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Title: Trees Worth Knowing
Author: Julia Ellen Rogers
Release Date: October 11, 2011 [EBook #37717]
Language: English
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TREES WORTH KNOWING
[Illustration: A BEND IN THE TRAIL]
_LITTLE NATURE LIBRARY_
TREES
WORTH KNOWING
BY JULIA ELLEN ROGERS
(_Author of_ _The Tree Book_, _The Tree Guide_, _Trees
Every Child Should Know_, _The Book of Useful
Plants_, _The Shell Book_, _etc., etc._)
[Illustration: "Fructus Quam Folia"]
_With forty-eight illustrations, sixteen being in color_
PUBLISHED BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
FOR
NELSON DOUBLEDAY, INC.
1923
_Copyright, 1917, by_
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
_All rights reserved, including that of
translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS. GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION xi
PART I
THE LIFE OF THE TREES 3
PART II
THE NUT TREES 28
The Walnuts; The Hickories; The Beech; The Chestnuts;
The Oaks; The Horse-chestnuts; The Lindens
PART III
WATER-LOVING TREES 75
The Poplars; The Willows; The Hornbeams; The Birches;
The Alders; The Sycamores; The Gum Trees; The Osage Orange
PART IV
TREES WITH SHOWY FLOWERS AND FRUITS 101
The Magnolias; The Dogwoods; The Viburnums; The Mountain
Ashes; The Rhododendron; The Mountain Laurel; The Madroña;
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
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 Elms
PART VIII
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 Gum 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 Sumach 150-151
Buds, Leaves, and Fruit of the Wild Crabapple 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
Honey Locust's Trunk, and Black Locust's Flowers and Leaves 198
Sugar Maple 198-199
Red Maple 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 Norway Spruce 246
Black Spruce Cones and Needles 247
Spray of Arbor-vitae 262
American Larch Cones and Needles 263
INTRODUCTION
Occasionally I meet a person who says: "I know nothing at all about
trees." This modest disclaimer is generally sincere, but it has always
turned out to be untrue. "Oh, well, that old sugar maple, I've always
known that tree. We used to tap all the sugar maples on the place
every spring." Or again: "Everybody knows a white birch by its bark."
"Of course, anybody who has ever been chestnutting knows a chestnut
tree." Most people know Lombardy poplars, those green exclamation
points so commonly planted in long soldierly rows on roadsides and
boundary lines in many parts of the country. Willows, too, everybody
knows are willows. The best nut trees, the shagbark, chestnut, and
butternut, need no formal introduction. The honey locust has its
striking three-pronged thorns, and its purple pods dangling in winter
and skating off over the snow. The beech has its smooth, close bark of
Quaker 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
command. If there is energy to begin the undertaking it will soon
furnish its own motive power. Tree students, like bird students,
become enthusiasts. To understand their enthusiasm one must follow
their examples.
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 botanical names for the benefit of the public.
Yet the places for the beginner are his own dooryard, the streets he
travels four times a day 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 with the tree families. But not at first.
The trees may all be set out in tribes and families and labelled with
their scientific names. They will but confuse and discourage him.
There is not time to make their acquaintance. They overwhelm with the
mere number of kinds. Great arboreta and parks are very scarce. Trees
are everywhere. 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
foundation, even if you are sure about only the sugar maple and the
white birch.
The characters to note in studying trees are: leaves, flowers, fruits,
bark, buds, bud arrangement, leaf scars, and tree form. The season of
the year determines which features are most 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 gum and bur oak are easily remembered traits. The peculiar
horizontal peeling of bark on birches designates most of the genus.
The prussic-acid taste of a twig sets the cherry tribe apart. The
familiar aromatic taste of the green twigs of sassafras is its best
winter character; the mitten-shaped leaves distinguish it in summer.
It is necessary to get some book on the subject to discover the names
of trees one studies, and to act as teacher at times. A book makes a
good staff, but a poor crutch. The eyes and the judgment are the
dependable things. In spring the way in which the leaves open is
significant; so are the flowers. Every tree when it reaches proper age
bears flowers. Not all bear fruit, but blossoms come on every tree. In
summer the leaves and fruits are there to be examined. In autumn the
ripening fruits are the special features.
To know a tree's name is the beginning of acquaintance--not an end in
itself. There is all the rest of one's life in which to follow it up.
Tree friendships are very precious things. John Muir, writing among
his beloved trees of the Yosemite Valley, adjures his world-weary
fellow men to seek the companionship of trees.
* * * * *
"To learn how they live and behave in pure wildness, to see them in
their varying aspects through the seasons and weather, rejoicing in
the great storms, putting forth their new leaves and flowers, when all
the streams are in flood, and the birds singing, and sending away
their seeds in the thoughtful Indian summer, when all the landscape is
glowing in deep, calm enthusiasm--for this you must love them and live
with them, as free from schemes and care and time as the trees
themselves."
_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 resents botanical names, and
demands to know the tree's name in "plain English." Trees have both
common and scientific names, and each has its use. Common names were
applied to important trees by people, the world over, before science
was born. Many trees were never noticed by anybody until botanists
discovered and named them. They may never get common names at all.
A name is a description reduced to its lowest terms. It consists
usually of a surname and a descriptive adjective: Mary Jones, white
oak, _Quercus alba_. Take the oaks, for example, and let us consider
how they got their names, common and scientific. All acorn-bearing
trees are oaks. They are found in Europe, Asia, and America. Their
usefulness and beauty have impressed people. The Britons called them
by a word which in our modern speech is _oak_, and as they came to
know the different kinds, they added a descriptive word to the name of
each. But "plain English" is not useful to the Frenchman. _Chêne_ is
his name for the acorn trees. The German has his _Eichenbaum_, the
Roman had his _Quercus_, and who knows what the Chinaman and the
Hindoo in far Cathay or the American Indian called these trees? Common
names made the trouble when the Tower of Babel was building.
Latin has always been the universal language of scholars. It is dead,
so that it can be depended upon to remain unchanged in its vocabulary
and in its forms and usages. Scientific names are exact, and remain
unchanged, though an article or a book using them may be translated
into all the modern languages. The word _Quercus_ clears away
difficulties. French, English, German hearers know what trees are
meant--or they know just where in books of their own language to find
them described.
The abbreviation that follows a scientific name tells who 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 ironwoods in American forests. They belong, with two exceptions,
to different genera and to at least five different botanical families.
To illustrate the second: The familiar American elm is known by at
least seven local popular names. The bur oak has seven. Many of these
are 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
writer indicate with exactness which species he is talking about. The
unscientific reader can go to the botanical manual or cyclopedia and
under this name find the species described.
In California grows a tree called by three popular names: leatherwood,
slippery elm, and silver oak. Its name is _Fremontia_. It is as far
removed from elms and oaks as sheep are from cattle and horses. But
the names stick. It would be as easy to eradicate the trees, root and
branch, from a region as to persuade people to abandon names they are
accustomed to, though they may concede that you have proved these
names incorrect, or meaningless, or vulgar. Nicknames like nigger
pine, he huckleberry, she balsam, and bull bay ought to be dropped by
all people who lay claim to intelligence and taste.
With all their inaccuracies, common names have interesting histories,
and the good ones are full of helpful suggestion to the learner. Many
are literal translations of the Latin names. The first writers on
botany wrote in Latin. Plants were described under the common name, if
there was one; if not, the plant was named. The different species of
each group were distinguished by the descriptions and the drawings
that accompanied them. Linnaeus attempted to bring the work of
botanical scholars together, 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 "Species Plantarum" contained
was systematically arranged. All the different species in one genus
were brought together. They were described, each under a number; and
an adjective word, usually descriptive of some marked characteristic,
was written in as a marginal index.
After Linnaeus's time botanists found that the genus name in
combination with this marginal word made a convenient and exact means
of designating the plant. Thus Linnaeus became the acknowledged
originator of the binomial (two-name) system of nomenclature now in
use in all sciences. It is a delightful coincidence that while
Linnaeus was engaged on his great work, North America, that vast new
field of botanical exploration, was being traversed by another Swedish
scientist. Peter Kalm sent his specimens and his descriptive notes to
Linnaeus, who described and named the new plants in his book. The
specimens swelled the great herbarium at the University of Upsala.
Among trees unknown to science before are the Magnolia, named in honor
of the great French botanist, Magnol. Robinia, the locust, honors
another French botanist, Robin, and his son. Kalmia, the beautiful
mountain laurel, immortalizes 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_, Marsh. (_Acer saccharinum_,
Wang. _Acer barbatum_, Michx.)" This means that the earliest name
given this tree by a botanist was that of Marshall. Wangheimer and
Michaux are therefore thrown out; the names given by them are among
the synonyms.
Our cork elm was until recently called "_Ulmus racemosa_, Thomas." The
discovery that the name _racemosa_ was given long ago to the cork elm
of Europe discredited it for the 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
Negundo_, Linn." On the other hand, the tan-bark oak, which is
intermediate in character between oaks and chestnuts, has been taken
by Professor Sargent in his Manual, 1905, out of the genus _Quercus_
and set in a genus by itself. From "_Quercus densiflora_, Hook. and
Arn." it is called "_Pasania densiflora_, Sarg.," the specific name
being carried over to the new genus.
About one hundred thousand species of plants have been named by
botanists. They believe that one half of the world's flora is covered.
Trees are better known than less conspicuous plants. Fungi and
bacteria are just coming into notice. Yet even among trees new species
are constantly being described. Professor Sargent described 567 native
species in his "Silva of North America," published 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
_piñon_ and _madroña_ in the southwest. _Pecanier_ and _bois d'arc_
came with many other French names with the Acadians to Louisiana. The
Indians had many trees named, and we wisely kept hickory, wahoo,
catalpa, persimmon, and a few others of them.
Woodsmen have generally chosen descriptive names which are based on
fact and are helpful to learners. Botanists have done this, too. Bark
gives the names to shagbark hickory, striped maple, and naked wood.
The color names white birch, black locust, blue beech. Wood names red
oak, yellow-wood, and white-heart hickory. The texture names rock elm,
punk oak, and soft pine. The uses name post oak, canoe birch, and
lodge-pole pine.
The 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 linings are referred to in
silver maple, white poplar, and white basswood. Color of foliage, in
gray pine, blue oak, and golden fir. 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 become the generic
botanical ones, as acacia, ailanthus, and viburnum. Others modify
these slightly, as pine from _Pinus_, and poplar from _Populus_. The
number of local names a species has depends upon the notice it
attracts and the range it has. The loblolly pine, important as a
lumber tree, extends along the coast from New Jersey to Texas. It has
twenty-two nicknames.
The scientific name is for use when accurate designation of a species
is required; the common name for ordinary speech. "What a beautiful
_Quercus alba_!" sounds very silly and pedantic, even if it falls on
scientific ears. Only persons of very shallow scientific learning use
it on such informal occasions.
Let us keep the most beautiful and fitting among common names, and
work for their general adoption. There are no hard names once they
become familiar ones. Nobody hesitates or stumbles over chrysanthemum
and rhododendron, though these sonorous Greek derivatives have four
syllables. Nobody asks what these names are "in plain English."
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 approaches, to accept the
invitation of the south wind and sun.
The protective scale leaves fall when they are no longer needed. This
vernal leaf fall makes little show on the forest floor, but it greatly
exceeds in number of leaves the autumnal defoliation.
Sometimes these bud scales lengthen before the shoot spares them. The
silky, brown scales of the beech buds sometimes add twice their
length, thus protecting the lengthening shoot which seems more
delicate than most kinds, less ready to encounter unguarded the wind
and the sun. The hickories, shagbark, and mockernut, show scales more
than three inches long.
Many leaves are rosy, or lilac tinted, when they open--the waxy
granules of their precious "leaf green" screened by these colored
pigments from the full glare of the sun. Some leaves have wool or silk
growing like the pile of velvet on their surfaces. These hairs are
protective also. They shrivel or blow away when the leaf comes to its
full development. Occasionally a species retains the down on the lower
surface of its leaves, or, oftener, merely in the angles of its veins.
The folding and plaiting of the leaves bring the ribs and veins into
prominence. The delicate green web sinks into folds between and is
therefore protected from the weather. Young leaves hang limp, never
presenting their perpendicular surfaces to the sun.
Another protection to the infant leaf is the pair of stipules at its
base. Such stipules enclose the leaves of tulip and magnolia trees.
The beech leaf has two long strap-like stipules. Linden stipules are
green and red--two concave, oblong leaves, like the two valves of a
pea pod. Elm stipules are conspicuous. The black willow has large,
leaf-like, heart-shaped stipules, green as the leaf and saw-toothed.
Most stipules shield the tender leaf during the hours of its
helplessness, and fall away as the leaf matures. Others persist, as is
often seen in the black willows.
