BLACK WILLOW

BLACK WILLOWBlack willowBlack Willow

Black willowBlack Willow

Black Willow

BLACK WILLOW(Salix Nigra)The willows and the cottonwoods belong to the same family of trees,Salicaceæ, and the family is fairly numerous, and it has some well-defined traits of character. The quinine-bitter of the bark is ever present, but more marked in willows than in cottonwoods. Though quite unpleasant to the taste, it is harmless. The leaves never grow in pairs, and in most instances they fall early in autumn, and some without changing color. Male and female flowers are borne on different trees, and fertilizing is done by insects, often by honey bees and bumblebees. Fruit ripens in late spring, and the seeds are equipped for flight by being provided with exceedingly fine silky hairs. The wind carries them long distances. The trees generally grow in the immediate vicinity of streams or in situations where the soil is damp, but there are exceptions.The willow family consists of two genera, one the cottonwoods or poplars, the other the willows proper. There are about seventy-five species of willow in America, twenty of them trees. Some, however, are quite small and only occasionally attain sizes which place them in the tree class. The willows are old residents of this continent. They grew in the central portion of what is now the United States in the Cretaceous age, as is proved by their leaf prints in the rocks. They have held their ground ever since, and there is no likelihood that they are about to give it up. Few species are better fitted for holding what they have. A few trees are capable of seeding a large region in a few years, and if soil and situation are suitable, reproduction will be abundant. The willows’ tenacity of life is often remarkable. It sometimes seems next to impossible to kill them by cutting off their tops. There are said to be instances in Europe where willows have been pollarded successively during hundreds of years, the crops of sprouts being used for wickerwork and other purposes. No such records exist in this country, but the willow’s sprouting habit is well known. A shoot stuck in the ground will grow, and a fence post will sprout. Many willows develop large stools, or roots, and repeatedly send up numerous sprouts, and it makes little difference how often they are cut, others will come up.Comparatively few willows that start in life ever become trees. They are suppressed by crowding, or meet misfortunes of one kind or another which keep them small, but occasionally a tree of good size results. Willow trees are usually not old. Probably few reach an age exceeding 150 years. Large trunks, in old age, are apt to be hollow or otherwise defective, though a willow tree will live many years aftermuch of its trunk has disappeared. A little green bark on the side, and sprouts from the stump will maintain life long after all usefulness has ceased.Young willows are usually pliant and tough, old are stiff and brash. They range from sea level up to 10,000 feet or more; grow profusely in the wet lands about the gulf of Mexico, and likewise on the bleak coasts of the Arctic ocean. Commander Peary found willows blooming in considerable profusion on the extreme northern shore of Greenland, where they produce enough growth during the few weeks of summer sunshine to afford the muskox the means of eking out a living during his sojourn in those inhospitable regions.The identification of willows is one of the most difficult tasks that fall to the botanists. Black willow is unquestionably the most important willow in this country from the lumberman’s standpoint. It is the common tree willow that attains size suitable for sawlogs. If a forest grown willow of large size is encountered east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States, it is pretty safe to class it as black willow. There are some others which grow large, but not many. Planted willows, both large and small, may be foreign species, and white willows, which are not native in this country, but have been widely planted, and are running wild, may be occasionally found of ample size for saw timber.Black willow’s range extends from New Brunswick to Florida, west to the Dakotas, and south to Texas, thence passing into Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. It attains its best size in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, though large trees are found in other parts of its range. It is difficult to say what its average size is, for some black willows are only a few feet high and an inch or two in diameter. The largest trees exceed 100 feet in height and three in diameter. An extreme size of seven feet in diameter has been reported. It is not unusual to see willow logs three feet in diameter in mill yards in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas, and logs four feet in diameter are not so unusual as to excite much comment. The average sizes, however, of willow sawlogs in that region are from eighteen inches to two feet.The wood of black willow is pale reddish-brown. When freshly cut it is sometimes purple, almost black. When sawed in lumber and exposed to the air the dark color fades. The wood is soft but firm. It has about fifty per cent of the strength of white oak, and forty per cent of its stiffness. It weighs 27.77 pounds per cubic foot; and considering its weight, it is tolerably strong and stiff.Probably no other wood in the United States is as systematically cheated out of its just credit as this one. Many of the oaks are seldomgiven their proper names, but they are listed as oak in sawmill output, and thus the genus, if not the species is given credit. But willow is almost totally ignored. The United States census in 1910 credited