on the seacoast, through eastern Delaware and
Maryland, but ranges comfortably on drier soil as far west
as Oklahoma and is hardy in gardens and parks as far
THE SYCAMORES 93
north as Boston, where it blooms profusely and is much
admired for both flowers and glossy foliage through the
late summer.
Oregon Alder
A. Oregona, Nutt.
The Oregon or red alder reaches eighty feet in height and
its trunk may exceed three feet in diameter. This Western
tree exceeds the Old World alder in size. The smooth,
pale-gray bark reminds us of the beech and sets this tree
apart from the white alder whose bark is brown and deeply
furrowed. The flowers and cone fruits are very large.
The ovate leaves are cut-toothed and often lobed. This is
the alder of the West Coast, largest where it comes down
to the sea near the shores of Puget Sound, but climbing the
mountains and canyon sides wherever there is water, from
Sitka to Santa Barbara. The reddish brown wood is
light, easily worked, and beautifully satiny when polished.
In Washington and Oregon it is largely used in the manu-
facture of furniture. The Indian dug-outs are made of the
butts of large trees.
THE SYCAINIORES, OR BUTTOmVOOD?
The Button wood
Platanus occidentallsy Linn.
Our eastern buttonwood is a tree to which, m America,
we supply the name sycamore. Its EuDopoan counter-
part is the plane tree of the Old World. It is one of the
easiest trees to recognize, for its most prominent trait Ls
94 TREES
fairly shouted at us from a distance, whenever one of these
trees comes within the range of our vision. The smooth
bark that covers the branches is thin, very brittle, and has
the habit of flaking off in irregular plates, leaving white
patches under these plates that contrast sharply with the
dingy olive of the unshed areas. On old trunks the bark is
reddish brown and breaks into small, irregular plates; but
above, and out among the branches, the tree looks doT\Ti-
right untidy, and as though it had been splashed with
whitewash by some careless painter. (See illustrations,
pages 102-103.)
White birches grow in copses in low ground, a whole
regiment of their white stems slanting upward. But the
ghostly sycamore is apt to stand alone along the river-
courses, scattered among other water-loving trees. The
tree is wayward in its branching habit, its twigs irregular
and angular. When the leaves are gone, it is a distressed-
looking object, dangling its seed-balls in the wind until the
central, bony cob is bare, the seeds having all sailed away
on their hairy parachutes.
In the warmer South our buttonwood is a stalwart,
large-limbed tree of colossal trunk, that shelters oaks and
maples under its protecting arms. And there are some
large specimens on Long Island.
The buttonwood leaf in a general way resembles a maple's,
being as broad as long, with three main lobes at the top.
The leaf stem forms a tent over the bud formed in summer
and containing the leafy shoot of the next year. The leaf
scar, therefore, is a circle and the leaf base a hollow
cone. At first a sheathing stipule, like a little leafy
ruffle, grows at the base of each leaf, but this is shed
before midsummer.
THE GUINI TREES 95
Oriental Plane
P. Orientalis, Linn.
The oriental plane is almost as familiar a tree as our
native species, for it is planted as a street tree in every city
and village, and is a favorite shade and lawn tree besides.
The city of Washington has set the example and so has
Philadelphia. One third of the street trees of Paris are
plane trees.
The chief merits of this tree immigrant are its perfect
hardiness, its fine, symmetrical, compact pyramid, its
freedom from injury by smoke and dust, and its rapid
growth in the poor soil of the parkings of city and village.
In leaf and fruit and bark-shedding habit, it is easily
recognized as a sycamore, though in this species more than
one ball dangles from each stem.
The exactions of city life limit the number of tree species
that will do well. Our native sycamore patiently endures
the foul breath of factory chimneys, and helps, in the small-
est, downtown city parks, to make green oases in
burning deserts of brick and stone pavements. But it is
subject to the ravages of insect and fungous enemies to a
greater extent than the oriental species.
THE GUM TREES
Southern people talk more about "gum trees" than
people in the North. Two of our three native species of
Nyssa belong solely to southern swamps, and the third,
which comes north to Canada, is of toner called bv other
96 TREES
names. All these trees are picturesque, with twigg;^^ con-
torted branches; tough, cross-grained wood; alternate,
simple, leathery, but deciduous leaves, beautiful at all
seasons; minute flowers and fleshy, berry-like fruits.
The Sour, or Black, Gum
Nyssa sylvatica. Marsh.
The sour or black gum of the South has a wide range,
being hardy to southern Ontario and Maine. To the New
Englander this is the "pepperidge"; the Indians called
it "tupelo"; but the woodsman. North and South, calls it
the gum tree, as a rule. "Black gum" refers to its dark
gray, rough bark, which is broken into many-sided plates.
By this, it is easily distinguished from the "red gum"
or liquidamber, which grows in the same situations, but is
not related to it. ' ' Sour gum ' ' refers to the acid, blue-black
berries, one to three in a cluster, ripe in October.
We shall know this tree by its tall, slender trunk, clothed
with short, ridged, full-twigged, horizontal branches. With
no claim to symmetry, the black gum is a striking and
picturesque figure in winter. It is beautiful in summer,
covered with the dark polished leaves, two to four
inches long. In autumn patches of red appear as the
leaves begin to drop. This is the tupelo's signal that
winter is coming. Soon the tree is a pillar of fire against
yellowing ashes and hickories. The reds of the swamp
maple and scarlet oak are brighter, but no tree has a richer
color than this one. A spray brought in to decorate the
mantelpiece lasts till Christmas holly displaces it. The
leaves, being leathery, do not curl and dry, as do thin
maple leaves, in the warm air of the house.
THE GUM TREES 97
The Cotton Gum
A^. aquaticay Marsh.
The cotton gum is draped in cottony white down as the
new shoots start and the leaves unfold in spring. In mid-
summer this down persists in the leaf-linings, lightening the
dark green of the tree-tops. The dark blue fruits of this
species have no culinary value. The wood is used for
crating material. The tree reaches its maximum height —
one hundred feet — in the cypress swamps of Louisiana
and Texas, its abundant, corky roots adapting it to its
habitat.
The Sweet Gum
Liquidamher styracifliia, Linn.
The sweet gum is a tall tree with a straight trunk, four to
five feet in diameter, with slender branches covered with
corky bark thrown out in wing-like ridges. At first the
head is regular and pyramidal, but in old age it becomes
irregularly oblong and comparatively narrow. The bark
is reddish brown, deeply furrowed between rough scaly
plates, marked by hard, warty excrescences.
The leaves are lobed like a maple's, but more regularly,
so as to form a five-pointed star. Brilliant green in sum-
mer, they become streaked with crimson and yellow.
Wherever these gum trees grow, the autumn landscape is
painted with the changeful splendor of the most gorgeous
sunset. "The tree is not a flame, it is a conflagration!^^
Often along a country road the rail fence is hidden by an
undergrowth of young gum trees. Their polished star
98 TREES
leaves may pass from green into dull crimsons and then into
lilacs and so to brown, or they may flame into scarlets and
orange instead. Always, the foHage of the sweet gum falls
before it loses its wonderful colors.
The flowers of the sweet gum are knobby little bunches;
the swinging balls covered with curving horns contain
the winged seeds, small but shaped like the key of the
maple. One recognizes the gum tree in winter by these
swinging seed-balls, an inch in diameter, like the balls of the
buttonwood, except that those are smooth. (See illustra-
tions, pages 102-103.) The best distinguishing mark of sweet
gums in winter are the corky ridges on the branches, and
the star-shaped leaves under the trees. Sweet gum sap is
resinous and fragrant. Chip through the bark, and an
aromatic gum soon accumulates in the wound. The far-
ther South one goes, the more copious is the exudation. In
Mexico a Spanish explorer described, in 1651, "large trees
that exude a gum like liquid amber." This is the " copalm
balm" gathered and shipped each year to Europe from
New Orleans and from Mexican ports. The fragrant
gum, storax or styrax, derived from forests of the oriental
sweet gum in Asia Minor, is used as incense in temples of
various oriental religions. It blends with frankincense and
myrrh in the censers of Greek and Roman Catholic
churches. It is used in medicines also, and as a dry gum
is the standard glove perfume in France.
Beautiful and interesting in every stage of growth, our
native sweet gums are planted largely in the parks of
Europe and are earning recognition at home, through the
efforts of tree-lovers who would make the most of native
species in ornamental planting.
The name, gum tree, is applied to our tupelos, and to the
THE OSAGE ORANGE 99
great tribe of Australian eucalyptus trees, now largely
planted in the Southwest.
The Osage Orange
Toxylon pomiferum. Raff.
Related to figs and mulberries, but solitary in the genus
toxylon, is the osage orange, a handsome round-headed
tree, native of eastern North America, whose fleshy roots
and milky, bitter, rubbery sap reveal its family connec-
tions with the tropical rubber plants. (See illustration,
page 119.) The fruits are great yellow-green globes, four to
five inches in diameter, covered on the outside by crowded,
one-seeded berries. This compound fruit reveals the tree's
relationship to both figs and mulberries.
The aborigines, especially of the Osage tribe, in the
middle Mississippi Valley, cherished these trees for their
orange-yellow wood, which is hard, heavy, flexible, and
strong — the best bow-wood to be found east of the Rocky
Mountains. When the settlers came the sharp thorns
with which the branches are effectually armed appealed
strongly to the busy farmers and the tree was widely
planted for hedges. Nurserymen produced them by
thousands, from cuttings of root and branch. These trees
made rapid growth and seemed most promising as a solu-
tion of the fencing problem, but they did not prove hardy
in Iowa and neighboring states. Even now remnants of
those old winter-killed hedges may be found on farm
boundaries, individual trees having been able to survive.
The native osage orange timber is about all gone, for the
rich bottom lands where it once grew most abundantly in
Oklahoma and Texas have been converted into farm land.
100 TREES
However, the growing of osage orange timber for posts is
on the increase. Systematically maintained, plantations
pay well. The wood is exceptionally durable in soil.
Good prices are paid for posts in local markets. Twenty-
five posts can be grown to the rod in rows of a plantation ;
they grow rapidly and send up new shoots from the roots.
The brilliant, leathery leaves and conspicuous green
fruits make this native bow-wood a very striking lawn
tree. It holds its foliage well into the autumn and turns at
length into a mass of gold. It harbors few insects, lias
handsome bark, and is altogether a distinguished, foreign-
looking tree.
Experiments of feeding osage orange leaves to silkworms
have been successfully made at different times, but no-
where in America has silk culture succeeded. Since the
white mulberry is hardy here and its foliage is the basis of
the silk-growing industry in the Old World, it is futile to
look lor substitutes in the osage orange or any other tree.
PART IV
TREES WITH SHOWY FLOWERS AND FRUITS
The Magnolias — The Dogwoods — The Viburnums
The Mountain Ashes — The Rhododendron — The
Mountain Laurel — The ]\L\drona — The Sorrel
Tree — The Silver Bell Trees — The Sweet Leaf
— ^The Fringe Tree — The Laurel Family — The
Witch Hazel — The Burning Bush — The Sumachs
— The Smoke Tree — The Hollies
THE IVIAGNOLIAS
Four of the ten genera in the magnoHa family are repre-
sented in North America. Of these, two are trees. All
are known by their large, simple, alternate leaves, with
margins entire; their showy, solitary, terminal flowers,
perfect and with all parts distinct; and their cone-
like fruits, compounded of many one- or two-seeded
follicles, shingling over each other upon a central spike.
The wood is soft and light throughout the family, and the
roots are fleshy. The sap is watery and the bark is bitter
and aromatic.
The genus magnolia, named by Linnaeus in honor of
Pierre Magnol, a French botanist, includes twenty species;
twelve are native to eastern and southern Asia, two to
Mexico, and six to eastern North America. They are of
101
102 TREES
peculiar interest to horticulturists and to the general pub-
lic, because they have the largest flowers of any trees in
cultivation. A white blossom from six inches to a foot
across is bound to attract attention and admiration when
set off by a whorl of lustrous evergreen leaves. The petals
of most magnolia blossoms are notably thick and waxy in
texture and deliciously fragrant. Last but not least
are the cone-like fruits, which flush from pale green to rose
as they ripen against the dark, leathery fohage; at maturity
their follicles open in a peculiar fashion and hang out their
bright red seeds on slender elastic threads. Foliage,
flowers, or cones alone would make magnolias superb as
ornamental trees. All these qualities combined have
given them a preeminent place in every country where
ornamental planting is done. North America is fortunate
in having so large a number of species that assume tree
form.
When you see a magnolia in the North blossoming be-
fore the leaves, you may be sure it is an exotic species, and
if the flowers are colored you may be equally sure that it is
a hybrid between two oriental species, and belongs to the
group of which the type is M, Soulangeana. The owner
may be a magnolia enthusiast, able to show you on his
premises both parents of this interesting and beautiful
hybrid.
Yulan Magnolia
Magnolia Yulan
The Yulan magnolia, for centuries a favorite in Japanese
gardens, covers itself before the leaves appear with pure
white, fragrant flowers, bell-shaped and fully six inches
across. In our Eastern gardens it is quite as much at
THE TATri;Ki;i), SILlvV HAKK OF illi; IUH( IIKS
BLOTCHED BARK OF THE SYaAJVIORE, AND THE SEED-
BALLS THAT HANG ON ALL WINTER
THE WARTY, KlD(ilOI) BARK, THE SWINGING SEED-
BALLS, AND THE WINGED SEEDS OF THE SWEET (JUM
Sc^ page 109
TULIP TREE, FLOWER AND LEAVES
THE MAGNOLIAS 103
home, and though young trees are oftenest seen, the older
specimens are as large as any native magnoha. This is one
parent. The other is but a shrub, the purple magnolia,
M. ohovata, that must be protected against the rigors of our
Northern winters. It blooms in May or June, and its
purple flowers, with rosy linings, are relatively small and al-
most scentless. The children of this parentage get their
tints of pink and rose and crimson from this purple mag-
nolia shrub.
Splendid, hardy, fragrant, big-flowered varieties have
arisen from this cross. All are small trees, suitable for
planting in city yards, where they are decorative through-
out the season.
Starry Magnolia
M. stellata
The starry magnolia blooms in March or April, covering
itself with star-shaped white flowers made of strap-like
petals that form a flat whorl instead of a cup. This is the
earhest magnoha and wonderfully precocious, blooming
when scarcely two feet high.
The Southern states can grow the splendid Campbell's
magnolia, which is in its glory in the high mountam
valleys of the Himalayas, where it reaches one hundred feet
in height. The fragrant flower-cups, from sLx to ten
inches in diameter, shade from pink to crimson. It is rare
in cultivation because it is not easy to grow, and northern
horticulturists fail utterly to grow it outdoors; but the fact
that it is the most beautiful of all exotic species must en-
courage its culture in the South, and diflSculties will be over-
come when the tree's pecuhar needs are fully understood.
104 TREES
The Great Laurel Magnolia
M. foetida, Sarg.
The great laurel magnolia is oftenest seen in cultivation
as a small tree of pyramidal or conical habit, with stiff,
ascending branches, bearing a lustrous mass of leathery
oval leaves, five to eight inches long, lined with dull green,
or with rusty down, persistent until the second spring.
When small these magnolia trees are as conventional as the
rubber plants in hotel lobbies, whose foliage resembles
theirs. But in the forests of Louisiana, where this tree
reaches its greatest perfection, it earns the characterization
that Sargent gave it, "the most splendid ornamental tree
in the American forests." With a trunk four feet thick,
and its head lifted from fifty to eighty feet above the
ground and with each leaf cluster holding up a great white
flower, waxy as a camellia, seven to eight inches across, the
tree is indeed superb. William Bartram likened these
flowers to great white roses, distinctly visible from a dis-
tance of a mile.
The purple heart of the flower, made by a spot of color
at the base of each petal, and the overpowering odor, rather
sickening as the flowers fade, lure insects to the nectar
store at the bottom of the flower-cup. This odor, dis-
agreeable to many people, is the one objection to this
flower when brought indoors. A drawback that florists
discover is that the sHghtest bruise of the waxy petals
produces a brownish discoloratiouj, which prevents the
shipment of these flowers. The splendid foliage, however,
travels perfectly, and a new and growing industry is the
gathering of magnolia branches il!i Southern woods for
THE MAGNOLIAS 105
Christmas decoration. These branches are offered in all
Northern cities, and this demand threatens the extinction
of the tree, which until comparatively recent years has en-
joyed immunity because of the worthlessness of its soft
wood.
The tree's natural range is from the North Carolina
coast to Tampa Bay, and west along the Gulf Coast to
Texas and southern Arkansas. As an ornamental tree, it
is safely planted in Philadelphia, but its life is precarious
farther north. It is widely grown in southern California
as a street tree, notably in Pasadena and in parks and
gardens for its blossoms, foliage, and fuzzy, horny cones.
The Swamp Bay
M. glauca, Linn.
The swamp bay has lustrous, bright green leaves with
silvery linings. In Florida and across to Texas and Arkan-
sas it grows into a superb evergreen tree, fifty to seventy-
five feet in height. Northward along the Atlantic Coast its
growth is stunted as the climate becomes more rigorous,
until it reaches Massachusetts and Long Island, w^here it
becomes a many-stemmed shrub, w^hose beautiful leaves
fall in the autumn. On the streets of cities near the New
Jersey swamps the flowers of the swamp bay are offered for
sale in May. The buds are almost globular, and each one
is surrounded by a cluster of new leaves. To spring back
these waxy white petals, that are marred by a touch, is
criminal; but it is the common practice with boys w^ho
hawk these flowers on the streets. ]\Iost of the charm is
gone from flowers thus defiled by dingy fingers.
106 TREES
The finest flowers are borne on strong young shoots.
The florists collect and handle them with extreme care.
Much of the swamp land now useless along the Atlantic
seaboard could be profitably planted to this magnoHa, for
the florist trade alone. The flowers bloom slowly through
a period of several weeks. The enterprising owner of tracts
planted to swamp bay could reap two harvests a year, al-
most from the first season: the flowers in spring and the
leafy shoots for holiday decorations. In the South the
leaves are evergreen.
The Large-leaved Cucumber Tree
M. macrophylla, Michx.
The large-leaved cucumber tree exceeds all other magno-
lias in the size of its leaves and flowers. In fact, no tree out-
side the tropics can match it, for its blades are almost a yard
in length. The flowers are great white bowls, sometimes a
foot across, made of six white waxy petals, much broader
than the three protecting sepals outside. The inner petals
have purple spots at the base. The fruits are almost
globular, two to three inches long, turning red as they
mature, equally showy when the scarlet seeds dangle from
the open follicles.
These trees are at home in fertile valleys among the foot-
hills of the Alleghanies, from North Carolina to middle
Florida, and west to central Arkansas. Their range is not
continuous. They occur in scattered groups that have
come from seed.
The horticulturist has greatly aided nature in the spread
of this tree in this country and in Europe, where its flowers
and leaves attract universal attention. The mistake
THE MAGNOLLiS 107
usually made is to plant it in the middle of a lawn where
the wind lashes the broad leaves into ribbons before they
have reached their full size. Every twig or leaf that
touches a petal mars it witli a brown bruise. The only
way to enjoy one of these remarkable trees is to plant it in
the most sheltered situation, where the sunshine will reach
it and the breezes will not. Then the silver-hned foliage
and the superb white blossoms can come to perfection and
the sight is worth going miles to see.
The Cucumber Tree
M. acuminata, Linn.
The cucumber tree is the hardiest of our native magnolias,
tropical-looking by reason of its heart-shaped leaves, six to
ten inches long. Its chosen habitat is rocky uplands,
where the fleshy roots can find moist soil. It ranges from
western New York to Illinois, Kentucky, and Arkansas,
and follows the mountain foothills through Pennsylvania
and Tennessee into Alabama and Mississippi.
The flowers are Hke tulips, and though large can scarcely
be seen amxong the new leaves, because they are all yellow-
ish green in color. The petals are leaf-like and the flowers
have no fragrance to make up for their lack of beauty.
Imperfect pollination results in distorted, fleshy cones
that resemble cucumbers that have twisted and shrunken
in spots as they grew. These fruits turn from pink to red
as they mature, redeeming their ugly shape by their vivid
color as the leaves turn yellow. In September, the scarlet
seeds hang out and the wind whips them until they dangle
several inches below the fruit. One by one they drop and
new cucumber trees come up from this planting.
108 TREES
The wood of the cucumber tree is light, close-textured,
weak, and pale brown in color. It has only local use in
cabinet-making and for flooring. The tree is far more val-
uable in horticulture. It is a splendid stock on which to
graft less hardy magnolias. It is a superb avenue and
shade tree for Northern cities, and in this capacity it is as
yet httle known. It grows vigorously from seed, and
stands transplanting, if care is used that the brittle roots
are not mutilated nor dried.
The Umbrella Tree
M, tripetala, Linn.
The umbrella tree has an umbrella-like whorl of leaves
surrounding the flower whose white cup stands above
three recurving white sepals. The whole tree .suggests an
umbrella, so closely thatched is its dome of thin, bright
green leaves.
The stout contorted branches and twigs lack sjonmetry,
from the forking habit. Side twigs strike out at right
angles from an erect branch, then turn up into a position
parallel with the parent branch, and bear terminal flowers,
which induce another branching system the following year.
Despite its angularity this is the trimmest and one of the
handsomest of our native magnolias, and it has the merit
of hardiness even in New England, where it attains large
size. Its native range extends from Pennsylvania near the
coast, along the Atlantic seaboard, and westward to
southern Alabama and Arkansas. It loves swamp borders
and the banks of mountain streams, but behaves well in the
moderately rich soil of parks and gardens.
THE IVIAGNOLIAS 109
The Tulip Tree
Liriodendron tulipifera, Linn.
The tulip tree is a cousin, rather than a sister, to the fore-
going magnolias. It stands alone in its genus in America,
but has a sister species that grows in the Chinese interior.
A tall, stately forest tree, it reached two hundred feet in
height, and a trunk diameter of ten feet, in the lower Ohio
Valley, when it was covered with virgin forest. This
species still holds its own as a valuable lumber tree on
mountain slopes of North Carolina and Tennessee.
Smaller, but still stately and beautiful, it is found in woods
from Vermont to Florida and west to Illinois, Arkansas,
and Mississippi.
In Europe the tulip tree has been a favorite since its dis-
covery^ and exportation by the American colonists. More
and more it is coming to be appreciated at home as a la\\Ti
and shade tree, for there is no time in the year when it is
not full of interest and beauty, and no time in its life when
it is not a distinct and beautiful addition to any plantation.
In the dead of winter young tulip trees are singularly
straight and symmetrical compared with saplings of
other trees. There is usually a grove of them, planted by
some older tree that towers overhead, and still holds up its
shiny cones, that take months to give up their winged
seeds. The close, thick, intricately furrowed bark of the
parent tree contrasts sharply with the smooth rind of its
branches and the stems of the saplings. Tulip trees are
trim as beeclies until the trunks are old.
The winter twigs are set with oblong blunt leaf-buds.
The terminal one contains the flower, when the tree is old
110 ( TREES
enough to bloom. (See illustration, page 103.) In spring
the terminal buds of samplings best show the peculiarity of
the tree's vernation. Two green leaves mth palms to-
gether form a flat bag that encloses the new shoot. Hold
this bag up to the light and you see, as a shadow within,
a curved petiole and leaf. The bag opens along its edge
seam, the leaf -stem straightens, lifting the blade which is
folded on the midrib. At the base of the petiole stands a
smaller flat green bag. As the leaf grows to maturity the
basal palms of its protecting bag shrivel and fail away,
leaving the ring scar around the leaf base.
Now the growing shoot has carried up the second bag,
which opens and another leaf expands, sheds its leafy
stipuleSs and a third follows. The studies of this unique
vernation delight children and grown-ups. It is absolutely
unmatched in the world of trees.
The leathery blades of the tuHp tree are from four to six
inches broad and long, with basal lobes, like those of a
maple leaf, and the end chopped off square. Occasionally
there is a notch, made by the two end lobes projecting a
trifle beyond the midrib. The leaves are singularly free
from damage, keeping their dark lustrous beauty through
the summer, and turning to clear yellow before they fall.
The winged seeds fall first from the top of the erect
cones, the wind whirling them far, because the flat blades
are long and the seed-cases light — many of them empty in
fact. Far into winter a tulip tree seems to be blossoming,
because its bare branches are tipped with the remnants of
the seed cones, faded and shining almost white against the
dark branches.
Tulip wood is soft and weak, pale brown, and light in
weight. It is easily worked and is used locally for house-
TIIE DOGWOODS 111
and boat-building. Wood pulp consumes much of the
yeai'ly harvest. It is knowni as "poplar,'* whose wood it
resembles. Ordinary postal cards are made of it. The
bark yields a drug used as a heart stimulant.
THE DOGVv^OODS
Foliage of exceptional beauty is the distinguishing trait
of the trees in the cornel famil}^ from the standpoint of the
landscape gardener and the lover of the woods. Showy
flowers and fruit belong to some of the species; extremely
hard, close-textured wood belongs to all; and this means
slow growth, which is a limitation in the eyes of the planter
who wishes quick results. But he who plants a cornel tree
and watches it season after season, finds it one of the most
interesting of nature studies through the whole round of
the year.
The dogwoods are slender-twigged trees of small size,
with simple, entire leaves, strongly ribbed, and with one
exception, set opposite upon the twigs. Fifty species are
distributed over the Northern Hemisphere; one crosses the
equator into Peru. Four of the seventeen species found in
the United States are trees; the rest are shrubs, one of them
the low-growing bunchberry of our Northern woods.
The Flowering Dogwood
Cornus jlorida, Linn.
The flowering dogwood {see illustration, pageloJf)is a little
tree whose round, bushy, flat-topped head is made of short,
horizontal branches. The twigs hold erect in the winter
112 TREES
a multitude of buds, large, squat, enclosed in four scales,
like the husk of a hickory nut. All the delicate tints that
the water-colorist delights in are found in these buds and
the twigs that bear them. When spring comes, these
scales loosen, expand, turn green, then fade into pure white
— ^forming the four banners, ordinarily called petals — of the
bloom of the dogwood. The true flowers are small and
clustered in the centre. These white expanses are merely
modified bud scales, the botanist will tell you, and the
notch at the end is where the horny winter scale broke
away, while its base was growing into the large white
palm.
From March till May one finds the dogwood clothed in
white {see Ulitstration, page 118)^ and the glossy leaves pass-
ing through changing hues from rose to green. The
wayward arrangement of the blossoms on the branch is the
delight of artists. Lured by the white signals, bees and
other nectar-loving insects come to the flowers, cross-
fertilizing them while they supply their own needs. In
midsummer the pale green clusters of berries replace the
flowers, and when in autumn the foliage, still glossy and
smooth, changes to crimson and scarlet, the berries are
brighter still, until the birds have taken every one.
The bark of the dogwood is checkered like alligator skin
but with deep furrows that make it very rough. Th«
wood is used for wood engraving blocks, for tool handlci,
hubs, and cogs. But it is becoming very scarce. The de-
plorable destruction of the dogwoods comes not so mucli
from the lumberman as from the irresponsible people who
tear the trees to pieces in blossoming time. The wanton
mutilation of the dogwoods in natural woodlands belong-
ing to cities can be curbed only by pohcing the tracts. The
THE DOGWOODS 113
saving of every flowering dogwood tree is a duty owed
to his community by every wood-lot owner within the
range of this hardy, handsome tree. Though exterminated
over much of its range, it is able and willing to grow in any
state east of the Mississippi River. It is one of the most
deservedly popular trees planted for ornament in this
country and in Europe.
Western Dogwood
C. Nuttallii, x\ud.
The Pacific Coast outdoes the rest of the country in
the size of its forest trees. Superlatives in vegetation
abound where the breath of the Japan current tempers the
air. The Western dogwood often reaches one hundred
feet in height in the forests near Seattle. Its flowers have
six, instead of four, of the petal-like, white bracts, each
narrower and pointed, and without the terminal notch.
The tree in blossom is more magnificent than the eastern
species, for the flowers are often tw^ce as large, and the
spectacle of one of these trees, after the leaves turn to
scarlet in autumn, and it leans against the sombre ever-
greens that cover the mountainside, is always startling,
even in a country where surprises are the rule.
European Dogwood
C. nias.
The European dogwood or cornel is often planted in the
Eastern states as an ornamental tree, but not for its
flowers alone, though these tiny, button-like clusters
cover the bare branches in earliest spring. Tlie showy
114 TREES
fruits look like scarlet olives hanging among the glossy
foliage in late summer. These fruits are edible, and in
Europe are used in preserves and cordials.
THE VIBUIINUMS
The honeysuckle family, which includes a multitude of
ornamental shrubs, furnishes two genera with three repre-
sentatives. Handsome foliage, showy flowers, and at-
tractive fruits justify the popularity of this family in
gardens and parks.
The viburnums are distributed over the Northern
Hemisphere and extend into the tropics. There are about
one hundred species, including the old-fashioned snowball
bush, perhaps the best-known species in this country.
Discriminating gardeners have replaced it by the Japanese
snowball, because the latter has much more handsome
foliage and perfect flowers, instead of the barren flower
cluster that has nothing to show for itself once the bloom
is past. This new species wears the autumn decoration
of bright red berries well into the winter.
The Sheepberry
Viburnum lentago, Linn.
In our native woods the sheepberry is a small round-
headed tree, with shm, drooping branches and oval leaves,
finely cut-toothed and tapering to wavy-wiaged petioles.
In autumn these leathery leaves change to orange and red,
their shiny surfaces contrasting with the dull lining, pitted
with blad£ dots. The fruit, a loose cluster of dark blue
THE VIBURNUMS 115
berries, on branching red stems, is an attractive color
contrast, and the birds flutter in the trees until they have
eaten the last one. The fragrant white flowers light up
the tree from April to June with their flat clusters three
to five inches across. The opposite arrangement of the
leaves and that short- winged petiole identify the little
tree, whether it grows by the swamp borders, along the
streams, or in parks and gardens. At any season it is
good to look upon. Its range covers the eastern half of
the country, extending almost to the Gulf of Mexico and
west into Wyoming.
The Rusty Nannyberry
V. rufidulum. Raff.
The rusty nannyberry is easily distinguished by the
rusty hairs that clothe its new shoots and the stems and
veins of the leaves. White flower clusters are succeeded
by bright blue berries of unusual size and brilliance, ripe
in October, on red-stemmed pedicles. The handsome
pohshed leaves are rounded at the tips. The wood of this
little tree has a very unpleasant odor, but this trait has no
bearing upon its merits as a garden ornament. It is
found wild from Virginia to Illinois and southward. In
cultivation it is hardy in the latitude of Boston.
The Black Haw
V. prunifolium, Linn.
The black haw has the characteristic flowers and fruit
of its geniLs, but is smaller throughout than the other two,
and its branches are stout. In Euroi>ean parks and gar-
116 TREES
dens it is known as the "stagbush." Its fruit turns dark
when dead ripe, and persists well into the winter. In the
wilds, this little viburnum is found from southern New
England to Michigan, and south to Georgia and Texas.
THE MOUNTAIN ASHES
The handsome foliage and showy flower clusters make
the mountain ashes a favorite gi'oup of little trees for
border shrubberies and other ornamental planting. The
foliage is almost fern-like in delicacy and it spreads in a
whorl below the flower clusters in spring and the scarlet
berry clusters in autumn. Far into the winter after the
foliage has dropped the berries persist, supplying the birds
with food, especially in snowj^ winters, when their need is
greatest, and brightening the dull thickets of bare twigs
on dreary days.
Eastern Mountain Ash
Sorbus Americana^ Marsh.
The common eastern mountain ash reaches thirty feet
in height — a slender, pyramidal tree, with spreading
branches and delicate leaves of from thirteen to seventeen
leaflets. The flat-topped cluster of creamy white flowers
(see illustration, page 135) appears in May and June, above
the dark yellow-green foliage; and the scarlet berries, ripe
in September when the leaves have turned yellow, may
persist until spring. Along the borders of swamps and
climbing rocky bluffs, often scattered in plum thickets,
these trees are handsome at any season. Along the
mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina home reme-
THE MOUNTAIN ASHES 117
dies are made out of the berries. From Newfoundland
to Manitoba and southward the tree grows wild and is
planted for ornament in home grounds.
Elder-leaved Mountain Ash
S. sambucifolia, Roem.
The elder-leaved mountain ash overlaps the first species,
and is even more daring as a climber. It ranges from
Labrador to Alaska, follows the Rocky Mountains to
Colorado, and in the Eastern states goes no farther south
than Pennsylvania. Its leaves are graceful and drooping
like the elder. The flowers and fruits are large ; the whole
tree tropical looking, its open, pyramidal head giving each
leaf a chance at the sun.
European Mountain Ash
S, Aucuparia, Linn.'
Most common in cultivation is the European mountain
ash called in England the rowan tree. This trim round-
headed species is very neat and conventional compared
with its wild cousins, but in the craggy highlands of Scot-
land and Wales it much resembles our mountain ashes.
Old superstitions cluster around the rowan tree in all
rural sections. These are preserved in the folk-lore and
the literature of many countries. Rowans were planted
by cottage doors and at the gates of church yards, being
considered effectual in exorcising evil spirits. Leafy
twigs hung over the thresholds, crosses made of "Roan**
wood given out on festival days, were worn as charms or
amulets. Milkmaids, especially, depended upon these
118 TREES
for the defeat of the "black elves" who constantly tried
to make their cows go dry, and unless prevented got into
the churns — and then the butter would never come!
The farther north a tree can grow, the more likely it is
to have close relatives in the Old World. One mountain
ash of Japan is hardly distinguishable from our western
species, and some authorities believe that our two native
species are but varieties of the rowan tree of Europe.
THE RHODODENDRON
The heath family, of about sixty -seven genera^ distrib-
uted over the temperate and tropical countries of the
earth, has twenty-one genera in the United States, seven
of which have tree representatives. Azaleas, the multi-
tude of the heathers, the huckleberries, the madronas,
call to mind flower shows we have seen — under glass, in
gardens, in parks, and among mountain fastnesses bright-
ened by the loveliness of the mountain laurel, azalea, and
rhododendroUo In this wonderful family the leaves are
simple and mostly evergreen. Rarely are the fruits
of any importance. It is the flowers in masses that give
the chief distinction to a family with over a thousand
species, which have been the subjects of study and culti-
vation through centuries. The type of the family is the
Scotch heather, immortalized in song and story. In
London the Christmas season is marked by the sale of
half a million httle potted plants of heather! Each is
about a foot in height and bears a thousand tiny bells,
rosy, with white lips. This is the poor man's Christmas
flower. It costs a shilling and lasts a month or more.