With this second vernal leaf fall (for stipules are leaves) the leaves
assume independence, and take up their serious work. They are ready to
make the living for the whole tree. Nothing contributed by soil or
atmosphere--no matter how rich it is--can become available for the
tree's use until the leaves receive and prepare it.
Every leaf that spreads its green blade to the sun is a 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 specialized 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 palisade cells
and the under surface, the tissue is spongy. There is no crowding of
cells here. They are irregularly spherical, and cohere loosely, being
separated by ample air spaces, which communicate with the outside
world by the doorways mentioned above. An ordinary apple leaf has
about one hundred thousand of these stomates to each square inch of
its under surface. So the 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. Burn it now, and ashes remain.
The water and the ashes came from the soil. That which came from the
air passed off in gaseous form with the burning. Some elements from
the soil also were converted by the heat into gases, and escaped by
the chimneys.
Take that same stick of wood, and, instead of burning it in an open
fireplace or stove, smother it in a pit and burn it slowly, and it
comes out a stick of charcoal, having its shape and size and grain
preserved. It is carbon, its only impurity being a trace of ashes.
What would have escaped up a chimney as carbonic-acid gas is confined
here as a solid, and fire can yet liberate it.
The vast amount of carbon which the body of a tree contains came into
its leaves as a gas, carbon dioxide. The soil furnished various
minerals, which were brought up in the "crude sap." Most of these
remain as ashes when the wood is burned. Water comes from the soil. So
the list of raw materials of tree food is complete, and the next
question is: How are they prepared for the tree's use?
The ascent of the sap from roots to leaves brings water with mineral
salts dissolved in it. Thus potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron,
sulphur, nitrogen, and phosphorus are brought to the leaf
laboratories--some are useful, some useless. The stream of water
contributes of itself to the laboratory whatever the leaf cells demand
to keep their own substance sufficiently moist, and those molecules
that are necessary to furnish hydrogen and oxygen for the making of
starch. Water is needed also to keep full the channels of the
returning streams, but the great bulk of water that the roots send up
escapes by evaporation through the curtained doorways of the leaves.
[Illustration: _See page 37_
SHAGBARK HICKORY]
[Illustration: _See page 40_
MOCKERNUT FRUIT AND LEAVES]
Starch contains carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, the last two in the
exact proportion that they bear to each other in water, H^{2}O. The
carbon comes in as carbon dioxide, CO^{2}. 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^{6}H^{10}O^{5}.
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 perfects the buds for the coming year.
Sunset puts a stop to starch making. The power is turned off till
another day. The distribution of starch goes on. The surplus is
unloaded, and the way is cleared for work next day. On a sunless day
less starch is made than on a bright one.
Excess of water and of free oxygen is noticeable in this making of
starch. Both escape in invisible gaseous form through the stomates. No
carbon escapes, for it is all used up, and a continual supply of CO^2
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 function of respiration, they
may properly be called the lungs of trees, for the respiration of
animals differs in no essential from that of plants.
The bulk of the work of the leaves is accomplished before midsummer.
They are damaged by whipping in the wind, by the ravages of fungi and
insects of many kinds. Soot and dust clog the stomates. Mineral
deposits cumber the working cells. Finally they become sere and russet
or "die like the dolphin," passing in all the splendor of sunset skies
to oblivion on the leaf mould under the trees.
_The Growth of a Tree_
The great chestnut tree on the hillside has cast its burden of ripe
nuts, flung down the empty burs, and given its yellow leaves to the
autumn winds. Now the owner has cut down its twin, which was too near
a neighbor for the well-being of either, and is converting it into
lumber. The lopped limbs have gone to the woodpile, and the boards
will be dressed and polished and used for the woodwork of the new
house. Here is our opportunity to see what the bark of the living tree
conceals--to study the anatomy of the tree--to learn something of
grain and wood rings and knots.
The most amazing fact is that this "too, too solid flesh" of the tree
body was all made of dirty water and carbonic-acid gas. Well may we
feel a kind of awe and reverence for the leaves and the cambium--the
builders of this wooden structure we call a tree. The bark, or outer
garment, covers the tree completely, from tip of farthest root to tip
of highest twig. Under the bark is the slimy, colorless living layer,
the _cambium_, which we may define as the separation between wood and
bark. It seems to have no perceptible diameter, though it impregnates
with its substance the wood and bark next to it. This cambium is a
continuous undergarment, lining the bark everywhere, covering the wood
of every root and every twig as well as of the trunk and all its
larger divisions.
Under the cambium is the wood, which forms the real body of the tree.
It is a hard and fibrous substance, which in cross section of root or
trunk or limb or twig is seen to be in fine, but distinctly marked,
concentric rings about a central pith. This pith is most conspicuous
in the twigs.
Now, what does the chestnut tree accomplish in a single growing
season? We have seen its buds open in early spring and watched the
leafy shoots unfold. Many of these bore clusters of blossoms in
midsummer, 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 growth by extending their tips. These fresh rootlets clothed
with the velvety root hairs are new, just as the shoots are new that
bear the leaves on the ends of the branches.
There is a general popular impression that trees grow in height by the
gradual lengthening of trunk and limbs. If this were true, nails
driven into the trunk in a vertical line would gradually become
farther apart. They do not, as observation proves. Fence wires
stapled to growing trees are not spread apart nor carried upward,
though the trees may serve as posts for years, and the growth in
diameter may swallow up staple and wire in a short time. Normal wood
fibres are inert and do not lengthen. Only the season's rootlets and
leafy shoots are soft and alive and capable of lengthening by cell
division.
The work of the leaves has already been described. The return current,
bearing starch in soluble form, flows freely among the cells of the
cambium. Oxygen is there also. The cambium cell in the growing season
fulfills its life mission by absorbing food and dividing. This is
growth--and the power to grow comes only to the cell attacked by
oxygen. The rebuilding of its tissues multiplies the substance of the
cambium at a rapid rate. A cell divides, producing two "daughter
cells." Each is soon as large as its parent, and ready to divide in
the same way. A cambium cell is a microscopic object, but in a tree
there are millions upon millions of them. Consider how large an area
of cambium a large tree has. It is exactly equivalent to the total
area of its bark. Two cells by dividing make four. The next division
produces eight, then sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, in geometric
proportion. The cell's power and disposition to divide seems limited
only by the food and oxygen supply. The cambium layer itself remains a
very narrow zone of the newest, most active cells. The margins of the
cambium are crowded with cells whose walls are thickened and whose
protoplasm is no longer active. The accumulation of these worn-out
cells forms the total of the season's growth, the annual ring of wood
on one side of the cambium and the annual layer of bark on the other.
What was once a delicate cell now becomes a hollow wood fibre, thin
walled, but becoming thickened as it gets older. For a few years the
superannuated cell is a part of the sap wood and is used as a tube in
the system through which the crude sap mounts to the leaves. Later it
may be stored full of starch, and the sap will flow up through newer
tubes. At last the walls of the old cell harden and darken with
mineral deposits. Many annual rings lie between it and the cambium. It
has become a part of the heart wood of the tree.
The cells of its own generation that were crowded in the other
direction made part of an annual layer of bark. As new layers formed
beneath them, and the bark stretched and cracked, they lost their
moisture by contact with the outer air. Finally they became thin,
loose 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.
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 cambium, insinuated between
the vertical fibres. These are seen on a cross-section of a log as
narrow, radiating lines starting from the pith and cutting straight
through heart wood and sap wood to the bark. A tangential section of a
log (the surface exposed by the removal of a slab on any side) shows
these "pith rays," or "medullary rays" as long, tapering streaks. A
longitudinal section made from bark to centre, as when a log is
"quarter-sawed," shows a full side view of the "medullary rays." They
are often an inch wide or more in oak; these wavy, irregular, gleaming
fibre bands are known in the furniture trade as the "mirrors" of oak.
They take a beautiful polish, and are highly esteemed in cabinet work.
The best white oak has 20 per cent. to 25 per cent. of its substance
made up of these pith rays. The horny texture of its wood, together
with its strength and durability, give white oak an enviable place
among timber trees, while the beauty of its pith rays ranks it high
among ornamental woods.
The grain of wood is its texture. Wide annual rings with large pores
mark coarse-grained woods. They need "filling" with varnish or other
substance before they can be satisfactorily polished. Fine-grained
woods, if hard, polish best. Trees of slow growth usually have
fine-grained wood, though the rule is not universal.
Ordinarily wood fibres are parallel with their pith. They are straight
grained. Exceptions to this rule are constantly encountered. The chief
cause of variation is the fact that tree trunks branch. Limbs have
their origin in the pith of the stems that bear them. Any stem is
normally one year older than the branch it bears. So the base of any
branch is a cone quite buried in the parent stem. A cross-section of
this cone in a board sawed from the trunk is a _knot_. Its size and
number of rings indicate its age. If the knot is diseased and loose,
it will fall out, leaving a _knot hole_. The fibres of the wood of a
branch are extensions of those just below it on the main stem. They
spread out so as to meet around the twig and continue in parallel
lines to its extremity. The fibres contiguous to those which were
diverted from the main stem to clothe the branch must spread so as to
meet above the branch, else the parent stem would be bare in this
quarter. The union of stem and branch is weak above, as is shown by
the clean break made above a twig when it is torn off, and the
stubborn tearing of the fibres below down into the older stem. A half
hour spent at the woodpile or among the trees with a jack-knife will
demonstrate the laws by which the straight grain of wood is diverted
by the insertion of limbs. The careful picking up and tearing back of
the fibres of bark and wood will answer all our questions. Basswood
whose fibres are tough is excellent for illustration.
When a twig breaks off, the bark heals the wound and the grain becomes
straight over the place. Trees crowded in a forest early divest
themselves of their lower branches. These die for lack of sun and air,
and the trunk covers their stubs with layers of straight-grained wood.
Such timbers are the masts of ships, telegraph poles, and the best
bridge timbers. Yet buried in their heart wood are the roots of every
twig, great or small, that started out to grow when the tree was
young. These knots are mostly small and sound, so they do not detract
from the value of the lumber. It is a pleasure to work upon such a
"stick of timber."
A tree that grows in the open is clothed to the ground with branches,
and its grain is found to be warped by hundreds of knots when it
reaches the sawmill. Such a tree is an ornament to the landscape, but
it makes inferior, unreliable lumber. The carpenter and the wood
chopper despise it, for it ruins tools and tempers.
Besides the natural diversion of straight grain by knots, there are
some abnormal forms to notice. Wood sometimes shows wavy grain under
its bark. Certain trees twist in 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 suddenly to
the right, producing a "cross grain" that defies attempts to split it.
"Bird's-eye" and "curly maple" are prizes for the furniture maker.
Occasionally a tree of swamp or sugar maple keeps alive the crowded
twigs of its sapling for years, and forms 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 body. The annual layers preserve all the inequalities. Dots
surrounded by wavy rings are scattered over the boards when the tree
is sawed. This is 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 display, 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 considerable traces of green in them. Gradually
these are dropping, and the shining buds remain as a pledge that the
summer story just ended will be told again next year.
Perhaps such a sight is more impressive if one realizes the vast
importance of the work the leaves of a summer accomplish for the tree
before their surrender.
The shedding of leaves is a habit broad-leaved trees have learned by
experience in contact with cold winters. The swamp magnolia is a
beautiful evergreen tree in Florida. In Virginia the leaves shrivel,
but they cling throughout the season. In New Jersey and north as far
as Gloucester, where the tree occurs sparingly, it is frankly
deciduous. Certain oaks in the Northern states have a stubborn way of
clinging to their dead leaves all winter. Farther south some of these
species grow and their leaves do not die in fall, but are practically
evergreen, lasting till next year's shoots push them 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 will 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 when the moment
arrives the lightest breath of wind--even the weight of the withered
leaf itself--causes the natural separation. And the leaflets
simultaneously fall away from their common petiole.
There are more important things happening in leaves in late summer
than the formation of corky cells. The plump green blades are full of
valuable substance that the tree can ill afford to spare. In fact, a
leaf is a layer of the precious cambium spread out on a framework of
veins and covered with a delicate, transparent skin--a sort of
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 proportionately. 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 shriveled 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 attends the ripening of a leaf. (Leaf ripening is as
natural as the ripening of fruit.) The waxy granules disintegrate, and
a yellow liquid shows its colors through the delicate leaf walls. Now
other pigments, some curtained from view by the chlorophyll, others
the products of decomposition, 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.
Crisp and dry the leaves fall. Among the crystals and granules that
remain in their empty chambers there is little but waste that the tree
can well afford to be rid of--substances that have clogged the leaf
and impeded its work.
We have been mistaken in attributing the gay colors of autumnal
foliage to the action of frost. The ripening of the leaves occurs in
the season of warm days and frosty nights, but it does not follow that
the two phenomena belong together as cause and effect. Frost no doubt
hastens the process. But the chemical changes that attend the
migration of the 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 substance
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 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 persist until
they are pushed off by the swelling buds in spring. Others cling a
year longer, in sorry contrast with the new foliage. We may believe
that this is an indolent habit induced by climatic conditions.