to all the willow lumber in this country an amount less than a million and a half feet; yet a single mill in Louisiana, and not a large mill at that, cut and sold four times that much during that year. The wood was cut by hundreds of other mills, some a few logs only, others considerable quantities.It is sold for various purposes, and much of it goes as cottonwood. In some instances it is called brown cottonwood. Probably ninety per cent is made into boxes, but it has many other uses. It is cut into excelsior, made into rotary cut veneer, and finds place in the manufacture of furniture; it is a common woodenware material; slack coopers make barrels of it; and it is turned for baseball bats.The supply of black willow in this country is not small. It is usually found in wet situations along streams. Sometimes islands and low flats are taken possession of and pure stands result. The growth is sometimes phenomenal. Trunks may add nearly or quite an inch to their diameter per year when conditions are exceptionally favorable. Instances, apparently well authenticated, are reported of abandoned fields along the Mississippi, which in sixty years grew 100,000 feet of willow per acre.Longstalk Willow(Salix longipes) sometimes grows to a height of thirty feet with a diameter of six or eight inches. Its range extends from Maryland to Texas, and is at its best in the Ozark region of southwestern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas.Almondleaf Willow(Salix amygdaloides) grows across northern United States and southern Canada from New York to Oregon, and occurs as far south as Missouri and Ohio, and is abundant in the lower Ohio valley. At its best it is seventy feet high and two feet in diameter. The wood is light, soft, and the heartwood is brown.Smoothleaf Willow(Salix lævigata) attains a diameter of one foot and a height of forty or fifty. It is a Pacific coast tree, occurring in California on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas up to an altitude of 3,000 feet. It is known as black willow. The wood is pale reddish-brown.Silverleaf Willow(Salix sessilifolia) looks like longleaf willow, and though usually a shrub it sometimes is twenty-five feet high and ten inches in diameter. It grows from the mouth of the Columbia river to southern California.Yewleaf Willow(Salix taxifolia) ranges from western Texas, through southern Arizona into Mexico and Central America. Trees are occasionally forty feet high and more than one foot in diameter. A little fuel and fence posts are cut from this willow.Bebb Willow(Salix bebbiana) is nearly always shrubby, but occasionally reaches a trunk diameter of six or eight inches and a height of twenty feet. Its northern limit lies within the Arctic circle, its southern in Pennsylvania, Nebraska, and Arizona. West of Hudson bay it forms almost impenetrable thickets, and in Colorado it ascends mountains to elevations of 10,000 feet.Glaucous Willow(Salix discolor), commonly known as silver or pussy willow, ranges from Nova Scotia to Manitoba, and southward to Delaware, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. It is one of the best known willows within its range, on account of its flowers which are among the earliest of the season, and very showy. The largest specimens are scarcely twenty-five feet high and twelve inches in diameter.Mackenzie Willow(Salix cordata mackenzieana) is not abundant, and is one of the smallest of the tree willows. It is nearly always a shrub. Its range extends from California nearly to the Arctic circle, where it occurs in gravelly soil on the borders of mountain streams.Missouri Willow(Salix missouriensis) is so named because it occurs principally in Missouri, but its range extends into Kansas and Iowa. It is occasionally forty feet high and a foot in diameter. It is used for fence posts.Bigelow Willow(Salix lasiolepis) is generally called white willow on account of its gray bark. It occurs in California and Arizona, and at its best it is twenty-five feet high and ten inches in diameter. Some use is made of it as fuel, where other wood is scarce.Nuttall Willow(Salix nuttallii), called also mountain willow in Montana, ranges from British America, east of the Rocky Mountains, to southern California. Its usual height is twenty or twenty-five feet, and its diameter six or eight inches. In southern California it grows 10,000 feet above sea level.Hooker Willow(Salix hookeriana) occurs in the coast region from Vancouver island to southern Oregon, and varies in height from a sprawling shrub to a height of thirty feet and a diameter of one. Little use is made of it.Silky Willow(Salix sitchensis), known also as Sitka willow, ranges from Alaska to southern California. The largest specimens are twenty-five feet high and ten inches in diameter. Trunks are largely sapwood and are of little commercial importance.Broadleaf Willow(Salix amplifolia), known also as feltleaf willow, was discovered in Alaska in 1899. The leaves are woolly. The largest trees rarely exceed a height of thirty feet and a diameter of six inches. Its range extends to the valley of the Mackenzie river.A number of foreign willows have become naturalized in the United States. Among them is white willow (Salix alba), which grows to large size, probably as large as black willow; crack willow (Salix fragilis), so named on account of the brittleness of its twigs; and weeping willow (Salix babylonica). The botanical name is based on the supposition that it was this willow, growing by the rivers near Babylon, on which the captive Hebrews hung their harps. Basket willow is planted for its osiers in several eastern states. It is not a single species, but a group of varieties developed by cultivation.Black willow branch