.SV^- page 99
THE OSAGE ORANGE
Flowers appear in June, after the lustrous leaves
THE RHODODENDRON 119
Trees axe scarce in the heath family. Shrubs are in the
majority. The azaleas, which the Belgian gardeners
have brought to such perfection and developed in such a
great number of varieties, are among the best knowm of
the heaths. The profuse blossoms in potted azaleas
entirely extinguish the foliage, and the flowers are almost
as lasting as if they were artificial.
The genus rhododendron in American woods is repre-
sented by a mountain shrub and a tree. Both are ever-
green and both are widely planted for ornament during
the entire season. Carloads of these wonderful plants
are shipped from the mountain slopes of the Alleghanies
for mass planting on rocky ground, and to cover embank-
ments along the drives in great estates. Because of the
altitude of their native habitat, they are hardy in New
England, and even as far as the Great Lakes. In time of
bloom, these masses are the great flower show of the coun-
tryside, and in winter nothing is more beautiful than the
evergreen foliage of rhododendrons, lifted out of the snow.
Great Laurel or Rose Bay
Rhododendron maximum ^ Linn.
Among the Alleghany Mountains, from Virginia south-
ward, the great laurel rises to a height of forty feet,
and interlaces its boughs with those of Eraser's magnolia
and the mountain hemlock in the dense forest cover.
Thickets of rhododendron trees are common, and though
its stature is reduced, it follows the highlands into New
York, and is one of the most striking and beautiful shrubs
in the Pennsylvania mountains. Scattered and becoming
more rare and more stunted, it reaches Lake Erie and on
no TREES
into New Brunswick. The leaves crown each of the stiff
branches with an umbrella-like whorl, that stands guard
in winter time about a large scaly bud. In spring the
scales fall and a cone-like flower cluster rises. Each
blossom is white, marked with yellow or orange spots, in
the bell-like corolla's throat; or the flowers may be pale
rose, with deeper tones in the unopened buds. A great
tree in blossom, with its flower clusters lighting up the
umbrella-like whorls of glossy, evergreen leaves, illumi-
nates the woods, and makes every other tree look common-
place beside it.
In late summer, green capsules, each with a curving
style at the top, cluster where the flowers stood, but these
are scarcely ornamental. The evergreen leaves and the
buds, full of promise for June blossoming, are the beautiful
features of rhododendrons in winter.
The wonderful array of color and profusion of bloom,
seen in an exhibit of rhododendrons and azaleas, is the
most convincing proof of what crossing and careful selec-
tion can do in developing races of flowering plants. The
ancestry of all these tub-plants is a matter of record, and
goes back to a few comparatively insignificant wild species,
competing with all the rest of the native flora for a liveli-
hood.
THE MOUNTAIN LAUREL
The mountain laurel (Kalviia lalifolia, Linn.) grows from
Nova Scotia to Lake Erie and southward through New
England and New York, and along the Alleghanies to
northern Georgia. Hardier than the rhododendrons,
smaller in blossoms and in foliage, the laurel is in many
THE MADRONA 121
points its superior in beauty. In June and July the pol-
ished evergreen foliage of the kalmia bushes is almost over-
whelmed by the masses of its exquisite pink blossoms, be-
side which the bloom of rhododendrons looks coarse and
crude in coloring. Coral-red fluted buds with pointed
tips show the richest color, making with the yellow-green
of the new leaves one of the most exquisite color combina-
tions in any spring shrubbery. The largest buds open
first, spreading into wide five-lobed corollas, with two
pockets in the base of each forming a circle of ten pockets.
Ten stamens stand about the free central pistil, and the
anther of each is hid in a pocket of the corolla — the slender
filament bent backward. This is a curious contrivance for
insuring cross-fertilization through the help of the bees.
(See ^''Flowers Worth Knowing.'*^)
Linnaeus commemorated in the name of this genus the
devoted and arduous labors of Peter Kalm, the Swedish
botanist, who sent back to his master at the university of
Upsala specimens of the wonderful and varied flora found
in his travels in eastern North America. Most of the
names accredited to Linnaeus were given to plants he
never saw except as dried herbarium specimens from the
New World.
THE INIADRONA
The madroiia (Arbutus Menziesii, Pursh.), another mem-
ber of the Heath family, is one of the superbly beautiful
trees in the forests that stretch from British Columbia
soutliward into California. South of the bay of San
Francisco and on the dry eajstern slopes of California
mountains it is stunted to a shrub, but on the high, well-
12£ TREES
drained slopes through the coast region and in the red-
wood forests of noj-thern California it is a tree that reaches
a hundred feet in height.
John Muir writes: "The madroila, clad in thin, smooth,
red and yellow bark, with big, glossy leaves, seems in the
dark coniferous forests of Wasliinglon and Vancouver
Island like some lost wanderer from tlie magnoha groves
in the South." All the year around this is one of the most
beautiful of American trees. It bears iai'ge conical clusters
of white flowers above the vivid green of its leathery
leaves, that are wonderfully hghtened by silvery Hnings.
In autumn the red-brown of the branches is enriched and
intensified by the luxm-iant clusters of scarlet berries
against the red and orange of the two-year-old leaves.
Among the giant redwoods this tree commands the highest
admiration.
THE SORREL TREE
The sorrel tree, or sour-wood {Oxydendrum arhoreum,
DC.) belongs among the heaths. Its vivid scarlet autumn
foHage is its chief claim to the admiration of gardeners. In
spring the little tree is beautiful in its bronze-green foliage,
and in late July and August it bears long branching
racemes of tiny bell-shaped white flowers. This multitude
of httle bells suggests the tree's relationship to the blossom-
ing heather we see in florists' shops.
The leaves give the tree its two common names: they
have a sour taste, resembhng that of the herbaceous sor-
rels. The twigs, even in the dead of winter, yield this re-
freshing acid sap, that flows through the veins of the mem-
branous leaves in summer. Many a hunter, temporarily
THE SIL\T^R BELL TREES 123
lost in Southern woods, quenches his thirst by nibbKng
young shoots of the sour- wood.
After the flower comes a downy capsule, five-celled, with
numerous pointed seeds. The leaves are not unlike those
of a plum tree except that they attain a length of five to
seven inches. La the woods from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and
Indiana, southward to Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and
Arkansas this tree ranges, and we often see it in cultivation
as far north as Boston. It grows to its largest size on the
western slopes of the Big Smoky Mountains in Tennessee,
attaining here a height of sixty feet. In cultivation it is
one of the little, slender-stemmed, dainty trees, beautiful
at any season. It is the sole representative of its genus in
the world, so far as botanists know.
THE SILVER BELL TREES
The silver bell tree (Mohrodendron teiraptera, Britt.)
earns its name in May when among the green leaves the
clustered bell flowers gradually pale from green to white,
with rosy tints that seem to come from the ruddy flower-
stems. A "snowdrop tree" may be eighty feet in height
in the mountains of east Tennessee and western North
Carolina, but ordinarily we see it in gardens and parks as a
delicate, slender-branched tree, that stands out from every
other species in the border as the loveliest thing that blooms
there.
Not a moment in spring lacks interest if one has a little
mohrodendron tree to watch. For weeks the ruddy twigs
grow ruddier by the opening of leaf and flower buds; then
comes the slow fading of the flowers, when sun and rain
124 TREES
seem to work together to bleach them into utter purity of
color and texture. Gradually the white bells fade and a
queer little green, tapering seed-case enlarges and ripens.
Through the late summer these pale green fruits are ex-
ceedingly ornamental as the leaves turn to pale yellow.
In cultivation, the silver bell tree is hardy in the New
England states, but in its native woods it grows north no
farther than West Virginia and Illinois. It is easily trans-
planted and pruned to bush form, if one desires to keep the
blossoming down where the perfection of the flowers can be
enjoyed at close range.
Snowdrop Tree
M. diptera, Britt.
A second species called the snowdrop tree skirts the
swamps along the South Atlantic and Gulf coast and fol-
lows the Mississippi bayous to southern Arkansas. It is
smaller in stature than the silver bell tree, but has larger
leaves and more showy flowers. The botanical names
record the chief specific difference between the two species :
this one has but two wings on its seed-cases, while the other
has four. This species is hardy no farther north than
Philadelphia. The flowers have their bells cleft almost to
the base, whereas the bell of the other species is merdy
notched at the top.
THE SWEET LEAF
Two genera of trees in this country are temperate zone
representatives of a tropical family which fmrdshes ben-
zoine, torax, and other valuable balsams of commerce. It
THE SWEET LEAF 125
is easy to see that these trees are strangers from warm
countries, for many of their traits are singularly unfamiliar.
The Sweet Leaf
Symplocos iinctoria, L'Her.
The sweet leaf is our sole representative of a large genus of
trees native to the forests of Austraha and the tropics in
Asia and South America. They yield important drugs and
dyestuffs, particularly in British India. But the sweet
leaf is a small tree, rarely over twenty feet in height, with
ashy gray bark, warty and narrowly fissured. In earhest
spring its twigs are clothed with yellow or white blossoms
that come in a procession and cover the tree from March
until May, preceding the leaves, and breathing a wonder-
ful fragrance into the air. The leaves are small, leathery,
dark green, lustrous above, deciduous in the regions of
colder winters, persistent from one to two years in the
w^armer part of its range. The flowers are succeeded by
bro^sTi berries that ripen in summer, or early autumn.
The flesh is dry about the single seed.
Horses and cattle greedily browse upon the foliage,
which has a distinctly sweet taste. The bark and leaves
both yield a yellow dye, and the roots a tonic from their
bitter, aromatic sap.
"Horse sugar" is another local name for this little tree,
which is found sparingly from Delaware to Florida, west
to the Blue Ridge Mountains, and in the Gulf states to
Louisiana and northward into Arkansas and to eastern
Texas. It is a shade-loving tree, usually found under the
forest cover of taller species, skirting the borders of
126 TREES
cypress swamps, and climbing to elevations of nearly three
thousand feet on the slopes of the Blue Ridge.
A wonderful new species of symjplocos has come into
cultivation from Japan and will enjoy a constantly in-
creasing popularity. Its fragrant white blossoms, before
the leaves, make the tree look like a hawthorn; but its
unique distinction is that the racemed fiowers give place
to berries of a brilliant turquoise blue, which make this
shrubby tree a most striking and beautiful object in the
autumn when the leaves are turning yellow.
THE FRINGE TREE
Native to the middle and southern portions of the
United States is a slender little tree {Chionanihus Vir-
ginica, Linn.), whose sister species inhabits northern and
central China. Both of them cover their branches with
delicate, fragrant white flowers, in loose drooping panicles,
when the leaves are about one third grown. Each flower
has four slender curving petals an inch long, but exceed-
ingly narrow. In May and June the tree is decked with
a bridal veil of white that makes it one of the most ethereal
and the most elegant of lawn and park trees at this su-
preme moment of the year. Later the leaves broaden
and reach six to eight inches in length, tapering narrowly
to the short petioles. Thick and dark green, with plain
margins, and conspicuously looped venation near the
edges, these leaves suggest a young magnoha tree. Blue
fruits the size of plums succeed the flowers in September,
denying the magnolia theory and shading to black before
they fall. The flesh is dry and seeds solitary under the
thick skin of the drupe.
THE LAUREL FAlVnLY 1«7
As in many other instances, European gardeners have
led in the appreciation of this American ornamental tree.
However, New England has planted it freely in parks and
gardens, and popularity will follow wherever it becomes
known. Its natural distribution is from southern Penn-
sylvania to Florida, and west to Arkansas and Texas.
In cultivation it is hardy and flourishes far north of its
natural range. No garden that can have a fringe tree
should be without it. Fortunately its wood is negligible
in quantity, and the temptation to chop down these trees
does not come to the ignorant man with an axe. Whoever
goes to the woods in May is rewarded for many miles of
tramping if he comes upon a "snow-flower tree" in the
height of its blooming season, led perhaps by its delicate
fragrance when the httle tree is overshadowed by the
deep green of the forest cover. It is an experience that
will not be forgotten soon.
THE LAUREL FAIVIILY
The laurel family, a large group of aromatic trees and
shrubs found chiefly in tiie tropics, includes with our
sassafras, laurels, and bays the cinnamon and camphoi
trees.
California Laurel
TJmheUnria Califomica, Nutt.
Tlie California laurel climbs the western slopes of the
Sierra Nevada from the forests of southwestern Oregon
to the San Bernardino range near Los Angeles. "Up
North" it is called pepperwood. It is a lover of wet soil.
128 TREES
so it keeps near streams. With the broad-leaved maple
it gives character to the deciduous growth near the north-
ern boundaries of California, where it reaches eighty to
ninety feet in height, and a trunk diameter of four to five
feet. Sometimes it is tall, but usually it divides near the
ground into several large diverging stems, forming a
broad round head. In southern California, and at high
elevations, it oftenest occurs as a low shrub.
The willow-like leaves, lustrous and evergreen, last
often through the sixth season. Unfolding in winter or
early spring, they continue to appear as the branches
lengthen until late in the autumn, turning to beautiful
yellow or orange and falling one by one. Beginning dur-
ing the second season, they continue to drop, as new shoots
loosen their hold. These leaves are rich in an aromatic
oil which causes them to burn readily when piled green
upon a campfire. Plum-like purple fruits succeed the
small white fragrant flowers, borne in clusters in the axils
of the leaves. The seeds germinate before the fruit
begins to decay. Indeed the plantlet has attained con-
siderable size before the acid flesh shows any signs of
change.
This tree is a superb addition to the parks and gardens
of the Pacific Coast. It is strikingly handsome in a land
of handsome trees, native and exotic. Its wood is the
most beautiful and valuable produced in the forests of
Pacific North America for the interior finish of houses and
for furniture. It is heavy, hard, strong, fine-grained,
light brown, of a rich tone, with paler sap-wood, that in-
cludes the annual growth of thirty or forty seasons. The
leaves yield by distillation a pungent, aromatic, volatile
oil, and the fruit a fatty acid commercially valuable.
THE LAUREL FAMILY 129
The Red Bay
Persea Borhonia, Streng.
Another laurel native to stream and swamp borders,
from Virginia to Texas and north to Arkansas, is the red
bay, whose bark, thick, red, and furrowed into scaly ridges
on the trunli, becomes smooth and green on the branches.
The evergreen leaves are narrowly oval, three to four
inches long, bright green, polished, with pale linings. The
white flowers are very minute bells borne in axillary clus-
ters, succeeded in autumn by blue or black shiny berries,
one half inch long, one-seeded, making a pretty contrast
with the clear yellow of the year-old leaves and the bright
green of the new ones.
This native laurel, lover of rich, moist soil, deserves the
place in cultivation more commonly granted its European
cousin, Launis nohilU;, Linn., the familiar tub laurel of
hotel verandas in the Northern states, and much grown
out of doors in southern California and in milder climates
east. The tree is occasionally sixty to seventy feet high,
with trunk two to three feet in diameter. Such specimens
furnish the cabinet-maker and carpenter with a beautiful,
bright red, close-grained wood for fine interior finish and
furniture. Formerly it was used in the construction of
river boats, but the timber supply is now very limited.
The Avocado
P. gratis'simay Gaertn.
In Florida and southern California the avocado or
alligator pear is bein^ extensively cultivated. This
130 TREES
laurel- grows wild in the West Indies, Brazil, Peru, and
Mexico. Its berry attains the size of a large pear. It has
been developed in several commercial varieties, all having
smooth green or purple skin, and soft oily pulp like mar-
row surrounding a single gigantic seed. It is usually cut
in two like a melon and eaten raw as a salad dressed with
vinegar, salt, and pepper. Once a stranger acquires the
taste, he is extremely fond of this new salad fruit. The
growing of the trees is easy and very profitable. At
present the fruits are in great demand in city markets,
and the prices are too high for any but the rich to enjoy
this luxury.
Where a market is difficult to reach, the abundant cU is
expressed from these fruits and used for illumination and
the manufacture of soap. The seeds yield an indehble ink.
It is interesting to the student of trees to note how many
tropical families have representation in North America,
due to the fact that Florida extends into the tropics, and
the West Indies seem to form a sort of bridge over which
Central American and South American species have
reached the Floridian Keys and the mainland.
The Sassafras
Sassafras, Karst.
The sole remnant of an ancient genus is the aro-
matic sassafras familiar as a roadside tree that flames
in autumn with the star gum and the swamp maples. In
the deep woods it reaches a height of more than a
hundred feet and is an important lumber tree. In the
arctic regions and in the rocky strata of our western
mountains, fossil leaves of sassafras are preserved, and
THE LAUREL FAMILY 131
the same traces are found in Europe, giving to the geologist
proofs that the genus once had a much wider range than
now. But no hving representative of the genus was known
outside of eastern North America, until the report of a
recently discovered sassafras in China.
The Indians in Florida named the sassafras to the
inquiring colonists who came with Columbus. They ex-
plaineil its curative properties, and its reputation traveled
up the Atlantic seaboard. The first cargo of home
products shipped by the colonists back to England
from Massachusetts contained a large consignment
of sassafras roots. To-day we look for an exhibit of
sassafras bark in drug-stoxe windows in spring. People
buy it and make sassafras tea which they drink "to
clear the blood." "In the Southwestern states the dried
leaves are much used as an ingredient in soups, for which
they are well adapted by the abundance of mucilage they
contain. For this purpose the mature green leaves are
dried, powdered (the stringy portions being separated),
sifted and preserved for use. This preparation mixed
with soups gives tliem a ropy consistence and a peculiar
flavor, much relished by those accustomed to it. To such
soups are given tlie names garnbofile and gombo zab.^^ (Seton.)
Emerson says that in New England a decoction of
sassafras bark gave to the housewife's homespun woolen
cloth a permanent orange dye. The name "Ague Tree"
originated with the use of sassafras bark tea as a stimulant
that warmed and brought out the perspiration freely for
victims of the malarial "ague," or "chills and fever."
Sassafras wood is dull orange-yellow, soft, weak, light,
brittle, and coarse-grained, but it is amazingly durable
in contact with the soil, as the pioneers learned when they
132 TREES
used it to make posts and fence rails. It is largely used
also in cooperage, and in the building of light boats. Oil
of sassafras distilled from the bark of the roots is used for
perfuming soaps and flavoring medicines.
With all its practical uses listed above, we must all
have learned to know the tree if it grows in our neighbor-
hood, and if we observe it closely, month by month
throughout the year, we shall all agree that its beauty
justifies its selection for planting in our home grounds, and
surpasses all its medicinal and other commercial offerings
to the world.
In winter the sassafras tree is most picturesque by reason
of the short, stout, twisted branches that spread almost at
right angles from the central shaft, and form a narrow,
usually flat, often unsymmetrical head. The bark is
rough, reddish brown, deeply and irregularly divided into
broad scaly plates or ridges. The branches end in slim, pale
yellow-green twigs that are set with pointed, bright green
buds, giving the tree an appearance of being thoroughly
alive while others, bare of leaves, look dead in winter.
What country boy or girl has not lingered on the way
home from school to nibble the dainty green buds of the
sassafras, or to dig at the roots with his jack-knife for a
sliver of aromatic bark?
As spring comes on the bare twigs are covered with a
delicate green of the opening leaves, brightened by clusters
of yellow flowers {see illustration, page 150) whose starry
calyxes are alike on all of the trees; but only on the fertile
trees are the flowers succeeded by the blue berries, soften-
ing on their scarlet pedicels, if only the birds can wait until
they are ripe.
Midsummer is the time to hunt for "mittens" and to
THE WITCH HAZEL 133
note how many different forms of leaves belong on the
same sassafras tree. First, there is the simple ovate leaf;
second, a larger blade oval in form but with one side ex-
tended and lobed to form a thumb, making the whole
leaf look like the pattern of a mitten cut out by an un-
skilled hand; third, a symmetrical, three-lobed leaf, the
pattern of a narrow mitten with a large thumb on each
side. Not infrequently do all these forms occur on a single
twig. Only the mulberry, among our native trees, shows
such a variety of leaf forms as the sassafras. There is
quite as great variation in the size of the leaves. One
law seems to prevail among sassafras trees: more of the
oval leaves than the lobed ones are found on mature trees.
It is the roadside sapling, with its foliage within easy
reach, that delights boys and girls with its wonderful
variety of leaf patterns. Here the size of the leaves greatly
surpasses that of the foliage on full-grown trees, and the
autumnal colors are more glorious in the roadside thickets
than in the tree- tops far above them.
Sassafras trees grow readily from seed in any loose,
moist soil. A single tree spreads by a multitude of fleshy
root-stalks, and these natural root-cuttings bear trans-
planting as easily as a poplar. Every garden border
should have one specimen at least to add its flame to the
conflagration of autumn foliage and the charming con-
trast of its blue berries on their coral stalks.
THE WITCH HAZEL
Eighteen genera compose the sub-tropical family in
which hamamelis is the type. Two or three Asiatic
species and one American are known.
134 TREES
Tlie witch hazel (Hamamelis Virginiana, Linn.) is a stout,
many-stemmed shrub or a small tree,' with rough unsymmet-
rical leaves, strongly veined, coarsely toothed, and roughly
diamond-shaped. The twigs, when bare, are set with hairy
sickle-shaped buds. Nowhere in summer would an under-
growth of witch hazel trees attract attention. But in
autumn, when other trees have reached a state of utter rest,
the witch hazel wakes and bursts into bloom. Among the
dead leaves which stubbornly cling as they yellow, and
often persist until spring, the tiny buds, the size of a pin-
head, open into starry blossoms with petals like gold
threads. The witch hazel thicket is veiled with these gold-
mesh flowers, as ethereal as the haunting perfume which
they exhale. Frost crisps the delicate petals but they curl
up like shavings and stay till spring. At no time is the
weather cold enough to destroy this November flower show.
Among the blossoms are the pods in clusters, gaping
wide if the seeds are shed; closed tight, with little monkey
faces, if not yet open. The harvest of witch hazel seeds
is worth going far to see. Damp weather delays this most
interesting little game. Dry frosty weather is ideal for it.
Go into a witch hazel thicket on some fine morning in
early November and sit down on the drift of dead leaves
that carpet the woods floor. The silence is broken now
and then by a sharp report like a bullet striking against the
bark of a near-by trunk, or skipping among the leaves.
Perhaps a twinge on the ear shows that you have been a
target for some tiny projectile, sent to its mark with force
enough to hurt.
The fusillade comes from the ripened pods, which have a
remarkable ability to throw their seeds, and thus do for the
parent tree what the winged seeds of other trees accom-
Srr luuj,- 111
BAHK, liLORsOM, FIUIT, AXO WI\ri:i.' 1 L()\\ KK IJUDS
OF rili; II.OWFHINC l)()(i\V(>(H)
THE WITCH HAZEL 135
plish. The lining of the two-celled pod is believed to
shorten and produce a spring that drives the seeds forth
with surprising force when they are loosened from their
attachment. This occurs when the lips part. Frost and
sun seem to decide just when to spring the trap and let fly
the little black seeds.
A young botanist went into the woods to find out just
how far a witch hazel tree can throw its seeds. She chose
an isolated tree and spread white muslin under it for many
yards in four directions. The most remote of the many
seeds she caught that day fell eighteen feet from the base
of the tree.
The Indians in America were the first people to use the
bark of the witch hazel for curing inflammations. An in-
fusion of the twigs and roots is now made by boiling them
for twenty -four hours in water to w^hich alcohol has been
added. "Witch hazel extract," distilled from this mix-
ture, is the most popular preparation to use for bruises and
sprains, and to allay the pain of burns. Druggists and
chemists have failed to discover any medicinal properties
in bark or leaf, but the public has faith in it. The alcohol
is probably the effective agent.
Witch hazel comes honestly by its name. The English
"witch hazel" is a species of elm to which superstitious
miners went to get forked twigs to use as divining rods.
No one in the countryside w^ould dream of sinking a shaft
for coal without the use of this forked twig. In any old and
isolated country district in America there is usually a man
whose reputation is based in his skilful use of a forked
witch hazel twig. Sent for before a wtII is dug, he slowly
walks over the ground, holding the twig erect by its two
supple forks, one in each hand. When he passes over the
136 TREES
spot where the hidden springs of water are, the twig goes
down, without any voKtion of the " water- witch . " At least,
so he says, and if water is struck by digging, his claims are
vindicated and scoffers hide their heads.
THE BURNING BUSH
American gardeners cherish with regard that amounts
almost to affection any shrub or tree which will lend color,
especially brilliant color, to the winter landscape. Thus
the hollyj the Japanese barberry, many of the haws, the
moimtain ash, and the rugosa rose will be found in the
shrubbery borders of many gardens, supplying the birds
with food when the ground is covered with snow, and
sprinkling the brightness of their red berries against the
monotony of dull green conifers.
The burning bush {Euonymus atropurpureus, Jacq.) lends
its scarlet fruits to the vivid colors that paint any winter
landscape. They hang on slender stalks, clustered where
the leaves were attached. Four flattish lobes, deeply sepa-
rated by constrictions, form each of these strange-looking
fruits. In October each is pale purplish in color and one
half an inch across. Now the husk parts and curls back,
revealing the seeds, each of the four enveloped in a loose
scarlet wrinkled coat. Until midwinter the httle tree is
indeed a burning bushs glowing brighter as the advancing
season opens wider the purple husks, and the little
swinging Maltese cross, made by the four scarlet berries,
is the only thing one sees, looking up from below.
Birds take the berries, though they are bitter and
poisonouSo
THE SUMACHS 137
In spring the slender branchlets of this little tree are
covered with opposite, pointed leaves, two to five inches
long, and in their axils are borne purplish flowers, with four
spreading recurving petals. In the centre of each is sup-
ported a square platform upon which are the spreading
anthers and styles. It does not require much botanical
knowledge to see a family relationship between this tree
and the woody vine we call "bitter-sweet"; the flowers and
fruits are alike in many features.
In Oklahoma and Arkansas and eastern Texas the
burning bush becomes a good-sized tree and its hard, close-
grained wood is peculiarly adapted to making spindles,
knitting needles, skewers, and toothpicks. "Prickwood"
is the English name. Chinese and Japanese species
have been added to our list of flowering trees and vines.
Two shrubby species of Euonymus belong to the flora
of North America, but the bulk of the large family is
tropical.
Our dainty little American tree skirts the edges of deep
woods from New York to INIontana, and southward to the
Gulf. In cultivation it extends throughout New England.
'*Wahoo," the common name in the South, is probably of
Indian origin.
THE STOIACHS
The sumach family contidns more than fifty genera, con-
fined for the most part to the warmer regions of the globe.
Two fruit trees within this family are the mango and the
pistachio nut tree. Commercially important also is the
turpentine tree of southern Europe. The Japanese
lacquer tree yields the black varnish used in all lacquered
138 TREES
wares. The cultivated sumachs of southern Europe
are important in the tanning industry, their leaves con-
taining from twenty-five to thirty per cent, of tannic
acid.
In the flora of the United States three genera of the
family have tree representatives. The genus Rhus, with a
total of one hundred and twenty species, stands first.
Most of these belong to South Africa; sixteen to North
America where their distribution covers practically the
entire continent. Of these, four attain the habit of small
trees.
Fleshy roots, pithy branchlets, and milky, or sometimes
caustic or watery juice, belong to the sumachs, which are
oftenest seen as roadside thickets or fringing the borders of
woods. The foliage is fernlike, odd-pinnate, rarely simple.
The flowers are conspicuous by their crowding into termi-
nal or axillary panicles, followed by bony fruits, densely
crowded like the flowers.
The Staghorn Sumach
Rhus hirta, Sudw.
The staghorn sumach is named for the densely hairy,
forking branchlets, which look much like the horns of a
stag "in the velvet." The foliage and fruit are also
densely clothed with stiff pale hairs, usually red or bright
yellow.
The leaves reach two feet in length, with twenty or
thirty oblong, often sickle-shaped leaflets, set opposite on
the stem, and terminating in a single odd leaflet. Bright
yellow-green until half grown, dark green and dull above
TIIE SUlVLVCnS 139
when mature, often nearly white on the under surface,
these leaves turn in autumn to bright scarlet, shading into
purple, crimson, and orange. No sunset was ever more
changeful and glorious than a patch of staghorn sumach
that covers the ugliness of a railroad siding in October.
After the leaves have fallen, the dull red fuzzy fruits per-
sist, offering food to belated bird migrants and gradually
fading to browns before spring.
The maximum height of this largest of northern
sumachs is thirty -five feet. The wood of such large speci-
mens is sometimes used for walking-sticks and for tabou-
rets and such fancy work as inlaying. Coarse, soft, and
brittle, it is satiny when pohshed, and attractively streaked
w^th orange and green. The young shoots are cut and
their pith contents removed to make pipes for drawing
maple sap from the trees in sugaring time.
But the best use of the tree is for ornamental planting.
In summer, the ughness of the most unsightly bank is
covered where this tree is allowed to run wild and throw up
its root suckers unchecked. The mass effect of its fern-
like fohage in spring is superb, when the green is lightened
by the fine clusters of pink blossoms. No tree carries its
autumn foliage longer nor blazes with greater splendor in
the soft sunshine of the late year. The hairy staghorn
branches, bared of leaves, hold aloft their fruits like lighted
candelabra far into the waning winter. For screens and
border shrubs this sumach may become objectionable,
by reason of its habit of spreading by suckers as well as
seed.
Its choice of situations is broken uplands and dry,
gravelly banks. Its range extends from New Brunswick
to Minuesotxi and southward through the Northern states,-
140 TREES
and along the mountains to the Gulf states. In cultiva-
tion, it is found in the Middle West and on the Atlantic
seaboard, and is a favorite in central and northern
Europe.
The Dwarf Sumach
R. copallina, Linn.
The black dwarf, or mountain sumach, is smaller, with
softer, closer velvet coating its twigs and Hning its leaves,
than the burly staghorn sumach wears. It grows all over
the eastern half of the United States, even to the foothills
of the Rocky Mountains, and rises to thirty feet in height
above a short, stout trunk in the mountains of Tennessee
and North Carolina. Its leaves are the most beautiful in
the sumach family. They are six to eight inches long, the
central stalk bearing nine to twenty-one dark green
leaflets, lustrous above, lined w^ith silvery pubescence. A
striking peculiarity is that the central leaf -stem is winged
on each side with a leafy frill between the pairs of leaflets.
In autumn, the foliage mass changes to varying shades of
scarlet and crimson. The flower clusters are copious and
loose, and the heavy fruits nod from their great weight and
show the most beautiful shades, ranging from yellow to dull
red. Sterile soil is often covered by extensive growths of
this charming shrubby tree which spreads by underground
root-stocks. It is the latest of all the sumachs to bloom.
In the South the leaves are sometimes gathered in
summer to be di'ied and pulverized for use in tanning
leather. A yellow dyestufl is also extracted from them.
It is a favorite sumach for ornamental planting in this
country and in Europe.
THE SUMACHS 141
^The Poison Sumach
R. Vernix, Linn.
The poison sumach is a small tree with slender drooping
branches, smooth, reddish brown, dotted on the twigs
with orange-colored breathing holes, becoming orange-
brown and gray as the bark thickens. The trunk is often
somewhat fluted under a smooth gray rind. This is one
of the most brilliant and beautiful of all the sumachs,
but unfortunately it is deadly poisonous, more to he dreaded
than the poison ivy of our woods, and the poisonwood of
Florida, both of which are near relatives. By certain
traits we may always know, with absolute certainty, a
poison sumach when we find it. Look at the berries. If
tJiey droop and are grayish white, avoid touching the tree,
no matter how alluring the wonderful scarlet foliage is.
Poison sumachs grow only in the swamps. We sJiould su^~
pect any sumach that stands ivith its feet in tJie tvater,
whether it bears flow^ers and fruit or not. The temptation
is strongest when one is in the w^oods gathering brilliant
foliage for decoration of the home for the holidays. The
bitter poisonous juice that exudes from broken stems turns
black almost at once. This warning comes late, however,
for as it dries upon the hands it poisons the skin. Handled
with care, this juice becomes a black, lustrous, durable
varnish, but it is not in general use.
The Smooth Sumach
J\. glabra, Linn.
The smooth sumach {.sre illustrations, pages 150-151) is
quite as familiar as the staghorn, as a roadside shrub. It
142 TREES
forms thickets in exactly the same way, and its foliage, flow-
ers and fruit make it most desirable for decorative planting,
especially for glorious autumnal effects. The stems are
smooth and coated with a pale bluish bloom. This is the
distinguishing mark, at any season, of the sumach that
often equals the other species in height, but does not be-
long in this book, for the reason that it never attains the
stature of a tree.
THE SMOKE TREE
A favorite tree in American and European gardens is
the smoke tree (Cotinus), a genus which has native repre-
sentatives in both continents. The European C. Cotinus,
Sarg., was brought to this country by early horticulturists
and in some respects it is superior to our native C. Ameri-
caiius, Nutt. Cultivation for centuries has given the
immigrant species greater vigor and hardiness, which
produces more exuberant growth throughout. Bring in a
sapling of the native tree and it looks a starveling by
comparison.
The glory of the smoke tree is the utter failure of its
clustered flowers to set seed. Branching terminal panicles
of minute flowers are held high above the dark green simple
leaves. As they change in autumn to brilliant shades of
orange and scarlet, the seed clusters are held aloft. The
seeds are few but the panicles have expanded and show a
peculiar feathery development of the bracts that take
the place of the fruits. The clusters take on tones of
pink and lavender and in the aggregate they form a
great cloud made up of graceful, delicate plumes. At
THE HOLLIES 143
a little distance the tree appears as if a great cloud
of rosy smoke rested upon its gorgeous foliage. Or the
haze may be so pale as to look like mist. This won-
derful development of the flower chister is unique among
garden shrubs and it places Coiiniis in a class by itself.
No garden with a shrubbery border is complete without
a smoke tree, which is interestmg and beautiful at any
season.
In its native haunts our American smoke tree is found
in small isolated groves or thickets, along the sides of
rocky ravines or dry barren hillsides in Missouri, Okla-
homa, and Texas, and in eastern Tennessee and northern
Alabama.
THE HOLLIES
The holly family, of five genera, is distributed from the
north to the south temperate zones, with representation
m every continent. It includes trees and shrubs of one
hundred and seventy-five species, seventy of which grow
in northern Brazil. The dried and powdered leaves of
two holly trees of Paraguay are commercially known as
mate, or Paraguay tea, to which the people of South
America are addicted, as we are to the tea of China.
"Yerba mate" has a remarkable, stimulating effect upon
the human system, fortifying it for incredible exertions
and endurance. Indulged in to excess, it has much the
effect of alcohol.
China and Japan have thirty different species of holly.
America has fourteen, four of which assume tree form;
the rest are shrubby *'winterberries.'*
144 TREES
European Holly
Ilex aquifolium, Linn.