Leaves of evergreens cling from three to five years. Families and
individuals differ; altitude and latitude produce 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 strength and beauty of tree
architecture which the foliage 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 with the mystery of the winter
trance of the trees. They know that each spring reënacts 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 corresponding 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 life. Girdle a limb or a twig and all above the
injury suffers practical amputation.
The bark protects the cambium, and the cambium is the tissue which by
cell multiplication in the growing season produces the yearly
additions of wood and bark. Buds are growing points set along the
twigs. They produce leafy shoots, as a rule. Some are 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 materials 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 laboratories 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 summer. It is the
time of growth and of preparation for the coming winter and for the
spring that follows it. Winter is the time of rest--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 dormant 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 intermittent, 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.
[Illustration: _See page 42_
A GROVE OF BEECHES]
[Illustration: _See page 44_
THE CHESTNUT]
Leaves are the lungs of plants. In the growing season 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
process. 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 breathing pores--not holes, likely to
become clogged with dust, but porous, corky tissue that filters the
air as it comes in. In most trees the smooth epidermis of twigs is
shed as the bark thickens and breaks into furrows. This obscures,
though it does not obliterate, the air passages. Cherry and birch
trees retain the silky epidermal bark on limbs, and in patches, at
least, on the trunks of old trees. Here the lenticels are seen as
parallel, horizontal slits, open sometimes, but usually filled with
the characteristic corky substance. 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 unfolding on the
tender shoots a bud will be found in each angle between leaf and stem.
All summer long its bud is the especial charge of each particular
leaf. If accident 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 sentimental, but
untrue, that study of buds is bound to overthrow. 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 between a warm-blooded
animal wrapped in fur, its bodily heat kept up by fires within (the
rapid oxidation of fats 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 protoplasm,
semi-fluid in consistency in the growing season. They have plenty of
room for expansion and division. Freezing would rupture their walls,
and this would mean disintegration and death. Nature prepares the
cells to be frozen without any harm. The water of the protoplasm is
withdrawn by osmosis into the spaces between the cells. The
mucilaginous substance left behind is loosely enclosed by the crumpled
cell wall. Thus we see that a tree has about as much water in it in
winter as in summer. Green wood cut in winter burns slowly and oozes
water at the ends in the same discouraging way as it does in
summertime.
A tree takes on in winter the temperature of the surrounding air. In
cold weather the water in buds and trunk and cambium freezes solid.
Ice crystals form in the intercellular spaces where they have ample
room, and so they do no damage in their alternate freezing and
thawing. The protoplasm stiffens in excessive cold, but when the
thermometer rises, life stirs again. Motion, breathing, and feeding
are essential to cell life.
It is hard to believe that buds freeze solid. But cut one open in a
freezing cold room, and before you breathe upon it take a good look
with a magnifier, and you should make out the ice crystals. The bark
is actually frozen upon a stick of green stovewood. The sap that oozes
out of the pith and heart wood was frozen, and dripped not at all
until it was brought indoors.
What is meant by the freezing of fruit buds in winter, by which the
peach crop is so often lost in Northern states? When spring opens, the
warmth of the air wakes the sleeping buds. It thaws the ice in the
intercellular spaces, and the cells are quick to absorb the water they
gave up when winter approached. The thawing of the ground surrounds
the roots with moisture. Sap rises and flows into the utmost twig.
Warm days in January or February are able to deceive the tree to this
extent. The sudden change back to winter again catches them. The plump
cells are ruptured and killed by the "frost bite."
It is a bad plan to plant a tender kind of tree on the south side of a
house or a wall. The direct and the reflected warmth of the sun forces
its buds out too soon, and the late frosts cut them off. There is
rarely a good yield on a tree so situated.
There is no miracle like "the burst of spring." Who has watched a tree
by the window as its twigs began to shine in early March, and the buds
to swell and show edges of green as their scales lengthened? Then the
little shoot struggled out, casting off the hindering scales with the
scandalous ingratitude characteristic of infancy. Feeble and very
appealing are the limp baby leaves on the shoot, as tender and pale
green as asparagus tips. But all that store of rich nutritive material
is backing the enterprise. The palms are lifted into the air; they
broaden and take on the texture of the perfect, mature leaf. Scarcely
a day is required to outgrow the hesitation and inexperience of
youth. The tree stands decked in its canopy of leaves, every one of
which is ready and eager to assume the responsibilities it faces. The
season of starch making has opened.
Cut some twigs of convenient trees in winter. Let them be good ones,
with vigorous buds, and have them at least two feet long. You may test
this statement I have made about the storing of food in the twigs, and
the one about the unfolding of the leafy shoots. Get a number of them
from the orchard--samples from cherry, plum, and apple trees; from
maple and elm and any other familiar tree. Put them in jars of water
and set them where they get the sun on a convenient window shelf. Give
them plenty of water, and do not crowd them. It is not necessary to
change the water, but cutting the ends slanting and under water every
few days insures the unimpeded flow of the water up the stems and the
more rapid development of the buds you are watching. When spring comes
there are too many things that demand attention. The forcing of winter
buds while yet it is winter is the ideal way to discover the trees'
most precious secrets.
PART II
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, instead 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 Southwestern Walnut=
_Juglans rupestris_, Engelm.
The walnut of the Southwest grows into a spreading, luxuriant 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 specimen, much admired, grows in the
Arnold Arboretum in Boston.
=The California Walnut=
_J. californica_, Wats.
The California walnut is a stocky, round-headed tree, with heavy,
drooping branches, and bark that is white and smooth on limbs and on
trunks of young trees. Ultimately the trunk turns nearly black, and is
checked into broad, irregular ridges. In bottom lands, along the
courses of rivers, back thirty miles from the coast, these trees are
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. Californians admire and
plant this tree for shade and ornament. Its greatest value is as a
hardy stock upon which the "English" walnut is grafted by nurserymen,
for planting 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 employing her great-grandmother's recipe,
brought from England, 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 scalded. Then
they are pickled whole, in spiced vinegar, and are a rare, delectable
relish with meats for the winter table.
[Illustration: WEEPING BEECH
_See page 42_]
[Illustration: BLACK WALNUT
_See page 31_]
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 the
horizontal limbs. The bark is light 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 illustrations, pages 31, 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 interior 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, 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 stubborn--so
hard to make away with. How unfortunate it is that our ancestors had
the patience to go forward and conquer the unconquerable ones. Had
they weakly surrendered, 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 extensively
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 management 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, 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 gnawing 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 another, and lets the rain and
the cold do the rest. In spring the "stratified" nuts are ready for
planting. Sometimes careful cracking of the shell prepares the nut to
sprout when planted.
The Japanese walnuts (_J. Sieboldiana_ and _J. cordiformis_) are grown
to a limited extent in states where the English walnut is not hardy.
They are butternuts, and very much superior to our native species. A
Manchurian walnut 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. regia_, Linn.
Originally at home in the forests of Persia and northwestern India,
the English walnut was grown for its excellent 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
horticulturists 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
together." 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 "English 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 Southern states.
But little had been done to improve them, or to grow them extensively
for market, until California undertook to compete with Europe for the
growing American 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 summer, and its clean gray trunk and bare
branches in winter, are attractive features in a landscape that has
few deciduous trees. A fine dooryard tree that bears delicious nuts,
after furnishing a grateful shade all summer, is deserving 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 control of the visible supply. Furniture makers use
quantities 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 craftsman.
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 enemies, and need little pruning as bearing
age approaches.
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 Algonkin 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, "Powcohicora," gave the trees their English name, part of which
the botanist, Rafinesque, 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 strews no branches under a hickory tree, for the
fibres of the wood are strong and flexible enough to resist a
hurricane. (_See illustrations, pages 6, 71._)
Hickory wood is unequalled for implements which must resist great
strain and constant jarring. The running-gear of wagons and carriages,
handles of pitchforks, axes, and like implements require it. Thin
strips, woven into baskets for heavy market use, are almost
indestructible. No fuel is better than seasoned hickory wood.
=Shagbark or Shellbark=
_Hicoria 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 climbing 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 oblong 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 competitors 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
valuable 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.
"King nuts," as the fruit of this tree is labelled in the markets, do
not equal the little 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.
[Illustration: _See page 42_
WHITE OAK]
[Illustration: _See page 51_
BUR, OR MOSSY-CUP, OAK--LEAVES AND FRUIT]
=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 many sections of the
South. Most of the pecan nuts in the 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 where 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 delicate 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 because they are
difficult to get out of the shells without 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.
=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, obstinate 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 terminal 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, lengthening and becoming smooth, as the now useless
red scales fall in a shower to the ground.
=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 delicate, 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 regard 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 Gulf.
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 likely to form "pure forests," 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 slightly 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 lumbermen. Red beech makes superior
floors, toolhandles, 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 live 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 polished to the long,
pointed winter buds. Throughout, the tree 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 attraction. They
are closely plaited, and covered with silvery down, when 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, uniformly 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 fade 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, releasing 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 lived in caves
and under the forest cover. We know that beechnuts have a rich,
delicate flavor that offsets the disadvantages of their small size
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=
_Castanea dentata_, Borh., and _C. pumila_, Mill.
Our native chestnut and its little brother, the chinquapin, are the
American cousins of the sweet chestnut of 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 impatience with which
the opening of the burs is watched for, as the belated frosts keep
off, and the burs hang tantalizingly 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, ironwood case, and finally cased in a vegetable
porcupine of spines, almost impregnable. There is no nut so protected;
there is no nut in our woods to compare 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 all chestnuts 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 23._)
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 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, growing here and
there throughout a mixed forest, are the offspring of trees whose nuts
were put away, or dropped and lost by squirrels. When spring relieves
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. Most oak leaves have leathery
texture, strong veins, and short petioles. They are leaves that
outlast 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 insures 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 recognized by
botanists, and the list 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
parentage 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 Mountains 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 altitudes.
Thus we find American oaks in the Andes and Colombia; Asiatic species
occur in the Indian Archipelago. No Old World species is native to
America. Each continent has its own.
East of the Rocky Mountains the oaks hold a place of preëminence 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 countries are richer by this
horticultural exchange of trees.
Our native oaks fall into two groups: the annual-fruiting 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 illustration, page 38_), and its wide-ranging roots enable a
solitary tree to resist 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 centuries
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 "mirrors" 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 mirrors. 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 with a mist of rose and silver, each twig hung with soft
limp velvety leaves, red-lined, and covered with a close mat of 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 until 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 rugged, ragged tree, compared with the white oak. Its
irregular 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. The trunk is brownish, with loosened flakes of
gray, separated 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 Montana, 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 twigs. In
summer the foliage 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 descriptive. 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 wood, 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 Tennessee 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 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. acuminata_, 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.
[Illustration: _See page 65_
HORSE-CHESTNUT IN BLOSSOM]
[Illustration: _See page 83_
WEEPING WILLOW]
In its youth the swamp white oak is comely and symmetrical, 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. platanoides_. 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, tall, 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 this 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 are made of these oak
splints. The wood is also used in cooperage and implement
construction, and it makes excellent firewood.
=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
furniture, except that it is difficult to work, and it splits 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 without help.
=California White Oak=
_Q. lobata_, Née.
The California white oak far exceeds the Eastern white oak in the
spread of its mighty arms. The dome is often two hundred feet in
breadth and the trunk reaches ten feet in diameter. Such specimens are
often low in proportion, the trunk breaking into its grand divisions
within twenty 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, pointed, 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 complicated by damage and repair.
It is hard to say whether the grace and nobility of the verdure-clad
tree, or the tortuous branching system revealed in winter, appeals
more strongly to the admiration of the stranger and the pride of the
native Californian, who delights in this noble oak at all seasons. Its
comparatively worthless wood has spared the trees to adorn the
park-like landscapes of the wide middle valleys of the state.
=Pacific Post Oak=
_Q. Garryana_, Hook.
The Pacific post oak is the only oak in British Columbia, whence it
follows down the valleys of the Coast Range to the Santa Cruz
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. velutina_, 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-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 separated by sinuses so deep that it is
a mere skeleton compared 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 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 uplands 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 summer 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 leaves match the slender twigs in delicacy of pattern. 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 because 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 their own way, giving the tree
more of picturesqueness than of symmetry, as age advances. Sometimes
the dome is 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 lined
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, drooping 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. Phellos_, 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 connections.
A southern tree, deservedly popular in cities for shade and ornamental
planting, it is nevertheless hardy in 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 specimen 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 unbroken 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 wonderful 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 climbing 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 fertility and moisture are
found to maintain groves of these oaks, wide-domed, with massive,
horizontal branches from short, buttressed trunks--the Western
counterpart of the live oak of the South, but lacking 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 intricately divided, supple
twigs, that droop with their burden and respond to the lightest
breeze. The leaves persist 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_, Née.