The willows and the cottonwoods belong to the same family of trees,Salicaceæ, and the family is fairly numerous, and it has some well-defined traits of character. The quinine-bitter of the bark is ever present, but more marked in willows than in cottonwoods. Though quite unpleasant to the taste, it is harmless. The leaves never grow in pairs, and in most instances they fall early in autumn, and some without changing color. Male and female flowers are borne on different trees, and fertilizing is done by insects, often by honey bees and bumblebees. Fruit ripens in late spring, and the seeds are equipped for flight by being provided with exceedingly fine silky hairs. The wind carries them long distances. The trees generally grow in the immediate vicinity of streams or in situations where the soil is damp, but there are exceptions.

The willow family consists of two genera, one the cottonwoods or poplars, the other the willows proper. There are about seventy-five species of willow in America, twenty of them trees. Some, however, are quite small and only occasionally attain sizes which place them in the tree class. The willows are old residents of this continent. They grew in the central portion of what is now the United States in the Cretaceous age, as is proved by their leaf prints in the rocks. They have held their ground ever since, and there is no likelihood that they are about to give it up. Few species are better fitted for holding what they have. A few trees are capable of seeding a large region in a few years, and if soil and situation are suitable, reproduction will be abundant. The willows’ tenacity of life is often remarkable. It sometimes seems next to impossible to kill them by cutting off their tops. There are said to be instances in Europe where willows have been pollarded successively during hundreds of years, the crops of sprouts being used for wickerwork and other purposes. No such records exist in this country, but the willow’s sprouting habit is well known. A shoot stuck in the ground will grow, and a fence post will sprout. Many willows develop large stools, or roots, and repeatedly send up numerous sprouts, and it makes little difference how often they are cut, others will come up.

Comparatively few willows that start in life ever become trees. They are suppressed by crowding, or meet misfortunes of one kind or another which keep them small, but occasionally a tree of good size results. Willow trees are usually not old. Probably few reach an age exceeding 150 years. Large trunks, in old age, are apt to be hollow or otherwise defective, though a willow tree will live many years aftermuch of its trunk has disappeared. A little green bark on the side, and sprouts from the stump will maintain life long after all usefulness has ceased.

Young willows are usually pliant and tough, old are stiff and brash. They range from sea level up to 10,000 feet or more; grow profusely in the wet lands about the gulf of Mexico, and likewise on the bleak coasts of the Arctic ocean. Commander Peary found willows blooming in considerable profusion on the extreme northern shore of Greenland, where they produce enough growth during the few weeks of summer sunshine to afford the muskox the means of eking out a living during his sojourn in those inhospitable regions.

The identification of willows is one of the most difficult tasks that fall to the botanists. Black willow is unquestionably the most important willow in this country from the lumberman’s standpoint. It is the common tree willow that attains size suitable for sawlogs. If a forest grown willow of large size is encountered east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States, it is pretty safe to class it as black willow. There are some others which grow large, but not many. Planted willows, both large and small, may be foreign species, and white willows, which are not native in this country, but have been widely planted, and are running wild, may be occasionally found of ample size for saw timber.

Black willow’s range extends from New Brunswick to Florida, west to the Dakotas, and south to Texas, thence passing into Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. It attains its best size in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, though large trees are found in other parts of its range. It is difficult to say what its average size is, for some black willows are only a few feet high and an inch or two in diameter. The largest trees exceed 100 feet in height and three in diameter. An extreme size of seven feet in diameter has been reported. It is not unusual to see willow logs three feet in diameter in mill yards in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas, and logs four feet in diameter are not so unusual as to excite much comment. The average sizes, however, of willow sawlogs in that region are from eighteen inches to two feet.

The wood of black willow is pale reddish-brown. When freshly cut it is sometimes purple, almost black. When sawed in lumber and exposed to the air the dark color fades. The wood is soft but firm. It has about fifty per cent of the strength of white oak, and forty per cent of its stiffness. It weighs 27.77 pounds per cubic foot; and considering its weight, it is tolerably strong and stiff.

Probably no other wood in the United States is as systematically cheated out of its just credit as this one. Many of the oaks are seldomgiven their proper names, but they are listed as oak in sawmill output, and thus the genus, if not the species is given credit. But willow is almost totally ignored. The United States census in 1910 credited to all the willow lumber in this country an amount less than a million and a half feet; yet a single mill in Louisiana, and not a large mill at that, cut and sold four times that much during that year. The wood was cut by hundreds of other mills, some a few logs only, others considerable quantities.

It is sold for various purposes, and much of it goes as cottonwood. In some instances it is called brown cottonwood. Probably ninety per cent is made into boxes, but it has many other uses. It is cut into excelsior, made into rotary cut veneer, and finds place in the manufacture of furniture; it is a common woodenware material; slack coopers make barrels of it; and it is turned for baseball bats.

The supply of black willow in this country is not small. It is usually found in wet situations along streams. Sometimes islands and low flats are taken possession of and pure stands result. The growth is sometimes phenomenal. Trunks may add nearly or quite an inch to their diameter per year when conditions are exceptionally favorable. Instances, apparently well authenticated, are reported of abandoned fields along the Mississippi, which in sixty years grew 100,000 feet of willow per acre.