The holly of Europe is perhaps the most popular orna-
mental tree in the world, cultivated in Europe through
centuries, and now coming to be a favorite garden plant
wherever hardy in the United States. Some indication
of its popularity abroad is found in the fact that one
hundred and fifty-three distinct horticultural varieties
are in cultivation. The Englishman makes hedges of it,
and depends upon it to give life and color to his lawn and
flower borders in the winter. The fellfare or fieldfare, a
little thrush, feeds upon the tempting red berries in winter;
but even when these dashes of color are all gone, the
brilliance of the spiny-margined leaves enlivens any
landscape.
Americans know the European holly chiefly through
importations of the cut branches offered in the markets for
Christmas decoration. The leaf is small, brilliantly^
polished, and very deeply indented between long, spiny
tips, giving it a far more decorative quality than the
native evergreen holly of the South.
Many varieties of the European holly are found in
American gardens, particularly near eastern cities. North
of Washington they must be tied up in straw for the winter,
and in the latitude of Boston it is a struggle to keep
them alive. From southern California to Vancouver,
no such precautions are necessary, and the little trees
deserve a much wider popularity than they yet enjoy.
Grown commercially, they are the finest of Christmas
greens.
THE HOLLIES 145
American Holly
/. Opaca, Ait.
The American holly also yields its branches for Christ-
mas greens. In the remotest village in the North one
may now buy at any grocery store a sprig of red-berried
holly to usher in the holiday season. The tree is a small
one at best, slow-growing, pyramidal, twenty to forty
feet in height, with short, horizontal branches and tough,
close-grained white wood. It is rare to find so close an
imitation of ivory, in color and texture, as holly wood
supplies. It is the delight of the wood engraver, who
uses it for his blocks. Scroll work and turnery employ it.
It is used for tool handles, walking-sticks, and whip-stocks.
'Veneer of holly is used in inlay work.
In southern woods and barren fallow fields where
hollies grow, collectors, without discrimination, cut many
trees each autumn, strip them of their branches, and leave
the trunks to rot upon the ground. The increasing de-
mand for Christmas holly seriously threatens the present
supply, for no methods are being practised for its renewal.
It will not be long before the wood engraver will have to buy
his blocks by the pound, as he does the eastern boxwood.
The range of this holly tree extends from southern Maine
to Florida, throughout the Gulf states, and north into
Indiana and Missouri.
The Yaupon
7. vomitoria. Ait.
The yaupon is a shrubby tree of spreading habit, with
very small, oval, evergreen leaves and red berries. It
146 TREES
grows from Virginia to Florida and west to Texas and
Arkansas. A nauseating beverage, made by boiling its
leaves, was the famous "black drink" of the Indians. A
yearly ceremonial, in which the whole tribe took part, was
the persistent drinking of this tea for several days, the
object being a thorough cleansing of the system.
PART V
WILD RELATIVES OF OUR ORCHARD TREES
The Apples — The Plums — The Cherries — The Haw-
thorns — The Service-berries — The Hackberries
— The Mulberries — The Figs — The Papaws — The
Pond Apples — The Persimmons
THE APPLES
The chance apple tree beside the road, with fruit too
gnarly to eat, is common on roadsides throughout New
England. Occasionally one of these trees bears edible
fruit, but this is not the rule. Perhaps the seed thus
planted was from the core of a very delicious apple,
nibbled close, and thrown away with regret. But trees
thus planted are seedlings and seedling apple trees "re-
vert" to the ancient parent of the race, the wild apple of
eastern Asia. Horticulture began long ago to improve
these wild trees, and through the centuries improvement
and variation have stocked the orchards of all temperate
countries with the multitude of varieties we know. A visit
in October to Nova Scotia or to the Yakima Valley in
^Yashington, is an eye-opener. Thousands of acres of the
choicest varieties of this most satisfying of all fruits show
the debt we owe to patient scientists, whose work has so
enriched the food supply of the world.
147
148 TREES
The pear, the quince, and the curious medlar, with its
core exposed at the blossom end — all relatives of the]apple —
trace their lineage to European and Asiatic wild ancestors.
The Siberian crab, native of northern Asia, is the parent of
our hard-fleshed, slender-stemmed garden crabapples.
Japan has given us some wonderful apple trees, with fruit
no larger than cherries, cultivated solely for their flowers.
The ornamental flora of America has been greatly enriched
by these varieties.
Four native apples are found in American woods.
Horticulturists have produced new varieties by crossing
some of these sturdy natives with cultivated apples, or
their seedling offspring.
The Prairie Crab
Mains loensis, Britt.
The prairie crab apple is the woolly twigged, pink-blos-
somed wild crab of the woods, from Minnesota and Wis-
consin to Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. It has crossed
with the roadside "wilding" trees and produced a hybrid
known to horticulture as the Soulard apple, from its dis-
coverer. These wild trees bear fruit that is distinctly an
improvement upon that of either parent. It is regarded
as a distinctly promising apple for the coldest of the
prairie states, and has already become the parent of several
improved varieties.
The Wild Crab
M. coronaria. Mill.
Throughout the wooded regions, from the Great Lakes
to Texas and Alabama, the wild crabapple brightens the
THE PLTOIS 149
spring landscape with its rose-colored, spicy-scented blos-
soms. The little trees huddle together, their flat tops
often matted and reaching out sidewise from under the
shade of the other forest trees. The twigs are crabbed in-
deed in winter, but they silver over with the young foliage
in April. The coral flower buds sprinkle the new leaves,
and through May a great burst of rose-colored bloom
overspreads the tree- tops. It is not sweetness merely
that these flowers exhale, but an exquisite, spicy,
stimulating fragrance, by which one always remembers
them.
The pioneers made jellies and preserves out of the little
green apples {see illustrations^ pages 150-151), which lost
some of their acrid quality by hanging on until after a good
frost. There are those who still gather these fruits as their
parents and grandparents did. In their opinion the wild
tang and the indescribable piquancy of flavor in jellies
made from this fruit are unmatched by those of any other
fruit that grows.
THE PLUMS
The genus prunus belongs to the rose family and in-
cludes shrubs and trees with stone fruits. Of the over
one hundred species, thirty are native to North x\mer-
Ica; but ten of them assume tree form, and all but one
are small trees. Related to them are the garden cherries
and plums, native to other countries, and the peach, the
apricot, and tlie almond, found in this country only in hor-
ticultural varieties. The wood of prunus is close-grained,
solid, and durable, and a few of the species are ini])()rtant
timber trees. The simplest way to identify a member of
150 TREES
the genus is to break a twig at any season of the year and
taste the sap. If it is bitter and astringent with hydro-
cyanic acid (the flavor we get in fresh peach-pits and bitter
almonds), we may be sure we have run the tree down to the
genus prunus.
The Wild Red Plum
Prunus Americanus, Marsh.
The wild red or yellow plum forms dense thickets in moist
woods and along river banks from New York to Texas and
Colorado. Its leafless, gnarled, and thorny tv/igs are
covered in spring with dense clusters of white bloom,
honey-sweet in fragrance, a carnival of pleasure and profit
to bees and other insects. In hot weather this nectar
often ferments and sours before the blossoms fall. The
abundant dry pollen is scattered by the wind. The plum
crop depends more upon wind than upon insects, for the
pollination period is very brief.
After the frost in early autumn, the pioneers of the
prairie used always to make a holiday iij the woods and
bring home by wagon-loads the spicy, acid plums which
crowded the branches and fairly lit up the thicket with the
orange and red color of their puckery, thick skins. In a
land where fruit orchards were newly planted, "plum
butter " made from the fruit of nature's orchards was grate-
fully acceptable through the long winters. Even when
home-grown sorghum molasses was the only available
sweetening, the healthy appetites of prairie boys and girls
accepted this "spread" on the bread and butter of noon-
day school lunches, as a matter of course.
Sir jHiijf 110
FI.()Wi:i{S, FUriT, \M) ODD l,':\i. l'\ 11 KliNs OF THE
S\.SSAFK\S I'KIH
THE PLUMS 151
The Canada Plum
P. nigra. y Ait.
The Canada plum (see illustration, page 151) whose range
dips down into the northern tier of states, is so near hke the
previous species as to be called by Waugh a mere variety.
Its leaves are broad and large, and the flowers and fruit
larger. A peculiarity of blossoming time is that the
petals turn pink before they fall. This tree furnished the
settler with a relish for his hard fare, and the horticulturist
a hardy stock on which to graft scions of tenderer and better
varieties of plums. It is a tree well worth bringing in from
the woods to set in a bare fence-corner that will be beauti-
fied by the blossoms in spring, and in late summer by the
bright orange-colored fruit against the ruddy foliage.
Exotic plums have greatly enriched our horticulture,
giving us fruits that vie with the peach in size and luscious-
ness. In New-England gardens, the damsons, green gages
and big red plums are imported varieties of the woolly
twigged, thick-leaved European, P. domestica, which re-
fused utterly to feel at home on its ow^n roots in the great
middle prairies of the country. These European plums
have found a congenial home in the mild climate of the
West Coast.
Japan has furnished to the Middle West and South a
hardy, prolific species, P. triflora, generally immune to the
black knot, a fungous disease which attacks native plums.
Crosses between the Japanese and American native plums
promise well. California now ranks first in prune raising
as an industry, with France a close second. Prunes are the
dried fruit of certain sweet, fleshy kinds of plums. Many
152 TREES
cultivated varieties of Japanese plums have enriched the
horticulture of our West Coast.
The almond, now grown commercially in California, is
the one member of the genus prunus whose flesh is dry and
woody, and whose pit is a commercial nut.
THE CHERRIES
Small-fruited members of the genus prunus, wild and
cultivated, are grouped under the popular name, cherries,
by common consent. The pie cherry of New-England gar-
dens is prunus cerasus, Linn. It often runs wild from gar-
dens, forming roadside thickets, with small sour red fruits,
as nearly worthless as at home in the wilds of Europe and
Asia. This tree has, through cultivation, given rise to
two groups of sour cherries cultivated in America. The
early, light-red varieties, with uncolored juice, of which the
Early Richmond is a familiar type, and the late, dark-red
varieties, with colored juice, of which the English Morello
is the type.
The sweet cherry of Europe (P. Avium, Linn.) has given
us our cultivated sweet cherries, whose fruit is more or less
heart-shaped.
Japan celebrates each spring the festival of cherry blos-
som time, a great national fete, when the gardens burst
suddenly into the marvelous bloom of Sakura, the cherry
tree, symbol of happiness, in which people of all classes de-
light. The native species (P. pseudo-Cerasus) , has been
cultivated by Japanese artist-gardeners in the one direction
of beauty for centuries. Not in flowers alone, but in leaf,
in branching habit, and even in bark, beauty has been the
THE CHERRIES 153
ideal toward wliicli patience and skill have striven success-
fully. "Spring is the season of the eye," says the Japan-
ese poet. Of all their national flower holidays, cherry
blossom time, in the third month, is the climax.
The Wild Cherry
Prunus Pennsylvanica, Linn.
The wild red, bird, or pin cherry grows in rocky woods,
forming tliickets and valuable nurse trees to hardwoods,
from Newfoundland to Georgia, and west to the Rocky
Mountains. The birds enjoy the ruddy little fruits and
hold high carnival in June among the shining leaves.
Many an ugly ravine is clothed with verdure and whitened
with nectar-laden flowers by this comparatively worthless,
short-lived tree; and in many burnt-over districts, the bird-
sown pits strike root, and the young trees render a distinct
service to forestry by this young growth, which is gone by
the time the pines and hardwoods it has nursed require the
ground for their spreading roots.
The Wild Black Cherry
P. scroiina, Ehrh.
The wild black cherry or rum cherry {see ill uslraf ion, page
166) y is tlie substantial lumber tree of the genus, whose
ponderous trunk furnishes cherry wood, vying with mahog-
any and rosewood in the esteem of the cabinet-maker, who
uses cherry for veneer oftener than for solid furniture.
The drug trade depends upon this tree for a tonic de-
rived from lis bark, roots, and fruit. Cherry brandies,
cordials, and clierr}' bounce, that good old-fashioned home-
154 TREES
brewed beverage, are made from the heavy -clustered fruits
that hang until late summer, turning black and losing
their astringency when dead ripe.
From Ontario to Dakota, and south to Florida and
Texas, this tree is found, reaching its best estate in moist,
rich soil, but climbing mountam canyons at elevations
of from five to seven thousand feet. A worthy shade and
park tree, the black cherry is charmingly unconventional,
carrying its mass of drooping foliage with the grace of a
willow, its satiny brown bark curling at the edges of
irregular plates like that of the cherry birch.
The Choke Cherry
P. Virginiana, Linn.
The choke cherry is a miniature tree no higher than a
thrifty lilac bush, from the Eastern states to the Mississippi,
but between Nebraska and northern Texas it reaches
thirty-five feet in height. The trunk is always short,
often crooked or leaning, and never exceeds one foot
in diameter. Its shiny bark, long racemed flowers and
fruit, and the pungent odor of its leaves and bark might
lead one to confuse it with a black cherry sapling. But
there is a marked difference between the two species.
The choke cherry's odor is not only pungent, but rank
and disagreeable besides. The leaf of the choke cherry
is a wide and abruptly pointed oval. The 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.
Birds are not so fastidious; they often strip the trees
before the berries darken. It is probably by these un-
THE HAWTHORNS 155
conscious agents of seed distribution tliat choke-cherry
pits are scattered. From the Arctic Circle to the Gulf of
Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains
this worthless httle choke cherry is found in all wooded
regions.
THE HAWTHORNS
In the same rose family with apples, plums, cherries, and
service-berries is listed the genus Crataegus, a shrubby race
of trees, undersized as a rule, with stiff, zigzag branches
set with thorns. Over one hundred species have been
described by Charles Sargent in his "Manual of Trees of
North America," published in 1905.
The centre of distribution for the hawthorn is undoubt-
edly the eastern United States. From Newfoundland
the woods are full of them. A few species belong to the
Rocky Mountain region, a few to the states farther west.
Europe and Asia each has a few native hawthorns.
The English Hawthorn
Crataegus oxyacantha, Linn.
The English hawthorn is the best-known species in the
world. When it first came into cultivation, no man knows.
Englishmen will tell you it has always formed the hedge-
rows of the countryside. This is the "blossoming May."
The sweetness of its flowers, snowy white, or pink, or
rose-colored, turns rural England into a garden, while
linnets and skylarks fill the green lanes with music.
American "forests primeval" were swept with the
woodman's axe before the hawthorns had iheir chance to
assert themselves sufficiently to attract the attention of
156 TREES
botanists and horticulturists. The showy flowers and
fruits, the vivid coloring of autumn foliage, and the strik-
ing picturesqueness of the bare tree, with its rigid branches
armed with menacing thorns, give most of these little
trees attractiveness at any season. They grow in any
soil and in any situation, and show the most remarkable
improvement when cultivated. Their roots thrive in
heavy clay. When young the httle trees may be easily
transplanted from the wild. They come readily from
seed, though in most species the seed takes two years to
germinate.
With few exceptions, the flowers of our hawthrons are
pure white, perfect, their parts in multiples of five — a
family traits Each flower is a miniature white rose.
Rounded corymbs of these flowers on short side twigs
cover the tree with a robe of white after the leaves appear.
In autumn little fleshy fruits that look like apples, cluster
on the twigs. Inside the thick skin, the flesh is mealy
and sweetish around a few hard nutlets that contain the
seed. As a rule, the fruits are red. In a few species they
are orange; in still fewer, yellow, blue, or black.
It is not practicable to describe the many varieties of our
native hawthorns in a volume of the scope of this one.
A few of the most distinctive species only can be included,
but no one will ever confuse a hawthorn with any other
tree.
The Cockspur Thorn
C Crus-galli, Linn.
The cockspur thorn is a small, handsome tree, fifteen
to twenty feet high, with stiff branches in a broad round
head. The thorns on the sides of the twig are three to
THE HAWTHORNS 157
four inches long, sometimes when old becoming branched*
and reaching a length of six or eight inches. Stout and
brown or gray, they often curve, striking downward as a
rule, on the horizontal branches. The leaves, thick,
leathery, lustrous, dark green above, pale beneath, one to
four inches long, taper to a short stout stalk, seeming to
stand on tiptoe, as if to keep out of the way of the thorns.
From the ground up, the tree is clothed in bark that is
bright and polished, shading from reddish brown to gray.
The flowers come late, in showy clusters; and the fruit
gleams red against the reddening leaves. As Vv' inter
comes on the leaves fall and the branches are brightened
by the fruit clusters which are not taken by the birds {see
illustration, page 167). All the year long the cockspur
thorn is a beautiful, ornamental tree and a competent
hedge plant, popular alike in Europe and America.
The Scarlet Haw
C. pruinosa, K. Koch.
The scarlet haw found from Vermont to Georgia, and
west to Missouri, prefers limestone soil of mountain slopes,
and is more picturesque than beautiful. The foliage is
distinctive; it is dark, blue-green, smooth, and leathery,
pale beneath, and turns in autumn to brilliant orange.
In summer the pale fruit wears a pale bloom but at ma-
turity it is dark purplish red and shiny.
The Red Haw
C, mollis^ Scheele
The red haw is the type of a large group, ample in size,
fine in form and coloring, of fruit and foliage. This tree
158 TREES
reaches forty feet in height, its round head rising above
the tall trunk, with stout branchlets and stubby, shiny
thorns.
The twigs are coated with pale hairs, the young leaves,
and ultimately the leaf-linings and petioles are hairy, and
the fruits are downy, marked with dark dots.
The only fault the landscape gardener can find with
this red haw, is that its abundant fruit, ripe in late sum-
mer, falls in September. The species is found from Ohio
to Dakota, Nebraska, and Xansas.
The Scarlet Haw
C. coccinea, Linn.
The scarlet haw, native of the Northeastern states, is one
of the oldest native thorns in cultivation. It is a favorite
in New England gardens, because of its abundant bloom,
deep crimson fruit and vivid autumn foliage. It is a
shrubby, round-headed tree, with stout ascending
branches, set with thorns an inch or more in length.
The Black Haw
C, Douglasii, Lindl.
In the West the black haw is a round-headed, native tree
found from Puget Sound southward through California
and eastward to Colorado and New Mexico. It is a
round-headed tree reaching forty feet in height, in moist
soil. Its distinguishing feature is the black fruit, ripe in
August and September, lustrous, thin-fleshed, sweet, one-
half an inch long. The thorns are stout and sharp, rarely
exceeding one inch in length. The leathery dark-green
THE SERVICE-BERRIES 150
leaves, one to four inches long, commend this black-fruited
thorn of the West to the Eastern horticulturists. It has
proved hardy in gardens to the Atlantic seaboard and in
Nova Scotia.
THE SERVICE-BERRIES
A small genus of pretty, slender trees related to apples,
and in the rose family, has representatives in every conti-
nent of the Northern Hemisphere, and also in North Africa.
Their natural range is greatly extended by the efforts of
horticulturists, for the trees are among the best flowering
species.
The Service-berry
Amelanchier Canadensis, T. & G.
The Eastern service-berry, June-berry, or shad-bush, is
often seen in parks and on lawns; its delicate, purple-
brown branches covered in April, before the oval leaves ap-
pear, with loose, drooping clusters of white flowers. {See
illustration, page 182.) Under each is a pair of red silky bracts
and the infant leaves are red and silky, all adding their
warmth of color when the tree is white with bloom. The
blossoms pass quickly, just about the time the shad run up
the rivers to spawn. We may easily trace this common
name to the early American colonists who frugally fished
the streams when the shad were running, and noted the
charming little trees lighting up the river banks with their
delicate blossoms, when all the woods around them were
still asleep. In June the juicy red berries call the birds to
a feast. Then the little tree quite loses its identity, for the
160 TREES
forest is roofed with green, and June-berries are quite over-
shadowed by more self-assertive species.
The borders of woods in rich upland soil, fron New-
foundland to the Dakotas and south to the Gulf, are the
habitat and range of this charming little tree.
The Western Service-berry
A. alnifolia, Nutt.
The Western service-berry grows over a vast territory
which extends from the Yukon River south through the
Coast Ranges to northern California and eastward to Man-
itoba and northern Michigan. In the rich bottom lands
of the lower Columbia River, and on the prairies about
Puget Sound, it reaches twenty feet in height, and its
nutritious, pungent fruits are gathered in quantities and
dried for winter food by the Indians. Indeed, the horti-
culturists consider this large juicy fine-flavored, black
berry quite worthy of cultivation, as it grows in the wild to
one inch in diameter — the average size of wild plums.
THE HACKBERRIES
Fifty or sixty tropical and temperate-zone species of
hackberries include two North American trees which have
considerable value for shade and ornamental planting.
One hardy Japanese species has been introduced; three
exotic species are in cultivation in the South. One is from
South Africa, a second from the Mediterranean basin, and
a third from the Orient.
It is easy to mistake the hackberry for an elm; the habits
of the two trees lead the casual observer astray. The leaf
THE HACKBERRIES 161
is elm-like, though smaller and brighter green than the foli-
age of the American elm. A peculiarity of the foliage is
the apparent division of the petiole into three main ribs, in-
stead of a single midrib. At base, the leaves are always
unsymmetrical. The bark is broken into thick ridges set
with warts, separated by deep fissures.
The absence of terminal buds induces a forking habit^
which makes the branches of a hackberry tree gnarled and
picturesque. The hackberry is not familiarly known by
the inhabitants of the regions where it grows, else it
would more commonly be transplanted to adorn private
grounds and to shade village streets.
The Hackberry
Celtis occidentalis, Linn.
The hackberry reaches one hundred and twenty-five feet
in height in moist soil along stream borders or in marshes.
It is distributed from Nova Scotia to Puget Sound, and
south to Florida, Tennessee, Missouri, Texas, and New
Mexico. The beauty of its graceful crown is sometimes
marred by a fungus which produces a thick tufting of twigs
on the ends of branches. The name, "witches' brooms"
has been given to these tufts. Growths of similar appear-
ance and the same name are produced by insect injury
on some other trees.
The fruit of the hackberry is an oblong, thin-fleshed
sweet berry, purple in color, one fourth to one half inch
long. It dries about the solitary seed and hangs on the
tree all winter, to the great satisfaction of the birds. {See
illustration, page 1S3.)
Emerson says: "The wood is used for the shafts and
162 TREES
axle-trees of carriages, the naves of v/heels, and for musical
instruments. The root is used for dyeing j^ellow, the bark
for tanning, and an oil is expressed from the stones of the
fruit."
The best use we can make of the hackberry tree is to
plant it for shade and ornament. It is easily transplanted,
for the roots are shallow and fibrous, so that well-grown
trees may be moved in winter time. The autumn yellow
of the foliage is wonderfully cheerful, and the warty bark,
checked into small thick plates, is interesting at any sea-
son.
European Nettle Tree
C. Australis
The European nettle tree is supposed to have been the
famous "lotus" of classical literature. Homer tells of the
lotus-eaters who, when they tasted the sweet fruit, straight-
way forgot their native land or could not be persuaded to
return. This innocent tree, against which the charge has
never been proved, bears a better reputation for the
qualities of its wood. It is as hard as box or holly, and
as beautiful as satin-wood when polished. 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 in some countries for the growing of these
trees. Suckers from the roots make admirable ramrods,
coach-whip stocks and walking-sticks. Shafts and axle-
trees of carriages are made of the larger shoots; oars and
hoops are supplied from these coppiced trees. From
northern Africa, throughout Europe, and on to India, the
tree is planted for shade, and its foliage is used as fodder
for cattle.
THE MULBERRIES 168
THE MULBERRIES
The mulberry family includes fifty-five genera and
nearly a thousand species of temperate-zone and tropical
plants. The genus ficus alone includes six hundred species.
Hemp, important for its fibrous, inner bark, and the hop
vine are well known herbaceous members of the mulberry
family, which stands botanically between the elms and the
nettles — strange company, it would seem, but justified by
fundamental characteristics. Three genera of this family
have tree forms in America — the mulberry, the Osage
orange, and the ^g. Two native mulberries and three
exotic species are widely cultivated for their fruit, their
wood, and as ornamental trees. Weeping mulberries are
among the most popular horticultural forms.
The Red Mulberry
Morus rubra, Linn.
The red mulberry grows to be a large dense, round-headed
tree, with thick fibrous roots and milky sap. Its alternate
leaves, three to five inches long, are variable in form, often
irregularly lobed, very veiny, usually rough, blue-green
above, pale and pubescent beneath, turning yellow in early
autumn. The inconspicuous flower spikes are succeeded
by fleshy aggregate fruits like a blackberry, sweet, juicy,
dark purple or red, each individual fruit single-seeded.
Birds and boys alike throng the trees through the long
period during which these berries ripen. They are hardly
worthy to rank with the cultivated mulberries as a fruit
tree. But planted in poultry yards and hog pastures the
164 TREES
dropping fruits are eagerly devoured by the occupants of
these enclosures.
The chief value of the tree lies in the durability of its
orange-yellow wood, which, though coarse-grained, soft and
weak, is very durable in the soil and in contact with water.
Hence it has always commended itseK to fence- and boat-
builder. It is sometimes planted for ornament, but its
dropping fruit is a strong objection to it as a street or lawn
tree.
One of the mulberry's chief characteristics is its tenacity
to life. Its seeds readily germinate and cuttings, whether
from roots or twigs, strike root quickly. Indians dis-
covered that rope could be made out of the bast fibre of
mulberry bark. They even wove a coarse cloth out of the
same material. The early settlers of Virginia, who found
the red mulberry growing there in great abundance,
dreamed in vain of silk culture as an industry based upon
this native tree. Their hopes were not realized. Silk
culture has never yet become a New- World industry.
The White Mulberry
M. alba, Linn.
The white mulberry is a native of northern China and
Japan. From this region it has been extensively intro-
duced into all warm temperate climates. Its white
berries are of negligible character. It is the leaves that
give this oriental mulberry a unique position in the econo-
mic world. They are the chosen food of silkworms. No
substitute has ever robbed this tree of its preeminence,
maintained for many centuries in its one field of useful-
ness.
THE FIGS 165
The hardy Russian mulberries are derived from M. alba.
These have done much to enrich the horticulture of our
Northern states, but the parent tree, though it thrives in
the eastern United States and in the South, has not been
the means of establishing silk culture on a paying basis
in this country.
The Black Mulberry
M, nigra, Linn.
The black mulberry, probably a native of Persia, has
large, dark red, juicy fruits, for which it is extensively
cultivated in Europe. In this country it is hardy only in
the Southern and the Pacific Coast states. It is the best
fruit tree of its family, yet no mulberry is able to take
rank among profitable fruit trees. The fruits are too sweet
and soft, and they lack piquancy of flavor. They ripen a
few at a time and are gathered by shaking the trees.
The dark green foliage of the black mulberry gives
ample shade throughout the season. Planted in the
garden or in the border of the lawn where no walk will
be defaced by the dropping fruits, the mulberry is a par-
ticularly desirable tree because it attracts some of our
most desirable song-birds to build on the premises.
Given a mulberry tree and a bird-bath near by, and the
smallest city lot becomes a bird sanctuary through the
summer and a wayside inn for transients during the
two migratory seasons.
THE FIGS
The genus ficus belongs to all tropical countries, and
this remarkable ranf^o accounts for the six hundred differ-
166 TREES
ent species botanists tave identified. The rubber plant,
popular in this country as a pot and tub plant, is one of the
best-known species. In its East Indian forest home it is
the *' Assam Rubber Tree." It may begin life as an air
plant, fixing its roots in the crotch of another tree, in
which a chance seed has lodged. A shock of aerial roots
strikes downward and reaches the ground. After this the
tree depends upon food drawn from the earth. The sup-
porting host tree is no longer needed. The young rubber
tree has by this time a trunk stiff enough to stand alone.
Assam rubber, which ranks in the market with the best
Brazilian crude rubber, comes from the sap of this wild
^g tree, Ficus elasticus. CKp off a twig of your leathery-
leaved rubber plant and note the sticky white sap that
exudes. In the highest priced automobile tires you find
the manufactured product.
Dried figs have always been an important commercial
fruit. These imported figs are from trees that are horti-
cultural varieties of a wild Asiatic species, Ficus Carica.
Smyrna figs are best for drying. They form a delicious,
wholesome sweet, which has high food value and is more
wholesome than candy for children. Tons of this dried
fruit are imported each year from the countries east of
the Mediterranean Sea. Now California is growing
Smyrna figs successfully.
The banyan tree of India is famous, striking its aerial
rootlets downward until they reach the ground and take
root, and thus help support the giant, horizontal limbs.
These amazing trees, members of the genus ficus, some-
times extend to cover an acre or more of ground. To walk
under one is like entering the darkness of a forest of young
trees. By the clearing away of most of these aerial
Str payi- 153
FLOWKl^S AN'D FKIMT OF TIIF WILD lU. \( K (HKKHY
See page 156
A FRUITING BRANCH OF THE COCKSPUR THORN
THE PAPAWS 167
branches, a great arbor is made for the comfort of people
in regions where the sun's rays are overpowering in the
middle of the day.
Our own ^g trees in North America are but sprawhng
parasitic trees, unable to stand alone. They are found
only in the south of Florida, and therefore are generally
unknown.
The Golden Fig
Ficus aiirea, Nutt.
The golden fig climbs up other trees and strangles its
host with its coiling stems and aerial roots. One far-
famed specimen has grown and spread like a banyan tree,
its trunk and head supported by secondary stems that
have struck downward from the branches. Smooth as a
beech in bark, crowned with glossy, beautiful foliage, like
the rubber plants, this parasitic fig is a splendid tropical
tree, but the host that supports all this luxuriance is
sacrificed utterly. The little yellow figs that snuggle in
the axils of the leaves turn purple, sweet, and juicy as they
ripen. They are sometimes used in making preserves.
An interesting characteristic of the wood of the golden
fig is its wonderful lightness. Bulk for bulk, it is only
one fourth as heavy as water.
THE PAPAWS
Two of the forty-eight genera of the tropical custard-
apple family are represented by a solitary species each in
the warmer parts of the United States. Important fruit
and ornamental trees in the tropics of the Old World are
168 TREES
included in this family, but their New- World representa-
tives are not the most valuable. However, they have a
sufficient number of family traits to look foreign and
interesting among our more commonplace forest trees;
and because their distribution is limited they are not
generally recognized in gardens, where they are planted
more for curiosity than for ornament.
The Papaw
Asimina triloba, Dunal.
The papaw has the family name, custard-apple, from
its unusual fruit, whose flesh is soft and yellow, like cus-
tard. The shape suggests that of a banana. The fruits
hang in clusters and their pulp is enclosed in thick dark
brown skin, wrinkled, sometimes shapeless, three to
five inches long. Dead ripe, the flesh becomes almost
transparent, fragrant, sweet, rather insipid, surrounding
flat, wrinkled seeds an inch long. The fruit is gathered
and sold in local markets from forests of these papaws
which grow under taller trees in the alluvial bottom lands
of the Mississippi Valley. In summer the leaves are
tropical-looking, having single blades eight to twelve
inches long, four to ^ve inches broad, on short, thick
stalks. These leaves are set alternately upon the twig,
and cluster in whorls on the ends of branches. The flowers
appear with the leaves and would escape notice but for
their abundance and the unusual color of their three
large membranous petals. At first these axillary blossoms
are as green as the leaves; gradually the dark pigment over-
comes the green, and the color passes through shades of
brownish green to dark rich wine-red. The full-grown
THE PAPAWS 169
foliage by midsummer has become very thin in textm*e,
and lined with pale bloom. The tree throughout exhales
a sickish, disagreeable odor. The fruit is improved in
flavor by hanging until it gets a nip of frost.
This "wild banana tree" is the favorite fruit tree of
the negroes in the Black Belt. Its hardiness is surprising.
From the Southern states, it ranges north into Kansas,
Michigan, New York, and New Jersey.
The Melon Papaw
' Carica Papaya, Linn.
The melon papaw does not belong to the custard-apple
family, but it grows in southern Florida and throughout
the West Indies, and has the name of our little "wild
banana tree," so it may as well have mention here, as it
is the sole representative of the true Papaw family, and
it is universally cultivated for its fruit in the warm regions
of the world. By selection the fruit has been improved
until it ranks as one of the most wholesome and important
of all the fruits in the tropics. In Florida the papaw
grows on the rich hummocks along the Indian River, and
on the West Coast southward from Bay Biscayne. It
is very common on all the West Indian Islands. It grows
like a pahn, with tall stem crowned by huge simple leaves,
one to two feet across, deeply lobed into three main divi-
sions, and each lobe irregularly cut by narrow sinuses.
The veins are very thick and yellow, and the hollow leaf-
stalks lengthen to three or four feet. The bark of this
tree is silvery white — a striking contrast with the lustrous
head of foliage. The flowers are waxy, tubular, fragrant,
turning their yellow petals backward in a whorl. On fer-
170 TREES
tile trees the fruits mature into great melons, sometimes
as large as a man's head; but these are the cultivated
varieties. Wild papaws rarely exceed four inches long,
and usually they are smaller. When full grown the fruit
turns to bright orange-yellow. The succulent pulp
separates easily from the round seeds.
In the W^est Indies, the trees often branch and attain
much greater size than in Florida, where fifteen feet is
the maximum, in the wilds.
The leaves of this papaw contain, in their abundant
sap, a solvent, 'papain, which has the property of destroy-
ing the connective tissue in meats. They are bruised by
the natives and tough meat, wrapped closely in them,
becomes tender in a few hours. The fruits are eaten raw
and made into preserves. Negroes use the leaves also as a
substitute for soap in the washing of clothes.
THE POND APPLES
The pond apple (Anona glabra, Linn.) is our only rep-
resentative of its genus that reaches tree form and size,
and it is the second of our native custard-apples. It
comes to us via the West Indies, and reaches no farther
north than the swamps of southern Florida. It is a
familiar tree on the Bahama Islands. Thirty to forty
feet high, the broad head rises from a short trunk, less
than two feet in diameter, but very thick compared with
the wide-spreading, contorted branches and slender branch-
lets. It is often buttressed at the base. The leaves
are oval and pointed, rarely more than four inches long,
bright green, leathery, paler on the lower surface, plain-
THE POND APPLES 171
margined. The flowers in April form pointed, triangular
boxes by the touching of the tips of the yellowish white
petals, whose inner surfaces near the base have a bright
red spot.
The fruit, which ripens in November, is somewhat heart-
shaped, four to six inches long, compound like a mulberry.
The smooth custard-like flesh forms a luscious mass be-
tween the fibrous core and the surface, studded with the
hard seeds. Fragrant and sweet, these wild pond apples
have small merit as fruit. Little effort has been made to
improve the species horticulturally. Its rival species in
the West Indies have a tremendous lead which they are
likely to keep.