The live oak (_Q. agrifolia_, Née.) 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 ponderous 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.
From the mountain slopes to the sea, and from Mendocino 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 America, and
in Eastern villages one often sees a giant horse-chestnut, perhaps 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 candelabra, are each tipped with a
white blossom-cluster, pointed like a candle flame. (_See
illustration, page 54._) Each 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
foliage 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 popularity in the
suburbs of great cities, for it lives despite smoke and soot. Bushey
Park in London has five 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
extensively; 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 showy in
flower than the 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 greenish 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.
=The California Buckeye=
_Ae. californica_, Nutt.
The California buckeye spreads wide branches from a squat trunk, and
clothes its sturdy twigs with unmistakable 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
enclosed 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 representatives 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 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 like necessities. It was a favorite tying material in
nurseries and greenhouses until the more adaptable raffia 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 trapper 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 with 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 landscape 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 interesting seed clusters, winged
with a pale blade that lightens the foliage mass. One fault is the
early dropping of the leaves, which are usually marred by the wind
soon after they reach mature size. Propagation is easy from cuttings
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 midsummer.
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 platforms 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 like the satisfying gold of beech and
hickory leaves.
[Illustration: _See page 31_
THE BLACK WALNUT
The young shoots are velvety and aromatic. The pistillate
flowers, in groups of 3 to 5, are on terminal spikes]
[Illustration: _See page 37_
SHAGBARK HICKORY IS KNOWN AND NAMED BY ITS LOOSE,
STRIPPING BARK]
The flight of basswood seeds on their wing-like 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 narrower leaves than
the species just described, and they vary in form and size; but always
have linings 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 the favorite holiday of many country 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 narrowly to the short stem. This species occurs on Long Island,
and is sparingly seen along the coast from the Carolinas 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, beside 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 and
Germany this tree reaches noble stature and great age.
Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist, had his name from a fine linden tree,
when his peasant father rose to the dignity of a surname. "Linn" is
the Swedish word for linden. "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 "Grete
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 wrote 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 summer houses and banqueting arbors, because the more that
it is surcharged with weight of timber 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
whitish, plaine, and without knots; yea, very soft and gentle in the
cutting and handling. The leaves are smooth, greene, shining and
large, somewhat snipt or toothed about the edges: the floures are
little, whitish, of a good savour, and very many in number; growing
clustered together from out of the middle of the leaf: out of which
proceedeth a small whitish long narrow leafe: 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 Buttonwoods--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 valuable 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 claim 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 encourages 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 relationship 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_, Linn.
The white poplar is sometimes called the silver-leaved poplar because
its dark, glossy leaves are lined with cottony 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 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
interesting 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. deltoidea_, Marsh.
The cottonwood justifies its existence, if ever a tree did. On our
Western plains, where the watercourses are sluggish and few and often
run dry in midsummer, few trees grow; and the settler and traveler is
grateful for the cottonwoods. The pioneer on the Western prairie
planted it for shade and for wind-breaks about his first home. Many of
these trees attain great age and in protected situations are
magnificent though unsymmetrical trees, shaking out each spring a new
head of bright green, glossy foliage, 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 tenacity 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. tremuloides_, 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 first prophecies of spring; then 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
duplicated 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 illustrations, 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, while the foliage of oaks and other trees near by
may be practically motionless.
=The Balsam Poplar=
_P. balsamifera_, 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 waterproof gum, which the bee-keeper
knows as "_propolis_."
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 cultivation, 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 lowlands, is the black cottonwood,
the giant of the genus, 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 Yosemite 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. heterophylla_, Linn.
The swamp cottonwood of the South has leaves of variable but
distinctly poplar form, always large, broadly ovate, with slim round
petioles. The white down of the unfolding leaves often persists into
midsummer. On account of the fluttering leaves the trees were called,
by the early Acadians, "_Langues de femmes_" a mild calumny traceable
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 declared: "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, 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 attain 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 characteristic
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. Knotted
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 hosts of Cæsar 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 they 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 grown, 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 propagation.
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 Babylonica_
The weeping willow, much planted in cemeteries and parks, came
originally from Asia and is remarkable for its 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 surprise 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 representative 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 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 outwore
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. "Ironwood" is the name used wherever the
wood was worked.
=American Hornbeam=
_Carpinus 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
nutlets hang by threads, tough as hornbeam fibres always are. 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
itself to cutting and moulding into curious forms.
=Hop Hornbeam=
_Ostrya Virginiana_, Willd.
The hop hornbeam has habits like the other ironwood 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 together 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 wood-lot. In hickories, even, he had
not the equal of them for strength and hardness.
[Illustration: _See page 70_
THE AMERICAN LINDEN
The broad leaves are unsymmetrical. Dry seed-balls are
scattered by winter winds, the leathery bracts serving as
wings]
[Illustration: _See page 78_
TREMBLING ASPEN
Catkins and newly opened, flannel-like leaves]
[Illustration: _See page 84_
THE PUSSY WILLOW
1--Mature staminate flower.
2--Immature staminate flowers.
3--Mature pistillate flowers]
[Illustration: _See page 85_
THE AMERICAN HORNBEAM
A fruiting branch showing the thin beech-like leaves and the
seeds on their leafy triangular bracts]
=Knowlton's Ironwood=
_O. Knowltoni_, Cov.
Knowlton's ironwood is found nowhere but in a thick 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 distribution for a
distinct species of trees is unmatched in the annals of botany.
THE BIRCHES
Grace and gentility of appearance are attributes of this most
interesting, attractive, and valuable family of trees. _Shabby_
gentility, one may insist, thinking 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 usefulness 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.
=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 which 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 waterproof, almost imperishable in
the weather; free from insects, 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 writing 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 burn merrily to start a campfire, and the timber
of the trunk burns readily green or dry.
=The White Birch=
_B. populifolia_, Marsh.
The white 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, chalky 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 uninviting situations, and that it comes again, after fire or
other general slaughter, promptly and abundantly, from stump and
scattered seed.
=The Yellow Birch=
_B. lutea_, Michx.
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.
=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 woodenwares. In the bayous
of the lower Mississippi, where its 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 luxuriant 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 twenty 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 western Asia and northern
Africa. It was introduced successfully into our Northeastern states in
colonial times and has become naturalized in many localities. These
trees sometimes 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 water and its wood resists decay better than any other kind when
saturated through indefinite periods. In the old days it was the wood
for the boat-builder. The piles 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 yellow dye used in making ink. 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 _imperialis_, 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 Wickleham."
=Seaside Alder=
_A. maritima_, Nutt.
The seaside alder shares with the witch hazel the peculiar 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
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 manufacture of
furniture. The Indian dug-outs are made of the butts of large trees.
THE SYCAMORES, OR BUTTONWOODS
=The Buttonwood=
_Platanus occidentalis_, Linn.
Our eastern buttonwood is a tree to which, in America, we supply the
name sycamore. Its European counterpart is the plane tree of the Old
World. It is one of the easiest trees to recognize, for its most
prominent trait is 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 downright 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.
=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 smallest, 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 oftener called
by other names. All these trees are picturesque, with twiggy,
contorted 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 liquid amber,
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 Cotton Gum=
_N. aquatica_, Marsh.
The cotton gum is draped in cottony white down as the new shoots start
and the leaves unfold in spring. In midsummer 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=
_Liquidamber styraciflua_, 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 summer, 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 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 foliage 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
illustrations, 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 farther 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 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 connections 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
solution 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. 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, has 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 nowhere 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 for 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 Madroña--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 MAGNOLIAS
Four of the ten genera in the magnolia family are represented 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 peculiar interest to horticulturists and to the general
public, 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 foliage; 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 preëminent 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 before 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.
[Illustration: _See page 87_
THE TATTERED, SILKY BARK OF THE BIRCHES]
[Illustration: _See page 93_
BLOTCHED BARK OF THE SYCAMORE, AND THE SEED-BALLS THAT HANG ON
ALL WINTER]
[Illustration: _See page 97_
THE WARTY, RIDGED BARK, THE SWINGING SEED-BALLS, AND THE WINGED
SEEDS OF THE SWEET GUM]
[Illustration: _See page 109_
TULIP TREE, FLOWER AND LEAVES]
=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 home, and though young trees are
oftenest seen, the older specimens are as large as any native
magnolia. This is one parent. The other is but a shrub, the purple
magnolia, _M. obovata_, 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 almost scentless.
The children of this parentage get their tints of pink and rose and
crimson from this purple magnolia 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 throughout 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 earliest magnolia 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 mountain valleys of the Himalayas, where
it reaches one hundred feet in height. The fragrant flower-cups, from
six 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 encourage its culture
in the South, and difficulties will be overcome when the tree's
peculiar needs are fully understood.
=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 distance 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, disagreeable to many people, is the one
objection to this flower when brought indoors. A drawback that
florists discover is that the slightest bruise of the waxy petals
produces a brownish discoloration, 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 in
Southern woods for 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 enjoyed 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 Arkansas 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, where it
becomes a many-stemmed shrub, whose 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 who hawk
these flowers on the streets. Most of the charm is gone from flowers
thus defiled by dingy fingers.
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 magnolia, 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, almost 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 magnolias in the size
of its leaves and flowers. In fact, no tree outside 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 foothills 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 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 with 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-lined 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 like tulips, and though large can scarcely be seen
among the new leaves, because they are all yellowish 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.
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 valuable 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 little 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 symmetry, 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 Tulip Tree=
_Liriodendron tulipifera_, Linn.
The tulip tree is a cousin, rather than a sister, to the foregoing
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 discovery and
exportation by the American colonists. More and more it is coming to
be appreciated at home as a lawn 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 beeches 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 enough to bloom. (_See
illustration, page 103._) In spring the terminal buds of saplings best
show the peculiarity of the tree's vernation. Two green leaves with
palms together 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 fall
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 stipules, 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 tulip 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 and boat-building. Wood
pulp consumes much of the yearly harvest. It is known as "poplar,"
whose wood it resembles. Ordinary postal cards are made of it. The
bark yields a drug used as a heart stimulant.
THE DOGWOODS
Foliage of exceptional beauty is the distinguishing trait of the trees
in the cornel family, 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 florida_, Linn.
The flowering dogwood (_see illustration, page 134_) is a little tree
whose round, bushy, flat-topped head is made of short, horizontal
branches. The twigs hold erect in the winter 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
illustration, page 118_), and the glossy leaves passing 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. The wood is used for wood engraving
blocks, for tool handles, hubs, and cogs. But it is becoming very
scarce. The deplorable destruction of the dogwoods comes not so much
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 belonging to cities can be curbed only by policing
the tracts. The 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_, Aud.
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 twice as large, and the spectacle of one of these trees,
after the leaves turn to scarlet in autumn, and it leans against the
sombre evergreens that cover the mountain-side, is always startling,
even in a country where surprises are the rule.
=European Dogwood=
_C. mas._
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.
The showy 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 VIBURNUMS
The honeysuckle family, which includes a multitude of ornamental
shrubs, furnishes two genera with three representatives. Handsome
foliage, showy flowers, and attractive 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
slim, drooping branches and oval leaves, finely cut-toothed and
tapering to wavy-winged petioles. In autumn these leathery leaves
change to orange and red, their shiny surfaces contrasting with the
dull lining, pitted with black dots. The fruit, a loose cluster of
dark blue 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
polished 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 genus,
but is smaller throughout than the other two, and its branches are
stout. In European parks and gardens 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 group 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 snowy 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 remedies 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 Scotland 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 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, distributed 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 multitude of the heathers, the huckleberries, the
madroñas, call to mind flower shows we have seen--under glass, in
gardens, in parks, and among mountain fastnesses brightened by the
loveliness of the mountain laurel, azalea, and rhododendron. 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 cultivation 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 little 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.
[Illustration: _See page 111_
FLOWERING DOGWOOD]
[Illustration: _See page 99_
THE OSAGE ORANGE
Flowers appear in June, after the lustrous leaves]
Trees are 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
known 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 represented by a mountain
shrub and a tree. Both are evergreen 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 embankments 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 countryside,
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 southward, the great
laurel rises to a height of forty feet, and interlaces its boughs with
those of Fraser'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 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, illuminates the
woods, and makes every other tree look commonplace 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 selection 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
livelihood.
THE MOUNTAIN LAUREL
The mountain laurel (_Kalmia latifolia_, 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 points its
superior in beauty. In June and July the polished evergreen foliage of
the kalmia bushes is almost overwhelmed by the masses of its exquisite
pink blossoms, beside 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 combinations 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 MADROÃA
The madroña (_Arbutus Menziesii_, Pursh.), another member of the Heath
family, is one of the superbly beautiful trees in the forests that
stretch from British Columbia southward into California. South of the
bay of San Francisco and on the dry eastern slopes of California
mountains it is stunted to a shrub, but on the high, well-drained
slopes through the coast region and in the redwood forests of northern
California it is a tree that reaches a hundred feet in height.