Longstalk Willow(Salix longipes) sometimes grows to a height of thirty feet with a diameter of six or eight inches. Its range extends from Maryland to Texas, and is at its best in the Ozark region of southwestern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas.Almondleaf Willow(Salix amygdaloides) grows across northern United States and southern Canada from New York to Oregon, and occurs as far south as Missouri and Ohio, and is abundant in the lower Ohio valley. At its best it is seventy feet high and two feet in diameter. The wood is light, soft, and the heartwood is brown.Smoothleaf Willow(Salix lævigata) attains a diameter of one foot and a height of forty or fifty. It is a Pacific coast tree, occurring in California on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas up to an altitude of 3,000 feet. It is known as black willow. The wood is pale reddish-brown.Silverleaf Willow(Salix sessilifolia) looks like longleaf willow, and though usually a shrub it sometimes is twenty-five feet high and ten inches in diameter. It grows from the mouth of the Columbia river to southern California.Yewleaf Willow(Salix taxifolia) ranges from western Texas, through southern Arizona into Mexico and Central America. Trees are occasionally forty feet high and more than one foot in diameter. A little fuel and fence posts are cut from this willow.Bebb Willow(Salix bebbiana) is nearly always shrubby, but occasionally reaches a trunk diameter of six or eight inches and a height of twenty feet. Its northern limit lies within the Arctic circle, its southern in Pennsylvania, Nebraska, and Arizona. West of Hudson bay it forms almost impenetrable thickets, and in Colorado it ascends mountains to elevations of 10,000 feet.Glaucous Willow(Salix discolor), commonly known as silver or pussy willow, ranges from Nova Scotia to Manitoba, and southward to Delaware, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. It is one of the best known willows within its range, on account of its flowers which are among the earliest of the season, and very showy. The largest specimens are scarcely twenty-five feet high and twelve inches in diameter.Mackenzie Willow(Salix cordata mackenzieana) is not abundant, and is one of the smallest of the tree willows. It is nearly always a shrub. Its range extends from California nearly to the Arctic circle, where it occurs in gravelly soil on the borders of mountain streams.Missouri Willow(Salix missouriensis) is so named because it occurs principally in Missouri, but its range extends into Kansas and Iowa. It is occasionally forty feet high and a foot in diameter. It is used for fence posts.Bigelow Willow(Salix lasiolepis) is generally called white willow on account of its gray bark. It occurs in California and Arizona, and at its best it is twenty-five feet high and ten inches in diameter. Some use is made of it as fuel, where other wood is scarce.Nuttall Willow(Salix nuttallii), called also mountain willow in Montana, ranges from British America, east of the Rocky Mountains, to southern California. Its usual height is twenty or twenty-five feet, and its diameter six or eight inches. In southern California it grows 10,000 feet above sea level.Hooker Willow(Salix hookeriana) occurs in the coast region from Vancouver island to southern Oregon, and varies in height from a sprawling shrub to a height of thirty feet and a diameter of one. Little use is made of it.Silky Willow(Salix sitchensis), known also as Sitka willow, ranges from Alaska to southern California. The largest specimens are twenty-five feet high and ten inches in diameter. Trunks are largely sapwood and are of little commercial importance.Broadleaf Willow(Salix amplifolia), known also as feltleaf willow, was discovered in Alaska in 1899. The leaves are woolly. The largest trees rarely exceed a height of thirty feet and a diameter of six inches. Its range extends to the valley of the Mackenzie river.A number of foreign willows have become naturalized in the United States. Among them is white willow (Salix alba), which grows to large size, probably as large as black willow; crack willow (Salix fragilis), so named on account of the brittleness of its twigs; and weeping willow (Salix babylonica). The botanical name is based on the supposition that it was this willow, growing by the rivers near Babylon, on which the captive Hebrews hung their harps. Basket willow is planted for its osiers in several eastern states. It is not a single species, but a group of varieties developed by cultivation.

Longstalk Willow(Salix longipes) sometimes grows to a height of thirty feet with a diameter of six or eight inches. Its range extends from Maryland to Texas, and is at its best in the Ozark region of southwestern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas.

Almondleaf Willow(Salix amygdaloides) grows across northern United States and southern Canada from New York to Oregon, and occurs as far south as Missouri and Ohio, and is abundant in the lower Ohio valley. At its best it is seventy feet high and two feet in diameter. The wood is light, soft, and the heartwood is brown.

Smoothleaf Willow(Salix lævigata) attains a diameter of one foot and a height of forty or fifty. It is a Pacific coast tree, occurring in California on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas up to an altitude of 3,000 feet. It is known as black willow. The wood is pale reddish-brown.

Silverleaf Willow(Salix sessilifolia) looks like longleaf willow, and though usually a shrub it sometimes is twenty-five feet high and ten inches in diameter. It grows from the mouth of the Columbia river to southern California.

Yewleaf Willow(Salix taxifolia) ranges from western Texas, through southern Arizona into Mexico and Central America. Trees are occasionally forty feet high and more than one foot in diameter. A little fuel and fence posts are cut from this willow.