The Cherimoya
Anona Chertmolia, Mill.
The cherimoya, native of the highlands of Central
America, has long been cultivated, and its fruit has been
classed, with the pineapple and the mangosteen, as one of
the three finest fruits in the world. Certainly it deserves
high laiiiv among the fruits of the tropics. This also has
been introduced into cultivation in southern Florida, but
its culture has assumed much more importance in Califor-
nia, where it seems to feel quite at home.
The tree is a handsome one, with broad velvety bright
green leaves, deciduous during the winter months. It
grovvs w^herever the orange is hardy, and its fruit, heart-
shaped or oviil, gr(^en or brown, is about the size of a navel
orange. Conical protuberances cover the surface and
enclose a mass of white, custard-like pulp, with the flavor
of the pineapple, in whicli are imbedded twenty or thirty
172 TREES
brown seeds. A taste for this tropical pond apple is as
easily acquired as for the pineapple, which has become uni-
versally popular. Every garden in the Orange Belt should
have a cherimoya tree for ornament and for its fruit.
THE PERSIIVIMONS
The persimmon tree of the Southern woods belongs to
the ebony family, which contains some important fruit and
lumber trees, chiejfly confined to the genus diospyros,
which has two representatives among the trees of North
America. Doubtless a climate of longer summers would
enable our persimmon trees to produce wood as hard as
the ebony of commerce, whose black heart- wood and thick
belt of soft yellow sap-wood are the products of five different
tropical species of the genus — two from India, one from
Africa, one from Malaysia and one from Mauritius. The
beautiful, variegated wood called coromandel is produced
by a species of ebony that grows in Ceylon.
Fossil remains of persimmon trees are found in the
miocene rocks of Greenland and Alaska, and in the later
cretaceous beds uncovered in Nebraska. These prove
that diospyros once had a much wider range than now, ex-
tending through temperate to arctic regions, whereas now
our two persimmons and the Chinese and Japanese species,
are the only representatives outside the tropics.
The Persimmon
Diospysos Virginiana, Linn.
The persimmon will never be forgotten by the North-
erner who chances to visit his Virginia cousins in the early
THE PERSIMMONS 173
autumn. Strolling through the woods he notes among
other unfamiliar trees a tall shaft covered with black bark,
deeply checked into squarish plates. The handsome round
head, held well aloft, bears a shock of angular twigs and
among the glossy, orange-red leaves hang fruits the size
and shape of his Northern crabapples. The rich orange-
red makes it extremely attractive, and the enthusiasm
with which the entire population regards the approaching
persimmon harvest focuses his interest likewise upon this
unknown Southern fruit. He is eager to taste it without
delay, and usually there is no one to object. Forthwith he
climbs the tree, or beats a branch with a long pole until a-
good specimen is obtained. Its thin skin covers the mel-
low flesh — but the first bite is not followed by a second.
The fruit is so puckery that it almost strangles one.
But after the frosts and well on into the winter the per-
simmons grow more sweet, juicy, and delicious, and lose all
their bitterness and astringency. To find a few of these
sugary morsels in the depths of the woods at the end of a
long day's hunting is a reward that offsets all disappoint-
ments of an empty bag. No fruit could be more utterly
satisfying to a dry-mouthed, leg-w^eary, hungry boy.
The opossum is the chief competitor of the local negro
in harvesting the persimmon crop. Individual trees differ
in the excellence of their fruit. These special trees are
"spotted" months before the crop is fit to eat. It would
seem as if the opossums camp under the best persimmon
trees and take an imfair advantage, because they are
nocturnal beasts and have nothing to do but watch and
wait. One thing solaces the negro, when he sees the harvest
diminish through the unusual industry and appetite of his
bright-eyed, rat-tailed rival. He knows what brush-pile
174 TREES
or hollow tree shelters the opossom, while he sleeps by
day. Every persimmon the opossom steals helps to make
him fat and tender for the darkey's Thanksgiving feast, so
it is only a question of patience and strategy to recoup his
losses by feasting on his fat 'possum neighbor, and to boast
to the friends Vvlio join him at the feast, of the contest of
wits at which he came off victorious.
In summer time a persimmon tree is handsome in its
oval pointed leaves, often six inches long, with pale linings.
The flowers that appear in axillary clusters on the sterile
trees are small, yellowish green and inconspicuous. On
the fertile trees the flowers are solitary and axillary. The
fruit is technically a berry, containing one to eight seeds.
The following first impressions of persimmons in Vir-
ginia woods are from the pen of a traveler in the early part
of the seventeenth century, whom Pocahontas might have
introduced to a fruit well known to the Indians :
" They have a plumb which they call pessemmins, like to
a medler, in England, but of a deeper tawnie cullour; they
grow on a most high tree. When they are not fully ripe,
they are harsh and choakie, and furre in a man's mouth
like allam, howbeit, being taken fully ripe, yt is a reason-
able pleasant fruiet, somewhat lushious. I have seen our
people put them into their baked and sodden puddings;
there be whose tast allows them to be as pretious as the
English apricock; I confess it is a good kind of horse
plumb."
" 'Simmon beer" and brandy are made from the fruit,
and its seeds are roasted to use when coffee is scarce.
The inner bark of the tree has tonic properties, and the
country folk use it for the allaying of intermittent fevers.
The wood is used in turnery, for shoe lasts, plane stocks
TIIE PERSI^MMONS 175
and shuttles. It is a peculiarity of the persimmon tree
that ahnost one hundred layers of pale sap-wood, the
growth of as many years, lie outside of the black heart-
wood, upon which the reputation of ebony rests.
The Japanese Persimmon
Kaki
The native persimmon of Japan has been developed into
an important horticultural fruit. China also has species
that are fruit trees of merit. In the fruit stalls of all
American cities, the Japanese persimmon is found in its
season, the smooth, orange-red skin, easily mistaken for
that of a tomato as the fruits lie in their boxes. The
pointed cones differ in form, however, and the soft mellow
flesh, with its melon-like seeds and leathery calyx at
base, mark this fruit as still a novelty in the East.
In southern California no garden is complete without a
Japanese persimmon tree to give beauty by its cheerful,
leathery, green leaves and its rich-colored fruits. But the
beginner will establish a grave personal prejudice against
this fruit unless he wait until it is dead ripe, for it has the
astringent qualities of its genus. No fruit is more delicate
in flavor than a thoroughly ripe kaki, so soft that it must be
eaten with a spoon.
The Department of Agriculture at Washington has
established a nunilier of varieties of these oriental fruit
trees in the warmer parts of the United States. Our
native persimmons are being used as stock upon which to
graft the exotics. A distinct addition to the fruits of this
country has thus been made and the public is fast learning
to enjoy the luscious, wholesome Japanese persimmons.
PART VI
THE POD-BEARING TREES
The Locusts — The Acacias or Wattles — Other Pod*
BEARERS
Whenever we see blossoms of the sweet-pea type on a
tree or pods of the same type as the pea's swinging from the
twigs, we may be sure that we are looking at a member of
the pod-bearing family, leguminosae^ to which herbaceous
and woody plants both belong. The family is one of the
largest and most important in the plant kingdom, and its
representatives are distributed to the uttermost parts of
the earth. Four hundred and fifty genera contain the
seven thousand species already described by botanists.
Varieties without number belong to the cultivated mem-
bers of the family, and new forms are being produced by
horticulturists all the time. This great group of plants has
fed the human race, directly and indirectly, since the First
Man appeared on earth. Clovers, alfalfas, lentils, peas,
beans yield foodstuffs rich in all the elements that build
flesh and bone and nerve tissues. They take the place of
meat in vegetarian dietaries.
Besides foods, the pod-bearers yield rubber, dyestuffs,
balsams, oils, medicinal substances, and valuable timber.
A long list of ornamental plants, beautiful in foliage and ■
flowers, occurs among them, chiefly of shrub and tree form. )
176
THE LOCUSTS 177
Last, but not least, among their merits stands the fact
that leguminous plants are the only ones that actually en-
rich the soil they grow in, whereas the rest of the plant
creation feed upon the soil, and so rob it of its plant food
and leave it poorer than before.
Pod-bearers have the power to take the nitrogen out of
the air, and store it in their roots and stems. The decay of
these parts restores to the soil the particular plant food
that is most commonly lacking and most costly to replace.
Farmers know that after wheat and corn have robbed the
soil of nitrogen, a crop of clover or cow peas, plowed
under when green and luxuriant, is the best restorer of
fertility. It enriches by adding valuable chemical ele-
ments, and also improves the texture of the soil, increasing
its moisture-holding properties, which commercial ferti-
lizers do not.
Seventeen genera of leguminous plants have tree repre-
sentatives within the United States. These include about
thirty species. Valuable timber trees are in this group.
All but one, the yellow-wood, have compound leaves, of
many leaflets, often fernlike in their delicacy of structure,
and intricacy of pattern. With few exceptions the flowers
are pretty and fragrant in showy clusters. The ripening
pods of many species add a striking, decorative quality to
the tree from midsummer on through the season. Thorns
give distinction and usefulness to certain of these trees,
making them available for ornamental hedges.
THE LOCUSTS
Three representatives of the genus robinia are among our
native forest trees. They are known in early summer by
178 TREES
their showy, pea-like blossoms in full clusters, and their
compound leaves, that have the habit of drooping and
folding shut their paired leaflets when night comes on, or
when rain begins to fall. The pods are thin and small,
splitting early, but hanging late on the twigs.
The Black Locust
Robinia Pseudacacia, Linn.
The black or yellow locust is a beautiful tree in its youth,
with smooth dark rind and slender trunk, holding up a
loose roundish head of dark green foliage. Each leaf is
eight to fourteen inches long, of nine to nineteen leaflets,
silvery when they unfold, and always paler beneath. In
late May, the tree-top bursts into bloom that is often so
profuse as to whiten the whole mass of the dainty foliage.
The nectar-laden, white flowers have the characteristic
"butterfly" form, the banner, wings, and keel of the type
pease-blossom. {See illustration, "page 198). The bees
lead the insect host that swarms about them as long as a
locust flower remains to offer sweets to the probing
tongues. Cross-fertilization is the advantage the tree
gains for all it gives. The crop of seeds is sure.
The angled twigs of the black locust break easily in
windy weather. The rapid groT\i:h of the limbs spreads the
narrow head, and its symmetry is soon destroyed, unless
the tree grows in a sheltered situation. An old locust is
usually an ugly, broken specimen, ragged-looking for three-
fourths of the year. The twigs look dead, because their
winter buds are buried out of sight! The bark is dull,
deeply cut into irregular, interlacing furrows, roughened
by scales and shreds on the ridges. In winter the pods
THE LOCUSTS 179
chatter querulously, as the wind plays among the tree-
tops.
The black locust is found from Pennsylvania to Iowa,
and south from Georgia to Oklahoma. The lumber is
coarse-grained, heavy, hard, and exceptionally durable in
contact with the soil or water. This makes it especially
adaptable for fence posts and boat bottoms. Crystals,
called raphides, in the wood cells, take the edges off tools
used in working locust lumber. Yet it is sought by
manufacturers of mill cogs and wheel hubs, and railroad
companies plant the trees for ties.
The locust-borer has ruined plantations of this tree of
late years, and trees in the woods have become infested
except in mountainous regions not yet reached by the pest.
Trees become distorted with warty excrescences and the
lumber is riddled with burrows made by the larvae. Until
the entomologist finds a remedy in some natural parasite
of the locust-borer, the outlook for locust culture seems
dark enough. No insecticide can reach an enemy that
hides in the trunk of the tree it destroys.
The Clammy Locust
R. viscosa, Vent.
The clammy locust has beautifully^ shaded pink flowers in
clusters, each blossom accented by the dark red, shiny
calyx, and the glandular exudation of wax, that covers all
new growth. A favorite ornamental locust, this little tree
has been widely distributed in this and other temperate
countries of the globe. Its leaves are delicately feathery,
with the dew-like gum l)rightening them, as it does also the
hairy, curling pods that flush as they ripen. In winter the
180 TREES
twigs are ruddy. The trees grow wild on the mountains of
the Carolinas and nowhere else.
The Honey Locust
Gleditsia triacanthos, Linn.
The honey locust is a tall handsome flat-topped tree, with
stiff horizontal, often drooping branches, ending in slim
brown polished twigs, with three-branched thorns, stout
and very sharp, set a little distance above the leaf scar of
the previous season. Occasionally a thornless tree occurs.
Inconspicuous greenish flowers, regular, bell-shaped,
appear in elongated clusters, the fertile and sterile clusters
distinct, but on the same tree. The leaves are almost full-
grown when the blossoms appear. Their feathery, fern-
like aspect is the tree's greatest charm in early June.
When the pods replace the flowers they attract attention
and admiration as their velvety surfaces change from pale
green to rose and they curve, as they lengthen, into all sorts
of graceful and fantastic forms. The sweet, gummy pulp
of the honey locust pods is considered edible by boys, who
brave the thorns to get them. As the autumn approaches,
the pulp turns bitter, and dries around the shiny black
seeds. The purple pods cling and rattle in the wind long
after the yellow leaves have fallen. One by one, they are
torn oflF, their S-curves tempting every vagrant breeze to
give them a lift. On the crusty surface of snowbanks and
icy ponds, they are whirled along, and finally lodge, to rot
and liberate the seeds. It takes much soaking to pre-
pare the adamantine seeds for sprouting. The planter
scalds his seed to hasten the orocess. Nature soaks,
THE LOCUSTS 181
freezes, and thaws them, and thus the range of the honey
locust is extended.
In the wild, this tree is found from Ontario to Nebraska,
and south to Alabama and Texas. It chooses rich bottom
lands, but is found also on dry gravelly slopes of the
Alleghany Mountains. Trunks six feet in diameter are
still in existence, preserved from the early forests of the
Wabash Basin in Indiana. They tower nearly one hun-
dred and fifty feet above the ground, and their branches
are a formidable array of thorns (see illustration, page 198),
that have grown into proportions unmatched in trees of
slender build and fewer years. Such a veteran honey
locust is one of the most picturesque figures in a winter
landscape.
Honey locust wood is hard, coarse-grained, heavy, and
durable in contact with water and soil. It is made into
wheel-hubs, fence-posts, and fuel. In all temperate
countries this species has been used as a shade and orna-
mental tree and as a hedge plant.
The Kentucky Coffee Tree
Gymnocladus dioicus, K. Koch
The Kentucky coffee tree is the one clumsy, coarse mem-
ber of a family that abounds in graceful, dainty species.
Its head is small and unsymmetrical, above a trunk that
often rises free from limbs for fifty feet above ground. The
branches are stiff and large, bare until late spring, when the
buds expand and the shoots are tlu-own out. The leaves
are twice compound, often a yard in length and half as
wide; the leaflets, six to fourteen on each of the five to nine
divisions of the main rib. No other locust can boast a leaf
182 TREES
numbering more than one hundred leaflets, each averaging
two inches in length. When the tree turns to gold in
autumn, it is a sight to draw all eyes.
The flower spray is large, but the flowers are small, im-
perfect, salver-form, purplish green — the fertile ones form-
ing thick, clumsy pods that dangle in clusters, and seem to
weigh down the stiff branchlets. The fresh pulp used to be
made into a decoction used in homeopathic practice. The
ripe seeds were used in Revolutionary times as a substitute
for coffee. How the pioneer ever crushed them is a
puzzle to all who have tried to break one with a nut-
cracker. In China the fresh pulp of the pods of a sister
species is used as we use soap.
The wood is not hard, but in other respects it resembles
other locust lumber. It is sometimes used in cabinet
work, being a rich, reddish broTvii, with pale sapwood.
The range of the coffee tree extends from New York to
Nebraska, and south through Pennsylvania, Tennessee
and Oklahoma, with bottom lands as the tree's preference.
Nowhere is this species common. Occasionally, it is
planted as a street tree, in this country and abroad.
The Redbud
Cercis Canadensis, Linn.
The redbud covers its delicate angled, thomless branch-
lets with a profusion of rosy-purple blossoms, typically
pea-like, before the leaves appear. The unusual color, so
abundant where little redbuds form thickets on the out-
skirts of a woodland, leads to a very general recognition of
this tree among people who go into the April woods for
early violets. It vies with the white banner of the shad-
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THE LOCUSTS 18S
bush, in doing honor to the spring. Later, the broad
heart-shaped leaves cover and adorn the tree, concealing
the dainty tapering pods that turn to purple as the polished
leaf blades, unmarred by insect or wind, change from green
to clear yellow before falling.
Tradition has given this charming little locust tree the
name, "Judas-tree," from its European cousin, rumored to
have been the one upon which the choice of Judas fell when
he went out and hanged himself. It is an unearned
stigma, better forgotten, for it does prejudice the planter
against a tree that should be on every lawn, preferably
showing its rosy flowers against a bank of evergreens.
Its natural range extends from New Jersey to Florida
and west from Ontario to Nebraska and southward. The
largest specimens reach fifty feet in height in Texas and
Arkansas, in river bottom lands, and in the Southwest the
tree is an abundant undergrowth — makmg a beautiful
woodland pictiu^e in early spring.
The Yellow-wood
Cladrastis lutea, K. Koch.
The yellow-wood was named by the wife of a pioneer,
durely, for she soaked the chips and got from them a clear
yellow dye, highly prized for the permanent color it gave to
her homespun cotton and woolen cloth that must have
gone colorless, but for dyestuffs discoverable in the woods.
The satiny grain of the wood, and its close hard texlure,
commended it to the woodsman, who used it for gun
stocks. But the tree is too small to be important for the
lumber it yields.
In winter the smootli pale bark of the "Virgilia," as the
184 TREES
nurseryman calls it, reminds one of the rind of the beech.
The broad rounded head, often borne on three or more
spreading stems, is formed of drooping graceful branches,
ending in brittle twigs. Summer clothes these twigs with
a light airy covering of compound leaves, of seven to
eleven broadly oval leaflets, on a stalk less than a foot in
length. In autumn, the foliage turns yellow.
White flowers, pea-like, delicate, fragrant, in clusters a
foot long, and so loose that the flowers seem to drip from
the twig ends, drape the tree in white about the middle of
June, when the young leaves show many tints of green to
form a backgi'ound for the blossoms.
This is the supreme moment of the year for one of the
most charming of trees, in any park that cherishes one of
these virgilias. In the wilds of eastern Tennessee,
northern Alabama, and central Kentucky the species is
found in scattered places. But the wild trees have scant
food and they show it. The full beauty of the species is
seen only in cultivation, as one sees it in the Arnold
Arboretum, and in private gardens near Boston. Even
the little pods, thin, satiny pointed, add a harmonious note
of beauty, their silvery fawn color blending with the quiet
Quaker drab worn by the tree all winter. Fortunately,
this hardy beautiful parktree is easily raisedfrom seeds and
from root cuttings. It thrives on soil of many different
kinds. It has no bad habits, no superior, and few equals
among flowering trees.
THE ACACIAS, OR WATTLES
Australia has contributed to southern California's tree
flora a large number of forms of the acacia tribe, shrubs
THE ACACIAS 185
and trees of great variety and beauty of flowers and ever-
green foliage. They are hardy and perfectly at home, and
are planted in such profusion as to be the commonest of all
street and ornamental trees. The leaves are set on a
branching pinnate stem, making them "twice compound"
of many tiny leaflets, fascicled on the sides of the twigs,
alternate on the terminal shoots of the season. The lacy,
fern-like foliage of most acacias would justify the planting
of them for this trait alone. But the abundant mass of
bloom usually overwhelms the tree-tops, obscuring the
foliage with a veil of golden mesh. Sometimes wliite, but
oftenest yellow, the individual flowers are very small; but
they crowd in button-like heads or elongated spikes, set
close in axillary clusters. In their native woods these
trees flower much less freely than in the land of their adop-
tion. The curling pods are in most species and varieties
ornamental, as they pass through many color changes before
they finally discharge their seeds.
Acacias compose a genus of four hundred species, and an
untold and constantly increasing number of cultivated
varieties. The continent of Australia has the greatest re-
presentation of native species. Others belong to Africa —
tropical, northern, and southern regions. Asia, in its
warmer southern territory, and in southwestern China,
has many native acacias. Tropical and temperate South
America, the West Indies, Central America, Mexico, the
southwestern region of the United States, and the islands
of the South Pacific, all have representatives of this won-
derful and far-scattered genus. There is no country in-
terested in horticulture that does not grow acacias as orna-
mental shrubs and trees, even if they must be grown under
glass the year round. In southern England the acacias.
186 TREES
grown in open ground, and known as "tassel trees," attain
good size.
Valuable lumber, tanbarks, dyes, perfumes, and drugs
are yielded by acacias. Gum Arabic is the dried sap of
several oriental species, particularly. Acacia Arabica, Linn,
of Egypt and southern Asia.
As a rule, acacias have slender branches armed with
spines. Often these are too small to attract notice, or to
make the species useful as a hedge plant. All spines are
modifications of the stipules at the base of leaf or leaflet.
Thorns, however, are modified twigs, strong, stiff and
sharp, often branched. The honey locust shows true
thorns, not spines or prickles. The armament of canes of
blackberry is only skin deep. This means of defence is
best called "prickles."
The Black Acacia
Acacia melanoxylon
The black acacia, called at home in Australian woods, the
"black wood-tree," for its black heart- wood, is a familiar
street and shade tree in California. In narrow parkings it
is likely to surprise the planter by outgrowing in a few
years the space allotted to it, and upheaving both cement
walk and curb, by the irresistible force of its thick roots.
It is one of the large timber acacias, and even in the cool
climate of England reaches fifty feet.
In suitable situations in California it grows much higher,
and its compact conical head of dense evergreen foliage,
gives abundant shade at all seasons. The flowers are
white or cream-colored, lightening the yellow-green of the
THE ACACIAS 187
new shoots and the dull, opaque of the older leaves, with
abundant clusters in earliest spring. The succeeding
fruits are curling thin pods that hang in brownish sheaves,
giving the tree a rusty look. Each seed is rimmed with a
frill of terra cotta hue that serves as a wing for its flight,
when detached by the wind. The roots send up suckers
and the seeds are quick to grow. So any one can have
black acacias with little trouble or expense. Its shedding
of leaves and pods makes much litter, however, a trait
sometimes overlooked which seriously duninishes its de-
sirability as a street and shade tree.
The Silver Wattle
A. dealbata
The silver wattle of nursery catalogues is named for its
abundant, silvery-pubescent, feathery foliage. Its flow-
ers — fluffy golden balls, small but abundant — make this a
wonderfully showy tree.
Sea-green and turquoise-blue leaves, with abundant
canary-yellow bloom, are traits of many different acacias
in cultivation, all of which are rapid growers, and soon re-
pay the planter who wants quick results. From being
mere ornaments they rise to the stature of shade trees, and
merely multiply the charms that made them admired
when young. Varieties with sharp spines are employed as
hedge plants. Curious leaf forms and unusual, edgewise
position of the foliage, make us wonder at some of the
glorious "golden wattles" and "knife-leaved acacias,"
that bring us glimpses of the forests of Austraha and other
strange far countries.
188 TREES
OTHER POD-BEARERS
The Mesquite
Prosopis juliflora, DC.
The mesquite or honey pod is one of the wonderful
plants of the arid and semi-arid regions from Col-
orado and Utah to Texas and southern California.
At best it is a tree sixty feet high along the rivers of
Arizona. In the higher and more desert stretches it is
stunted to a sprawling shrub, with numerous stems but
a few feet high. Its leaves are like those of our honey
locust but very much smaller, and the tree furnishes little
shade. The bark of the trunk is thick, dark reddish
brown, shallowly fissured between scaly ridges. In
winter the tree looks dead enough, but the young
shoots clothed with tender green bring it to life in early
spring, and the greenish fragrant flowers, thickly set in
finger-like clusters, appear in successive crops from May to
July. These are succeeded by pods four to nine inches
long in drooping clusters, each containing ten to twenty
beans.
Not its beauty of leaf and blossom but its usefulness is
what makes this tree almost an object of worship to desert
dwellers, red men and white. The long fat pods supply
Mexicans and Indians with a nutritious food, green or ripe.
Cattle feed upon the young shoots and thrive, when other
forage is scant or utterly lacking. The fuel problem of the
desert is solved by the mesquite in a way that is a great
surprise to the newcomer. His sophisticated neighbor
OTHER POD-BEARERS 189
takes him on a wood-gathering expedition. Stopping
where a shrubby mesquite sprawls, he liitches his team to a
chain or rope that Lays hold of the trunk, and hauls the
plant out by its roots. And what roots the mesquite has
developed in its search for water! There is a central tap
root that goes down, down, sometimes sixty feet or more.
Secondary roots branch out in all directions, interlock,
thicken, and form a labyrinth of woody substance, in
quantity and quality that makes the timber above ground
a negligible quantity. This wood is cut into building and
fencing materials — two great needs in the desert. The
waste makes good fuel, and every scrap is precious.
Posts, railroad ties, frames for the adobe houses, furniture,
fellies of wheels, paving blocks, and charcoal are made of
this wonderful tree's root system. A gum resembling gum-
arabic exudes from the stems.
The Screw-bean
P. puhescenSy Benth.
The screw-bean or screw-pod mesquite is a small slender-
trunked tree with sharp spines at the bases of the hoary
foliage. The marked distinction between this species and
the preceding one is in the fruit, which makes from twelve
to twenty turns as it matures, and forms when ripe a
narrow straight spiral, one to two inches long; but when
drawn out like a coiled spring the pod is shown to be more
than a foot in length. These sweet nutritious pods are a
most useful fodder for range cattle, and the wood is used
for fencing and fuel. This tree grows from southern Utah
and Nevada through New Mexico and Arizona into San
190 TREES
Diego County, California, western Texas and northern
Mexico.
The Palo Verde Acacia
Cercidium Torreyanum, Sarg.
The palo verde is another green-barked acacia whose
leaves are almost obsolete. Miniature honey-locust
leaves an inch long unfold, a few here and there in March
and April, but they are gone before they fully mature, and
the leaf function is carried on entirely by the vivid green
branches. Clustered flowers, like little yellow roses,
cover the branches in April, and the pointed pods ripen and
fall in July.
In the Colorado desert of southern California, in the
valley of the lower Gila River in Arizona, on the sides of
low canyons and on desert sandhills into Mexico, this small
tree, with its multitude of leafless, ascending branches, is
one of the brightest features on a hopelessly dun-colored
landscape.
The Jamaica Dogwood
Icthyomethia Piscipula, A. S. Hitch.
The Jamaica dogwood is a West Indian tree that grows
also in southern Florida and Mexico. It is one of the
commonest tropical trees on the Florida West Coast from
the shores of Bay Biscayne to the Southern Keys. The
leaves are four to nine inches long, with leaflets three to
four inches in length, deciduous, vivid green, making a tree
fifty feet high an object of tropical luxuriance. Its beauty
is greatly enhanced in May by the opening of the pink, pea-
like blossoms that hang in drooping clusters a foot or more
OTHER POD-BEARERS 191
in length. The necklace-like pods are frilled on four sides
with tliin papery wings.
The wood of this tree is very durable in contact with
water, besides being heavy, close-grained, and hard. It is
locally used in boat-building, and for fuel and charcoal. All
parts of the tree, but especially the bark of the roots, con-
tain an acid drug of sleep-inducing properties. In the
West Indies the powdered leaves, young branches, and the
bark of the roots have long been used by the natives to
stupefy fish they try to capture.
The Horse Bean
Parkinsonia aculeata, Linn.
The horse bean or retama, native to the valleys of the
lower Rio Grande and Colorado River, is a small graceful
pod-bearing tree of drooping branches set with strong
spines, long leaf -stems, branching and set with many pairs
of tiny leaflets.
The bright yellow, fragrant flowers are almost perennial.
In Texas the tree is out of bloom only in midwinter. In the
tropics, it is ever-blooming. The fruit hangs in graceful
racemes, dark orange-brown in color, and compressed be-
tween the remote beans. As a hedge and ornamental
garden plant, this tree has no equal in the Southwest. It
is met with in cultivation in most warm countries.
The Texas Ebony
Zigia flexicaulis, Sudw.
The Texas ebony is a beautiful, acacia-like tree of south-
ern Texas and Mexico. One of the commonest and most
192 TREES
beautiful trees on the bluffs along the coast, south of the
Rio Grande. Its leaves are feathery, fern-like, its flowers
in creamy clusters, its pods thick, almost as large as those
of the honey locust. The seeds are palatable and nutri-
tious, green or ripe. Immature, the pods are cooked like
string beans; ripe, they are roasted, and the pods them-
selves are ground and used as a substitute for coffee.
The wood is valuable in fine cabinet work, and because
it is almost indestructible in contact with the ground, it is
largely used for fence posts. It makes superior fuel. Besides
being more valuable than any other tree of the Rio Grande
Valley, though it rarely exceeds thirty feet in height, it is
worthy of the attention of gardeners as well as foresters in
all warm temperate countries. Prof. Sargent calls it the
finest ornamental tree native to Texas.
The Frijolito
Sophora secundiflora, DC.
The frijolito or coral-bean is a small, slender narrow-
headed tree, with persistent, locust-like leaves, fragrant
violet-blue flowers, and small one-sided racemes. The
pods are silky white, pencil-like, constricted between the
bright scarlet seeds. The tree grows wild in canyons in
southern Texas and New Mexico, forming thickets or
small groves in low moist limestone soil and stream bor-
ders. It is a close relative of the famous pagoda tree of
Japan, S. Japonica, universally cultivated; and it deserves
to be a garden tree throughout the Southern states.
PART VII
DECIDUOUS TREES WITH WINGED SEEDS
The Maples — The Ashes — The Elms
THE IVIAPLES
A single genus, cicer, includes from sixty to seventy
species, widely distributed over the Northern Hemisphere.
A single species goes south of the equator, to the mountains
of Java. All produce pale close-grained, fairly hard wood,
valued in turnery and for the interior finish of houses. The
clear sap of some American species is made into maple
sugar.
The signs by which we may know a member of the maple
family are two: opposite, simple leaves, palmately veined
and lobed; and fruits in the form of paired samaras, com-
pressed and drawn out into large thin wings. No amount
of improvement changes these family traits. No other
tree has both leaves and fruits like a maple's.
The distribution of genus acer is interesting. The origi-
nal home of the family is in the Far East. In China
and Japan we may reckon up about thirty indigo maples,
while only nine are native to North America. Of these,
five are in the eastern half of the continent, three in the
West, and one grows indifferently on both sides of the
Great Divide.
198
194 TREES
The Sugar Maple
Acer saccharum, Marsh.
The sugar maple (see illustration, 'page 198-199) is eco-
nomically the most important member of its family in this
country. As an avenue and shade tree it is unsurpassed.
It is the great timber maple, whose curly and birds-eye
wood is loved by the cabinet-maker; and whose sap boiled
down, yields maple sugar — a delicious sweet, with the
distinctive flavor beloved by all good Americans. In
October the sugar maple paints the landscape with yellow
and orange and red. Its firm broad leaves, shallowly cleft
into five lobes, are variously toothed besides. The flowers
open late, hanging on the season's shoots in hairy yellow
clusters. The key fruits are smooth and plump, with
wings only slightly diverging. They are shed in midsummer.
Hard maple wood outranks all other maple lumber,
though the curly grain and the bird's-eye are accidental
forms rarely found. Flooring makes special demands
upon this wood. Much is used in furniture factories; and
small wares — shoe lasts, shoe pegs and the like — consume a
great deal. As fuel, hard maple is outranked only by
hickory. Its ashes are rich in potash and are in great de-
mand as fertilizer in orchards and gardens.
The living tree, in the park, on the street, casting its
shade about the home, or glowing red among the trees of
the woods, is more valuable than its lumber. Slow-grow-
ing, strong to resist damage by storm, clean in habit and
beautiful the year round — this is our splendid rock maple.
Rich, indeed, is the city whose early inhabitants chose it as
the permanent street tree.
THE JSIAPLES 195
The Black Maple
A. nigrum, Michx.
The black maple is so like the sugar maple that they are
easily confused, but its stout branchlets are orange-colored,
the leaves are smooth and green on both sides, scantly
toothed, and they droop as if their stems were too weak to
hold up the blades. The keys spread more widely than
those of the sugar maple.
The black maple is the sugar maple of South Dakota
and Iowa. It becomes rarer as one goes east. It is an
admirable lumber tree, as well as a noble street and shade
tree.
Two soft maples are found in the eastern part of the
country, their sap less sweet, their wood softer than the
hard maples, and their fitness for street planting corres-
pondingly less.
The Red Maple
A. ruhrum, Linn.
The red maple is a lover of swamps. It thrives,
however, on hillsides, if the soil be moist; and is planted
widely in parks and along village streets. In beauty it
excels all other maples. In early spring its swelling buds
glow like garnets on the brown twigs {see illustrationsy
pages 198-199). Theopeningflowershave red petals, and the
first leaves, which accompany the early bloom, are red.
In May the dainty fiat keys, in clusters on their long,
flexible stems, are as red as a cock's comb, and beautiful
against the bright green of the new foliage. In early
September in New England, a splash of red in tlie woods.
196 TREES
across a swamp, is sure to be a scarlet maple that suddenly
declares its name. Against the green of a hemlock forest
these maples show their color like a splash of blood. The
tree is gorgeous.
In winter the lover of the woods, re-visiting the scenes
of his summer rambles, knows the scarlet maple by the
knotty, full-budded twigs which gleam like red-hot needles
set with coral beads, against the clean-limbed, gray-trunked
tree. The red maple never quite forgets its name.
As a street tree, it makes rapid progress when it once
becomes established, though it is apt to stand still for a
time after being transplanted. Its branches are short,
numerous, and erect, making a round head, admirably
adapted to the resistance of heavy winds. It is particu-
larly suited to use in narrow streets.
The Soft Maple
A. saccharinum, Linn.
The soft maple or silver maple (see illustration, page 199)
has a white-lined leaf, cleft almost to the midrib and each
division again deeply cut. It is quick and ready to grow,
and has been widely planted as a street tree, especially in
prairie regions of uncertain rainfall. It is one of the
poorest of trees for street planting, because it has a sprawl-
ing habit and weak brittle wood. The heavy limbs have
great horizontal spread, and are easily broken by ice and
windstorms. When planted on streets, they require
constant cutting back to make them even safe. Thick
crops of suckers rise from the stubs of branches, but the
top thus formed is neither beautiful nor useful.
Wier's weeping maple, a cut-leaved, drooping variety
THE IVIAPLES 197
of this silver maple, is often seen as a lawn tree, imitating
the habit of the weeping willow.