John Muir writes: "The madroña, clad in thin, smooth, red and yellow
bark, with big, glossy leaves, seems in the dark coniferous forests of
Washington and Vancouver Island like some lost wanderer from the
magnolia groves in the South." All the year around this is one of the
most beautiful of American trees. It bears large conical clusters of
white flowers above the vivid green of its leathery leaves, that are
wonderfully lightened by silvery linings. In autumn the red-brown of
the branches is enriched and intensified by the luxuriant 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 arboreum_, DC.) belongs
among the heaths. Its vivid scarlet autumn foliage 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
little bells suggests the tree's relationship to the blossoming
heather we see in florists' shops.
The leaves give the tree its two common names: they have a sour taste,
resembling that of the herbaceous sorrels. The twigs, even in the dead
of winter, yield this refreshing acid sap, that flows through the
veins of the membranous leaves in summer. Many a hunter, temporarily
lost in Southern woods, quenches his thirst by nibbling 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. In 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 tetraptera_, 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 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 exceedingly 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 transplanted 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 follows 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 merely notched at the top.
THE SWEET LEAF
Two genera of trees in this country are temperate zone representatives
of a tropical family which furnishes benzoine, torax, and other
valuable balsams of commerce. It is easy to see that these trees are
strangers from warm countries, for many of their traits are singularly
unfamiliar.
=The Sweet Leaf=
_Symplocos tinctoria_, L'Her.
The sweet leaf is our sole representative of a large genus of trees
native to the forests of Australia 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
earliest 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 wonderful 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 warmer part of its range. The flowers are succeeded by
brown 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 cypress swamps, and climbing to elevations of nearly three
thousand feet on the slopes of the Blue Ridge.
A wonderful new species of _symplocos_ has come into cultivation from
Japan and will enjoy a constantly increasing popularity. Its fragrant
white blossoms, before the leaves, make the tree look like a hawthorn;
but its unique distinction is that the racemed flowers 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 (_Chionanthus Virginica_, 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 exceedingly 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 supreme 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 magnolia
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.
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
Pennsylvania 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 little
tree is overshadowed by the deep green of the forest cover. It is an
experience that will not be forgotten soon.
THE LAUREL FAMILY
The laurel family, a large group of aromatic trees and shrubs found
chiefly in the tropics, includes with our sassafras, laurels, and bays
the cinnamon and camphor trees.
=California Laurel=
_Umbellaria Californica_, Nutt.
The 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, so it keeps near streams. With the broad-leaved maple it
gives character to the deciduous growth near the northern 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 during
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 considerable 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 includes 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 Red Bay=
_Persea Borbonia_, 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 trunk, 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 clusters, 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, _Laurus
nobilis_, 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. gratissima_, Gaertn.
In Florida and southern California the avocado or alligator pear is
being extensively cultivated. This 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 marrow
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 oil is expressed
from these fruits and used for illumination and the manufacture of
soap. The seeds yield an indelible 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 aromatic 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 same traces are found in
Europe, giving to the geologist proofs that the genus once had a much
wider range than now. But no living 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 explained 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-store 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 them a ropy consistence and a peculiar flavor, much
relished by those accustomed to it. To such soups are given the names
_gombo file_ 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 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 neighborhood, 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, softening on their scarlet pedicels, if only the birds
can wait until they are ripe.
Midsummer is the time to hunt for "mittens" and to 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 extended and lobed to form a thumb, making the whole
leaf look like the pattern of a mitten cut out by an unskilled 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 transplanting 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 contrast 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.
The witch hazel (_Hamamelis Virginiana_, Linn.) is a stout,
many-stemmed shrub or a small tree, with rough unsymmetrical 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 undergrowth 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.
[Illustration: _See page 111_
BARK, BLOSSOM, FRUIT, AND WINTER FLOWER BUDS OF THE FLOWERING
DOGWOOD]
[Illustration: _See page 116_
THE MOUNTAIN ASH
The flat, crowded cluster of tiny white flowers is set in a
whorl of dark-green leaves in May or June]
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 accomplish. 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 infusion of the twigs and
roots is now made by boiling them for twenty-four hours in water to
which alcohol has been added. "Witch hazel extract," distilled from
this mixture, 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 would 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 well 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 spot where the hidden springs of water are, the
twig goes down, without any volition 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 holly, the Japanese
barberry, many of the haws, the mountain 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 separated 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 little tree is indeed a burning bush,
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 poisonous.
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 supported 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 Montana, 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 SUMACHS
The sumach family contains more than fifty genera, confined 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 wares.
The cultivated sumachs of southern Europe are important in the tanning
industry, their leaves containing 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
fern-like, odd-pinnate, rarely simple. The flowers are conspicuous by
their crowding into terminal 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 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 persist, 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 specimens is sometimes used for
walking-sticks and for tabourets and such fancy work as inlaying.
Coarse, soft, and brittle, it is satiny when polished, and
attractively streaked with 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 ugliness 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 foliage 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 Minnesota and southward
through the Northern states, and along the mountains to the Gulf
states. In cultivation, 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 lining 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 with 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 dried
and pulverized for use in tanning leather. A yellow dyestuff is also
extracted from them. It is a favorite sumach for ornamental planting
in this country and in Europe.
=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 be 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 they 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 should suspect any sumach
that stands with its feet in the water_, whether it bears flowers and
fruit or not. The temptation is strongest when one is in the woods
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=
_R. glabra_, Linn.
The smooth sumach (_see illustrations, pages 150-151_) is quite as
familiar as the staghorn, as a roadside shrub. It forms thickets in
exactly the same way, and its foliage, flowers 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 belong 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 representatives 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. Americanus_, 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 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 wonderful development of the flower
cluster is unique among garden shrubs and it places _Cotinus_ in a
class by itself. No garden with a shrubbery border is complete without
a smoke tree, which is interesting 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, Oklahoma, 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 in 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 maté,
or Paraguay tea, to which the people of South America are addicted, as
we are to the tea of China. "Yerba maté" 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."
=European Holly=
_Ilex aquifolium_, Linn.
The holly of Europe is perhaps the most popular ornamental 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.
=American Holly=
_I. Opaca_, Ait.
The American holly also yields its branches for Christmas 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 demand 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=
_I. vomitoria_, Ait.
The yaupon is a shrubby tree of spreading habit, with
very small, oval, evergreen leaves and red berries. It
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 ApplesâThe PlumsâThe CherriesâThe HawthornsâThe
Service-berriesâThe HackberriesâThe MulberriesâThe FigsâThe
PapawsâThe Pond ApplesâThe 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 "revert" 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 Washington, 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.
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=
_Malus Ioënsis_, Britt.
The prairie crabapple is the woolly twigged, pink-blossomed wild crab
of the woods, from Minnesota and Wisconsin 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
discoverer. 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 spring landscape with its
rose-colored, spicy-scented blossoms. 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
indeed 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 includes shrubs and
trees with stone fruits. Of the over one hundred species, thirty are
native to North America; 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 the
almond, found in this country only in horticultural varieties. The
wood of _prunus_ is close-grained, solid, and durable, and a few of
the species are important timber trees. The simplest way to identify a
member of the genus is to break a twig at any season of the year and
taste the sap. If it is bitter and astringent with hydrocyanic 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 twigs 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 in 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 gratefully 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.
[Illustration: _See page 130_
FLOWERS, FRUIT, AND ODD LEAF PATTERNS OF THE SASSAFRAS TREE]
[Illustration: _See page 141_
FOLIAGE AND FLOWER CLUSTER OF THE SMOOTH SUMACH]
[Illustration: _See page 148_
BUDS, LEAVES, AND FRUIT OF THE WILD CRABAPPLE]
[Illustration: _See page 151_
THE CANADA PLUM
Its white, fragrant flowers turn pink in fading; and its stiff,
zigzag branches are beset with spiny stubs]
=The Canada Plum=
_P. nigra._, Ait.
The Canada plum (_see illustration, page 151_) whose range dips down
into the northern tier of states, is so near like 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 beautified 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 lusciousness. 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 refused utterly to feel at home on its own 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
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 gardens is _prunus cerasus_, Linn. It often runs
wild from gardens, 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 blossom time, a
great national fête, when the gardens burst suddenly into the
marvelous bloom of _Sakura_, the cherry tree, symbol of happiness, in
which people of all classes delight. 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
ideal toward which patience and skill have striven successfully.
"Spring is the season of the eye," says the Japanese 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
thickets 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. serotina_, Ehrh.
The wild black cherry or rum cherry (_see illustration, page 166_), is
the substantial lumber tree of the genus, whose ponderous trunk
furnishes cherry wood, vying with mahogany 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 derived from its
bark, roots, and fruit. Cherry brandies, cordials, and cherry bounce,
that good old-fashioned homebrewed 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
mountain 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 unconscious agents of seed
distribution that choke-cherry pits are scattered. From the Arctic
Circle to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky
Mountains this worthless little 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 undoubtedly 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 their chance to assert themselves sufficiently to
attract the attention of botanists and horticulturists. The showy
flowers and fruits, the vivid coloring of autumn foliage, and the
striking 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 little 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 hawthorns are pure
white, perfect, their parts in multiples of five--a family trait. 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 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 winter 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 maturity 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 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 summer, falls in September. The
species is found from Ohio to Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas.
=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 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 continent 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 appear, 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 forest is roofed with
green, and June-berries are quite overshadowed by more self-assertive
species.
The borders of woods in rich upland soil, from Newfoundland 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 Manitoba 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 horticulturists 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 is elm-like, though
smaller and brighter green than the foliage of the American elm. A
peculiarity of the foliage is the apparent division of the petiole
into three main ribs, instead 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 appearance 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 183._)
Emerson says: "The wood is used for the shafts and axle-trees of
carriages, the naves of wheels, and for musical instruments. The root
is used for dyeing yellow, 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
season.
=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, straightway 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
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 fig. 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 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 itself 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 discovered 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 introduced 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
economic world. They are the chosen food of silkworms. No substitute
has ever robbed this tree of its preëminence, maintained for many
centuries in its one field of usefulness.
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 particularly 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 range accounts for the six hundred different species
botanists have 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 aërial roots strikes downward and
reaches the ground. After this the tree depends upon food drawn from
the earth. The supporting 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 fig tree, _Ficus elasticus_.
Clip 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 horticultural 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 aërial 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_, sometimes 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 aërial 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 fig trees in North America are but sprawling parasitic trees,
unable to stand alone. They are found only in the south of Florida,
and therefore are generally unknown.
[Illustration: _See page 153_
FLOWERS AND FRUIT OF THE WILD BLACK CHERRY]
[Illustration: _See page 156_
A FRUITING BRANCH OF THE COCKSPUR THORN]
=The Golden Fig=
_Ficus aurea_, Nutt.
The golden fig climbs up other trees and strangles its host with its
coiling stems and aërial 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 included in this family, but their New-World
representatives 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 custard. 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 five 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 overcomes the green, and the
color passes through shades of brownish green to dark rich wine-red.
The full-grown foliage by midsummer has become very thin in texture,
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 palm, with tall
stem crowned by huge simple leaves, one to two feet across, deeply
lobed into three main divisions, 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 fertile 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 West 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 destroying 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 representative 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 branchlets. 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-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 between 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 Cherimolia_, 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 rank 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 California, 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 grows wherever the orange is
hardy, and its fruit, heart-shaped or oval, green 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 which are imbedded twenty or thirty brown seeds. A
taste for this tropical pond apple is as easily acquired as for the
pineapple, which has become universally popular. Every garden in the
Orange Belt should have a cherimoya tree for ornament and for its
fruit.
THE PERSIMMONS
The persimmon tree of the Southern woods belongs to the ebony family,
which contains some important fruit and lumber trees, chiefly 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, extending 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=
_Diospyros Virginiana_, Linn.
The persimmon will never be forgotten by the Northerner who chances to
visit his Virginia cousins in the early 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 mellow 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 persimmons 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 disappointments of an empty bag. No fruit could be more utterly
satisfying to a dry-mouthed, leg-weary, 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 unfair 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 or hollow tree shelters the opossum, while he sleeps by
day. Every persimmon the opossum 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 who 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 Virginia 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 reasonable 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 and shuttles. It is a peculiarity of the persimmon tree
that almost 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 number
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 members 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.
Last, but not least, among their merits stands the fact that
leguminous plants are the only ones that actually enrich 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 elements, and also improves the
texture of the soil, increasing its moisture-holding properties, which
commercial fertilizers do not.
Seventeen genera of leguminous plants have tree representatives 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 fern-like 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 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 growth 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 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 brightening them, as it
does also the hairy, curling pods that flush as they ripen. In
winter the 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 off, 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 prepare the adamantine seeds for sprouting.
The planter scalds his seed to hasten the process. Nature soaks,
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
hundred 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 ornamental tree and as a hedge plant.