Bebb Willow(Salix bebbiana) is nearly always shrubby, but occasionally reaches a trunk diameter of six or eight inches and a height of twenty feet. Its northern limit lies within the Arctic circle, its southern in Pennsylvania, Nebraska, and Arizona. West of Hudson bay it forms almost impenetrable thickets, and in Colorado it ascends mountains to elevations of 10,000 feet.

Glaucous Willow(Salix discolor), commonly known as silver or pussy willow, ranges from Nova Scotia to Manitoba, and southward to Delaware, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. It is one of the best known willows within its range, on account of its flowers which are among the earliest of the season, and very showy. The largest specimens are scarcely twenty-five feet high and twelve inches in diameter.

Mackenzie Willow(Salix cordata mackenzieana) is not abundant, and is one of the smallest of the tree willows. It is nearly always a shrub. Its range extends from California nearly to the Arctic circle, where it occurs in gravelly soil on the borders of mountain streams.

Missouri Willow(Salix missouriensis) is so named because it occurs principally in Missouri, but its range extends into Kansas and Iowa. It is occasionally forty feet high and a foot in diameter. It is used for fence posts.

Bigelow Willow(Salix lasiolepis) is generally called white willow on account of its gray bark. It occurs in California and Arizona, and at its best it is twenty-five feet high and ten inches in diameter. Some use is made of it as fuel, where other wood is scarce.

Nuttall Willow(Salix nuttallii), called also mountain willow in Montana, ranges from British America, east of the Rocky Mountains, to southern California. Its usual height is twenty or twenty-five feet, and its diameter six or eight inches. In southern California it grows 10,000 feet above sea level.

Hooker Willow(Salix hookeriana) occurs in the coast region from Vancouver island to southern Oregon, and varies in height from a sprawling shrub to a height of thirty feet and a diameter of one. Little use is made of it.

Silky Willow(Salix sitchensis), known also as Sitka willow, ranges from Alaska to southern California. The largest specimens are twenty-five feet high and ten inches in diameter. Trunks are largely sapwood and are of little commercial importance.

Broadleaf Willow(Salix amplifolia), known also as feltleaf willow, was discovered in Alaska in 1899. The leaves are woolly. The largest trees rarely exceed a height of thirty feet and a diameter of six inches. Its range extends to the valley of the Mackenzie river.

A number of foreign willows have become naturalized in the United States. Among them is white willow (Salix alba), which grows to large size, probably as large as black willow; crack willow (Salix fragilis), so named on account of the brittleness of its twigs; and weeping willow (Salix babylonica). The botanical name is based on the supposition that it was this willow, growing by the rivers near Babylon, on which the captive Hebrews hung their harps. Basket willow is planted for its osiers in several eastern states. It is not a single species, but a group of varieties developed by cultivation.