The Oregon Maple
A. macrophylhwi, Pursh.
The Oregon maple grows from southern Alaska to Lower
California, along the banks of streams. The great leaves,
often a foot in diameter, on blades of equal length, are the
distinguishing marks of this stout-limbed tree, that grows
in favorable soil to a height of a hundred feet. In southern
Oregon it forms pure forest, its huge limbs forming mag-
nificent, interlacing arches that shut out the sun and make
a wonderful cover for ferns and mosses far below. The
wood of this tree is the best hard-wood lumber on the
West Coast.
The Vine Maple
A. circinatum, Pursh.
The vine maple reminds one of the hanas of tropical
woods, for it has not sufficient stiffness to stand erect.
It grows in the bottom lands and up the mountain sides,
but always following water-courses, from British Columbia
to northern CaKfornia. Its vine-Hke stems spring up in
clusters from the ground, spreading in wide curves, and
these send out long, slender twigs which root when they
touch the ground, thus forming impenetrable thickets,
often many acres in extent.
The leaf is almost circular and cut into narrow equal
lobes around the margin; green in midsummer, it changes
to red and gold in autumn, and the woodsman, almost
198 TREES
worn out with the labor of getting through the maze these
trees form, must dehght, when he stops to rest, in the
autumn glory of this wonderful ground cover.
These little maples lend a wonderful charm to the edges
of forest highways in the Eastern states. Like the horn-
beams, hazel bushes, and ground hemlock, they are lovers
of the shade; and they fringe the forest with a shrubbery
border.
TTie Striped Maple
A. Pennsylvanicum, Linn.
The striped maple is quickly recognized by the pale
white lines that streak in delicate patterns the smooth
green bark of the branches. The leaves are large and
finely saw-toothed, with three triangular lobes at the top.
The yellowish bell-flowers hang in drooping clusters^
followed by the smooth green keys, in midsummer. Thi&
tree is called "Moosewood," for moose browse upon it.
The shrubbery border of parks is lightened in autumn
by the yellow foliage of this little tree, and in winter the
bark is very attractive. " Whistle wood " is the name
the boys know this tree by, for in spring the bark slips
easily, and they cut branches of suitable size for whistles.
The Mountain Maple
A. spicatum. Lam.
The mountain maple is a dainty shrub with ruddy stems,
large, three-lobed leaves, erect clusters of yellow flowers
and tiny brown keys. It follows the mountains from
New England to northern Georgia, and from the Great
Lakes extends to the Saskatchewan.
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See page 19 J^
SUGAR MAPLE
Maple sugar is made in February; the trees bloom in May; their
seeds ripen in October
THE 1{EI) MAPLES PISTILLATE {left) AXI)
STAMINATE {ri,jht) ELOWEKS
c
XL
o
Q
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n
THE MAPLES 199
The Dwarf Maple
A. glabrum, Torr.
The dwarf maple ranges plentifully from Canada to
Arizona and New Mexico. Its leaves, typically tliree-
lobed and cut-toothed, vary to a compound form of three
coarse-toothed leaflets. The winged keys are ruddy in
midsummer, lending an attractive dash of color to the
woods that border high mountain streams.
Very common in cultivation are the Japanese maples —
miniature trees, bred and cultivated for centuries, won-
derful in the variations in form and coloring of their
leaves. Tiny maple trees in pots are often very old.
Some leaves are mere skeletons.
The Japanese people are worshippers of beauty and
they delight particularly in garden shows. In the autumn,
when the maples have reached perfection, the populace
turns out in holiday attire to celebrate a grand national
fete. A sort of aesthetic jubilee it is, like the spring
jubilee of the cherry blossom To each careful gardener
who has patiently toiled to bring his maples to perfection,
it is sufficient reward that the people make this annual
pilgrimage to view them.
The Box Elder
A. Negundo, Linn.
The box elder is the one maple whose leaves are always
cleft to the stem, making it compound of irregularly
toothed leaflets. The clusters of flattened keys, which
hang all winter on the trees, declare the kinship of this
tree to the maples.
wo TREES
Fast-growing, hardy, willing to grow in treeless regions,
this tree has spread from its eastern range throughout the
plains, where shelter belts were the first needs of the
settlers. Pretty at first, these box elders are soon broken
down and unsightly. They should be used only as tem-
porary trees, alternating with elms, hard maples, and
ashes. Where they are neglected, or continue to be
planted, the character of the town or the premises must
be cheap and ugly.
The Norway Maple
A. flatanoidesy Linn.
The Norway maple is counted the best maple we have
for street planting. Broad, thin leaves, three-lobed by
wide sinuses, cover with a thick thatch the rounded head
of the tree. Green on both sides, thin and smooth, these
leaves seem to withstand remarkably the smoke, soot, and
dust of cities, and also the attacks of insects. The keys
are large, wide-winged, set opposite, the nutlets meeting
in a straight line. These pale green key clusters are
very handsome among the green leaves in summer — the
tree's chief ornament until the foliage mass turns yellow
in autumn. A peculiarity of the Norway maple is the
milky juice that starts from a broken leaf -stem.
The Sycamore Maple
A. pseudo-platanus, Linn.
The sycamore maple is another European immigrant,
whose broad leaf is thick and leathery in texture, and
pale underneath. Its late-opening flowers are borne in
THE ASHES 201
long racemes, followed by the small key fruits which
cling to the twigs over winter, making the tree look dingy
and untidy. This tree has not the hardiness nor the com-
pact form of the Norway maple, and it is subject to the
attack of borers.
It is the "sycamore" of Europe, famed as a lumber
and an avenue tree abroad, but with us it proves short-
lived, and we have no reason for clioosing it. The copious
seed production of the far preferable Norway maple puts
it within the reach of all.
THE ASHES
Few large trees in our American woods have their
leaves set opposite upon the twig. Still fewer of the
trees with compound leaves show this arrangement. Con-
sult the first broad-leaved tree you meet, and the chances
are tliat its leaves are set alternately upon the twigs.
There is a multitude of families in this class; but if
the leaves are paired and set opposite, we narrow the
families to a very few. Are the leaves simple.'^ Then
the tree may be a maple or a dogwood, or a viburnum.
Are the leaves opposite and compound? Then you have
one of two families. Are the leaflets clustered on the
end of the leaf-stalk? Then the tree is a buckeye or a
horse chestnut — members of the buckeye family. Are
the leaflets set along the sides of the central stem? Then
the tree is an ash. A few exceptions may be discovered,
but the rule holds in the general forest area of North
America.
Ash trees have lance-shaped, winged seeds, borne in
profuse clusters, and often held well into the winter. But
202 TREES
there is no season when the leaf arrangement cannot be at
once determined by the leaf scars, prominent upon the
twigs; and under the tree there will always be remnants
of the cast-off foliage, to show that it is compound.
Ash trees are usually large and stately when full grown,
with trunks clothed in smooth bark, checked into small,
often diamond-shaped plates. This gives the trees a
trim, handsome appearance in the winter woods. As
shade trees, ashes are very desirable, and they are valuable
for their timber.
The near relatives of ashes surprise us. They belong to
the olive family, whose type is the olive tree of the Medi-
terranean region, now extensively cultivated in California
for its fruit. Privets, lilacs, and forsythias, favorites in
the gardens of all countries that have temperate climates,
are cousins to the ash tree. One of its most charming
relatives is the little fringe tree of our own woods. Thirty
species of ash are known; half of that number inhabit
North America. There are ash trees in every section of
our country except the extremes of latitude and altitude.
Tropical ash trees are native to Cuba, North Africa, and
the Orient.
The White Ash
Fraxinus Americana, Linn.
The white ash is one of the noblest trees in the American
forest, the peer of the loftiest oak or walnut. When young
it is slim and graceful, but it grows sturdier as it approaches
maturity, lifting stout, spreading branches above a tall,
massive trunk. In the forest the head is narrow, but in
the open the dome of a white ash is as broad and sym-
metrical as that of a white oak. A gray rind covers the
THE ASHES 203
young branches and the bark is gray. The fohage has
white lining and each of the seven leaflets has a short stalk.
These are all characters that distinguish the white ash
from other species and enable one to name it at a
glance. In the South the white ash is undersized and the
wood is of poor quality. In the Northeastern and Central
states it is one of the most important and largest of our
timber trees, with wood more valuable than any other ash.
Its uses are manifold: it is staple in the manufacture of
agricultural implements, carriages, furniture, and in the
interior iSnish of buildings. Tool handles and oars are
made of white ash and it is superior as fuel. The reddish-
brown heart-wood, with paler sap-wood, is tough, elastic,
hard, and heavy. It is not durable in soil and becomes
brittle with age.
Ash trees are late in coming into leaf. \Mien all the
forest is green and full of blossoms, the ash trees are still
naked. Not until ]^.Iay do the rusty yellow winter buds of
the white ash swell and throw out on separate trees their
staminate and pistillate flower clusters from the axils of
last year's foliage. (See illustration, page SI 4..) Then the
leaves unfold; downy at first, becoming bright and shiny
above, but always with pale linings. On fertile trees the
inconspicuous flowers mature into pointed fruits, one to
two inches long. The wing is twice the length of the seed
and is rounded to a blunt point. The seed itself is round
and pointed, on branching stalks that form clusters from
six to eight inches long.
As a street tree the white ash deserves much more
general favor in cities than it has yet achieved, for it is
straight and symmetrical, and its light foliage grows in
irregular, wavy masses, through which some sunlight can
204 TREES
always sift and let grass grow under the tree. This tree is
a rapid grower, perfectly hardy in most sections of the
country, and has no serious insect enemies. The foliage
turns to brownish purple and yellow in the autumn.
The Black Ash
F, nigra. Marsh.
The black ash is a lover of marshes, found from New-
foundland to Manitoba, and from Virginia to Arkansas.
Its blue-black winter buds, the sombre green of its foliage,
and the dark hues of its bark and wood have justified the
popular name of this handsome, slender tree. The leaflets,
oval and long-pointed, are sessile on the hairy leaf stalk,
except the terminal one. At maturity the leaves are
a foot or more in length, of seven to eleven leaflets, that
turn brown and fall early in autumn. The keys of the
black ash are borne in open panicles, eight to ten inches
long; each has a short, flat seed, with a broad blade,
thin, rounded, and notched instead of pointed, at the ex-
tremity.
The wood of black ash has the tough, heavy coarse-
grained qualities of the white ash, but differs in being very
durable and in being easily split into thin layers — each a
year's growth. The Indians taught the early settlers to
weave baskets out of black ash splints. These splints are
easily separated by bending the split wood over a block.
The strain breaks loose the tissue that forms the spring
wood, and separates the bands of tough, dense summer
wood into strips suitable for basket weaving. Black ash is
used for chair seats, barrel hoops, furniture, and cabinet-
THE ASHES 205
work. The saplings are oftenest chosen for hop and bean
poles.
As a lawn tree, the black ash has little to recommend it
for it often dies of thirst in the loam of a garden. At best
it is short-lived. Planted in swampy ground, the tree
spreads by seeds, and suckers from the roots, soon forming
extensive thickets, and drinking up the moisture at a mar-
velous rate.
The Red Ash
F. Pennsylvanica, Marsh.
The red ash follows the courses of streams and lake mar-
gins from New Brunswick to the Black Hills and south into
Florida, Alabama, and Nebraska. This tree is much
planted for shade and ornament in New England, and in
other Eastern sections. The tree is small, spreading into
a compact though irregular head of twiggy, slender
branches. The yellow-green foliage, a foot long, of seven
to nine short, stalked, lustrous leaflets, is lightened by a
pale pubescence on petioles and leaf-linings. The same
velvety down covers the new shoots. Summer and winter
this sign never fails.
Red ash seeds are extremely long and slender, and have
the most graceful outlines of all the darts that various ash
trees bear. The heavy, round body has a wing twice its
length by which the wand carries the seeds far away. Very
gradually an ash tree launches its seeds. It is easy to
understand why the family is so scattered through any
woods, for the wind i^ the sower. The reddish bark of the
twigs and trunk of this tree seems to be the justification for
its name. Its brown wood is inferior to white ash.
206 TREES
The Green Ash
F. Pennsylvanica, Variety lanceolata, Sarg.
The green ash has narrower, shorter leaves than the parent
species and usually more sharply saw- toothed margins.
Instead of having pale linings, the leaflets are bright green
on both surfaces. This is the ash tree of the almost treeless
prairies from Dakota southward, where it not only lives, but
flourishes as well as in its native habitat, the rich soil
of stream banks farther east. Its range crosses the Rocky
Mountains and reaches the slopes of the Wasatch Moun-
tains in Utah. East of the Alleghanies the tree is little
known. It is in the West that it is the dominant ash.
It is one of the few important agencies which have turned
the "Great American Desert" into a land of shady roads
and comfortable, protected homesteads.
The Blue Ash
F. quadrangulata, Michx.
The blue ash has four-angled twigs, often winged at the
corners with a thin plate of bark. The sap contains a sub-
stance that gives a blue dye when the inner bark is
macerated in water. The tree reaches one hundred and
twenty feet in height, above a slender trunk, and has small
spreading branches that terminate in stout twigs, char-
acteristically angled.
The tree is occasionally cultivated in parks and gardens
in the Eastern states where it is a distinct addition to the
list of handsome shade trees. It is hardy, quick of growth,
and unusually free from the ills that beset trees. In the
THE ASHES 207
forests it reaches its best estate on the limestone hills of
the Big Smoky Mountains Its wood ranks with the best
white ash and exceeds it in one particular; it is the most
durable ash wood when exposed alternately to wet and
dry conditions. It is used for vehicles, for flooring and
for handles of tools especially pitchforks.
The Oregon Ash
F. Oregona, Nutt.
The Oregon ash follows the coast south from Puget
Sound to San Francisco Bay, and from the western foothills
of the Sierra Nevada to those of the mountains of southern
California. In southwestern Oregon the tree reaches the
height of eighty feet, with a trunk three to four feet in di-
ameter. The stout branches form a broad crown where
there is room, and the luxuriant foliage is wonderfully light
in color, pale green above, with silvery pubescent leaf-
linings. Of the five to seven leaflets, all are sessile or
short-stalked, except the terminal one, which has a
stem an inch long. All are oval and abruptly pointed,
thick and firm in texture, turning yellow or russet brown in
autumn. The lumber is counted equal to white ash and is
one of the most valuable of deciduous timber trees in the
western coast states.
A number of little ash trees, distinct in species from those
described already, are native to limited sections of the
country. All have the family traits by wliich they are
readily recognized, if seed form, leaf form, and leaf arrange-
ment are kept in mind. In the corner where Colorado,
Nevada, and Utah meet, is an ash with its leaf reduced to a
single leaflet, but the seeds are profusely borne to declare
208 TREES
the tree's name to any one who visits its restricted terri-
tory. In rich soil, three leaflets are occasionally de-
veloped.
The European Ash
F. Excelsior, Linn.
The European ash is the large timber ash from the
Atlantic Coast of Europe to western Asia. The earliest
writers have ranked its wood next to oak in usefulness. It
was known as "the husbandman's tree." Its uses were
listed at interminable length, 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."
The sapHngs, cut when three to six years old, made ex-
cellent fork and spade handles on account of the toughness
and pliability of their fibre. Crates for china were made
of the branches. Steamed and bent, this wood lent itself
to the making of hoops for barrels and kegs. The cutting
off of the main trunk set the roots to sending up a forest of
young shoots, ready for cutting again when they reached
the size for walking-sticks and whip-stocks.
Quite independent of its lumber value, but possibly
correlated with it, was the great reputation the ash tree
achieved in the myths and superstitions of widely sep-
arated peoples. In south Europe, tradition declared that a
race of brazen men sprung from the ash tree. In the North,
the Norse mythology made Igdrasil, the ash, the "World
THE ELMS 209
tree," from whose roots the whole race of men sprung. The
roots of this mythological tree penetrated the earth to its
lowest depths and its giant top supported the heavens.
Wisdom and knowledge gushed from its base as from
a fountain, and underneath were the abodes of the
gods, giants, and the Fates. Superstitions of all kinds
have come down with the language of different peoples,
making the history of the ash tree a most interesting
study.
A Chinese ash yields a valuable white wax which exudes
from the bark of the twigs. F. ornus, Linn., native to
south Europe and Asia Minor, exudes a waxy secretion
from bark and leaves. This is the manna of commerce.
Last but not least of the products of the ash tree are the
curious and beautiful contortions of the grain found in
** burls " on the trunks of old trees of many species. These
warty excrescences are eagerly bought by special agents for
cabinet-makers. Woodwork from these abnormal growths
shows exquisitely waved lines when polished, as delicate as
those in a banded agate. Fancy boxes, bowls, and other
articles brought fancy prices when made of "ram's horn"
or "fiddleback" ash, which often went under the trade
name of green ebony. The black ash in America is par-
ticularly subject to contortions of the grain.
THE ELMS
Elms of sixteen distinct species are native to boreal and
temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, with this
single exception: western North America is without a rep-
resentative. Europe lias three species, two of which ex-
£10 TREES
tend their range into eastern Asia and northern Africa.
Southern and central Asia have their own species. Five
are native to our Eastern states. Two European species
are in cultivation in the North Atlantic states, especially
in the neighborhood of Boston, where they are as familiar
as the native species, in street planting.
Elm trees are valuable for shade and for lumber; their
wood is hard, heavy, tough, pale in color, often difficult
to split. The trees are distinguished from others by
their simple, unsymmetrical, strong-ribbed leaves, saw-
toothed, short-stalked, always unequal and often oblique
at the base of the blade. The flowers, usually perfect, are
inconspicuous, and the seeds are flat, entirely surrounded
by a thin papery wing, that forms two hooks at the tip.
Wind-carried, these seeds have had much to do with
the wide distribution of elms.
The White Elm
Ulmus Americana^ Linn.
The white or American elm is widely known as a tall,
graceful wide-spreading tree, usually of symmetrical,
vase shape, with slender limbs and drooping twigs.
(See illustration, page 215.) It has the rough furrowed
bark characteristic of the genus, dark or light gray, with
paler branches and red-brown twigs. The leaves are
alternate, two to six inches long, broadest near the
abruptly pointed apex. Distinctly one-sided at the
tapering base, the leaves have a fashion of arranging
themselves in a flat spray so as to present almost a con-
tinuous leaf area to the sun. One spray overlaps another,
THE ELMS 211
and leaves varying in size fit in to fill every little corner
to which sunlight comes. This "leaf mosaic" is not con-
fined to elms alone. It is especially noticeable on the
southern border of any dense wood.
Winter offers the best opportunity for the study of
tree forms. Our common elm shows at least five different
patterns. The first is the "vase form," the commonest
and most beautiful. This is best realized by old trees
which have had plenty of room. In it the branches spread
gradually upward at first but at a considerable height
sweep boldly out forming a broad, rounded, or flattened
head. Second is the "plume form," in which two or
three main limbs rise to a great height before branching,
and then break into feathery spray. Trees crowded in
woods are lilcely to take this form. Third, the "oak tree
form" shows a horizontal habit of branching, and an
angularity of limbs usually more noticeable among oaks.
Fourth, the "weeping willow form," where trees have
short trunks, from w^hicli the branches curve rapidly
outward and end in long, drooping branchlets. Fifth is
the "feathered elm," marked by a fringe of short twigs
which outline the trunk and limbs. This "feathering"
is caused by the late development of latent buds. It may
occur in any of the tree types just mentioned, but it is
more noticeable in individuals of the plume form.
The American elm is very familiar for it grows every-
where east of the Rocky ^lountains. Not to know this
tree is a mark of indifference and ignorance. No village
of any pride but plants it freely as a street tree. It is
hardy and cheerful, reflecting the indomitable spirit of
the pioneer, whom it accompanied by seed and sapling
from the Eastern states into the treeless territories of the
212 TREES
Middle West. With him the tree seized the land and
made it yield a living. Elms, which have outlived the
cotton woods and willows, are not so large yet as the
patriarchal trees in old New-England villages, yet time
alone is needed to match, in the valley of the Missouri,
the elms in the valley of the Connecticut.
I think, with due appreciation of its summer luxuriance
of foliage, and the grace and strength of the elm's frame-
work in winter, that the moment of greatest charm in the
life of a roadside elm comes in the first warm days of late
March. The brown buds on the sides of the twigs are
swelKng and a flush of purple overspreads the tree, while
snow still covers the ground. A tremendous "fall of
leaves" ensues, for the tiny bud scales that enclose the
elm flowers are but leaves in miniature. The elms are in
blossom! Each flower of each cluster has a calyx with
scalloped edges, and a fringe of four to nine stamens hang-
ing far out and surrounding the central solitary ovary.
The color is in the yellow anthers and the dark red calyx
lobes.
Speedily, the stamens shrivel and pale green pendants,
which are the seeds, cluster upon the twigs. Winged
for flight, these ripen and are scattered before the leaves
are fairly open, and the growth of the season's shoots
begins. Only the pussy willow, the quaking asp, and the
earliest maples bloom as early as the elm. How much
they have missed, who never saw an elm tree in blossom !
The hubs of the "one-hoss shay" were of "ellum,"
its interlacing fibres peculiarly fitting this wood for indes-
tructibility. Saddle trees, boat timbers, cooperage, and
flooring employ it in quantities. It is also used for flumes
and piles, for it resists decay on exposure to water.
THE ELMS 213
The Slippery Elm
U. fidva, Michx.
The slippery elm is also known as the red elm and moose
elm, because its wood is red and moose are fond of brows-
ing its young shoots. In regions where moose are rarely
seen, it is the small boy who browses and often utterly
destroys every specimen of this valuable tree. Under the
bark of young shoots a sweet substance is found, which
gives the tree 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 fever for kite-
flying and playing marbles .f* The trees in every fence
row show the wounds of jack-knives; stripping the bark>
the boys scrape from its inner surface the thick, fragrant
mucilaginous cambium — a delectable substance that
allays both hunger and thirst. Fortunately the bark of
the limbs supplies the demand; many a veteran tree still
suffers the pollarding process, serving one generation of
schoolboys after another.
The inner bark, dried and ground and mixed with milk,
forms a valuable food for invalids. Poultices of slippery
elm bark relieve throat and chest ailments. Fevers and
acute inflammatory disorders are treated with the same
bark, which has passed from the list of mere home remedies
to an established place on the apothecary's shelf. •
How shall we tell a slippery elm tree from the American
elm.^ By its leaf in summer. The roughness of the foliage
is one of its striking characteristics. Crumple a leaf, and
its surfaces grate harslily, for they are covered with stifl^»
tubercular hairs. The leaves are larger, often reaching
214 TREES
seven inches in length. There is a reddish or tawny
pubescence on all young shoots, and especially on the
bud scales in winter. The tree itself, in winter or summer,
is much more coarse than its cousin. It is also unsymmet-
rical in habit, each limb striking out for itself. Very often
one meets a tree quite as one-sided in form as its leaf,
and this without any apparent reason. But given a
chance to grow without mutilation, the slippery elm at-
tains a height of seventy feet, forming a broad, open head,
in comparatively few years. It is well worth planting
for its lumber and for shade.
The Rock Elm
U. Thomasi, Sarg.
The rock elm or cork elm chooses dry, gravelly upland
and low heavy clay soil, on rocky slopes and river cliffs,
from Ontario and New Hampshire westward through
northern New York, southern Michigan to Nebraska
and Missouri. It is more abundant and of largest size
in Ontario and in the southern peninsula of Michigan.
Its leaf is small, thick, and firm, dark green, and turns to
brilliant yellow in the autumn. Its flowers and fruits
are borne in racemes. At any season, one knows this
cork elm by the shaggy bark on its stout limbs that make
the tree resemble a bur oak. "Rock elm" and "hickory
elm" are names that refer to the hardness of the wood.
The wheelwright counts it the best of all elms. Compact,
with interlacing fibres, there are spring, strength, and
toughness in this wood which adapt it for bridge timbers,
heavy agricultural implements, wheel stocks, sills, and axe-
See yage 222
A GROUP CF WHITE PINES
Sec page ■:-->ij
LEAVES AND CONES OF THE SHOliTLKAF PIXH
See page 210
AMERICAN ELM
TIIE ELMS 215
handles. The name "cork elm" refers to the corky bark
which runs out in winged ridges, even to the twigs.
The Winged Elm
U. (data, Michx.
The winged elm, or wahoo, is dainty and small, its leaves
and the two thin corky blades that arise on each twig
befitting the smallest elm tree in the family. Despite its
corky wings, it has none of the ruggedness of the cork elm,
but is a pretty round-headed tree. It is distributed from
Virginia to Florida and west to Illinois and Texas.
"Mountain elm" and "small-leaved elm" are local
names. "Wahoo" is local also, belonging chiefly to the
South. Even the little seed of this tree is long and slender,
its wing prolonged into two incurving hooks.
The English Elm
U. campestris, Linn.
The English elm is often seen in the Eastern states,
planted w^th the American elm in parks and streets, where
the two species contrast strikingly. The English tree
looks stocky, the American airily graceful. One stands
heavily upon its heels, the other on tiptoe. One has a
compact, pyramidal or oblong head, the other a loose open
one. In October the superb English elms on Boston
Common arc still bright green, while their American
cousins have passed into "the sere and yellow leaf."
216 TREES
The Scotch Elm
TJ, montana, Linn.
Tlie Scotch or wych elm is planted freely in parks and
private grounds. It is a medium-sized tree of rather more
strict habit of growth than the American elm. Before
the leaves open the tree often looks bright green from a
distance. This appearance is due to the winged seeds
which are exceptionally large and crowd the twig in great
rosettes.
One horticultural variety of this species is the weeping
form known as the Camperdown elm, which arches its
limbs downward on all sides, forming when full-grown
a natural arbor. One often sees this tree planted on
lawns of limited extent, and so near the street as to render
utterly absurd its invitation to privacy. To serve that
reasonable and delightful end, the tree should be planted
in a retired corner of one's grounds, where an afternoon
siesta may be enjoyed undisturbed.
PART \T[II
THE CONE-BEARING EVERGREENS
The Pines — The Spruces — The Firs — The Douglas
Spruce — The Hemlocks — The Sequoias — The
Abror-vit^s — The Incense Cedar — The Cypresses
— The Junipers — Tpie Larches, or Tamaracks
The cone-bearers, or conifers, are a distinct race that we
commonly call evergreens. They include pines, hemlocks,
spruces, firs, sequoias, cypresses, cedars, and junipers. Be-
sides these, the tamaracks and the bald cypress must be
included, although their leaves are shed in the autumn.
The term "evergreen" applies equally well to magnohas,
laurels, and many oaks. Birches and alders and magno-
lias bear cone-like fruits. Notwithstanding such excep-
tions, the cone-bearing trees are mostly evergreen, and
their family traits are so strongly marked that even the be-
ginner in tree study eliminates the exceptional instances
early in his studies.
The pines and their relatives in the coniferous group are
an ancient race, composed of proud old "first families."
Along the shores of the Silurian seas they stood up, straight
and tall, their only companions that stood erect, the giant
horse-tails and tree ferns. This was long before modern
tree families had any existence. There were no broad-
217
218 TREES
leaved trees. In the coal measures are found the mum-
mied remains of these prehistoric conifers. The cycads in
the Everglades of Florida are some of their surviving repre-
sentatives. These are facing extinction, and the conifers,
too, are declining. They had reached their prime as a race
when the broad-leaved trees appeared upon the earth.
The vigor of the new race enabled it to seize the richest,
well-watered regions. They drove the conifers to seek the
swamps, the exposed seacoasts, the barren and rocky
mountain slopes. Man has ruthlessly destroyed for tim-
ber the coniferous forests of this country and much of the
territory denuded by the axe is either devoted to agricul-
ture or has been seized by broad-leaved species of trees,
more tenacious of life and with seeds more quick and sure
to germinate than those of the conifers. The time is not
far distant, geologically speaking, when this ancient and
dechning family of trees will exist only as man fosters it by
cultivation.
The conifers have resinous wood, with stiff, needle-like
or scale-like leaves, and inconspicuous flowers of two sorts,
borne in clusters like catkins. The pistillate catkin
matures into a woody cone made of overlapping scales at-
tached to a central stem. , On each scale are borne one or
more winged seeds.
The one character which is constant in the whole co-
niferous group and sets it apart from the rest of the plant
kingdom, is expressed in the name Gymnosperm, applied to
this botanical grand division. It means "naked seed."
There is no ovary in the flower. The naked ovules are
borne on the scales of the fertile spike or catkin, which is
held apart and erect in blossoming time. They are
pollinated by the wind, which sifts them with golden pollen
THE CONE-BEARING EVERGREENS 219
dust, abundant in the staminate catkins clustered on the
same tree. Contact of pollen grains and naked ovules is
followed by their coalescence — the "setting of seeds."
The distinguishing trait of the higher plants that form
the grand division known as AngiospermSy is that the
ovules are borne in a closed ovary, and the pollen lodges on
the end of a stigma. "Pollen tubes" grow down through
the long style, finally reach the hidden ovule, and seed is
set. This complicated process is found in the majority of
flowers one studies in botany classes. Gymnosperms, and
the still lower groups of flow^erless ferns and mosses, are
merely glanced at by amateur botanists. The more prim-
itive plant forms are too difficult for beginners.
The habit of the conifers is a character upon which we
may depend. With rare exceptions, there is a central
shaft, "the leader," and short horizontal branches in
whorls forming platforms. The side branches, also
whorled, are generally flattened into a horizontal spray.
The leaves are narrow, needle-like, or scale-like, and waxy
or resinous. The tough fibre of the wood enables the coni-
fers to resist damage by wind and by ice. Snowflakes sift
to the ground instead of accumulating upon the branches
and breaking them by their cumulative weight. The
wind, which pollinated the fertile flowers of coniferous
forests long before nectar-gathering insects came upon the
earth, is the harvester of their seeds. It scatters them far
and wide; each seed has a wing that adapts it to long
journeys in front of a gale.
The resinous sap that courses through the veins of conif-
erous wood seals up the bark, leaves, and cones against the
invasion of enemies, and acts as an antiseptic dressing for
wounds. Without these special adaptations to a life of
220 TREES
hardship, the conifers would never have held their own as
they have done. They inhabit regions where conditions
discourage all but a few of the broad-leaved trees.
THE PINES
In a forest of needle-leaved evergreens it is perfectly easy
to distinguish the pines by their leaves. Look along the
twigs and you will find the needles arranged in bundles,
with a papery, enclosing sheath at the base. Follow
farther back and these sheaths are missing, but on long
stretches between the growing tip and the leafless part of
the branch the characteristic sheathed needle-bundles de-
clare this evergreen to be a pine. No other conifer has
this trait, no pine grows but shows it every day in the
year.
One half of the eighty known species of pines grow in
North America. Pure forests of great extent are found in
the Southern states, in the Great Lakes region, and on the
mountain slopes in the western and northern parts of the
continent. Smaller areas occur in the Eastern states.
Very soon these forests must be spoken of in the past tense,
for a century of destructive lumbering has almost cleared
the Northeast of pine timber, and though the exploitation
of the pine forests of the South and about the Great Lakes
came later, as population increased in the Middle West, the
work has progressed much more rapidly. The idea of for-
est conservation, crystallized into federal law by popular
demand, has come too late to save from wasteful exploita-
tion the superb pine forests west of the Rockies. Yet
thousands of acres of forests are now under government
THE PINES 221
control and here a great object lesson in rational methods
of forest maintenance is being given. The pineries of
the future depend upon the success of methods there em-
ployed.
The uses of pines are not all counted in terms of the
lumberman. There are pines for every situation, soil, and
climate. On low seaboard plains they come down to the
highwater mark. They wade into inundated swamps and
dimb to the timber line on arid, rocky mountainsides.
The bravest species go out into the desert. Almost as
brave are those which survive the smoke and dust of cities
like Pittsburg and St. Louis, though theirs is a losing fight
with sulphurous fumes and cramped root space in the
smoky town. As shelter belts, as windbreaks, as shade
and ornamental trees, there are pines in cultivation in all
parts of the country, their winter usefulness and beauty
making them universally the choice of home-makers, rich
and poor.
By-products of pine wood are chiefly turpentine, pitch,
resin, and oil, derived from the resinous sap. "Naval
stores" these products are called, for their consumption is
greatest in shipyards. Turpentine is extensively used in
the arts and industries. If the Southern pine forests are
allowed to dwindle, the deficit in lumber will not affect
world commerce as disastrously as the cutting oil of the
naval stores production.
The lumberman's division of the pines is a convenient
one. "Soft pines" have soft, light wood, not heavily im-
pregnated with resin. It is tlie delight of wood-workers.
"Hard pines" have heavy, dark-colored wood, full of resin,
which is a nuisance to the carpenter, because it "gums up"
his tools. The one little sign enables us to distinguish
222 TREES
hard and soft pines without examination of the wood.
Soft pines shed the papery sheath of their leaf bundles be-
fore the leaves themselves begin to fall. Hard pines re-
tain the leaf sheath mitil the leaves are shed. A glance at
any leafy pine branch will enable us to determine to which
of the two classes a given tree belongs.
The Soft Pines
The outward and visible sign of a soft pine is the loose,
deciduous sheath of its leaf bundles. The scales of its
cones are usually unarmed with horns or prickles. The
wood is soft, light colored, close-grained. The number of
leaves in a bundle is the principal key to the species.
The White Pine
Pinus Strobus, Linn.
The white pine (see illustrations, "pages 21^-215) is the only
pine east of the Rocky Mountains that bears its leaves in
bundles of five. This semi-decimal plan is found in three
western soft pines and two western hard pines; but in the
East, a native tree with needles in fives, leaves no doubt as
to its name. From a distance this plan of ^yq can be seen
in the five branches that form a platform each year around
the central shaft.
Study a sapling pine and you see in its vigorous young
growth the fulfillment of nature's plan, before storms have
broken any of the branches and changed the mathematics
of the pattern. Stroke the flexible, soft leaves that sway
graceful and hthe in the wind. If it is spring, note that
THE PINES 223
the terminal bud has pushed out, and around it five-clus-
tered buds are forming a circle of shoots. In autumn, after
the season's growth is finished, each twig ends in a single
bud, with a whorl of five buds around it. From the
ground upward, count the platforms of branches. Each
whorl of five marks a year in the tree's growth. The
terminal bud carries the height a foot or two upward, and
its surromiding five buds grow in the horizontal plane,
forming the last and smallest platform of leafy shoots.
Each branch is a year younger than the shoot that bears it.
Note throughout this little tree the plan of five, from leaf
cluster to largest branch.
Now go to the largest white pine in your neighborhood,
study the plan of five in this tree, and find out the reason
for any failures. Notice the conflict between the branches
in the close platforms. Find branches where this conflict
is in progress. Pick out the winner. Read the age of the
tree by the platforms of branches on the trunk.