=The Kentucky Coffee Tree=
_Gymnocladus dioicus_, K. Koch
The Kentucky coffee tree is the one clumsy, coarse member 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 thrown
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
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, imperfect,
salver-form, purplish green--the fertile ones forming 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 brown, with pale sap-wood.
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, thornless branchlets 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 outskirts 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-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.
[Illustration: _See page 159_
SERVICE-BERRY IN BLOSSOM
The flowers appear in April, before the leaves]
[Illustration: _See page 161_
THE HACKBERRY
Leaves, berries, and (A) pistillate and (B) staminate flowers]
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--making a
beautiful woodland picture in early spring.
=The Yellow-wood=
_Cladrastis lutea_, K. Koch.
The yellow-wood was named by the wife of a pioneer, surely, 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 texture, 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 smooth pale bark of the "Virgilia," as the 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 background 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 park tree is easily raised from
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 and trees of
great variety and beauty of flowers and evergreen 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 white, 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 adoption. 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 representation 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 wonderful and far-scattered genus. There is
no country interested in horticulture that does not grow acacias as
ornamental shrubs and trees, even if they must be grown under glass
the year round. In southern England the acacias, 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
"blackwood-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 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 diminishes its
desirability 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 flowers--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 repay 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
Australia and other strange far countries.
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 Colorado 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 takes
him on a wood-gathering expedition. Stopping where a shrubby
mesquite sprawls, he hitches 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. pubescens_, 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 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 in
length. The necklace-like pods are frilled on four sides with thin
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, contain 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 between 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 southern Texas
and Mexico. One of the commonest and most 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 nutritious, green or ripe. Immature, the pods are
cooked like string beans; ripe, they are roasted, and the pods
themselves 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 borders. 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 MAPLES
A single genus, _acer_, 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, compressed 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 original 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.
=The Sugar Maple=
_Acer saccharum_, Marsh.
The sugar maple (_see illustration, page 198-199_) is economically 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 bird's-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 demand 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-growing, 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 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 correspondingly less.
=The Red Maple=
_A. rubrum_, 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 illustrations, pages 198-199_). The opening flowers have red
petals, and the first leaves, which accompany the early bloom, are
red. In May the dainty flat 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 the woods, 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 particularly 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 sprawling 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 of this silver
maple, is often seen as a lawn tree, imitating the habit of the
weeping willow.
=The Oregon Maple=
_A. macrophyllum_, 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 magnificent, 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 lianas 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 watercourses,
from British Columbia to northern California. Its vine-like 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 worn out with the labor of getting
through the maze these trees form, must delight, 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 hornbeams, hazel bushes,
and ground hemlock, they are lovers of the shade; and they fringe
the forest with a shrubbery border.
=The 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. This 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. "Whistlewood" 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.
[Illustration: _See page 180_ _See page 178_
THE THORNY TRUNK OF THE HONEY LOCUST, AND THE FOLIAGE AND
FLOWERS OF THE BLACK LOCUST]
[Illustration: _See page 194_
SUGAR MAPLE
Maple sugar is made in February; the trees bloom in May; their
seeds ripen in October]
[Illustration: _See page 195_
THE RED MAPLE'S PISTILLATE (_left_) AND STAMINATE (_right_)
FLOWERS]
[Illustration: _See page 196_
SEED KEYS AND NEW FOLIAGE OF THE SOFT OR SILVER MAPLE]
=The Dwarf Maple=
_A. glabrum_, Torr.
The dwarf maple ranges plentifully from Canada to Arizona and New
Mexico. Its leaves, typically three-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, wonderful 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 fête. A sort of æsthetic 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.
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 temporary 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. platanoides_, 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 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
compact 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
choosing 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. Consult the first broad-leaved tree you meet, and
the chances are that 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 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 Mediterranean 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 symmetrical as that of a white oak. A gray rind covers
the young branches and the bark is gray. The foliage 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 finish 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. When all the forest is green
and full of blossoms, the ash trees are still naked. Not until May
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
214._) 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 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 Newfoundland 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 extremity.
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 cabinetwork. 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 marvelous rate.
=The Red Ash=
_F. Pennsylvanica_, Marsh.
The red ash follows the courses of streams and lake margins 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 wind
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 is 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.
=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
Mountains 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 substance 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,
characteristically 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 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 diameter. 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 which they are readily recognized, if
seed form, leaf form, and leaf arrangement 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 the tree's name to any one who visits its restricted
territory. In rich soil, three leaflets are occasionally developed.
=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 saplings, cut when three to six years old, made excellent 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 separated 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 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 particularly 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 representative. Europe has three
species, two of which extend 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 continuous leaf area to the sun. One spray overlaps
another, and leaves varying in size fit in to fill every little
corner to which sunlight comes. This "leaf mosaic" is not confined
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 likely 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 which 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 everywhere east of
the Rocky Mountains. 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 Middle
West. With him the tree seized the land and made it yield a living.
Elms, which have outlived the cottonwoods 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 framework 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 swelling 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 hanging 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 indestructibility. 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 Slippery Elm=
_U. fulva_, Michx.
The slippery elm is also known as the red elm and moose elm, because
its wood is red and moose are fond of browsing 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? 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 harshly, for
they are covered with stiff, tubercular hairs. The leaves are
larger, often reaching 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 unsymmetrical 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
attains 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-handles. The name "cork
elm" refers to the corky bark which runs out in winged ridges, even
to the twigs.
[Illustration: _See page 202_
THE WHITE ASH
Winter buds Pistillate flowers Staminate flowers]
[Illustration: _See page 222_
A GROUP OF WHITE PINES]
[Illustration: _See page 235_
LEAVES AND CONES OF THE SHORTLEAF PINE]
[Illustration: _See page 210_
AMERICAN ELM]
=The Winged Elm=
_U. alata_, 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 with
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
are still bright green, while their American cousins have passed
into "the sere and yellow leaf."
=The Scotch Elm=
_U. montana_, Linn.
The 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 VIII
THE CONE-BEARING EVERGREENS
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, 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. Besides 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 magnolias, laurels, and many oaks. Birches and alders and
magnolias bear cone-like fruits. Notwithstanding such exceptions,
the cone-bearing trees are mostly evergreen, and their family traits
are so strongly marked that even the beginner 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-leaved trees. In the coal measures are found the
mummied remains of these prehistoric conifers. The cycads in the
Everglades of Florida are some of their surviving representatives.
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 timber the
coniferous forests of this country and much of the territory denuded
by the axe is either devoted to agriculture 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 declining 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 attached to a central stem. On each
scale are borne one or more winged seeds.
The one character which is constant in the whole coniferous 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 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 _Angiosperms_, 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 flowerless ferns and mosses, are merely
glanced at by amateur botanists. The more primitive 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 conifers 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 coniferous 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 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 declare 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 forest conservation, crystallized
into federal law by popular demand, has come too late to save from
wasteful exploitation the superb pine forests west of the Rockies.
Yet thousands of acres of forests are now under government 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 employed.
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 climb to the timber line on arid, rocky
mountain-sides. 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 wind-breaks, 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 off of
the naval stores production.
The lumberman's division of the pines is a convenient one. "Soft
pines" have soft, light wood, not heavily impregnated with resin. It
is the 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 hard and soft pines without examination
of the wood. Soft pines shed the papery sheath of their leaf bundles
before the leaves themselves begin to fall. Hard pines retain the
leaf sheath until 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 214-215_) 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 five 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 lithe in the wind. If
it is spring, note that the terminal bud has pushed out, and around
it five-clustered 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 surrounding 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 yellowish 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 shakes them, they are soon
empty of their abundant pollen, which drifts like gold dust and
fills the air. Among the youngest leaves, toward the end of the
shoot, the purplish rosy lips of the erect pistillate cone-flowers
catch the dust from neighbor trees, and their naked ovules absorb
it 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 distribution. 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 five 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 agricultural 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
Washington 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 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, stiff,
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 white pine grows to majestic size at altitudes of nearly two
miles, its noble figure more striking and impressive because of the
dwindling size of its companions 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 private
grounds. Their introduction into our Eastern states can now be
assured of success.
=The Sugar Pine=
_P. Lambertiana_, 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 of all the pine trees in the
world." Trees two hundred feet high, with trunk diameter of six to
eight feet, are not uncommon. 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 lumbermen 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 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 cliffs, and rushing
cataracts are bigger than their counterparts 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 impression of
unreality. In a day or two the traveler becomes 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, fragrant,
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 trunks of their choicest wood, wastefully
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
maintained for the whole people--not wasted for the temporary
enrichment of private owners, as forest wealth has been squandered
in past years.
=Rocky Mountain White Pine=
_P. flexilis_, James
The Rocky Mountain white pine inhabits mountain slopes from Alberta
to Mexico, including the Sierra Nevada 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. albicaulis_, 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 icemantle that lies
on the treeless mountain-side just above the timber line.
From a twelve-thousand-foot elevation on the Rocky Mountains, in
British Columbia and south to the Yellowstone, 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 five
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 range
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 thickened and
minutely spiny at tip.
The second five-leaved foxtail pine is _P. aristata_, Engelm., 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 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 California. In Eastern parks 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 in oils and they have keeping qualities that permit
their hoarding for winter. The four-leaved _P. quadrifolia_, Sudw.,
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 "piñon,"
that covers the upper slopes of Arizona mountains with open forests
fifteen to twenty feet high. The 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 in the
mountains of northern Mexico that they are sold in large quantities
in every town.
[Illustration: _See page 276_
EASTERN RED CEDARS AND HICKORY]
[Illustration: _See page 225_
THE SUGAR PINE
"The largest, noblest, and most beautiful of all pine trees in
the world"]
The piñon (_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 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 branchlets 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. monophylla_, Torr.), spreads like an
old apple tree, and forms a low, round-topped, picturesque 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 pallor. 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 says:
"It is the commonest tree of the short mountain ranges of the
Great Basin. Tens of thousands of acres are covered with it,
forming bountiful orchards for the red man. Being so low and
accessible, the cones are easily beaten off with poles, and
the nuts 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 carpenter'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 preëminent 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
Alabama, 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 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 longleaf 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 in 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 destructive and wasteful
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 now known 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 resorted
to in the production of turpentine and other products derived from
the living trees. Otherwise the dwindling 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 induced 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.
Removing the charcoal, the tar became available for various
purposes; boiled until it lost its liquid character, it became tough
sticky _pitch_. This primitive pit method of extracting tar and
making charcoal has been abandoned wherever 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 importance 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 untouched 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 longleaf 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, scattered 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 214-215_) 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 than most pine seeds. The tree is less sensitive to
injuries and has the propensity, unusual in the pine family, of
throwing up suckers from the roots. In open competition, this pine
will hold its own against the invasion of other trees, if only
allowed to do so. Much of the deforested 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 lumber pines of
the South. This is the "swamp pine" or "slash pine," found in the
coast regions from South Carolina 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 Carolinas, and follows the Gulf from
Tampa Bay into Texas. Inland, it is found from the Carolinas to
Arkansas and Louisiana. It has remarkable vitality of seed and
seedlings, 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 tremendous 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 loblolly
pine, grown on sandy soil, is but third-grade lumber, the
sap-wood three times as thick as the heart-wood and exceedingly
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 decay. It is used in the building of docks,
cars, boats, and locally in house-building. Its wood makes a sharp,
quick heat when 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 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
irregular 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
delight of camping parties. "Pine-knots" and "candlewood" 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 a crouching, sprawling tree, its twigs covered with
scant short dingy 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, railroad 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 unlike those of the digger pine, in the armament of their
scales. These are notable by being the heaviest fruits borne by 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 "foxtail" 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 European 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 foothills,
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 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 standing 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
California. 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.
=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 Continental 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, deciduous during
their third season. Their color has given the name to the species,
for the wood is not yellow, but light 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 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, recurving 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 _scopulorum_, Engelm.," 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 mountains,
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 centuries, and tossing big ripe cones among the
cinders and ashes of nature's hearths." (_John Muir._)
=The Scrub Pine=
_P. contorta_, Loud.
The scrub pine is the humble parent of one of the splendid 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 bear 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 vagrant tree 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 greatest 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 Wyoming 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 fortunate offspring of the
scrub pine. The two-leaved foliage, usually about two inches long,
wears a cheerful yellow-green, while the parent tree is dark and
sombre, with leaves an inch in length. The hard, strong, brown wood
of _contorta_ 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.
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 firewood. 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 particular
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 Brunswick 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 abundant and bright red, more
showy than is ordinary in the pine family. Brown cones one to three
inches long with thin unarmed scales, discharge their winged seeds
in early autumn, but cling to the branches until the following
summer.