Black willow branch

HARDY CATALPAHardy catalpaHardy Catalpa

Hardy catalpaHardy Catalpa

Hardy Catalpa

HARDY CATALPA(Catalpa Speciosa)This tree belongs to the familyBignoniaceæwhich has its name from Abbé Bignon, librarian of Louis XV. About one hundred genera belong to this family, only three of which reach the size of trees in the United States. These include the catalpas, the desert willow, and the black calabash tree.Seven species of catalpa are known, two of them occurring in the United States. Others are found in China and the West Indies. The name is an Indian word and was first heard among the tribes of the Carolinas. It seems probable that the name catalpa as applied to a tree and catawba, applied to a grape, have the same origin, and in some way refer to the Catawba Indians, a small tribe—said to be Sioux—that lived two hundred years ago in the western part of the Carolinas and neighboring regions where one of the catalpa species was first heard of by Europeans. The tree in that region is still often called catawba.The two catalpas of this country are known to botanists asCatalpa speciosaandCatalpa catalpa. Much confusion has resulted from attempts to distinguish one from the other. Botanists are able to clear the matter up among themselves, but the general public has not been so successful. John P. Brown, of Connersville, Indiana, specialized on catalpas during many years, and published numerous tracts, pamphlets, and books for the purpose of educating the public to the point where the differences between common catalpa and hardy catalpa could be distinguished. His labor was likewise directed toward inducing land owners to plant catalpa for commercial purposes. Due to his efforts, and otherwise, catalpa was for a time the most advertised plantation tree in this country. Some supposed that hardy catalpa was the wood which was to save the country from a threatened timber famine. Claims made for it were wide and far reaching.The judgment of history has been—if it may be classed as a matter of history—that the tree fell short of expectation. This does not imply an inferiority of the wood itself, or a slower rate of growth than was claimed for it; but exceptional cases were interpreted as averages, and for that reason the whole situation was overestimated. When all conditions are perfect, hardy catalpa grows rapidly and grows large, but it demands nearly perfect conditions or it will disappoint. It wants ground rich enough and damp enough to grow good crops of corn, and farmers are not generally willing to put that class of land to growing fence posts and railroad ties.The range of hardy catalpa before the species was spread by artificial planting, was through southern Illinois and Indiana, southeastern Missouri and northeastern Arkansas, western Louisiana and eastern Texas, and western Kentucky and Tennessee. Its position on the fertile banks of streams, and on flood plains subject to frequent inundation, indicates that the spread of the species was effected by running water. In that case, the dispersal of seeds would be down stream, implying that the starting place of the species was along the lower reaches of the Wabash river.The catalpa may reach a height of 100 or 120 feet and a diameter of four feet; but few trees attain that size. The leaves are ten or twelve inches long and seven or eight wide, and are considerably larger than those of common catalpa. The flowers appear late in May or early in June, and are showy. The prevailing colors are white and purple, and the blossoms are about two inches long and two and a half wide.The fruit is a pod from eight to twenty inches long, and the enclosed seeds are nearly an inch long, shaped like beans. The trees are prolific bearers.The tree is known by several names in different parts of its range, including the territory where it is known only from plantings. It is called western catalpa to distinguish it from the other species found farther east and south. In Missouri and Iowa it is known as cigar tree. The name Indian bean is an allusion to the large seeds. Shawneewood is another name referring to the supposed interest of Indians in the tree. Shawnee was the name of a tribe of Indians in the Ohio valley in early times.The wood weighs less than twenty-six pounds per cubic foot, and is soft and weak. It is rated very durable in contact with the soil, and this is one of the chief advantages claimed for it. The annual rings are clearly marked by several bands or rows of large open ducts, and the denser summerwood forms a narrow band. The medullary rays are numerous and obscure. The heartwood is brown, the sapwood lighter. In appearance, the heartwood suggests butternut, but it is coarser, and lacks the gloss shown by polished butternut. Quarter-sawing produces no figure, but when sawed at right angles to the radial lines, the annual rings are cut in a way to give figure resembling that of ash or chestnut.The wood of this catalpa has been thoroughly tried out for a number of purposes. Furniture and finish have been made of it with varying success, and molding and picture frames are listed among its uses. It is not a sawlog tree. Statistics of lumber cut seldom mention it, though now and then a log finds its way to a mill. Efforts have been made to pass the wood as mahogany, but with poor success. Thecounterfeit is easily detected, since the artificial color which may be imparted to catalpa is about the only resemblance to mahogany.In the lower Mississippi valley some success, but on a very small scale, has resulted from attempts to induce catalpa to grow in crooks suitable for small boat knees. The young trunk, after being hacked on one side, is bent and induced to grow the crook or knee. Natural crooks have been utilized in the manufacture of knees for small boats in Louisiana.Probably ninety per cent of all the catalpa ever cut has gone into fence posts. It is habitually crooked. A straight bole is the exception; though in plantations trees are crowded and pruned until they grow fairly straight, and sometimes trunks of forest grown trees of large size are nearly faultless in their symmetry.It was once believed in some quarters that catalpa would solve the railroad tie problem by growing good ties quickly. It must be admitted, however, that in spite of extensive plantings, the railroad tie problem has not yet been solved by catalpa.Common Catalpa(Catalpa catalpa) originated many hundred miles outside the range of hardy catalpa, to judge by the localities in which it was first found by white men. It is supposed to have been indigenous in southwestern Georgia, central Alabama, and Mississippi, and northwestern Florida. Its range has been greatly extended by planting, and it grows in most parts of the country east of the Rocky Mountains, as far north as New England. It has been planted in many parts of Europe. Its leaves, flowers, fruit, and the tree itself are smaller than hardy catalpa. The pods hang unopened all winter. The trunks sometimes are three feet in diameter and sixty high, but are generally small, crooked, rather angular, and poor in appearance, but the leaves and flowers are ornamental. The wood is durable in contact with the ground, and its largest use has been for posts, crossties, and poles.Desert Willow(Chilopsis linearis) does not even belong to the willow family, notwithstanding its names, all of which are based on the presumption that it is a willow. The shape and size of its leaves are responsible for that misapprehension. The very narrow leaves may be a foot long. It is called flowering willow and Texas flowering willow. Its flowers are always emphasized when it is compared with willow, for they are totally different from the willow’s characteristic catkins. The flowers appear in early summer in racemes three or four inches long, and continue open during several months in succession. The fruit is a pod seven or nine inches long, and as slender as a lead pencil. It is this pod which gives the plainest hint of its relationship to the catalpas, for it is in good standing in the family with them. The seeds resemble verysmall beans with wings at each end. They are light, and the wind disperses them. The tree is a prolific seeder.The range of this small tree extends across western Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, into San Diego county, California. The tree occurs in dry, gravelly, porous soil near the banks of streams and in depressions in the desert. The wood is weak and soft, the heart brown, streaked with yellow. No use has been found for it. The tree is cultivated for ornament in Mexico and sometimes in the southern states. The flowers look well when they are encountered in the desert. They are white, faintly tinged with purple, with bright yellow spots inside. They are funnel shaped and have the odor of violets.Hardy catalpa branch

This tree belongs to the familyBignoniaceæwhich has its name from Abbé Bignon, librarian of Louis XV. About one hundred genera belong to this family, only three of which reach the size of trees in the United States. These include the catalpas, the desert willow, and the black calabash tree.