No evergreen is more beautiful than a white pine grown
in rich soil in a situation sufficiently sheltered to defend its
supple branches from breakage by severe winds. Its soft,
plume-like twigs are dark blue-green, with pale lines
lining each individual leaf. The young shoots are yellow-
ish green, and they lighten in a wonderful manner the
sombre coloring of the older foliage. At the bases of the
new shoots cluster the staminate catkins, in early June.
Yellow and becoming loose and pendulous as the wind
shakos them, they are soon empty of their abundant pollen,
which drifts lilvc gold dust and fills the air. Among the
youngest leaves, toward the end of the shoot, the pur-
plish rosy lips of the erect pistillate cone-flowers catch the
dust from nrlglil^or trees, and their naked ovules absorb it
224 TREES
and set seed. Close shut are the lips again, against any
other invasion, while these ovules mature. We shall find
them standing erect until autumn, but next season they
hang down with their added weight, and at the end of the
second summer the scales change from green to brown,
open and give their ripe winged seeds to the wind for dis-
tribution. Because the tree is biennial-fruited, it always
carries two sizes of cones. The large ones are one year
older than the small ones. Ripe cones are ^ve to ten
inches long, with thin, broad, unarmed scales, squarish at
the tips.
The most hopeful phase of the white pine problem to-day
is the fact that new forests are coming up naturally where
the early lumbering deforested great tracts in the Eastern
states. Careful forestry improves upon nature's method,
and so the pines are being restored on land unfit for agri-
cultural crops. White pine is one of the most profitable
timber crops to plant at the present time.
The Mountain Pine
P. monticola, D. Don.
The mountain pine is scattered through mountain forests
from the Columbia River Basin in British Columbia to
Vancouver Island, along the western slopes of the Rocky
Mountains to northern Montana and Idaho, and south
along the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges in Washing-
ton and Oregon, well into California. From the bottom
lands of streams, where it is most abundant and reaches a
height of one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet, and a
trunk diameter of five to eight feet, it climbs to elevations
of eight to ten thousand feet on the California Sierras.
THE PINES 225
The bark of young trees and on the branches of old ones is
smooth and pale-gray. The leaves, five in the bundles,
range from one to four inches in length, still, blue-green,
whitened by two to six stripes on the inner side. The
cones are twelve to eighteen inches long, with thickened,
pointed scales ending in an abrupt beak. The larger
cone, denser, stiffer foliage, and the white bark make this
white pine of the western mountains a great contrast to
the Eastern white pine.
Unlike many trees whose size diminishes with increase
in altitude, this wdiite pine grows to majestic size at alti-
tudes of nearly two miles, its noble figure more striking
and impressive because of the dwindling size of its com-
panions on the mountain-sides. The lumberman looks
with despair upon these giant white pines, quite out of his
reach.
In the Arnold Arboretum in Boston a fine seedling
specimen of this western silver pine fruited when but
twelve feet high, and proves vigorous and altogether happy
in this absolutely changed climatic environment. In
Europe the same success attends the cultivation of these
trees, which have become very popular in parks and pri-
vate grounds. Their introduction into our Eastern states
can now be assured of success.
The Sugar Pine
P. Lamhcr Liana, Dougl.
The sugar pine {see illustration, "page 231) belongs in
the class with those tree giants, the sequoias, with which
it grows in the mountain forests of Oregon and California.
John Muir calls it '' the largest, noblest, and most beautiful
226 TREES
of all the pine trees in the world." Trees two hundred feet
high, with trunk diameter of six to eight feet, are not un-
common. The maximum given by Sargent is twelve
feet across the stump. The head of a sugar pine is
rounded and broad, with pendulous branches, tufted with
stout, dark green leaves, three to four inches long. The
cones are the largest known, reaching eighteen inches in
length, rarely longer. The black or dark brown seeds are
one to five inches long, including the flat, blunt wings.
Indians, bears, and squirrels gather the abundant harvest
of these cones, which are rich in nutriment and pleasant
to the taste. Crystals of sugar form white masses like
rock candy, but with a taste of maple sugar, wherever a
break in the bark of a sugar pine permits the escape of the
sweet sap. This gives the tree its name. No other pine
has sap with such a noticeable sugar content.
Fortunately, these gigantic soft pines belong to the
high Sierras and do not go down to the sea, where lumber-
men could sacrifice them without effort. Nature has
fenced them in by many barriers, and the government, by
reservation in national parks, insures the preservation
of some of the finest sugar pine groves, for the use and
inspiration of all the people.
A visit to Yosemite is the experience of a lifetime to
any American. Here grow the most gigantic trees in the
world, and the sugar pines are nobler even than the giant
"big trees," for the latter are often decrepit, while the
sugar pines are hale and youthful by comparison. Leaving
behind the scrawny gray digger pines on the foothills, the
traveler enters the belt of the yellow pines, on the higher
elevations, and passing these he comes to the grand sugar
pines along the highest level of the stage road that leads
THE PINES 227
into the National Park. The road is no wider than the
broad stumps of sugar pines, scattered here and there.
The standing trees amaze one with their height and
girth.
It is impossible to shake off the impression that some
magic has put magnifiers in our eyes; for trees, beetling
clills, and rushing cataracts are bigger than their counter-
parts in other regions of the world far-famed for their
scenery. The sugar pine trunks seem like great builded
columns, too large for any real tree to grow, and the
"big trees" in the Mariposa Grove intensify this im-
pression of unreality. In a day or two the traveler be-
comes accustomed to his surroundings. He goes out of
the Park and down into the world of men and affairs,
his soul enlarged, his life enriched by an experience he
can never quite forget. He is a bigger, better man for his
brief association with Nature in her noblest manifestations.
The wood of the sugar pine is soft, golden, satiny, fra-
grant, inviting the woodworker through every one of his
senses. A single tree often yields five thousand dollars'
worth of marketable lumber, the finest, straight-grained
soft pine in the world.
The shame of the century is the wanton destruction of
sugar pine trees by vagrant shingle-makers and thieving
mill-owners, who despoiled the grandest trunlcs of their
choicest wood, wastcfully leaving the bulk to cumber the
ground and invite forest fires. Late and slowly, but surely
also is the popular mind awakening to the fact that forests
belong to the nation and should be conserved and main-
tained for the whole people — not wasted for the temporary
enrichment of private owners, as forest wealth has been
squandered in past years.
ms TREES
Rocky Mountain White Pine
P. fiexili^, James
The Rocky Mountain white pine inhabits mountain
slopes from Alberta to Mexico, including the Sierra Neva-
da range. In northern New Mexico and Arizona it
occasionally reaches eighty feet in height, but ordinarily
does not exceed fifty. Its rounded dome, as broad as an
oak, bravely dares the wind on exposed cliffs, and crouches
as a stunted shrub at altitudes of twelve thousand feet.
The "limber pine" it is called, from the toughness of its
fibre, which alone enables its long limbs to sustain the
whipping they get. The leaves form thick, beautiful
dark-green tufts, which are not shed until the fifth or sixth
year. The cones are three to ten inches long, purplish;
scales rounded, abruptly beaked at the apex; narrow wings
entirely surround the seeds, which fall in September.
This is the lumber pine of the semi-arid ranges of " The
Great American Desert"; the main dependence of builders,
too, on the eastern slopes of the Rockies in Montana.
The White-bark Pine
P. alhicaulis, Engelm.
The white-bark pine is a rippled, gnarled, squatting
tree, whose matted branches, cumbered with needles and
snow, make a platform on which the hardy mountain-
climber may walk with safety in midwinter. It offers
him a springy mattress for his bed, as well. The trunk
is covered with snowy bark that glistens like the ice-
THE PINES 229
mantle that lies on the treeless mountain-side just above
the timber line.
From a tvvelve-thousand-foot elevation on the Rocky
Mountains, in British Columbia and south to the Yellow-
stone, the tree clambers down to the five-thousand-foot
line, where it sometimes attains forty feet in height; its
dark green, rigid leaves persist from ^ve to eight years,
always five in a bundle, and never more than two and a
half inches long. The cones, horny-tipped, dark purple,
one to three inches long, are ripe in August; the large sweet
seeds are gathered and eaten by Indians. In California the
tree's ransje extends into the San Bernardino Mountains.
THE TWO "FOXTAIL" PINES
Two Western pines are distinguished by the common
name "foxtail pine," because the leaves are crowded on
the ends of bare branchlets. P. Balfouriana, M. Murr.,
has stiff, stout dark green leaves with pale linings. The
tree is wonderfully picturesque when old, with an open
irregular pyramid, on the higher foothills of the California
mountains, or crouching as an aged straggling shrub at
the timber-line. Its cones are elongated, the scales thick-
ened and minutely spiny at tip.
The second five-leaved foxtail pine is P. aristatay En-
gelm., also called the "prickle-cone pine," from the curving
spines that arm the scales of the purplish brown fruits.
This is a bushy tree, with sprawling lower branches and
upper ones that stand erect and are usually much longer,
giving the tree a strange irregularity of form. The leaves
are short and crowded in terminal brushes. From a stocky
tree forty feet high, to a shrub at the timber line, this tree
230 TREES
is found near the limit of tree growth, from the outer
ranges of the mountains of Colorado to those of southern
Utah, Nevada, northern Arizona and southeastern Cali-
fornil In Eastern paries it is occasionally seen as a
shrubby pine with unusually interesting, artistic cones.
THE NUT PINES
The nut pines, four in number, supply Indians and
Mexicans of the Southwest with a store of food in the
autumn, for the seeds are large and rich m oils and
they have keeping qualities that permit their hoardmg
for winter. The four-leaved P. quadrifoha., Suaw.,
scattered over the mountains of southern and Lower
California, has four leaves in a cluster, as a rule. A desert
tree, its foliage is pale gray-green, harmonizing with the
arid mesas and low mountain slopes, where it is found.
The cones are small with few scales, but the nut is five-
eighths of an inch long and very rich. _
P cembroides, Zucc, with two to three leaves, is the
"pinon," that covers the upper slopes of Arizona moun-
tains with open forests fifteen to twenty feet high. Ihe
leaves are one to two inches long, dark green with pale
lines, the branchlets orange-colored and matted with
hairs. The large nuts are very oily, and so abundant m
the mountains of northern Mexico that they are sold m
large quantities in every town.
The pinon (P. edulis, Engelm.) ranges from the eastern
foothills of the Colorado Rockies to western Texas and
westward to the eastern borders of Utah, southwestern
Wyoming, central Arizona and on into Mexico, often
forming extensive open forests, and reaching an elevation
THE PINES 231
of seven thousand feet. Short, stiff leaves in clusters
of two or three, dark green, ridged, stout, often persist
for eight or nine years. The tree is a broad compact
pyramid; in age, dense, round-topped, with stout branch-
lets and abundant globose cones. Each scale covers two
seeds, wingless, about the size of honey locust seeds, oily,
sweet, nutritious and of delicious flavor. This is the
pine nut par excellence, whose newest market is among
confectioners and fancy grocers throughout the states.
The one-leaved nut pine (P. monopliylla, Torr.), spreads
like an old apple tree, and forms alow, round-topped, pictur-
esque head, its lower limbs drooping to the ground. The
reduction of the leaves in the clusters to lowest terms, gives
the tree a starved look, and the eighteen or twenty rows of
pale stomates on each leaf give the tree-top a ghostly pal-
lor. The vigor of the tree is expressed in its abundant
fruit, short, oblong, one to two inches in length, with rich
plump brown seeds upon which the Indians of Nevada and
California have long depended. The wood supplies fuel
and charcoal for smelters; and this stunted tree, rarely
over twenty feet in height, forms nut orchards for the
aborigines and the scattered population of whatever
race, between altitudes of five and seven thousand feet.
From the western slopes of the Wasatch Mountains of
Utah, it ranges to the eastern slopes of the southern
Sierra Nevada, to their western slopes at the head waters of
King's River, and southward to northern Arizona and to
the mountains of southern California.
John Muir savs:
"It is the commonest tree of the short mountain ranges
of the Great Basin. Tens of thousands of acres are cov-
232 TREES
ered 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 are 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, after being
pounded into meal. The time 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."
THE PITCH PINES
Pitch pines have usually heavy coarse-grained, dark-
colored wood, rich in resin — a nuisance to the carpenter.
The leaf -bundles have persistent sheaths. The cone scales
are thick and usually armed. "Hard pine" is a car-
penter's synonym. The group includes some of the most
valuable timber trees in American forests.
The Longleaf Pine
P. palustris. Mill.
The longleaf pine is preeminent in importance in the
lumber trade and in the production of naval stores. It
stretches in a belt about one hundred and twenty-five
miles wide, somewhat back from the coast, all the way
from Virginia to Tampa Bay and west to the Mississippi
River. Isolated forests are scattered in northern Ala-
bama, Louisiana, and Texas.
The trees are tall, often exceeding one hundred feet in
height; with trunks slender in proportion, rarely reaching
three feet in diameter. The narrow, irregular head is
formed of short stout twisted limbs on the upper third of
THE PINES 233
the trunk. The leaves are from twelve to eighteen inches
long, forming dense tufts at the ends of the branches.
Being flexible they droop and sway on the ends of erect
branches like shining fountains, their emerald lightened
by the silvery sheaths that invest each group of three.
Sapling longleaf pines have recently entered the market
for Christmas greens in Northern cities. This threatens
the renewal of longleaf forests that have fallen to the axe of
the lumberman. Unless Federal restriction comes to the
rescue, there is little hope of saving this young growth, for
nothing can exceed in beauty a three-foot sapling of long-
leaf pine as a Christmas decoration.
The lumber of this species is the "Southern pine" of the
builder. Heavy, strong, yellowish brown, durable, it has
a tremendous vogue for flooring and the interior finish of
buildings. It is used in the construction of railway cars.
Its durability in contact with water accounts for its use i\
bridge-building, and for masts and spars of vessels. A
great deal of this lumber is exported for use in European
shipyards. It has replaced the dwindling supply of white
pine for building purposes throughout the North, and the
strong demand for it has been followed by lumbering of the
most destruciive and w^asteful type, because the forests are
owned privately.
In the early days the American colonists in Virginia
tapped the longleaf pine, collected the resin from the
bleeding wounds, and boiled it down for pitch and tar.
These crude beginnings established an industry nowknowTi
as the "orcharding" of the longleaf pine. After a century
of wastefulness and wanton destruction of the trees, it has
become patent to all that scientific methods must be re-
sorted to in the production of turpentine and other pro-
234 TREES
ducts derived from the living trees. Otherwise the dwind-
ling industry will soon come to an end.
Resin is the sap of the tree. The first problem is to
draw it in a manner least wasteful of the product, and least
dangerous to the life of the tree. The second process is the
melting of the collected resin in a still and the drawing off
of the volatile turpentine. What is left solidifies and is
known as rosin.
"Boxing" the trees was the cutting of a grooved incision
low on the trunk, with a hollow at the base of the vertical
trough to hold the discharge of the bleeding sap-wood.
Resin-gatherers visited the tapped trees and emptied the
pockets into buckets by means of a ladle. They also
scraped away the hardened sap and widened the wounds to
induce the flow from new tissues. This method cost the life
of the tree in two or three years, and it became a prey to
disease and a menace to the whole forest, as fuel for fires
accidentally started. Nowadays, all reasonable owners of
longleaf pine have discarded the old-fashioned boxing and
installed methods approved by the Department of
Forestry.
Tar was formerly derived from the slow burning of wood
in a clay-lined pit. The branches, roots and other lumber
refuse, cut in small sizes were heaped in a compact mound
and covered with sods and earth. Smoldering fires soon in-
duced a flow of smoky tar, thick as molasses, in the bottom
of the pit. In due time the flow ceased, the fires went out,
and charcoal was the result of this slow burning. Remov-
ing the charcoal, the tar became available for various pur-
poses; boiled until it lost its liquid character, it became
tough sticky pitch. This primitive pit method of extract-
ing tar and making charcoal has been abandoned wherever
THE PINES 235
intelligence governs the industry, and distillation processes
have been installed.
The Shortleaf Pine
P. echinata. Mill.
The shortleaf pine ranks second to the longleaf in im-
portance to the lumber industries of the East and South.
It ranges from Staten Island, New York, to north Florida,
and west through West Virginia, eastern Tennessee,
southern Missouri, Louisiana and eastern Texas. It
reaches its largest size and greatest abundance west of the
Mississippi River, where great forests, practically un-
touched thirty years ago, have become the centre of the
"yellow pine'* industry, out of which vast fortunes have
been made. The wood is preferred by builders, because it
is less rich in resin, softer and therefore more easily worked.
Young trees yield turpentine and pitch, and with the long-
leaf and the Cuban pine much forest growth has suffered
destruction in the production of these commodities.
The slender tree equals the longleaf in height and bears
its dark green leaves in clusters of twos and threes, scat-
tered on short branches that form a narrow loose head.
The pale green, stout branchlets are lightened by the silvery
sheaths of the young leaves (see illustrations, pages 2H-215)
which are short only in comparison with the companion
species, the longleaf. The cones are abundant; the seeds
numerous, winged for flight, retaining their vitality longer
tlian most pine seeds. The tree is less sensitive to in-
juries and has the propensity, unusual in the pine family,
of throwing up suckers from the roots. In open com-
petition, this pine will hold its own against the invasion of
236 TREES
other trees, if only allowed to do so. Much of the de-
forested territory, let alone, will cover itself with a ripe
crop of shortleaf pine lumber in a hundred years.
The Cuban Pine
P. Caribaea, Morelet
The Cuban pine stands third in the triumvirate of lum-
ber pines of the South. This is the "swamp pine" or
"slash pine," found in the coast regions from South Caro-
lina throughout Florida, and along the Gulf Coast to the
Pearl River in Louisiana. It is a beautiful pine — tall,
with dense crown of dark green leaves, in twos and threes,
eight to twelve inches long, falling at the end of their
second season, before they lose their brightness. A large
part of the turpentine of commerce has been derived from
these coast forests, as well as lumber, which takes its
place in the Northern market with the longleaf and the
shortleaf.
Natural reforestation has taken place in the Southeast,
and a large part of the turpentine exported by Georgia and
South Carolina to-day, is from second-growth Cuban pine,
on land from which the lumber companies have stripped
the virgin growth.
The Loblolly Pine
P. Taeda, Linn.
The loblolly or old field pine chooses land generally sterile
and otherwise worthless. It grows in swamps along the
Atlantic coast, from New Jersey through the CaroHnas,
and follows the Gulf from Tampa Bay into Texas. In-
land, it is found from the Carolinas to Arkansas and
THE PINES 237
Louisiana. It has remarkable vitality of seed and seed-
lings, which do equally well on sterile uplands, on water-
soaked ground, or where soil is light and sandy. It is very
apt to take possession of land once cleared for agriculture.
The young trees crowd together and grow with tre-
mendous vigor the first years of their lives, successfully
holding large tracts in pure forests. The limbs are short,
thick, matted, forming a compact rounded head; the leaves
slender, stiff, twisted, pale-green, six to nine inches long, in
groups of threes. The wood is rich in resin, but differs
greatly in quality with age and the fertility of the soil.
"Rosemary pine" was heavy, hard, close-grained, with a
thin rim of soft sap-wood. This famous lumber, preferred
by shipbuilders of many countries for masts, grew in the
virgin forest of the Carolinas. Giants were cut in the rich
marsh lands back from the Sounds. But the small lob-
lolly pine, grown on sandy soil, is but third-grade lumber,
the sap-wood three times as thick as the heart- wood and ex-
ceedingly coarse-grained. One merit has recently been
discovered in this lumber, that formerly blackened before
it was seasoned, by the invasion of a fungous growth. It
quickly absorbs creosote, which renders it immune, from
deca3\ It is used in the building of docks, cars, boats, and
locally in house-building. Its wood makes a sharp, quick
heat wh'^n dried. It is used in bakeries and brick kilns,
and in charcoal-burning.
The Pitch Pine
P. rigida. Mill.
The pitch pine goes down to the very water's edge on the
sand-dunes along the New-England Coast, and spreads on
238 TREES
worthless land from New Brunswick to Georgia and west
to Ontario and Kentucky. Occasionally in cultivation the
tree is symmetrical, and grows to considerable size. In the
most favorable situations, however, it rarely exceeds fifty
feet in height, with gnarled rough branches, oftenest irreg-
ular in form and becoming painfully grotesque with age.
The persistence of its clustered black cones adds to the
tree's ugliness; and the tufted, scant foliage has a sickly
yellowish-green color when new, and becomes darker and
twisted the second year. The cones are armed with stout
thorns and often remain on the trees ten or twelve years.
The knots, particularly, are rich in resin — the dehght of
camping parties. "Pine-knots" and "candle wood" are
household necessities in regions where these trees are the
prevailing species of pine.
Starved as is its existence, the pitch pine springs up with
amazing vigor after a fire. Suckers are sent up about the
roots of the fire-killed trees, and the wind scatters the seeds
broadcast for a new crop. The chief merit of the tree is
that it grows on worthless land, and holds with its gnarled
roots the shifting sand-dunes of the New-England Coast
better than any other tree.
The Gray Pine
P. divaricata, Sudw.
The gray pine goes farther north than any other pine,
following the McKenzie River to the Arctic Circle. From
Nova Scotia to the Athabasca River, it covers barren
ground, reaching its greatest height, seventy feet, in pure
forests north of Lake Superior. In Michigan it forms the
"jack-pine plains " of the Lower Peninsula. As a rule it is
THE PINES 239
a crouching, sprawling tree, its twigs covered with scant
short clingy leaves in twos, averaging an inch in length.
The wood is a great boon to the regions this tree inhabits.
It is light, soft, weak, and close-grained; used for posts, rail-
road ties, building material and fuel. Its seeds germinate
better from cones that have been scorched by fire.
The Digger Pine
P. Sabiniana, Dougl.
The digger pine is a western California tree of the semi-
arid foothill country. Gray-green, sparse foliage on the
gnarled branches gives the tree a forlorn starved look,
as it stands or crouches, singly or in scattered groups,
along the gravelly sun-baked slopes. The great cones,
six to ten inches long, fairly loading the branches, express
most emphatically the vigor of the tree. The thickened
scales protrude at a wide angle from the central core, and
each bears a strong beak, triangular, flattened like a
shark's tooth, but curved. The rich oily nuts, as big as
lima beans, furnish a nourishing food to the Indians.
The Digger tribe harvested these nuts, and the pioneer
gave the tree the tribal name.
The Western Pitch Pine
P. Coulteri, D. Don.
The Western pitch pine, most abundant in the San
Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains, at elevations
of about a mile above the sea, has cones not imlike those
of the digger pine, in the armament of their scales.
These are notable by being the heaviest fruits borne by
240 TREES
any pine tree. Occasionally they exceed fifteen inches in
length and weigh eight pounds. The seeds are one-half
an inch in length, not counting the thin wing, which is
often an inch long.
The leaves of this "big-cone" pine match the cones.
They are stout, stiff, dark blue-green, six to sixteen inches
long, three in a bundle, which has a sheath an inch or more
in length. Crowded on the ends of the branches, these
leaves would entitle this tree to qualify as a "fox-tail"
pine, except for the fact that the foliage persists into the
third and fourth year, which clothes the branches far
back toward the trunk and gives the tree a luxuriant
crown. The dry slopes and ridges of the Coast Ranges of
California are beautified by small groves and scattered
specimens of this striking and picturesque pine, so unlike
its neighbors. Its wood is used only for fuel. In Euro-
pean countries this is a popular ornamental pine, planted
chiefly for its great golden-brown cones.
The Knob-cone Pine
P. attenuata, Lemm.
The knob-cone pine inhabits the Coast Ranges from the
San Bernardino Mountains northward on the western
slopes of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains,
into southwestern Oregon, where it forms pure forests
over large areas, its altitude limit being four thousand
feet. It is a tall slim tree of the hot dry fire-swept foot-
hills, and it comes again with absolute certainty after
forest fires. The clustered cones, three to six inches long,
are amazingly hard and do not open at maturity, but wait
for the death of the tree. Leaves three to seven inches
THE PINES 241
long, in clusters of three, firm, rigid, pale yellow or bluish
green, cover the tree with a sparse thin foliage-mass;
but the branches, new and old, are covered with cones,
many of which are being swallowed up by the growth
of wood on trunk and limb. Thirty or forty years these
cones may hang, their seeds never released and never losing
their vitality, until fire destroys the tree. Then the scales
open and the winged seeds are scattered broadcast.
They germinate and cover the deforested slopes with a
crop of knob-cone pine saplings that soon claim all stand-
ing room and cover the scars of fire completely.
The Monterey Pine
P. radiata, D. Don.
The Monterey pine, like its companion, the Torrey pine,
is restricted to a very narrow area. They grow together
on Santa Rosa Island. At Point Pinos, south of Monterey
Bay, this tree stands a hundred feet in height, with trunks
occasionally five to six feet in diameter, its branches
spreading into a round luxuriant, though narrow, head.
From Pescadero to San Simeon Bay, in a narrow belt a
few miles wide, and on the neighboring islands, this
tree finds its limited natural range; but the horticulturist
has noted the silvery sheen of its young growth and the
rich bright green that never dulls in its foliage. Its quick
growth and handsome form in cultivation make it the
most desirable pine for park and shade planting in Califor-
nia. Indeed it is a favorite park tree north to Vancouver
along the Coast. It has been introduced into Europe
and is occasionally met in parks in the Southeastern states.
242 TREES
The Western Yellow Pine
P. ponderosa. Laws.
The Western yellow pine forms on the Colorado Plateau
the most extensive pine forests of the American continent.
Mountain slopes, high mesas, dry canyon sides, even
swamps, if they occur at elevations above twenty-five
hundred feet, furnish suitable habitats for this amazing
species, in some of its varying forms. From British
Columbia and the Black Hills it follows the mountains
through the Coast Ranges, Sierras, and the Great Conti-
nental Divide, to the highlands of Texas and into Mexico,
forming the most extensive pine forests in the world.
All sorts of construction work draw upon this wonderful
natural supply of timber, from the droughty western
counties of the Dakotas, Nebraska and Texas, to the
Pacific Coast.
The typical tree has thick plates of cinnamon-red bark,
a massive trunk, five to eight feet in diameter, one hundred
to two hundred feet high, with many short, thick, forked
branches in a spire-like head. In arid regions the trunk
is shorter and the head becomes broad and round-topped.
Near the timber line and in swamps, the trees are stunted
and the bark is nearly black.
The leaves of this pine tree are two or three in a bundle,
stout, dark yellow-green, five to eleven inches long, decid-
uous during their third season. Their color has given the
name to the species, for the wood is not yellow, but fight
red, with nearly white sap-wood.
On the way to the Yosemite, the traveler meets the
yellow pine — splendid tracts of it — with the giant sugar
THE PINES 243
pine, in open park-like areas, where each individual tree
has room to manifest the noble strength of its tall shaft.
The flowers appear in May, brightening the even color
of the shiny leaves with their pink or brown staminate
clusters two or three inches wide. The crimson pistillate
cones hide at the ends of the branches, lengthening into
fruits three to ten inches in length, and half as wide.
Strong, re-curving tips, armed with slender prickles, are
seen in the scales of the reddish-brown cones that fall soon
after they spread and liberate the winged seeds. These are
produced in abundance, are scattered widely by the wind,
and accomplish the renewal of these mountain forests.
The bark is usually very thick at the bases of the trunks,
reaching eighteen inches on the oldest trees. With this
cloak wrapped about its living cambium, the yellow pine
is able, better than most trees, to survive. a sweeping
forest fire.
Botanists have found P. ponderosa extremely variable,
and they quarrel among themselves about species and
variety, for the tree endures many climates, adapts itself
to varying conditions and develops a type for each
habitat and region. In old lake basins on the Sierra
slopes, "variety Jeffreyi, Vasey," is the name given to the
gigantic yellow pine, which there finds food and moisture in
abundance and reaches its finest proportions and its
greatest lumber value.
In the Rocky Mountains, "variety scopidorum, En-
gelm.," is the type. "But all its forms can be traced to a
common origin and so the parent species stands; and
despite man's devastating axe the yellow pine flourishes
in the drenching rains and fog of the northern coast at
the level of the sea, in the snow-laden blasts of the moun-
I
244 TREES
tains, in the white glaring sunshine of the interior plateaus
and plains, and on the borders of mirage-haunted deserts,
volcanoes, and lava beds, — waving its bright plumes in
the hot winds undaunted, blooming every year for cen-
turies, and tossing big ripe cones among the cinders and
ashes of nature's hearths." {John Muir,)
The Scrub Pine
P. contortay Loud.
The scrub pine is the humble parent of one of the splen-
did Western lumber pines, whose description comes under
its varietal name. Down the coast of Alaska, usually in
sphagnum bogs, on sand-dunes, in tide-pools and deep
swamps to Cape Mendocino, the indomitable, altogether-
admirable scrub pine holds its own against cold, salt air
and biting arctic blasts. No matter how stunted, gnarly
and round-shouldered these trees are, one thing they do,
often when only a few inches high: they hear cones, and
keep them for years; and each season add more. Up
from the sea the scrub pine climbs, ascending the Coast
Ranges and western slopes of the Cascade Mountains,
changing its habit to a tree twenty to thirty feet tall with
thick branches and dark red-brown bark, checked into
oblong plates. Gummy exudations of this pitch pine
make it peculiarly liable to running fires. Thousands
of acres are destroyed every summer, but they seize the
land again and soon cover it with the young growth.
This happens because the burned trees drop their cones,
which open and set free the seeds which have never lost
their vitality.
In all the vast region over which this vagi'ant tree
THE PINES 245
swarms, it furnishes firewood and shelter. The pioneer
blesses it, and a great multitude of wild things, both plant
and animal, maintain their lives in comfort and security
because of its protection.
The lodge-pole pine or tamarack pine is but a variety
{Murrayana) of P. contorta, that grows in forests on both
slopes of the Rocky Mountains of Montana and Wyoming,
at elevations of from seven to eight thousand feet, and
stretches away into British Columbia and Alaska, and
southward to the San Jacinto Range. Between eight
thousand and nine thousand five hundred feet in altitude,
along the Sierra Nevada in California, it reaches its great-
est size and beauty, and forms extensive dense forests.
The young trees have very slender trunks, and often stand
crowded together like wheat on the prairie. An average
forest specimen is five inches in diameter, when thirty
or forty feet in height. No wonder the Indian in Wyo-
ming and Colorado called it "the lodge-pole pine," for
their supple trunks fitted these trees, while yet saplings,
to support the lodge he built.
Richer, moister ground nourishes this fortimate off-
spring of the scrub pine. The two-leaved foliage, usually
about two inches long, wears a cheerful yellow-green, wliile
the parent tree is dark and sombre, with leaves an
inch in length. The hard, strong, brown wood of con-
torta contrasts strikingly with that of its variety, which is
light yellow or nearly white — soft, weak, straight-grained
and easily worked. Its abundance in regions where other
timber is scarce, brings it into general use for construction
work. It also furnishes railroad ties, mine timbers and
fuel, with the minimum of labor, since trunks of proper
sizes can easily be selected.
246 TREES
The Indians, whose food supply was always precarious,
gathered branches and made a soft pulp of the inner bark,
scraped out in the growing season. This they baked, after
shaping it into huge cakes, in pit ovens built of stones, and
heated for hours by burning in them loads of fire- wood.
When the embers were burned out, the oven was cleaned
and the cakes put in. Later they were smoked with a
damp fire of moss, which preserved them indefinitely.
"Hard bread" of this type provisioned the Indian's canoe
on long trips. Inedible until boiled, it was a staple winter
food at home and on long expeditions, among various
tribes of the Northwest.
The Red Pine
P, resinosa. Ait.
The red pine, also called the "Norway pine" for no par-
ticular reason, is something of an anomaly. Its wood is
soft like that of the white pine with which it grows, and
though resinosa means "full of resin," it is not so rich as
several other pitch pines. Its paired leaves and red bark
reveal its kinship with the Scotch pine, a European species,
very common in cultivation in America.
Seemingly intermediate between soft and hard pines,
P. resinosa appeals to lumbermen and landscape gardeners
because it embodies the good points of both classes. No
handsomer species grows in the forests, from New Bruns-
wick to Minnesota and south into Pennsylvania. The
sturdy red trunk makes a bright color contrast with the
broad symmetrical pyramid of boughs clothed in abundant
foliage. The paired, needle-like leaves, dark green and
shining, are six inches in length. The flowers are abund-
See paje 2h8
THE SPINY FOLIAGE AND FAST-CLINGING CONES
OF THE BLACK SPRUCE
THE SPRUCES 247
ant and bright red, more showy than is ordinary in the pine
family. Brown cones one to three inches long with thin
miarmed scales, discharge their wdnged seeds in early
autumn, but cling to the branches until the following
summer.
The wood of red pine is pale red, light in weight, closer
grained with yellowish or nearly white sap-wood. Logs a
hundred feet and more in length used to be shipped out of
Canadian woods to England. Singularly free from large
knots and other blemishes, they made huge spars and
masts of vessels, as well as piles for dockyards, bridges,
etc. Other woods have proved more durable, and the
largest red pine timber has been harvested. So its im-
portance in the lumber trade has declined.
But in cultivation the red pine holds its own for its quick
growth, its hardiness, its lusty vigor and its beauty of color
contrasts. It grows on sterile ground exposed to the sea,
forming groves of great beauty where other pines would
languish and die. For shelter belts, inland, it is equally
dependable, and as specimen trees in parks and gardens it
has few equals. At no season of the year does it lose its
fresh look of health. Young trees come readily from seed,
and throughout their lives they are unusually free from in-
juries by insects and fungi.
THE SPRUCES
The distinguishing mark of spruce trees is the woody or
horny projection on which the leaf is set. Look at the
twigs of a tree which you think may be a fir or a spruce.
Wherever the leaves have fallen, the spruce twig is rough-
243 THEES
ened by these spirally arranged leaf-brackets. Leaf-sears
on a fir twig are level with the bark, leaving the twig
smooth. Spruce twigs are always roughened, as described
above.
Most spruce trees have distinctly four-angled leaves,
sharp-pointed and distributed spirally around the shoot,
not two-ranked like fir leaves. They are all pyramidal
trees with flowers and fruits of the coniferous type. The
cones are always pendent and there is an annual crop. The
wood is soft, not conspicuously resinous, straight-grained
and valuable as lumber.
The genus picea comprises eighteen species, seven of
which belong to American forests. These include some
of the most beautiful of coniferous trees.
The Norway Spruce
Picea excelsa. Link.