[Illustration: _See page 259_ _See page 248_
LEAVES AND CONES OF HEMLOCK (_left_) AND OF NORWAY SPRUCE (_right_)]
[Illustration: _See page 248_
THE SPINY FOLIAGE AND FAST-CLINGING CONES OF THE BLACK SPRUCE]
The wood of red pine is pale red, light in weight, close-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 importance 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 injuries 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 roughened by these spirally arranged
leaf-brackets. Leaf-scars 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 246_) 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 they remain on the
branches for years (_See illustration, page 247_).
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 Newfoundland 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 peculiarly 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.
=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 burnt-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
becomes thin and ragged at maturity. The same fate overtakes the
trim little lawn trees, so perfect in color and symmetry for a few
years.
=Tideland Spruce=
_P. Sitchensis_, Carr.
The tideland spruce is the most important lumber tree in Alaska. It
inhabits the coast region from Cape Mendocino, 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 magnificent 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 follows 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 distinguish the firs
from the spruces, which they closely resemble 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.
All fir trees belong to the genus _abies_, whose twenty-five species
are distributed from the Far North to the highlands of tropical
regions in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. 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. Always 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 furrowed. The wood is generally pale,
coarse-grained, and brittle.
=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
horticulture 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 Virginia, 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 purple 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 wounding 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. Fraseri_, Poir.
This balsam fir, much more luxuriant in foliage, and worthier of
cultivation as an ornamental tree, is native to the Appalachian
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 ground, 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 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 with the purple
iridescent 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
fruits seems to be the chief distinguishing character of the form
which occurs with the parent species on the mountains in Oregon and
northern California, and recurs in the southern Sierra Nevada.
The best defense of this superb red fir is the comparative
worthlessness of its soft, weak wood. Coarse lumber for cheap
buildings, packing cases and fuel makes the only demands upon it. In
European parks it is successfully grown as an ornamental tree, and
has proved hardy in eastern Massachusetts.
=The Noble Fir=
_A. nobilis_, Lindl.
The noble fir or red fir is another giant of the Northwest. On the
western slopes of the Cascade Mountains of Washington 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 five 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 slenderly 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 thousand feet, but
choosing always moist soil in the neighborhood of streams. Various
uses, woodenwares, 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 fir tree lifts its narrow
spire two hundred and fifty feet toward 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 Mexico 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 nurseries obtain their best trees from seeds
gathered in the Rocky Mountains.
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 fir 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, durable, 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 quality, but always pale yellow,
striped with red, and handsomely wavy when quarter-sawed;
distractingly so in the "slash grain," oftenest seen in the interior
finish of the typical California bungalow.
The living tree is a superb, broad-based pyramid, bearing 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 the 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 nurserymen 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
ornamental trees.
THE HEMLOCKS
Unlike any other conifer, the hemlock mounts its evergreen leaves on
short petioles, jointed to projecting, horny brackets on the twig.
At any season this character determines the family name of a
group of exceptionally graceful pyramidal conifers. The Eastern
hemlocks have their leaves arranged in a flat spray, silvery
white underneath, by pale lines on the underside of the flat
blunt-pointed blade (_See illustration, page 246_). An abundance
of pendent cones is borne annually. The wood of hemlocks is
comparatively worthless 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 Minnesota, 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
foliage, 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, because
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 maximum 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, lustrous 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 exceeds a mile. Wherever 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 tanning.
=The Mountain Hemlock=
_T. Martensiana_, Sarg.
The mountain hemlock of the West is called by John Muir "the
loveliest evergreen in America." Sargent endorses this judgment with
emphasis. It grows at high 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 themselves gradually, and among the new leaves
appear the flowers, dark purple cones and staminate star-flowers,
blue as forget-me-nots. Three-angled 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.
[Illustration: _See page 268_
THE FLAT, FROND LIKE SPRAY OF THE ORNAMENTAL ARBOR-VITAE]
[Illustration: _See page 278_
FRUIT AND LEAVES OF THE AMERICAN LARCH]
THE SEQUOIAS
Nowhere else in the world are conifers found in such extensive
forests and in such superlative vigor and stupendous 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 magnolias and many other luxuriant
trees found in warm climates, five species of sequoia extended over
the North Temperate zone in both hemispheres, reaching even to the
Arctic Circle. The glacial period transformed the climate of the
world and destroyed 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
threaten 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 Wellingtonia_, 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 regular, 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-brown or purplish bark, is fluted by furrows often more than a
foot in depth. The trunk is usually bare of limbs for a hundred 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 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 everything, 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 half 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 shingled over the leaves above.
John Muir believes there is no absolute limit to the existence 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
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 thunderbolts. 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 cutting; 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 protection 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 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 scientific 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-spray. The head is
pyramidal in young trees, later becoming 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 them. 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 material on the
Pacific Coast. The hardest and choicest wood comes in limited
quantities from the stumps which furnish curly and bird's-eye wood,
used by the makers of bric-Ã -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.
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 limited
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 overlapping, 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 illustration, page 262_). "Tree of Life" is
the English translation, 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 Scotia and New Brunswick
northwestward to the mouth of 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 absurdly 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 tremendous.
The Alaskan Indian chooses the tall bole of a red cedar for his
totem pole, and from the massive butt hollows out the war canoe and
"dug-out" which solve his problems 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
furnishes 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 striking, 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 Decurrens_, Torr.) has its name from
its resinous, aromatic sap. The tree, when it grows apart from
others, forms a perfect tapering pyramid, 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 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 ornamental planting. Some species have
considerable lumber value.
=The Monterey Cypress=
_Cupressus macrocarpa_, 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 spray composed of thread-like wiry twigs,
entirely covered with scaly, four-ranked leaves.
In cultivation this cypress grows into a luxuriant, pyramidal 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 crumbling bluffs will go down into Monterey
Bay, for the undermining 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 everywhere, 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 immortality. 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.
This white cedar is the swamp-loving variety of the Atlantic
seaboard--its range stretches from Maine to Mississippi. The
durability of its white wood gives it considerable importance as a
lumber tree. It is particularly dependable 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=
_Taxodium 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 covered with a growth of
these cypresses whose trunks are strangely swollen at the base, and
often hollow. The flaring 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 explained, though
authorities suspect that they have something to do with the aëration
of the root system.
Inundated nine or ten months of the year, these cypress 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 half 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 distinguished 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 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 twig, 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-growing 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 highlands into Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and
California. Its hardiness gives it importance as a cover for waste
land on seashores and for hedges and wind-breaks 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 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 commodities 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 succumb, 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 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 abandoned 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 unsurpassed. In
cultivation the tree forms an interesting, symmetrical specimen,
adapted to formal gardens. (_See illustration, 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 cultivation. 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 principally 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 autumn. Here is a tall pyramidal
conifer which is not evergreen. It bears an annual crop of small
woody cones, held erect 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 telegraph 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 Western Larch=
_L. occidentalis_, 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 cultivation, 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 clustered
berries, or drupes.
Sago, tapioca, cocoanuts, and dates are foods derived 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 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 successfully established by
the Government in hot, dry localities 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 necessary 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
_Abies balsamea_, 258
_Abies concolor_, 257
_Abies Fraseri_, 253
_Abies grandis_, 256
_Abies magnifica_, 254
_Abies nobilis_, 256
_Acacia dealbata_, 187
_Acacia Melanoxylon_, 186
_Acacia_, Palo verde, 190
Acacias, The, 184-187
_Acer circinatum_, 197
_Acer glabrum_, 199
_Acer macrophyllum_, 197
_Acer nigrum_, 195
_Acer Negundo_, 199
_Acer Pennsylvanicum_, 198
_Acer pseudo-platanus_, 200
_Acer rubrum_, 195
_Acer saccharinum_, 196
_Acer saccharum_, 194
_Acer spicatum_, 198
_Aesculus Californica_, 68
_Aesculus glabra_, 67
_Aesculus Hippocastanum_, 65
_Aesculus octandra_, 67
"Ague tree", 131
Alder, Black, 91
Alder, Oregon, 93
Alder, Red, 93
Alder, Seaside, 92
Alders, The, 91-93
Alligator pear, 129
Almond, 152
_Alnus glutinosa_, 91
_Alnus maritima_, 92
_Alnus Oregona_, 93
_Amelanchier alnifolia_, 160
_Amelanchier Canadensis_, 159
American beech, 42
American elm, 210
American holly, 145
American hornbeam, 85
American larch, 278
American linden, 70
Annual rings, 12
_Anona cherimolia_, 171
_Anona glabra_, 170
Apples, The, 147-149
Arbor-vitaes, The, 268-270
Arboreta, xiv
_Arbutus Menziesii_, 121