Seven species of catalpa are known, two of them occurring in the United States. Others are found in China and the West Indies. The name is an Indian word and was first heard among the tribes of the Carolinas. It seems probable that the name catalpa as applied to a tree and catawba, applied to a grape, have the same origin, and in some way refer to the Catawba Indians, a small tribe—said to be Sioux—that lived two hundred years ago in the western part of the Carolinas and neighboring regions where one of the catalpa species was first heard of by Europeans. The tree in that region is still often called catawba.

The two catalpas of this country are known to botanists asCatalpa speciosaandCatalpa catalpa. Much confusion has resulted from attempts to distinguish one from the other. Botanists are able to clear the matter up among themselves, but the general public has not been so successful. John P. Brown, of Connersville, Indiana, specialized on catalpas during many years, and published numerous tracts, pamphlets, and books for the purpose of educating the public to the point where the differences between common catalpa and hardy catalpa could be distinguished. His labor was likewise directed toward inducing land owners to plant catalpa for commercial purposes. Due to his efforts, and otherwise, catalpa was for a time the most advertised plantation tree in this country. Some supposed that hardy catalpa was the wood which was to save the country from a threatened timber famine. Claims made for it were wide and far reaching.

The judgment of history has been—if it may be classed as a matter of history—that the tree fell short of expectation. This does not imply an inferiority of the wood itself, or a slower rate of growth than was claimed for it; but exceptional cases were interpreted as averages, and for that reason the whole situation was overestimated. When all conditions are perfect, hardy catalpa grows rapidly and grows large, but it demands nearly perfect conditions or it will disappoint. It wants ground rich enough and damp enough to grow good crops of corn, and farmers are not generally willing to put that class of land to growing fence posts and railroad ties.

The range of hardy catalpa before the species was spread by artificial planting, was through southern Illinois and Indiana, southeastern Missouri and northeastern Arkansas, western Louisiana and eastern Texas, and western Kentucky and Tennessee. Its position on the fertile banks of streams, and on flood plains subject to frequent inundation, indicates that the spread of the species was effected by running water. In that case, the dispersal of seeds would be down stream, implying that the starting place of the species was along the lower reaches of the Wabash river.

The catalpa may reach a height of 100 or 120 feet and a diameter of four feet; but few trees attain that size. The leaves are ten or twelve inches long and seven or eight wide, and are considerably larger than those of common catalpa. The flowers appear late in May or early in June, and are showy. The prevailing colors are white and purple, and the blossoms are about two inches long and two and a half wide.

The fruit is a pod from eight to twenty inches long, and the enclosed seeds are nearly an inch long, shaped like beans. The trees are prolific bearers.

The tree is known by several names in different parts of its range, including the territory where it is known only from plantings. It is called western catalpa to distinguish it from the other species found farther east and south. In Missouri and Iowa it is known as cigar tree. The name Indian bean is an allusion to the large seeds. Shawneewood is another name referring to the supposed interest of Indians in the tree. Shawnee was the name of a tribe of Indians in the Ohio valley in early times.

The wood weighs less than twenty-six pounds per cubic foot, and is soft and weak. It is rated very durable in contact with the soil, and this is one of the chief advantages claimed for it. The annual rings are clearly marked by several bands or rows of large open ducts, and the denser summerwood forms a narrow band. The medullary rays are numerous and obscure. The heartwood is brown, the sapwood lighter. In appearance, the heartwood suggests butternut, but it is coarser, and lacks the gloss shown by polished butternut. Quarter-sawing produces no figure, but when sawed at right angles to the radial lines, the annual rings are cut in a way to give figure resembling that of ash or chestnut.

The wood of this catalpa has been thoroughly tried out for a number of purposes. Furniture and finish have been made of it with varying success, and molding and picture frames are listed among its uses. It is not a sawlog tree. Statistics of lumber cut seldom mention it, though now and then a log finds its way to a mill. Efforts have been made to pass the wood as mahogany, but with poor success. Thecounterfeit is easily detected, since the artificial color which may be imparted to catalpa is about the only resemblance to mahogany.

In the lower Mississippi valley some success, but on a very small scale, has resulted from attempts to induce catalpa to grow in crooks suitable for small boat knees. The young trunk, after being hacked on one side, is bent and induced to grow the crook or knee. Natural crooks have been utilized in the manufacture of knees for small boats in Louisiana.

Probably ninety per cent of all the catalpa ever cut has gone into fence posts. It is habitually crooked. A straight bole is the exception; though in plantations trees are crowded and pruned until they grow fairly straight, and sometimes trunks of forest grown trees of large size are nearly faultless in their symmetry.

It was once believed in some quarters that catalpa would solve the railroad tie problem by growing good ties quickly. It must be admitted, however, that in spite of extensive plantings, the railroad tie problem has not yet been solved by catalpa.