The Norway spruce {see illustration, page 2^6) is the
commonest species in cultivation. It is extensively
planted for wind-breaks, hedges and shelter belts, where
its long lower arms rest on the ground and the upper limbs
shingle over the lower ones, forming a thick leafy shelter
against drifting snow and winds.
The Black Spruce
P. Mariana, B. S. & P.
The black spruce is a ragged, unkempt dingy tree, with
short drooping branches, downy twigs, and stiff dark blue-
green foliage, scarcely half an inch long. Its cones, least
in size of all the spruce tribe, are about one inch long and
THE SPRUCES 249
they remain on the branches for years {See illustration,
page 2^7).
Rarely higher than fifty feet, these scraggly undersized
spruces are ignored by horticulturists and lumbermen, but
the wood-pulp man has taken them eagerly. The soft
weak yellow wood, converted into paper, needs very little
bleaching. From the far North the species covers large
areas throughout Canada, choosing cold bogs and swamp
borders, or well-drained bottom lands. In the United
States it extends south along the mountains to Virginia
and to central Wisconsin and Michigan.
The Red Spruce
P. rubens, Sarg.
The red spruce forms considerable forests from New-
foundland to North Carolina, following the mountains and
growing best in well-drained upland soil. This Eastern
spruce is more deserving of cultivation than the one just
described, for its leaves, dark yellow-green and shining,
make the tree cheerful-looking. The slender downy twigs
are bright red, and there is a warm reddish tone in the
brown bark. The winter buds are ruddy; the flowers
purple; and the glossy cones, one to two inches long, change
from purple to pale reddish brown before they mature and
drop to pieces. Even in crowded forests this spruce keeps
its lower limbs and looks hale and fresh by the prompt
casting of its early ripening cones.
The pale red wood is peculiarl}^ adapted for sounding-
boards of musical instruments. It has been used locally
in buildings, but of late the wood-pulp mills get most of
this timber.
250 TREES
The Engelmann Spruce
P. Engelmanni, Engelm.
The Engelmann spruce is the white spruce of the Rocky
Mountains and the Cascade Range of Washington and
Oregon, which forms great forests on high mountain slopes
from Montana and Idaho to New Mexico and Arizona.
Always in damp places, this thin-barked beautiful tree is
safest, from fire. The leaves are blue-green, soft and
flexible but with sharp callous tips. The cones are about
two inches long, their thin scales narrowing to the blunt
tips. Each year a crop of seeds is cast and the cones fall.
Running fires destroy the seed crop with the standing
trees, making renewal of the species impossible in the
bumt-over tracts. For this reason, this beautiful spruce
tree is oftenest found on the higher altitudes, or where wet
ground and banks of snow defend it from its arch enemy.
The tree is satisfactory in cultivation, but never equal to
the wild-forest specimens. The wood is used locally for
building purposes, for fuel and charcoal.
The Blue Spruce
P. Parryana, Sarg.
The blue spruce well known in Eastern lawns as the
"Colorado blue spruce," is a crisp-looking, handsome tree,
broadly pyramidal, with rigid branches and stout horny-
pointed leaves, blue-green to silvery white, exceeding an
inch in length. At home on the mountains of Colorado,
Utah and Wyoming, it reaches a hundred to a hundred and
fifty feet in height and a trunk diameter of three feet, and
THE FIRS 251
becomes thin and ragged at maturity. The same fate
overtakes tlie trim little lawn trees, so perfect in color and
symmetry for a few years.
Tideland Spruce
P. Sitckensis, Carr.
The tideland spruce is the most important lumber tree in
Alaska. It inhabits the coast region from Cape Mendo-
cino, in California, northward; and is abundant on wet,
sandy and swampy soil. The conspicuous traits of this
tree are its strongly buttressed trunk, one hundred to two
hundred feet tall, often greatly swollen at the base; the
graceful sweep of its wide low-spreading lower limbs; and
the constant play of light and shadows in the tree-top, due
to the lustrous sheen on the bright foliage. It is a mag-
nificent tree, one of the largest and most beautiful of the
Western conifers, indomitable in that it climbs from the
sea-level to altitudes three thousand feet above, and fol-
lows the coast farther north than any other conifer.
THE FIRS
In a forest of evergreens the spire form, needle leaves,
and some other traits belong to several families. To dis-
tinguish the firs from the spruces, which they closely re-
semble in form and foliage, notice the position of the
cones. All fir trees hold their ripe cones erect. No other
family with large cones has this striking characteristic.
All the rest of the conifers have pendent cones, except the
small-fruited cypresses and arbor-vitaes.
S52 TREES
All fir trees belong to the genus ahies, whose twenty-five
species are distributed from the Far North to the highlands
of tropical regions in both the Eastern and Western Hemis-
pheres. All are tall pyramidal trees, with wide-spreading
horizontal limbs bearing thick foliage masses, and
with bark that contains vesicles full of resinous balsam.
The branches grow in whorls and spread like fern fronds,
covered for eight or nine years with the persistent leaves*
Circular scars are left on the smooth branches when they
fall.
The leaves are the distinguishing character of the genus
when cones are lacking. They are usually flat, two-ranked
on the twig, without stems, and blunt, or even notched at
the tip. For these typical leaves one must look on the
lower sterile branches of the tree, and back of the growing
shoots, where leaves are apt to be crowded and immature.
The cones are borne near the tops of the trees, and on these
branches the leaves are often crowded and not two-
ranked as they are below. The flowers of fir trees are
abundant and showy, the staminate clusters appearing on
the under sides of the platforms of foliage; the pistillate
held erect on platforms higher up on the tree's spire. Al-
ways the flowers are borne on the shoots of the previous
season. The cone fruits are cylindrical or ovoid, ripening
in a single season and discharging their seeds at maturity.
The stout tapering axis of the cone persists after seeds and
scales have fallen.
The bark of fir trees is thin, smooth, and pale, with
abundant resin vesicles, until the trees are well grown. As
age advances the bark thickens and becomes deeply fur-
rowed. The wood is generally pale, coarse-grained, and
brittle.
THE FIRS 253
The Balsam Fir
Abies balsamea. Mill.
The balsam fir is probably best known as the typical
Christmas tree of the Northeastern states and the source
of Canada balsam, used in laboratories and in medicine.
Fresh leaves stuff the balsam pillows of summer visitors
to the North Woods. In the lumber trade and in horti-
culture this fir tree cuts a sorry figure, for its wood is
weak, coarse, and not durable, and in cultivation it is short-
lived, and early loses its lower limbs.
Throughout New England, northward to Labrador,
and southward along the mountains to southwestern Vir-
ginia, this tree may be known at a glance by its two-
ranked, pale-lined leaves, lustrous and dark green above,
one half to one and one half inches long, sometimes
notched on twigs near the top of the tree. Rich dark
piu-ple cones, two to four inches long, with thin plain-
margined, broad scales, stand erect, glistening with drops
of balsam, on branches near the top of the tree. The
same balsam exudes from bruises in the smooth bark.
By piercing the white blisters and systematically wound-
ing branch and trunk, the limpid balsam is made to flow
freely, and is collected as a commercial enterprise in some
parts of Canada. "Oil of fir" also is obtained from the
bark.
The Balsam Fir
A. Fraseriy Poir.
This balsam fir, much more luxuriant in foliage, and
worthier of cultivation as an ornamental tree, is native to
^54 TREES
the Appalacliian Mountains of southwestern Virginia,
Tennessee and North Carolina. The purple cones are
ornamented by pale yellow cut-toothed bracts that turn
back over the edge of the plain scale. Limited in range,
but forming forests between the limits of four and six
thousand feet in altitude, this tree is confined to local
uses as lumber and fuel.
All the other firs of America are Western, and among
these are some of the tree giants of the world.
The Red Fir
A, magnifica, A. Murr.
The magnificent red fir is called by John Muir "the
noblest of its race." In its splendid shaft that reaches
two hundred and fifty feet in height, and a trunk diameter
of seven feet, there is a symmetry and perfection of
finish throughout that is achieved by no other tree. One
above another in graduated lengths the branches spread
in level collars, the oldest drooping on the groimd, the
rest horizontal, their framework always five main branches
that carry luxuriant flat plumes of silvery needles. Each
leaf is almost equally four-sided, ribbed above and below,
with pale lines on all sides, so wide as to make the new
growth silvery throughout the season. Later these leaves
become blue-green, and persist for about ten years.
Only on the lower side of the branch are the leaves two-
ranked.
The bark of this fir tree is covered with dark brown
scales, deeply divided into broad rounded ridges, broken
by cross fissures when old. Out toward the tips of the
THE FIRS 255
branches the bark is silvery white. In mid-June the
flowers appear, the staminate in profuse clusters against
the silvery leaf-linings, bright red, on the under sides of
the platforms. It is a blind or stupid person who can
travel in fir woods and fail to notice this wonderful flower
pageant, that may be viewed by merely looking upward.
The pistillate flowers, greenish yellow, tipped with pink,
are out of sight as a rule, among the needles in the tree-tops.
They ripen into tall cylindrical cones, six to eight inches
long and half as wide, that fall to pieces at maturity,
discharging their broad thin scales wiith the purple irides-
cent winged seeds.
Pure forests of this splendid fir tree are found in southern
Oregon among the Cascade Mountains, between five and
seven thousand feet above the sea. It is the commonest
species in the forest belt of the Sierra Nevada, between
elevations of six thousand and nine thousand feet. From
northern California, it follows the western slope of the
Sierra Nevada, climbing to ten thousand feet in its
southernmost range. A variety, Shastensis, Lemm., is
the red fir with bright yellow fringed bracts on its stout
cones. This ornament upon its fi-uits seems to be the
chief distinguishing character of the form which occurs
with the parent species on the mountains in Oregon and
northern Cahfomia, and recurs in the southern Sierra
Nevada.
The best defense of this superb red^r is the comparative
worthlessness of its soft, weak wood. Coarse lumber
for cheap buildings, packing oases and fuel makes the
only demands upon it. In European parks it is success-
fully grown as an ornamental tree, and has proved haxdy
in eastern Massachusetts.
-256 TREES
The Noble Fir
A. nohilis, Lindl.
The noble fir or red fir is another giant of the Northwest.
On the western slopes of the Cascade Mountains of Wash-
ington and Oregon it reaches occasionally two hundred
and fifty feet in height, differing from magnifica in being
round-topped instead of pyramidal before maturity. Its
red-brown wood, furrowed bark and the red staminate
flowers justify its name. The twigs are red and velvety
for four or five years. The leaves are deeply grooved
above, rounded and obscurely ribbed on the lower surface,
blue-green, often silvery through their first season, crowded
and curved so that the tips point away from the end of the
branch.
The oblong cylindrical cones, four to ^ve inches long,
are velvety, their scales covered by bracts, shaped and
notched like a scallop shell, with a forward-pointing spine,
exceeding the bract in length. Forests of this tree at
elevations of twenty-five hundred to five thousand feet
are found in Washington and northern Oregon, from which
limited quantities of the brownish-red wood enter the
lumber trade under the name of "larch."
The White Fir
A, grandis, Lindl.
The white fir is a striking figure, from its silvery lined,
dark green foliage, its slender pyramidal form that
reaches three hundred feet in height, and the vivid green
of its mature cones that are destitute of ornament and
THE FIRS 257
slenderl}^ cylindrical. From Vancouver Island southward
to Mendocino County in California, this tree is common
from the sea level to an elevation of four thousand feet.
Eastward it extends into Idaho, climbing to seven thous-
and feet, but choosing always moist soil in the neighbor-
hood of streams. Various uses, wooden wares, packing cases,
and fuel consume its soft, coarse wood to a limited extent.
The delicate grace of its sweeping down-curving branches
makes it one of the most beautiful of our Western firs. It
grows rapidly, and is a favorite in European parks.
The White Fir
A. concolor, Lindl. and Gord.
This white fir is a giant of the Sierras, but a tree of
medium height in the Rocky Mountains. Its leaves are
often two to three inches long, very unusual for a fir
tree, curving to an erect position, pale blue or silvery
at first, becoming dull green at the end of two or three
years.
On the California Sierras, this silver ^ tree lifts its
narrow spire two hundred and fifty feet tow^ard the sky
and waves great frondlike masses of foliage on pale gray
branches. As a much smaller tree, it is found in the arid
regions of the Great Basin and of southern New INIexico
and Arizona, territory which no other fir tree invades.
In gardens of Europe and of our Eastern states this
is a favorite fir tree, often known as the "blue fir"
and the "silver fir" from its pale bark and foliage,
whose blue cast is not always permanent. Eastern nur-
series obtain their best trees from seeds gathered in the
Rocky Mountains.
^8 TREES
THE DOUGLAS SPRUCE
The Douglas spruce {Pseudotsuga mucronata, Sudw.),
ranks with the giant arbor- vitaes, firs, and sequoias in the
forests of the Pacific Coast. Thousands of square miles
of pure forest of this species occur in Oregon, Washington,
and British Columbia. Here the trees stand even, like
wheat in a grain field, the tallest reach four hundred feet,
the redwood its only rival. Nowhere but in the redwood
forests is there such a heavy stand of timber on this
continent. No forest tree except sequoias equals the
Douglas spruce in massiveness of trunk and yield of
straight-grained lumber.
The genus pseudotsuga stands botanically in a position
intermediate between firs and hemlocks. Our tree giant
is as often called the Douglas &^ as Douglas spruce.
The lumberman sells the output of his mills under the
trade name, "Oregon pine." This is perhaps the best
known lumber in all the Western country. It has a great
reputation abroad, where timbers of the largest size
are used for masts, spars, piles for wharves and bridges, and
for whatever uses heavy timbers are needed. The wood
is stronger in proportion to its weight than that of any
other large conifer in the country. It is tough, dm-able,
and elastic. Its only faults are its extreme hardness and
liability to warp when cut into boards. These faults are
noted only by carpenters who use the wood for interior
finish of houses. "Red pine" it is called in regions of the
Great Basin, where the trees grow smaller than on the
Coast, and are put to general lumber purposes. It is
variable in quahty, but ajlways pale yellow, striped with
THE nEi\n.OCKS 259
red, and liandsomely wavy when quarter-sawed; dis-
tractingly so in the "slash grain," oftenest seen in the
interior finish of the t\'pical California bungalow.
The living tree is a superb, broad-based pyramid, bear-
ing a load of crowded drooping branches, where it has a
chance to assume its normal habit. A delicate lace-like
drooping spray of yellowish or bluish green leaves, flat,
spreading at right angles from tlie twig, gives the Douglas
spruce its hale, abundant vigor. The dark red staminate
flowers glow in late winter against the yellow foliage mass
of the new leaves; but even the flowers are not so showy as
the drooping cones, two to four inches long, their plain
scales adorned with bracts, notched and bearing a whip
that extends half an inch beyond the scales. Blue-green,
shading to purple, with red-lipped scales and bright green
bracts, these cones are truly the handsomest ornaments
worn by any tree.
Finally, this paragon of conifers surprises Eastern
nui'serymen by outstripping other seedlings in vigor and
quickness of growth. Rocky Mountain seed does best.
The Oregon trees furnish seed to European nurseries and
seedlings from Europe grow quickly into superb orna-
mental trees.
TIIE HEIVILOCKS
Unlike any other conifer, the hemlock mounts its ever-
green leaves on short petioles, jointed to projecting, homy
brackets on the tv/Ig. At any season this character de-
termines the family name of a group of exceptionally
graceful pyramidal conifers. The Eastern hemlocks have
their leaves arranged in a flat spray, silvery white und«:-
260 TREES
neath, by pale lines on the underside of the flat blunt-
pointed blade (See illustration, page 2^6). An abun-
dance of pendent cones is borne annually. The wood of
hemlocks is comparatively wortliless but the bark is rich in
tannin, and so the tree is important in the leather trade.
The Hemlock
Tsuga Canadensis, Carr.
The hemlock lifts its dark green, feathery spray above the
sturdy trunk into a splendid broad pyramid. In all rocky
uplands from Nova Scotia to Alabama and west to Min-
nesota, the drooping lower branches sweep the ground,
and the tree is often half buried in snow. But in spring
every twig is dancing and waving yellow plumes of new
fohage, the picture of cheerfulness as the sunlight sifts
through the tree- tops. In May the new blossoms sprinkle
all the leafy twigs — the staminate, yellow; the pistillate,
pale violet. Looking up from below, one sees a charming
iridescent effect when the blossoms add their color to the
shimmering silver which lines the various platforms of
foliage. The little red-brown cones cling to the twigs all
winter, slowly parting their scales to release the winged
seeds. Squirrels climb the trees in the fall and cut off
these cones to store away for winter use.
"Peelers" go into the woods in May, when the new
growth is well started and the bark will peel readily. They
fell and strip hemlock trunks and remove the bark in
sheets, which are piled to dry and be measured like cord-
wood, and later shipped to the tanneries. The cross-
grained coarse wood is left to rot and feed forest fires.
Locally, it is useful for the timbers of houses and barns, be-
THE HEIVILOCKS 2G1
cause it is rigid and never lets go its hold upon a nail or
spike.
The Western Hemlock
T. heterophylla, Sarg.
The Western hemlock is a giant that dominates other
trees in the Western mountain forests, famous for their
giants of many different names. It is a noble pyramidal
tree that reaches two hundred feet in height and a maxi-
mum trunk diameter of ten feet. Its heavy horizontal
branches droop and hold out feathery tips as light and
graceful in the adult monarch as in the sapling of a few
years' growth. The characteristic hemlock foliage, lus-
trous green above and pale below, is two-ranked by the
twisting of the slender petioles.
From southeastern Alaska, eastward into Montana and
Idaho, and southward to Cape Mendocino in California,
this tree climbs from the lowlands to an altitude that ex-
ceeds a mile. TOierever there are rich river valleys and
the air is humid, this hemlock is superb, the delight of
artists and lumbermen. At its highest range it becomes
stunted, but always produces its oval, pointed cones in
abundance.
Its wood, the strongest and most durable in the hemlock
family, is chiefly used in buildings, and the bark for tan-
ning.
The Mountain Hemlock
T. Martensiana, Sarg.
The mountain hemlock of the W^est is called by John
Muir "the loveliest evergreen in America.'' Sargent en-
dorses this judgment with emphasis. It grows at high
^m TREES
altitudes, fringing upland meadows, watered by glaciers,
with groves of the most exquisite beauty. The sweeping,
downward-drooping branches, clothed with abundant pea-
green foliage, silver-lined, resist wind storms and snow
burdens by the wonderful pliancy of their fibres. In early
autumn the trees are bent over so as to form arches.
Young forests are thus buried out of sight for six months of
the year. With the melting of the snow they right them-
selves gradually, and among the new leaves appear the
flowers, dark purple cones and staminate star-flowers,
blue as forget-me-nots. Three-angied leaves, whorled
on the twig, and cones two to three inches long, set this
hemlock apart from its related species, but the leaf -stalk
settles once for all the question of its family name.
THE SEQUOIAS
Nowhere else in the world are conifers found in such ex-
tensive forests and in such superlative vigor and stu-
pendous size as in the states that border the Pacific Ocean.
California is particularly the paradise of the conifers. All
of the species that make the forests of the Northwest the
wonder of travelers and the pride of the states are found in
equally prodigal size and extent in California. To these
forests are added groves of sequoias — the Big Tree and the
redwood, the former found nowhere outside of California,
the latter reaching into Oregon.
Once the sequoias had a wide distribution in the Old
and the New World. With magnohas and many other lux-
uriant trees found in warm climates, five species of sequoia
extended over the North Temperate zone in both hemi-
1
Sec juKjc JdS
THE Fl.AT, FUOND-MI^i; SIMr\^ ( F TIIi: OIINAMKN'TAL
Ai;i{()H \rr.i:
See 'page 278
FRUIT AND LEAVES OF THE AMERICAN LARCH
THE SEQUOIAS 263
spheres, reaching even to the Arctic Circle. The glacial
period transformed the climate of the world and de-
stroyed these luxuriant northern forests under a grinding
continuous glacier. The rocks of the tertiary and
cretaceous periods preserved in fossils the story of these
pre-glacial forests. Two of the species of sequoia escaped
destruction in tracts the ice sheet did not overwhelm. For
ten thousand years, perhaps, the sequoia has held its own
In the California groves. Indeed, both species are able to
extend their present range if nature is unhindered. The
three enemies that tin-eaten sequoia groves are the axe of
the lumberman, the forest fire kindled by the waste about
sawmills, and the grazing flocks that destroy seedling trees.
The Big Tree
Sequoia Wellingtoiiia, Seem.
The Big Tree is the most gigantic tree on the face of the
earth, the mightiest living creature in existence. Among
the giant sugar pines and red firs it lifts a wonderfully reg-
ular, rounded dome so far above the aspiring arrow-tips of
its neighbors as to make the best of them look like mere
saplings. The massive trunk, clothed with red-browTi or
purplish bark, is fluted by furrows often more than a foot
in depth. The trunk is usually bare of hmbs for a hundi'ed
or two hundred feet, clearing the forest cover completely
before throwing out its angular stout arms. These
branch at last into rounded masses of leafy twigs, whose
density and brilliant color express the beauty and vigor of
eternal youth in a tree which counts its age by thousands
of years already.
To see this Big Tree in blossom one must visit the high
264 TREES
Sierras while the snow is eight to ten feet deep upon the
buttressed base of the huge trunk. It is worth a journey,
and that with some hardship in it, to see these trees with all
their leafy spray, gold-lined with the multitude of little
staminate flowers that sift pollen gold-dust over every-
thing, and fill the air with it. The pistillate flowers,
minute, pale green, crowd along the ends of the leafy
sprays, their cone scales spread to receive the vitalizing
dust brought by the wind.
When spring arrives and starts the flower procession
among the lower tree-tops, the spray of the Big Tree is
covered with green cones that mature at the end of the
second season. They are woody, two to three inches long,
and spread their scales wide at a given signal, showering
the surrounding woods with the abundant harvest of their
minute winged seeds. Each scale bears six to eight of
them, each with a circular wing that fits it for a long
journey. The cones hang empty on the trees for years.
The leaves of the Big Tree are of the close, twig-hugging,
scaly type, never exceeding a haK inch in length on the
most exuberant-growing shoots. For the most part they
are from one fourth to one eighth of an inch in length,
sharp pointed, ridged, curved to clasp the stem, and shin-
gled over the leaves above.
John Muir believes there is no absolute limit to the ex-
istence of any tree. Accident alone, he thinks, not the
wearing out of vital organs, accounts for their death. The
fungi that kill the silver fir inevitably before it is three
hundred years old touch no limb of the Big Tree with decay.
A sequoia must be blown down, undermined, burned down,
or shattered by lightning. Old age and disease pass these
trees by. Their heads, rising far above the spires of fir and
THE SEQUOIAS 265
spruce, seem not to court the lightning flash as the lower,
pointed trunks do; and yet no aged sequoia can be found
whose head has not suffered losses by Jove's thunder-
bolts. Cheerfully the tree lets go a fraction of its mighty
top, and sets about the repair of the damage, with greatly
accelerated energy, as if here was an opportunity to expend
the tree's pent-up vitality. It is strange to see horizontal
branches of great age and size strike upward to form a part
of a new, symmetrical dome to replace the head struck off
or mangled by lightning. With all the signs of damage
lightning has done to these tree giants of the Sierras, but
one instance of outright killing of a tree is on record.
The wood of the Big Tree is red and soft, coarse, light,
and weak — unfit for must lumber uses. It ought, by all
ordinary standards, to be counted scarcely worth the cut-
ting; but the vast quantity yielded by a single tree pays the
lumberman huge profits, though he wastes thousands of
feet by blasting the mighty shaft into chunks manageable
in the sawmill. Shingles, shakes, and fencing consume
more of the lumber than general construction — ignoble
uses for this noblest of all trees.
The best groves of Big Trees now under government pro-
tection are in the grand Sequoia National Park. Near the
Yosemite is the famous Mariposa Grove that contains the
** grizzly giant" and other specimen trees of great age and
size. More than half of the Big Trees are in the hands of
speculators and lumber companies. Exploitation of
nature's best treasure is as old as the human race. The
idea of conservation is still in its infancy.
The ruin by the lumbering interests of a sequoia grove
means the drying up of streams and the defeat of irrigation
projects in the valleys below. Big Trees inhabit only areas
^66 TREES
on the western slopes of the Sierras. Wherever they grow
their roots have made of the deep soil a sponge that holds
the drainage of melting snowbanks and doles it out through
streams that flow thence to famishing, hot, wind-swept
plains and valleys. When the trees are gone, turbulent,
short-lived spring floods exhaust the water supply and do
untold damage in the lowlands.
Big Trees have not succeeded in cultivation in our
Eastern states, but for many years have been favorites in
European gardens and parks. In the native groves the
seedlings do not show the virility of the redwoods, though
to the south the range of the species is being gradually
extended. No tree is more prodigal in seed production
and more indifferent, when mature, to the ills that beset
ordinary forest trees; yet government protection must be
strengthened, private claims must be bought, and scien-
tific forestry maintained in order to prevent the extinction
of the species, with the destruction of trees that are, as
they stand to-day, the greatest living monuments in the
world of plants.
The Redwood
S, sempervirens, Endl.
The redwood comes down to the sea on the western
slopes of the Coast Range, from southern Oregon to
Monterey County in California, tempting the lumberman
by the wonderful wealth and accessibility of these groves
of giant trees. The wood is soft, satiny, red, like the
thick, fibrous, furrowed bark that clothes the tall, fluted
trunks.
Redwoods are taller than Big Trees, have slenderer
trunks and branches and a more light and graceful leaf-
THE SEQUOIAS 267
spray. The head is pyramidal in young trees, later be-
coming irregular and narrow, and exceedingly small in
forests by the crowding of the trees and the death of lower
branches. The leaves on the terminal shoots spread into
a flat spray, two-ranked, like those of a balsam fir. Each
blade is flat, tapering to both ends, and from one fourth
to one half an inch in length. Awl-shaped and much
shorter leaves are scattered on year-old twigs, back of the
new shoots, resembling the foliage of the Big Tree.
The cones are small and almost globular, maturing in
a single season, scarcely an inch long, with three to five
winged seeds under each scale. Seedling redwoods come
quickly from this yearly sowing, and thrive under the
forest cover, unless fire or the trampling feet of grazing
flocks destroy tliem. After the lumberman, the virile
redwood sends up shoots around the bleeding stumps, thus
reinforcing the seedling tree and promising the renewal of
the forest groves in the centuries to come.
Redwood lumber is the most important building ma-
terial on the Pacific Coast. The hardest and choicest
wood comes in limited quantities from the stumps which
furnish curly and birdseye wood, used by the makers
of bric-a-brac and high-priced cabinet work. Shingles,
siding, and interior finish of houses consume quantities
of the yearly output of the mills. Demand for fence
posts, railway ties and cooperage increases. Quantities
of lumber are shipped east to take the place of white pine
no longer obtainable.
In cultivation the redwood is a graceful, quick-growing,
beautiful evergreen, successful in the Southeastern states,
and often met in European parks and gardens. Weeping
forms are very popular abroad.
268 TREES
Government and state protection has made sure the
safeguarding for coming generations of some groves of
redwoods, containing trees whose size and age rival those
of the most ancient Big Trees. But the fact that the
redwood, restricted on the map to such a Hmited territory,
is the most important timber tree on the Coast, is a blot
upon our vaunted Democracy, which has allowed the
cunning of a few small minds to defeat the best interests
of the whole people and rob them of forest treasure which
might yield its benefits continuously, if properly managed.
Government purchase of all sequoia-bearing land, followed
by rational methods of harvesting the mature lumber and
conserving the young growth, is the ideal solution of the
problem. Such a plan would assure the saving of the
monumental giants.
THE ARBOR-VITAES
Minute, scale-like leaves, four-ranked, closely over-
lapping, so as to conceal the wiry twig, mark the genus
thuya, which is represented in America by two species of
slender, pyramidal evergreen trees, whose intricately
branched limbs terminate in a flat, open spray {see illus-
tration, page 262). "Tree of Life" is the English transla-
tion, but the Latin name everywhere is heard.
Eastern Arbor-vitae
Thuya occidentalis, Linn.
The Eastern arbor-vitae, called also the white cedar,
is found in impenetrable pure forest growth, from Nova
THE ARBOR- VITAES 269
Scotia and New Brunswick northwestward to tlie mouth
oi the Saskatchewan River, always in swampy regions,
or along the rocky banks of streams. In the East it
follows the mountains to Tennessee, and from Lake
Winnipeg it extends south to middle Minnesota and
northern Illinois. In cultivation it is oftenest seen as
an individual lawn and park tree, or in hedges on boundary
lines. It submits comfortably to severe pruning, is easily
transplanted, and comes readily from seed. Plantations
grow rapidly into fence posts and telegraph poles. The
wood is durable in wet ground, but very soft, coarse, and
brittle.
The Red Cedar
T. plicata, D. Don.
The red cedar or canoe cedar is the giant arbor-vitae
of the coast region from British Columbia to northern
California and east over the mountain ranges into Idaho
and northern Montana. Its buttressed trunk is a fluted
column one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet high
in western Washington and Oregon, along the banks of
mountain streams and in the rich bottom land farther
seaward. The leaves in a flat spray at once distinguish
this tree from any other conifer, for they are pointed, scale-
like, closely overlapping each other in alternate pairs.
The clustered cones, with their six or eight seed-
bearing scales, seem absurdl}' small fruits on so huge a tree.
None exceeds one half an inch in height, but their number
makes up for size deficiency and the seed crop is tre-
mendous.
The Alaskan Indian chooses the tall bole of a red cedar
for his totem pole, and from the massive butt hollows
270 TREES
out the war canoe and "dug-out" which solve his prob-
lems of transportation in summer. Durability is the
chief merit of this soft, brittle wood, which is easily worked
with the Indian's crude tools. The bark of the tree fur-
nishes the walls of the Indian huts and its inner fibre
is the raw material of his cordage — the harness for his
dog team, his nets and lines for fishing; and it is the basis
of the squaw's basket-weaving industry.
This is the best arbor-vitae for ornamental planting.
Its success in Europe is very strildng, and from European
nurseries it has been successfully re-introduced into the
United States, where it is hardy and vigorous. But it
fails when taken directly into the North Atlantic states.
It must come in via Europe, as nearly all West Coast
trees have to do in order to succeed.
THE INCENSE CEDAR
One tree, so magnificent in proportions that it ranks
among the giants in our Western forests, stands as the
sole American representative of its genus. Its nearest
relatives are the arbor- vitaes, sequoias, and the bald cypress
of the South.
The incense cedar (Librocedrus DecurrenSy Torr.) has
its name from its resinous, aromatic sap. The tree, when
it grows apart from others, forms a perfect tapering pyra-
mid, with flat, plume-like sprays that sweep downward
and outward with wonderful lightness and grace. The
leaves are scale-like, closely appressed to the wiry twigs,
in four ranks, bright green, tinged with gold in late winter,
by the abundance of the yellow staminate flowers. The
cones are small, narrowly pointed, made of few paired
THE CYPRESSES 271
scales, each bearing two seeds. The bark is cinnamon-red
in color. The trees occur scattered among other species in
open forests from three thousand to six thousand feet
above the sea, reaching a height of two hundred feet and a
trunk diameter of twelve feet on the Sierra Nevada glacial
moraines.
The lumber resembles that of arbor- vitae, and is used for
the same purposes. In cultivation the tree is hardy and
thrives in parks in the neighborhood of New York. In
Europe it has long been a favorite.
THE CYPRESSES
Three genera of pyramidal conifers, with light, graceful
leaf -spray, and small woody cones, held erect, compose the
group known as cypresses. All have found places in
horticulture, for not one of them but has value for orna-
mental planting. Some species have considerable lumber
value.
The Monterey Cypress
Cwpressus rnacrocarpa. Cord.
The Monterey cypress is now restricted to certain ocean-
facing bluffs about Monterey Bay in California. These
trees are derelicts of their species. Wind-beaten into
grotesqueness of form, unmatched in any other tree
near the sea-level, their matted and gnarled branches
make a flat and very irregular top above a short, thick,
often bent and leaning trunk. Clusters of globular cones
stud the twigs behind the leafy spraj^ composed of thread-
like wiry twigs, entirely covered with scaly, four-ranked
leaves.
272 TREES
In cultivation this cypress grows into a luxuriant, pyr-
amidal tree, often broadening and losing its symmetry,
but redeeming it by the grace of its plume-like, outstretched
branches. One by one the native cypresses on the crum-
bling bluffs will go down into Monterey Bay, for the
imdermining process is eating out their foundations.
Wind and wave are slowly but surely sealing their doom.
But the species is saved to a much wider territory.
The European Cypress
C. sempervirens, Linn.
A tall, narrow pyramid of sombre green, the European
cypress is found in cemeteries in south Europe and every-
where, planted for ornament. This is the classic cypress,
a conventional feature of Italian gardens, the evergreen
most frequently mentioned in classical literature. Slow-
growing and noted for its longevity, it was the symbol of
immortahty. It is hardy in the South- Atlantic and
Pacific-Coast states, and is a favorite evergreen for hedges
in the Southwest.
Three other members of the genus occur on mountain
foothills — one in Arizona, two in California — all easily
recognized by their scale-like leaves and button-like
woody cones, which require two years to mature.
The White Cedar
Chamaecyparis Thyoides, Britt.
The genus chamaecyparis includes three American
species, of tall, narrow pyramidal habit and flat leaf-spray
like that of the arbor-vitae. Annual erect globular cones
of few, woody scales, produce one to five seeds under each.
THE CYPRESSES 273
This white cedar is the swamp-loving variety of the
Atlantic seaboard — its range stretches from Maine to Mis-
sissippi. The durability of its white wood gives it consider-
able importance as a lumber tree. It is particularly de-
pendable when placed in contact with water and exposed to
weather. Cedar shingles, fence posts, railroad ties, buckets,
and other cooperage consume quantities each year. The
trees are important ornamental evergreens, planted for
their graceful spray and their dull blue-green leaves.
Their maximum height is eighty feet.
The Lawson Cypress
C. Lawsoniana, A. Murr.
The Lawson cypress lifts its splendid spire to a height of
two hundred feet, on the coast mountains of Oregon and
California, forming a nearly continuous forest belt twenty
miles long, between Point Gregory and the mouth of the
Coquille River. Spire-like, with short, horizontal branches,
this species bears a leaf-spray of feathery lightness,
bright green, from the multitude of minute paired leaf-
scales, and adorned with the clustered pea-sized cones,
which are blue-green and very pale until they ripen.
The wood of this giant cypress is used in house-finishing
and in boat-building; for flooring, fencing, and for railroad
ties.
The Bald Cypress
\ Taxodiuvi distichum, Rich.