Arnold arboretum, xiv
Ash, Black, 204
Ash, Blue, 206
Ash, European, 208
Ash, Green, 206
Ash, Oregon, 207
Ash, Red, 205
Ash, White, 202
Ashes, Mountain, 116-118
Ashes, The, 201-209
_Asimina triloba_, 168
Aspen, 78
Assam rubber tree, 166
Autumn leaves, 19
Avocado, 129
Bald cypress, 273
Balm of Gilead, 79
Balsam fir, 253
Balsam poplar, 79
"Banana tree, Wild", 169
Banyan tree, 166
Bark, xv, 23
Basket oak, 55
Basswood, Downy, 72
Basswood, White, 71
Basswoods, The, 68-74
Bay, Red, 129
Bay, Rose, 119
Bay, Swamp, 105
Bee tree, 71
Beech, American, 42
"Beech, Blue", 85
"Beech, Water", 85
"Beetle-wood", 86
_Betula lenta_, 90
_Betula lutea_, 89
_Betula nigra_, 90
_Betula papyrifera_, 88
_Betula populifolia_, 89
"Big-cone" pine, 240
Big shellbark, 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, 96
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, 29
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
_Chamaecyparis Lawsoniana_, 273
_Chamaecyparis Thyoides_, 272
Chemistry of trees, 5-8
Cherimoya, 171
Cherries, The, 152-155
Cherry birch, 90
Chestnut oak, 53
Chestnuts, The, 44-47
Chinquapin, 44-46
_Chionanthus Virginica_, 126
Chlorophyll, Breaking down of the, 18
Choke cherry, 154
_Cladrastis lutea_, 183
Clammy locust, 179
Cockspur thorn, 156
Coffee 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_, 111
_Cornus mas_, 113
_Cornus Nuttallii_, 113
_Cotinus_, 142
Cotton gum, 97
Cottonwood, 77
Cottonwood, Black, 80
Cottonwood, Lance-leaved, 80
Cottonwood, Mexican, 80
Cottonwood, Narrow-leaved, 80
Cottonwood, Swamp, 81
Crab, Prairie, 148
Crab, Wild, 148
_Crataegus coccinea_, 158
_Crataegus Crus-galli_, 156
_Crataegus Douglasii_, 158
_Crataegus mollis_, 157
_Crataegus oxyacantha_, 155
_Crataegus pruinosa_, 157
Cuban pine, 236
Cucumber tree, 107
Cucumber tree, Large-leaved, 106
_Cupressus macrocarpa_, 271
_Cupressus sempervirens_, 272
"Curly maplewood", 15
Custard-apple, 168, 170
Cypresses, The, 271-274
Date palm, 281
Digger pine, 239
_Diospyros Virginiana_, 172
Dogwood, European, 113
Dogwood, Flowering, 111
Dogwood, Jamaica, 190
Dogwood, Western, 113
Dogwoods, The, 111-114
Douglas spruce, 258
Downy basswood, 72
Dwarf juniper, 275
Dwarf maple, 199
Dwarf sumach, 140
Eastern arbor-vitae, 268
Eastern mountain ash, 116
Eastern red cedar, 276
Eastern service berry, 159
Ebony, Texas, 191
Elder, Box, 199
Elder-leaved mountain ash, 117
Elm, American, 210
Elm, Camperdown, 216
"Elm, Cork", 215
Elm, English, 215
Elm, Hickory, 214
Elm, Moose, 213
Elm, Mountain, 215
Elm, Red, 213
Elm, Rock, 214
Elm, Scotch, 216
Elm, Slippery, 213
Elm, Small-leaved, 215
Elm, White, 210
Elm, Winged, 215
Elm, Wych, 216
Elms, The, 210-216
"Encina", 64
Engelmann spruce, 250
English elm, 215
English hawthorn, 155
English walnut, 33
_Euonymus atropurpureus_, 136
European ash, 208
European cypress, 272
European dogwood, 113
European holly, 144
European mountain ash, 117
European nettle tree, 162
Evergreens, Cone-bearing, 217-279
Evergreens, Leaves of, 20
_Fagus Americanus_, 42
Fibres of wood, 13
_Ficus aurea_, 167
_Ficus elasticus_, 166
"Fiddleback" ash, 209
Figs, The, 165-167
Fir, Balsam, 253
Fir, Blue, 257
Fir, Noble, 256
Fir, Red, 254
Fir, Red (_A. nobilis_), 256
Fir, Silver, 257
Fir, White, 256
Fir, White (_A. concolor_), 257
Firs, The, 251-257
Flowering dogwood, 111
"Foxtail" pines, The, 229
_Fraxinus Americana_, 202
_Fraxinus excelsior_, 208
_Fraxinus nigra_, 204
_Fraxinus Oregona_, 207
_Fraxinus ornus_, 209
_Fraxinus Pennsylvanica_, 205
_Fraxinus Pennsylvanica_ (_lanceolata_), 206
_Fraxinus quadrangulata_, 206
Frijolito, 192
Fringe tree, 126
Gerarde, 73
_Gleditsia triacanthos_, 180
Golden fig, 167
Grain of wood, 13
Gray pine, 238
Great laurel, 119
Great laurel magnolia, 104
Green ash, 206
"Grete Herball", 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
_Hamamelis 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
_Hicoria 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_, 145
_Ilex vomitoria_, 145
Incense cedar, 270
"Iron oak", 52
"Ironwood," _see also_ Hornbeam
Ironwood, Knowlton's, 87
Jack pine, 238
Jamaica dogwood, 190
Japanese persimmon, 175
Japanese walnut, 33
"Judas-tree", 183
_Juglans, Californica_, 29
_Juglans cinerea_, 30
_Juglans cordiformis_, 33
_Juglans nigra_, 31
_Juglans regia_, 33
_Juglans rupestris_, 29
_Juglans Sieboldiana_, 33
June-berry, 159
Junipers, The, 274-277
_Juniperus Barbadensis_, 277
_Juniperus communis_, 275
_Juniperus occidentalis_, 276
_Juniperus Virginiana_, 276
Kaki, 175
Kalm, Peter, xx
_Kalmia latifolia_, 120
Kentucky coffee tree, 181
Knob-cone pine, 240
Knowlton's ironwood, 87
Lance-leaved Cottonwood, 80
"_Langues de femmes_", 81
Larches, The, 277-279
Large-leaved cucumber tree, 106
_Larix Americana_, 278
_Larix occidentalis_, 279
Laurel family, 127-133
Laurel, Great, 119
Laurel, Mountain, 120
Laurel oak, 63
_Laurus nobilis_, 129
Lawson cypress, 273
Leaves, 4, 16-20
"Lever-wood", 86
_Librocedus Decurrens_, 270
Lime, Common, 72
"Lime Trees," _see_ Lindens
Linden, American, 70
Lindens, The, 68-74
Linnaeus, xviii, 73
_Liquidamber styraciflua_, 97
_Liriodendron tulipifera_, 109
Live oak, 56
Live oak (_Q. aquifolia_), 64
Loblolly pine, 236
Locusts, The, 177-184
Lodge-pole pine, 245
Lombardy poplar, 77
Longleaf pine, 232
Madroña, 121
_Magnolia acuminata_, 107
Magnolia, Campbell's, 103
_Magnolia foetida_, 104
_Magnolia Glauca_, 105
Magnolia, Great laurel, 104
_Magnolia macrophylla_, 106
Magnolia, Starry, 103
_Magnolia stellata_, 103
_Magnolia tripetala_, 108
_Magnolia yulan_, 102
Magnolias, The, 101-111
_Malus coronaria_, 148
_Malus ioensis_, 148
Maple, "Bird's eye" and "Curly", 15
Maple, Black, 195
Maple, Dwarf, 199
Maple, Mountain, 198
Maple, Norway, 200
Maple, Oregon, 197
Maple, Red, 195
Maple, Silver, 196
Maple, Soft, 196
Maple, Striped, 198
Maple, Sugar, 194
Maple, Sycamore, 200
Maple, Vine, 197
Maple, Wier's weeping, 196
Maples, The, 193-201
Melon papaw, 169
Mesquite, 188
Mexican cottonwood, 80
Mississippi Valley chestnut oak, 54
Mockernut, 40
_Mohrodendron diptera_, 124
_Mohrodendron tetraptera_, 123
Monterey cypress, 271
Monterey pine, 241
Moose elm, 213
_Morus alba_, 164
_Morus nigra_, 165
_Morus rubra_, 163
Mountain ashes, 116-118
Mountain elm, 215
Mountain hemlock, 261
Mountain laurel, 120
Mountain maple, 198
Mountain pine, 224
Mountain sumach, 140
Muir, John, xvi
Mulberries, The, 163-165
Names of trees, xvii-xxiii
Nannyberry, 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, 61
Oak, "Rock chestnut", 53
Oak, Scarlet, 59
Oak, Single or Laurel, 63
Oak, Swamp white, 54
Oak, White, 49
Oak, Willow, 62
Oak, "Yellow", 54
Oaks, Black, 58-65
Oaks, The, 46-65
Oaks, White, 49-58
Ohio buckeye, 67
Oilnut, 30
Old field pine, 236
One-leaved nut pine, 231
Oregon alder, 93
Oregon ash, 207
Oregon maple, 197
Oriental plane, 95
Osage orange, 99
_Ostrya Knowletoni_, 87
_Ostrya Virginiana_, 86
_Oxydendrum arboreum_, 122
Pacific post oak, 57
Palms, The, 280
Palo verde acacia, 190
Papaws, The, 167-170
Paper birch, 88
_Parkinsonia aculeata_, 191
Pecan, 38
"Pepperidge", 96
_Persea Borbonia_, 129
_Persea gratissima_, 129
Persimmons, The, 172-175
_Picea Engelmanni_, 250
_Picea excelsa_, 248
_Picea Mariana_, 248
_Picea Parryana_, 250
_Picea rubens_, 249
_Picea Sitchensis_, 251
Pie cherry, 152
Pignut, 41
Pin cherry, 153
Pin oak, 60
Pine, "Big-cone", 240
Pine, Cuban, 236
Pine, Digger, 239
Pine, Gray, 238
Pine, Jack, 238
Pine, Knob-cone, 240
Pine, Loblolly, 236
Pine, Lodge-pole, 245
Pine, Longleaf, 232
Pine, Monterey, 241
Pine, Mountain, 224
Pine, Norway, 246
Pine, Old field, 236
Pine, One-leaved nut, 231
Pine, Pitch, 237
Pine, Prickle-cone, 229
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
Pines, Nut, 230-232
Pines, The, 220-247
Piñon, 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_, 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 pine, Western, 239
Pitch pines, The, 232
Plane, Oriental, 95
_Platanus occidentalis_, 93
_Platanus orientalis_, 95
Plums, The, 149-152
"Pod-bearers," The, 176-192
Poison sumach, 141
Pond apples, The, 170-172
Poplar, Balsam, 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 balsamifera_, 79
_-Populus deltoidea_, 77
_Populus heterophylla_, 81
_Populus Mexicana_, 80
_Populus nigra_, 77
_Populus tremuloides_, 78
_Populus trichocarpa_, 80
Post oak, 52
Prairie crab, 148
Prickle-cone pine, 229
Prickwood, 137
_Prosopis pubescens_, 189
_Prosopis Tuliflora_, 188
_Prunus Americanus_, 150
_Prunus avium_, 152
_Prunus cerasus_, 152
_Prunus nigra_, 151
_Prunus Pennsylvanica_, 153
_Prunus pseudo-Cerasus_, 152
_Prunus serotina_, 153
_Prunus Virginiana_, 154
_Pseudotsuga mucronata_, 258
Pussy willow, 84
Quaking asp, 78
_Quercus acuminata_, 54
_Quercus agrifolia_, 64
_Quercus alba_, 49
_Quercus chrysolepis_, 63
_Quercus coccinea_, 59
_Quercus Garryana_, 57
_Quercus lobata_, 57
_Quercus macrocarpa_, 51
_Quercus Michauxii_, 55
_Quercus minor_, 52
_Quercus palustris_, 60
_Quercus Phellos_, 62
_Quercus platanoides_, 54
_Quercus prinus_, 53
_Quercus rubra_, 61
_Quercus velutina_, 58
_Quercus Virginiana_, 56
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
Red 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_, 119
_Rhus copallina_, 140
_Rhus glabra_, 141
_Rhus hirta_, 138
_Rhus 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 plant, 166
Rum cherry, 153
Rusty nannyberry, 115
_Salix Babylonica_, 83
_Salix discolor_, 84
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
Shellbark, Big, 38
Shingle oak, 63
Shortleaf pine, 235
"Silva of North America", xxi
Silver bell trees, 123
Silver fir, 257
Silver-leaved poplar, 76
Silver maple, 196
Silver wattle, 187
Slash pine, 236
Slippery elm, 213
Small-leaved elm, 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
_Sorbus Aucuparia_, 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, Engelmann, 250
Spruce, Norway, 248
Spruce, Red, 249
Spruce, Tideland, 251
Spruces, The, 247-251
Staghorn sumach, 138
Starch, 7
Starry magnolia, 103
Striped mapl, 198
Sugar maple, 194
Sugar pine, 225
Sumach, Black dwarf, 140
Sumach, Dwarf, 140
Sumach, Mountain, 140
Sumach, Poison, 141
Sumach, Smooth, 141
Sumach, Staghorn, 138
Sumachs, The, 137-142
Swamp bay, 105
Swamp Cottonwood, 81
Swamp pine, 236
Swamp white oak, 54
Sweet buckeye, 67
Sweet cherry, 152
Sweet gum, 97
Sweet leaf, 124
Sycamore maple, 200
Sycamores, The, 93-95
_Symplocos tinctoria_, 125
Tamarack pine, 245
Tamaracks, The, 277-279
"Tassel trees", 186
_Taxodium distichum_, 273
Texas ebony, 191
_Thuya occidentalis_, 268
_Thuya plicata_, 269
Tideland spruce,, 251
_Tilia Americana_, 70
_Tilia heterophylla_, 71
_Tilia pubescens_, 72
_Tilia vulgaris_, 72
_Toxylon pomiferum_, 99
Transpiration, 23
Trees, Bark of, xv, 23
Trees, Breathing of, 22
Trees, Buds of, 3, 23
Trees, Chemistry of., 5-8
Trees, Food of, 6
Trees, Growth of, 9-16
Trees, How to know the, xiv-xvi
Trees in winter, 20-27
Trees, Leaves of, 4, 16-20
Trees, Life of, 3-27
Trees, Names of, xii, xvii-xxiii
Trees, Opposite-leaved, xv
Trees, Sap of, 6
Trembling aspen, 78
_Tsuga Canadensis_, 260
_Tsuga heterophylla_, 261
_Tsuga Martensiana_, 231
Tulip tree, 109
"Tupelo", 96
_Ulmus alata_, 215
_Ulmus Americana_, 210
_Ulmus campestris_, 215
_Ulmus fulva_, 213
_Ulmus montana_, 216
_Ulmus Thomasi_, 214
Umbrella tree, 108
_Viburnum lentago_, 114
_Viburnum prunifolium_, 115
_Viburnum rufidulum_, 115
Viburnums, The, 114
Vine maple, 197
"Virgilia", 183
Wahoo, 137
"Wahoo", 215
Walnut, Black, 31
Walnut, California, 29
Walnut, English, 33
Walnut, Japanese, 33
Walnut, Southwestern, 29
Walnut, White, 30
Walnuts, The, 28-35
"Water Beech", 85
Wattles, The, 184-187
Weeping maple, Wier's, 196
Weeping willow, 83
Western dogwood, 113
Western hemlock, 261
Western juniper, 276
Western larch, 279
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. concolor_), 257
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, 210
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 flexicaulis_, 191
Transcriber's Notes
Where images split paragraphs and in some cases would split off a
short section of a species description, the text was moved above or
below the images to rejoin the text. Small caps formatting is
usually converted to ALL CAPS. Although the section header lists on
the chapter title pages were printed in small caps and the section
header text are printed in ALL CAPS where they occur within the
chapter, it was decided that the header lists would be left as mixed
caps for better readability.
Where text is printed as superscripts, they are presented using a
carat symbol (ex., CO^2 for the Carbon Dioxide). When text is printed
as subscripts, an underscore is used (ex., H_{2}O for water).
Although current usage would display the numbers in chemical formulæ
as subscripts (ex., H_{2}O, CO_{2} and C_{6}H_{10}O_{5}), they are
displayed here as printed.
Original gramatical constructions were left as is (ex. P. 83,
"...the light seeds ... floats away...").
In order to match the most commonly used spelling, the instances
where Arbor-vitae was printed with an ae ligature were converted to
individual letters. The oe ligature on page xxi was converted to the
letters "oe". As three variant spellings birdseye, birds-eye and
bird's-eye appear, the others were converted to the most prevalent
form--bird's-eye. This was also the case with a number of other
words which were changed; but are not specifically listed here.
Typographical Corrections
Page Correction
67 Raffinesque => Rafinesque
89 uniniviting => uninviting
156 hawthrons => hawthorns
284 Black haw, 115-158 => Black haw, 115, 158
285 Diospyrus => Diospyros
286 Bardadensis => Barbadensis
289 Rew Haw => Red haw
Emphasis Notation
=Text= - bold
_Text_ - italic
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