The bald cypress is the one member of the cypress group
that sheds its foliage each autumn, following the example
of the tamarack. In the Far South, river swamps are often
274 TREES
covered with a growth of these cypresses whose trunks are
strangely swollen at the base, and often hollow. The flar-
ing buttresses are prolonged into the main roots, which
form humps that rise out of the water at some distance
from the tree. These "cypress knees" are not yet ex-
plained, though authorities suspect that they have some-
thing to do with the aeration of the root system.
Inundated nine or ten months of the year, these cy-
press swamps are often dry the remaining time, and it is a
surprise to Southerners to find these trees comfortable and
beautiful in Northern parks. Cleveland and New York
parks have splendid examples.
The leaves of the bald cypress are of two types. They
are scale-like only on stems that bear the globular cones.
On other shoots they form a flat spray, each leaf one haK to
three fourths of an inch long, pea-green in the Southern
swamps, bright yellow-green on both sides in dry ground,
turning orange-brown before they fall. The twigs that
bear these two-ranked leaves are also deciduous, a unique
distinction of this genus.
Cypress wood is soft, light brown, durable, and easily
worked. Quantities of it are shipped north and used in the
manufacture of doors and interior finishing of houses, for
fencing, railroad ties, cooperage, and shingles.
THE JUNIPERS
The sign by which the junipers are most easily distin-
guished from other evergreens, is the juicy berries instead of
cones. In some species these are red, but they are mostly
blue or blue-black. Before they mature it is easy to see
THE JUNIPERS 275
the stages by which the cone-scales thicken and coalesce,
instead of hardening and remaining separate, as in the
typical fruit of conifers.
Juniper leaves are of two types: scale-like in opposite
pairs, pressed close to the tw^g, as in the cypresses; and
stiff, spiny, usually channelled leaves, which stand out free
from the twig in whorls of threes.
The wood is red, fragrant, durable, and light.
The Dwarf Juniper
Juniperus communis, Linn.
The dwarf juniper departs from the pyramidal pattern
and forms a loose, open head above a short, stout trunk.
The slender branchlets are clothed with boat-shaped
leaves which spread nearly at right angles from the twigs in
whorls of three. Each one is pointed and hollowed, dark
green outside, snowy white inside, which is really the upper
side of the leaf. It requires three years to mature the
bright blue berries, and they hang on the tree two or three
years longer. Each fruit contains two or three seeds, and
these require three years to germinate.
It is plain to see that time is no object to this slow-grow-
ing dwarf juniper, found in both the Eastern and Western
Hemispheres, covering vast stretches of waste land. From
Greenland to Alaska it is found and south along the high-
lands into Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and California. Its
hardiness gives it importance as a cover for waste land on
seashores and for hedges and windbreaks in any exposed
situation. It is a tree reaching thirty feet in height on the
limestone hills of southern Illinois. In other situations it
is usually a sprawling shrubby thing, the cringing parent
276 TREES
of a race of dwarf junipers, known in many and various
horticultural forms.
The Western Juniper
J. occidentalis. Hook.
The giant of its race is the Western juniper, one of the
patriarchial trees of America, ranking in age with the
sequoias. Never a tall tree, it yet attains a trunk diameter
of ten feet, and an age that surely exceeds two thousand
years. At elevations of seven to ten thousand feet this
valiant red cedar is found clinging to the granite domes
and bare glacial pavements where soil and moisture seem
absolutely non-existent. Sunshine and thin air are
abundant, however, and elbow room. Upon these com-
modities the tree subsists, crouching, stubbornly clinging,
while a single root offers foothold, its gnarled branches
picturesque and beautiful in their tufts of gray-green
leaves. Avalanches have beheaded the oldest of these
giants, but their denuded trunks throw out wisps of
new foliage with each returning spring. When they suc-
cumb, their trunks last almost as long as the granite
boulders among which they are cast by the wind or the
ice-burden that tore them loose.
The stringy bark is woven into cloth and matting by
the Indians, and the fine-grained, hard, red wood finds no
better use than for the mountaineer's fencing and fuel.
The Eastern Red Cedar
J. Virginiana, Linn.
The Eastern red cedar is a handsome, narrow pyramid
in its youth, often becoming broad and irregular, or
THE LARCHES 277
round-topped above a buttressed, twisted trunk, as it
grows old. The scale-like leaves are four-ranked, blue-
green when young, spreading, and sometimes three
fourths of an inch long, on vigorous new shoots. The
dark blue berries are covered with a pale bloom and have
a resinous, sweet flesh. This juniper is familiar in aban-
doned farms and ragged fence-rows, becoming rusty
brown in foliage to match the stringy red bark in winter
time. The durable red wood is used for posts and railroad
ties, for cedar chests and pencils. The tree is profitably
planted by railroad companies, as cedar ties are unsur-
passed. In cultivation the tree forms an interesting,
symmetrical specimen, adapted to formal gardens. (See
illustration t page 230.)
The Red Juniper
J. Barbadensis, Linn.
The red juniper, much more luxuriant than its close
relative of the North, is the handsomest juniper in culti-
vation. Its pyramid is robbed of a rigid formal expression
by the drooping of its fern-like leaf -spray. The berries are
silvery white and abundant. The wood is used princi-
pally for pencils. This species grows in the Gulf states.
THE LARCHES, OR TAMARACKS
The notable characteristic of the small genus, larix, is
that the narrow leaves are shed in the autunm. Here is
a tall pyramidal conifer which is not evergreen. It
bears an annual crop of small woody cones, held erect
278 TREES
on the branches, and the leaves are borne in crowded
clusters on short lateral spurs, except upon the terminal
shoots, where the leaves are scattered remotely but follow
the spiral plan. Larch wood is hard, heavy, resinous, and
almost indestructible. The tall shafts are ideal for tele-
graph poles and posts.
The Tamarack
Larix Americana, Michx.
The tamarack or American larch {see illustration, page
263) goes farther north than any other tree, except dwarf
willows and birches. Above these stunted, broad-leaved
trees pure forests of tamarack rise, covering Northern
swamps from Newfoundland and Labrador to Hudson
Bay and west across the Rocky Mountains, the trees
dwindling in size as they approach the arctic tundras, the
limit of tree growth. The wood of these bravest of all
conifers is a God-send over vast territories where other
supply of timber is wanting. The tough roots of the
larch tree supply threads with which the Indian sews his
birch canoe.
In cultivation the American species is too sparse of
limb and foliage to compete with the more luxuriant
European larch, yet it is often planted. Its fresh spring
foliage is lightened by the pale yellow of the globular
staminate flowers and warmed by the rosy tips of the
cone flowers. In early autumn the plain, thin-scaled
cones, erect and bright chestnut-brown, shed their small
seeds while the yellow leaves are dropping, and the bare
limbs carry the empty cones until the following year.
THE LARCHES 279
The Western Larch
L. occidentalism Nutt.
The Western larch is the finest tree in its genus, reaching
six feet in trunk diameter and two hundred feet in height,
in the Cascade forests from British Columbia to southern
Oregon and across the ranges to western Montana. This
tree has the unusual distinction of exceeding all conifers
in the value of its wood, which is heavy, hard, strong,
dense, durable, of a fine red that takes a brilliant polish.
It is used for furniture and for the interior finish of houses.
Quantities of it supply the demand for posts and railroad
ties, in which use it lasts indefinitely, compared with other
timber.
PART IX
THE PALMS
Palms are tropical plants related to lilies on one hand
and grasses on the other. One hundred genera and about
one thousand species compose a family in which tree forms
rarely occur. A few genera grow wild in the warmest
sections of this country, and exotics are familiar in culti-
vation, wherever they are hardy. The leaves are parallel-
veined, fan-shaped, or feather-like, on long stalks that
sheath the trunk, splitting with its growth. The flowers
are lily-like, on the plan of three, and the fruits are clus-
tered berries, or drupes.
Sago, tapioca, cocoanuts, and dates are foods de-
rived from members of this wonderful family. The
fibres of the leaves supply thread for weaving cloth and
cordage to the natives of the tropics, where houses are
built and furnished throughout from the native palms.
The royal palm, crowned with a rosette of feather-like
leaves, each ten to twelve feet long, above the smooth,
tall stems, is a favorite avenue tree in tropical cities.
In Florida it grows wild in the extreme southwest, but is
planted on the streets of Miami and Palm Beach. Its
maximum height is one hundred feet.
In California the favorite avenue palm of this feather-
leaved type is the Canary Island palm, whose stout trunk,
covered with interlacing leaf-bases, wears a crown of
280
THE PALMS 281
plumes that reach fifteen feet in length and touch the
ground with their drooping tips. Huge clusters of bright
yellow, dry, olive-shaped berries ripen in midsummer.
The date palm of commerce, once confined to the tropical
deserts of Asia Minor and North Africa, has been suc-
cessfully established by the Government in hot, dry locali-
ties of the Southwest. Fruit equal to any grown in
plantations of the Old World is marketed now from the
Imperial and Coachella valleys in California, and from
orchards near Phoenix, Arizona. Dry air and a summer
temperature far above the hundred degree mark is neces-
sary to insure the proper sugar content and flavor in
these fruits, which are borne in huge clusters and ripen
slowly, one by one.
Fan-shaped leaves plaited on the ends of long stalks
that are usually spiny-edged are borne by the stocky
Florida palmettos and the tall desert palm of California,
planted widely in cities of the Southwest and in Europe.
Several genera of this fan-leaved type are represented in
palm gardens, and in the general horticulture of warm
regions of this country.
THE END
GENERAL INDEX
PAGE
PAGE
Abies halsamea . . .
. . 253
American larch 278
Abies concolor
. . 257
American linden .
70
Abies Fraseri .
. . 253
Annual rings .
12
Abies grandis .
. . 256
Anona cherimolia
171
Abies magnifica
. . 254
Anona glabra .
. 170
Abies nobilis .
. . 256
Apples, The . .
'. 147-140
Acacia dealbata
. . 187
Arbor-vitaes, The
. 268-270
Acacia Melanoxylon .
. . 186
Arboreta
xiv
Acacia, Palo verde . .
. 190
Arbutus Menziesii
. 121
Acacias, The ....
. 184-187
Arnold arboretum
. xiv
Acer circinatum .
. . 197
Ash, Black . .
. 204
Acer glabrum ....
. 199
Ash, Blue . . .
. 206
Acer macrophyllum .
. 197
Ash, European
. 208
Acer nigrum ....
. 195
Ash, Green
206
Acer Negundo
. 199
Ash, Oregon
. 207
Acer Pennsylvanicum
. 198
Ash, Red . . .
. 205
Acer pseudo-platanus
. 200
Ash, White . .
202
Acer rubmm
. 195
Ashes, Mountain
116-118
Acer saccharinum
. 196
Ashes, The . .
201-209
Acer saccharum . . . .
. 194
Asimina triloba .
. . 168
Acer spicatum
. 198
Aspen ....
78
Aesculus Calif omica .
. 68
Assam rubber tree
166
Aesculus glabra . . . .
. 67
Autumn leaves .
19
Aesculus Hippocastanum
. 65
Avocado .
129
Aesculus octandra
. 67
"Ague tree"
. 131
Bald cypress .
273
Alder, Black . .
91
Balm of Gilead .
79
Alder, Oregon
. 93
Balsam fir
253
Alder, Red . .
93
Balsam poplar
79
Alder, Seaside
92
"Banana tree. Wild"
169
Alders, The . .
.91-93
Banyan tree
166
Alligator pear
. 129
Bark ....
XV. 23
Almond
. 152
Basket oak
55
Alnu^ glutinosa
91
Basswood, Downy
72
Alnus mariiima .
92
Basswood. White
71
Alnus Orcgona
.
. 93
Basswoods, The .
63-74
Amclanchier alnijolia
. 160
Bay, Red ... .
129
Amelanchier Canadensis
159
Bay, Rose
119
American beech . . . .
42
Bay, Swamp . .
105
American elm . . . .
. 210
Bee tree ....
71
American holly
. 145
Beech, American
42
American hornbea
m ,
85
"Beech, Blue" . .
85
283
284
GENERAL INDEX
PAGE
"Beech, Water" 85
"Beetle- wood" 86
Betula lenta 90
Betula lutea 89
Betula nigra 90
Betula papyrifera .... 88
Betula yopulifolia .... 89
"Big-cone" pine 240
Big sheUbark 38
Big Tree 263
Birch, Canoe 88
Birch, Cherry 90
Birch, Paper 88
Birch, Red 90
Birch, River 90
Birch, White 89
Birch, Yellow 89
Birches, The 87-91
Bird cherry 153
" Bird's-eye " maplewood . . 15
Black acacia 186
Black alder 91
Black ash 204
Black cherry. Wild .... 153
Black Cottonwood .... 80
Black dwarf sumach . . . 140
Black gum ^^
Black haw 115-158
Black locust 178
Black maple 195
Black mulberry 165
Black oak 58
Black oak group 58-65
Black poplar 77
Black spruce 248
Black walnut 31
Blackwood-tree 186
Blue ash . 206
"Blue beech" 85
Blue fir 257
Blue spruce 250
Box elder 199
Buckeye, California .... 68
Buckeye, Ohio 67
Buckeye, Sweet .... 67
Buds 3, 23
Bur oak 51
Burning bush 136
Butternut 30
Buttonwoods, The .... 93-95
California walnut
20
California white oak
57
Cambium
9,21
Campbell's magnolia
103
Camperdown elm
216
Canada plum
151
Canary island palm .
280
Canoe birch ....
88
Canoe cedar
269
Carica papaya
169
Carolina poplar . . .
78
Carpinus Carolinianum .
85
Castanea dentata .
44
Castanea pumila .
44-46
Cedar, Canoe . .
269
Cedar, Eastern red .
276
Cedar, Incense
270
Cedar, Red
269
Cedar, White . .
272
Celtis Australis .
162
Celtis occidentalis
161
Cercidium Torreyanum
190
Cercis Canadensis
182
Ckamaecyparis Lawsoniana
. 273
Chamaecyparis Thyoides
. 272
Chemistry of trees .
5-8
Cherimoya
171
Cherries, The . .
. 1.
52-155
Cherry birch .
90
Chestnut oak . .
. 53
Chestnuts, The . .
.44-47
Chinquapin .
.44-46
Chiotianthus Virginica
. 126
Chlorophyll, Breaking c
low
n o
f
the ....
. 18
Choke cherry . .
. 154
Cladrastis lutea .
. 183
Clammy locust .
. 179
Cockspur thorn .
. 156
Coflfee tree, Kentucky
. 181
Colorado blue spruce
. 250
Common lime
72
Cone-bearing evergreens
. 217-279
Conifers ....
. 217-279
Coral-bean
. . 192
"Cork elm"
. 215
Cornel ....
. 113
Cornus florida
. Ill
Cornus mas
. 113
Cornus Nuttallii .
. 113
Cotinus ....
.
. 142
GENERAL INDEX
285
PAGE
PAGE
Cotton gum
. 97
Elm, Mountain .
. . 215
Cottonwood
. 77
Klin, Red . . . .
. . 213
Cottonwood, Black . . .
. 80
Elm, Rock . . .
214
Cottonwood, Liince-leaved .
80
Elm, Scotch .
216
Cottonwood, Mexican .
80
Elm, Slippery
. . 213
Cottonwood, Narrow-leaved
. 80
Elm, Small-lcaved
. . 215
Cottonwood, Swamp
81
Elm, White . . .
. . 210
Crab, IVairie
. U8
Elm, Wingefl .
. . 215
Crab, Wild
. 148
Elm, Wych . . . '
216
Crataegus coccinea
. 158
Elms, The . . .
. 210-216
Crataegus Crus-galli .
. 156
"Encina"
. . 64
Crataegus Douglasii .
. 158
Engelmann spruce .
. . 250
Crataegus mollis ....
. 157
English elm . . . .
. . 215
Crataegus oxyacantha
. 155
English hawthorn . .
. . 155
Crataegus pruinosa .
. 157
English walnut .
. . 33
Cuban pine
. 236
Euonymus atropurpureus
. . 136
Cucumber tree ....
. 107
European ash
. . 208
Cucumber tree, Large-leaved
. 106
European cypress
. . 272
Cupressvs macrocarpa
. 271
European dog^vood
. . 113
Cupressus sempervirens .
. 272
European ho ly . . .
. . 144
" Curly maplewood "
. 15
European mountain ash
. . 117
Custard-apple . . . . 1(
38, 170
European nettle tree
. . 162
Cypresses, The .... 2'
ri-274
Evergreens, Cone-bearint
; . 217-279
Evergreens, Leaves of .
. . 20
Date palm
281
Digger pine
239
Fagus Americanus
. . 42
Diospyrus Virgiuiana
172
Fibres of wood
. . 13
Dogwood, European
113
Ficus aurea . . . .
. . 167
Dog^A'ood, Flowering
111
Ficus elasticus
. . 166
Dogwood, Jamaica .
190
"Fiddleback" ash
. . 209
Dogwood, Western .
113
Figs, Tiie
. 165-167
DogAvoods, The . . . . 1]
L 1-1 14
258
Fir, Balsam . . . .
2.53
Douglas spruce ....
Fir, Blue
. . 257
Downy bass wood
72
Fir, Noble .
. . 256
Dwarf juniper ....
275
Fir, Red . . .
. . 254
Dwarf maple ....
199
Fir, Red {A- nobUis)
. . 256
Dwarf sumach
140
Fir, Silver
. . 257
Fir, White . . . .'
. . 256
Eastern arbor-vitae . . . .
268
Fir, White (^I. concolor)
. . 257
Eastern mountain ash .
116
Firs, The
. 251-257
Eastern red cedar . . . .
276
Flowering dogAvood .
. . Ill
P^astern service berry
159
"Foxtail" pines. The
. . 229
Ebonv, Texas
191
Fraxinus Americana .
. . 202
Elder, Box
199
Fraxinus excelsior
208
Elder-leaved mountain ash .
117
Fraxinus nigra
. . 204
Elm, American
210
Fraxinus Oregona
. . 207
Elm, Camperdown . . . .
216
Fraxinus ornus
. . 209
"Elm, Cork"
215
Fraxinus Pennsylcanica .
. . 205
Elm, English
215
Fraxinus Pennsylvanica (
anceo-
Elm, Hickory ....
21*
lata)
. . 206
Elm, Moose
213
Fraxinus quadrangulata .
. . 20«
286
GENERAL INDEX
PAGE
Frijolito 192
Fringe tree 126
Gerarde 73
Gleditsia triacanihos .... 180
Golden fig 167
Grain of wood 13
Gray pine 238
Great laurel 119
Great laurel magnolia . . . 104
Green ash 206
"GreteHerball" 73
Gum, Cotton 97
Gum, Sour or Black .... 96
Gum, Sweet 97
Gum trees. The .... 95-100
Gymnocladus dioicus . . . . 181
Gymnosperms .... 217-279
Hackberries, The . . . 160-162
HaTnamelis Virginiana . . . 134
"Hard-tack" 86
Haw, Black 115,158
Haw, Red 157
Haw, Scarlet 157-158
Hawthorns, The 155-159
Hazel, Witch 133
Heath family 118
Hemlocks, The .... 259-262
Hicoria alba 40
Eicoria glabra 41
Hicoria lacinata .... 38
Hicoria ovata 37
Hicoria Pecan 38
Hickories, The 36-41
Hickory elm 214
Hollies. The 143-146
Holly, American 145
Holly, European 144
Honey locust 179
Honey pod 188
Hop hornbeam 86
Hornbeam, American ... 85
Hornbeam, Hop 86
Horse bean 191
Horse-chestnut foliage ... 17
Horse-chestnuts, The . . .65-68
"Horse sugar" 125
Icthyomethia Piscipula . . . 190
Ilex aquifolium 144
Ilex Opaca
Ilex vomitoria
Incense cedar
"Iron oak"
"Iron wood," see also Hornbeam
Ironwood, Knowlton's
Jack pine .
Jamaica dogwood
Japanese persimmon
Japanese walnut .
"Judas-tree" .
Juglans, Californica
Juglans cinerea .
Juglans cordiformis
Juglans nigra
Juglans regia .
Juglans rwpestris .
Juglans Sieboldiana
June-berry
Junipers, The
Juniperus Barbadensis
Juniperus communis
Juniperu^ occidentalis
Juniperus Virginiana
Kaki c
Kalm, Peter
Kalmia latifolia .
Kentucky coffee tree
Knob-cone pine
Knowlton's ironwood
Lance-leaved Cottonwood
' ' Langues de femmes ' '
Larches, The
Large-leaved cucmnber tree
Larix Americana .
Larix occidentalis
Laurel family
Laurel, Great
Laurel, Mountain
Laiu-el oak ....
Laurus nobilis
Lawson cypress .
Leaves
"Lever- wood" ...
Librocedus Decurrens
Lime, Common ...
"Lime Trees," see Lindens
Linden, American
PAGE
145
145
270
52
87
. 190
. 175
. 33
. 183
. 29
. 30
. 33
. 31
. 33
. 29
. 33
. 159
274-277
. 277
. 275
. 276
. 276
175
XX
120
181
240
87
. 80
. 81
277-279
. 106
. 278
. 279
127-133
. 119
. 120
. 63
. 129
. 273
4, 16-20
270
72
70
GENERAL INDEX
287
Lindens, The .
Linnaeus ....
Liqvidambcr styraciflua
Liriodendron tulipifera
Live oak ....
Live oak (Q. agri folia)
Lobloll pine .
Locusts, The .
Lodge-pole pine .
Lombardy poplar
Longleaf pine
Madrona .
Magnoliu acuminata
Magnolia, Campbell's
Magnolia foetida
Magnolia. Glauca .
Magnolia, Great laurel
Magnolia marrophylla
Magnolia, Starry
Magnolia stellata
Magnolia tripetala
Magnolia yulan .
Magnolias, The .
Malus coronaria .
Mains ioensis
Maple, "Bird's eye" and
"Curly"
Maple, Black .
Maple, Dwarf
Maple, Mountain
Maple, Norway .
Maple, Oregon
Maple, Red .
Maple, Silver
Maple, Soft . .
Maple, Striped .
Maple, Sugar
Maple, Sycamore
Maple, Vine
Maple, Wier's weeping
Maples, The .
Melon papaw
Mesquite .
Mexican cottonwood
Mississippi Valley chestnut
Mockcrnut
Mohrodcndron diptera
Mohrodendron tctraptera
Monterey cypress
Monterey pine
P.\GE
G8-74
xviii, 7 'J
97
109
56
C4
230
177-184
245
77
232
121
107
103
104
105
104
106
103
103
108
102
101-111
148
148
15
195
199
198
200
197
195
196
196
198
194
200
197
196
193-^01
169
188
80
54
40
124
123
271
241
oak
Moose elm
Morns alba
Morns nigra .
Morns rnbra
Mountain ashes .
Mountain elm
Mountain hemlock
Mountain laurel .
Mountain maple .
Mountain pine
Moimtain sumach
Muir, John
Mulberries, The .
PAGE
. 213
. 164
. 165
. 163
116-118
. 215
. 261
. 120
. 198
. 224
. 140
xvi
163-165
Names of trees . , , xvii-xxiii
Nanny berry, Rusty . . . . 115
Narrow-leaved cottonwood . . 80
"Necklace-bearing" poplar . 78
Nettle tree, European . . . 162
Noble fir 256
Nomenclature of trees . xvii-xxiii
Norway maple 200
Norway pine 246
Norway spruce 248
Nut pines 230-232
Nut trees. The 28-74
Nyssa aquatica 97
Nyssa sylvatica 96
Oak, Basket 55
Oak, Black 58
Oak, Bur 51
Oak, California white ... 57
Oak, Chestnut 53
Oak, "Iron" 52
Oak, Live 56
Oak, Live (Q. agrifolia) ... 64
Oak, Mississippi Valley chestnut 54
Oak, Pacific post .... 57
Oak, Pin 60
Oak, Post 52
Oak, Red . . .
Oak, "Rock chestnut'
Oak, Scarlet
Oak, Single or I>aiu^l
Oak, Swamp white .
Oak, White . . .
Oak, Willow . . .
Oak, "Yellow" . .
Oaks, BlacJi . . .
Oaks, The
61
53
59
63
54
49
62
54
,58-65
,46-65
288
GENERAL INDEX
Oaks, White . .
Ohio buckeye
Oilnut ....
Old field pine
One-leaved nut pine
Oregon alder .
Oregon ash
Oregon maple
Oriental plane
Osage orange
Ostrya Krunvletoni
Ostrya Virginiana
Oxydendrurn arboreum
Pacific post oak
Palms, The .
Palo verde acacia
Papaws, The .
Paper birch
Parkinsonia aculeata
Pecan .
"Pepperidge"
Persea Borbonia
Persea gratissima
Persimmons, The
Picea Engelmanni
Picea excelsa .
Picea Mariana
Picea Parryana
Picea rubens
Picea Sitchensis
Pie cherry
Pignut
Pin cherry .
Pin oak
Pine, "Big-cone'
Pine, Cuban .
Pine, Digger .
Pine, Gray
Pine, Jack
Pine, Knob-cone
Pine, Loblolly
Pine, Lodge-pole
Pine, Longleaf
Pine, Monterey
Pine, Mountain
Pine, Norway
Pine, Old field
Pine, One-leaved nut
Pine, Pitch . .
Pine, Prickle-cone
PAGE
49-58
67
30
236
231
93
207
197
95
99
87
86
122
57
280
190
167-170
88
191
38
96
129
129
172-175
250
248
248
250
249
251
152
41
153
60
240
236
239
238
238
240
236
245
232
241
224
246
236
231
237
229
PAGE
Pine, Red 246
"Pine, Red" 258
Pine, Rocky Mountain white . 228
Pine, Rosemary 237
Pine, Scrub 244
Pine, Shortleaf 235
Pine, Slash .236
Pine, "Southern" .... 233
Pine, Sugar 225
Pine, Swamp 236
Pine, Tamarack 245
Pine, Western pitch .... 239
Pine, Western yellow . . . 242
Pine, White 222
Pine, White bark 228
Pines, "Foxtail" .... 229
Pmes, Nut 230-232
Pines, The 220-247
Pinon 230
Pinus albicaulis 228
Pinus aristata 229
Pinus attenuata 240
Pinus Balfouriana .... 229
Pinus Caribaea * .... 236
Pinus cembroides 230
Pinus contorta 244
Pinus Coulteri 239
Pinus divaricata 238
Pinus echinata 235
Pinus edulis 230
Pinus flexilis t. 228
Pinus Lambertiana .... 225
Pinus monophylla . . . .231
Pinus Monticola 224
Pinus palustris 232
Pinus ponderosa 242
Pinus quadrifolia .... 230
Pinus radiata 241
Pinus resinosa 246
Pinus rigida 237
Pinus Sabiniana 239
Pinus Strobus 222
Pinus Taeda 236
Pitch pine 237
Pitch pme. Western ... 239
Pitch pines. The .... 232
Plane, Oriental 95
Platanus occidentalis ... 93
Platanu^ orientalis .... 95
Plums, The 149-152
"Pod-bearers." The . . . 176-192
GENERAL INDEX
289
PAGE
Poison sumach 141
Pond apples, The,
170-172
Poplar, IJalsam .
,
. 79
Poplar, Black .
77
Poplar, Carolina
.
78
Poplar, Lombardy
77
Poplar, "Necklace-bearing"
78
Poplar, Silver-leaved
76
Poplar, White . . .
76
Poplars, The . .
75-81
Populus acuminata
80
Populus alba .
76
Populus angustifolia
80
Populus halsamijera
79
Populus deltoidca
77
PopvJus heterophyUa
81
Populus Mcxicana
80
Populus nigra
77
Populus tremuLoides
78
Populus irichocarpa
80
Post oak . . .
52
Prairie crab . .
148
Prickle-cone pine
229
Prickwood
137
Prosopis pubescens
189
Prosopis Tuliflora
188
Prunus Americanua
150
Prunus avium
152
Prunus cerasus
152
Prunus nigra' .
151
Prunus Pennsylvanica .
153
Prunus pseudo-Cerasus .
152
Prunus serotina .
153
Prunus Virginiana .
154
Pscudotsuga mucronala
258
Pussy willow ....
84
Quaking asp ....
78
Quercus acuminata .
54
Quercus agrifolia - .
. 64
Quercus alba
. 49
Quercus chrysolepis .
. 63
Quercus coccinca .
. 59
Quercus (hirryana
. 57
Quercus lobata ....
. 57
Quercus macrocarpa .
. 51
Quercus Michauxii .
. 55
Quercus minor
. 52
Quercus palustris .
60
Quercus Phellos .
62
Quercus platanoides
.
. 54
PAGE
Quercus prinus 53
Quercus rubra 01
Quercus veluiina . . ' ' . 58
Quercus Virginiana ... 66
Ram's horn ash .... 209
Red alder 93
Red ash 205
Red bay 129
Red birch 90
Red cedar 269
Red cedar. Eastern . . . .276
Red elm 213
Red fir 254
Red fir (A. nobilis) .... 256
Rew haw 157
Red juniper 277
Red maple 195
Red mulberry 163
Red oak 61
Red pine 246
"Red pine" 258
Red plum. Wild 150
Red spruce 249
Redbud 182
Redwood 266
Retama 191
Rhododendron 118
Rhododendron maximum . . 110
Bhus copaUina 140
Rhus glabra 141
Rhus hirta 138
Rhis Vernix 141
Rings, The Annual .... 12
River birch 90
Robinia Pseudacacia . . . . 178
Robinia viscosa 179
"Rock chestnut" oak ... 53
Rock elm 214
Rocky Mountain white pine . 228
Rose bay 119
Rosemary pine 237
Rowan tree 117
Royal palm 280
Rubber j)Iant 160
Rum cherry 153
Rusty nannybcrry . . . .115
Salix Babylonica 83
Salix discolor ...... 84
290
GENERAL INDEX
PAGE
Sap 6
Sargent, Professor . . . . xxi
Sassafras 130
Scarlet haw 157
Scarlet oak 59
Scientific names xvii
Scotch elm 216
Screw-bean 189
Screw-pod 189
Scrub pine 244
Seaside alder 92
Sequoia sempervirens . , . 266
Sequoia Wellingtonia . . . 263
Sequoias, The ... 262-268
Service-berries, The \ . . 159-160
Shad-bush 159
Shagbark .37
Shaw botanical garden . . . xiv
Sheepberry 114
Shellbark 37
SheUbark, Big 38
Shingle oak 63
Shortleaf pine 235
"Silvaof North America" . . xxi
Silver beU trees 123
Silver fir 257
Silver-leaved poplar*. ... 76
Silver maple 196
Silver wattle 187
Slash pine 236
Slippery elm 213
Small-leaved ehn .... 215
Smoke tree 142
Smooth sumach 141
Snowdrop tree 124
"Snowdrop tree" .... 123
Soft maple 196
Soft pines 222-229
Sophora secundiflora .... 192
Sorbus Americana ... .116
Sorbits Aucwparia , ... 117
Sorbus sambucifolia . . . . 117
Sorrel tree 122
Sour gum 96
Sour-wood 122
"Southern" pine .... 233
Southwestern walnut ... 29
"Species plantarum" . . . xix
Spruce, Black 248
Spruce, Blue 250
Spruce, Douglas 258
Spruce, Engelinann
Spruce, Norway .
Spruce, Red .
Spruce, Tideland
Spruces, The .
Staghorn sumach
Starch ....
Starry magnolia .
Striped maple.
Sugar maple .
Sugar pine
Sumach, Black dwarf
Sumach, Dwarf .
Sumach, Mountain
Sumach, Poison .
Siunach, Smooth
Sumach, Staghorn
Sumachs, The
Swamp bay .
Swamp Cottonwood
Swamp pine .
Swamp white oak
Sweet buckeye .
Sweet cherry , .
Sweet gum
Sweet leaf
Sycamore maple .
Sycamores, The .
Symplocos tinctoria
Tamarack pine .
Tamaracks, The .
"Tassel trees" .
Taxodium distichum
Texas ebony .
Thuya ocddenialis
Thuya plicata
Tideland spruce .
Tilia Americana .
Tilia heterophylla
Tilia pubescens .
TUia vulgaris . .
Toxylon pomiferum
Transpiration
Trees, Bark of .
Trees, Breathing of
Trees, Buds of
Trees, Chemistry of
Trees, Food of
Trees, Growth of
Trees, How to know the
xiv-xvi
GENERAL INDEX
291
Trees in winter .
Trees, Leaves of .
Trees, Life of .
Trees, Names of
Trees, Opposite-leaved
Trees, Sap of .
Trembling aspen .
Tsuga Canadensis
Tsuga heterophylla
Tsuga Martetuiiana
Tulip tree
** Tupelo" .
Ulmus alata
Ulmus Americana
Vhnus campestris
Ulmiis fulva .
Ulmus montana .
Ulmus Thomasi .
Umbrella tree
Vihumum lentago.
Viburnum prunifolium
Viburnum rufidulum
Viburnums, The .
Vine maple
"Virgilia" . . .
Wahoo ....
"Wahoo"
Wabut, Black . .
Walnut, California .
Walnut, English . .
Walnut, Japanese
Walnut, Southwestern
Walnut, White . .
Walnuts, The . .
"Water beech" .
Wattles, The . . .^
Weeping maple, Wier's
Weeping willow
Western doguood
Western hemlock
Western juniper .
Western larch .
PAGE
20-27
ltJ-20
3-27
xvii-xxiii
XV
6
78
260
261
261
109
96
215
210
215
213
216
214
108
114
115
115
114
197
183
137
215
31
29
33
33
29
30
.28-35
85
184-187
196
83
113
261
276
279
PAGE
Western pitch pine .... 239
Western service-berry . . . 160
Western yellow pine . . . 242
White ash 202
White-bark pine .... 228
White basswood 71
White birch 89
White cedar 272
White elm 210
White fir 256
White fir (A. (xmeolor) ... 267
White mulberry 164
White oak 49
White oak group . . . .49-58
White pine 222
White pine. Rocky Mountain . 228
White poplar 76
White walnut 30
Wier's weeping maple . . 196
"Wild banana tree" ... 169
Wild black cherry .... 153
Wild cherry 153
Wild crab 148
Wild red plum 150
Willow oak 62
Willow, Pussy 84
Willow, Weeping .... 83
Willows, The 81-84
Winged elm 215
Winter, Trees in • 20-27
"Winter berries" 143
Witch hazel 133
Wood 12-16
Wych elm 216
Yaupon 145
Yellow birch 89
Yellow locust 178
"Yellow oak" 54
Yellow pine. Western . . . 242
Yellow plum 150
Yellow- wood 183
Yulan magnolia 102
Zigia Jlcxicaulis . . « „ . 191