Common Catalpa(Catalpa catalpa) originated many hundred miles outside the range of hardy catalpa, to judge by the localities in which it was first found by white men. It is supposed to have been indigenous in southwestern Georgia, central Alabama, and Mississippi, and northwestern Florida. Its range has been greatly extended by planting, and it grows in most parts of the country east of the Rocky Mountains, as far north as New England. It has been planted in many parts of Europe. Its leaves, flowers, fruit, and the tree itself are smaller than hardy catalpa. The pods hang unopened all winter. The trunks sometimes are three feet in diameter and sixty high, but are generally small, crooked, rather angular, and poor in appearance, but the leaves and flowers are ornamental. The wood is durable in contact with the ground, and its largest use has been for posts, crossties, and poles.

Desert Willow(Chilopsis linearis) does not even belong to the willow family, notwithstanding its names, all of which are based on the presumption that it is a willow. The shape and size of its leaves are responsible for that misapprehension. The very narrow leaves may be a foot long. It is called flowering willow and Texas flowering willow. Its flowers are always emphasized when it is compared with willow, for they are totally different from the willow’s characteristic catkins. The flowers appear in early summer in racemes three or four inches long, and continue open during several months in succession. The fruit is a pod seven or nine inches long, and as slender as a lead pencil. It is this pod which gives the plainest hint of its relationship to the catalpas, for it is in good standing in the family with them. The seeds resemble verysmall beans with wings at each end. They are light, and the wind disperses them. The tree is a prolific seeder.

The range of this small tree extends across western Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, into San Diego county, California. The tree occurs in dry, gravelly, porous soil near the banks of streams and in depressions in the desert. The wood is weak and soft, the heart brown, streaked with yellow. No use has been found for it. The tree is cultivated for ornament in Mexico and sometimes in the southern states. The flowers look well when they are encountered in the desert. They are white, faintly tinged with purple, with bright yellow spots inside. They are funnel shaped and have the odor of violets.

Hardy catalpa branch

CUCUMBERCucumberCucumber

CucumberCucumber

Cucumber

CUCUMBER(Magnolia Acuminata)This tree is a member of the magnolia family which has ten genera in North America, two of them, magnolia and liriodendron, being trees. The family has its name from Pierre Magnol, a French botanist who died in 1715. The genus magnolia has seven species in the United States, all of which are of tree size. They are evergreen magnolia (Magnolia fœtida), sweet magnolia (Magnolia glauca), cucumber (Magnolia acuminata), largeleaf umbrella (Magnolia macrophylla), umbrella tree (Magnolia tripetala), Fraser umbrella (Magnolia fraseri), and pyramidal magnolia (Magnolia pyramidata). The remaining member of the magnolia family is the yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera). Though of the same family it is of a different genus from the seven other magnolias.The cucumber is the hardiest member of the magnolia family. It is found in natural growth farther north than any other, yet it has the appearance of a southern tree. All magnolias look like trees belonging in the South. Their large leaves indicate as much, and some of them do not venture far outside of the warm latitudes. It is one of the oldest of all the families of broadleaf trees, and it has been a family that during an immense period of the earth’s history has clung near the old homestead where it came into existence countless ages ago. There were magnolias growing in the middle Appalachian region, and eastward to the present Atlantic coast, so far in the past that the time can be measured only by hundreds of thousands of years. Leaf prints in rocks, which were once mud flats, tell the story—though but a page here and there—of the magnolia’s ancient history, doubtless antedating by long periods the earliest appearance of man on earth.Next to the yellow poplar, the cucumber tree is the most important species of the magnolia family, at least as a source of lumber. As an ornamental tree it may not equal some of the others, particularly certain of the southern species which are evergreen and produce large, showy flowers.The cucumber tree receives its name from its fruit, which looks like a cucumber when seen at a distance, but it is far from being one. Its intense bitter makes it safe from the attacks of birds and beasts. So far as known, it is not eaten, tasted, or touched by any living creature—except man. Some of the pioneer settlers, in the days when there was precious little to eat on the frontiers, discovered a way of extracting the bitter from the wild cucumber, and making some sort of a pickle of theremainder; but the art seems to have been lost with the passing of the pioneers of the Daniel Boone type, and the wild cucumber now hangs untouched, and tempts nobody. It is three inches or less in length, generally slightly curved, and is green in color until fully ripe. Even the flowers which produce the fruit are green, with the merest suggestion of yellow. They are so inconspicuous that few persons ever notice them, even though cucumber trees stand in door yards. The ripe cucumbers are dark red or scarlet, or rather the seeds are, which grow on the surface like grains of corn on a cob, though fewer in number and farther apart. Something seems to be lacking in the machinery by which the flowers are fertilized, with the result that often nearly half the seeds which ought to cover the surface of the cucumber, fail to materialize. There are many blank spaces representing flowers which the pollen missed.There is likewise something missing in the modus operandi of scattering the seeds. They have no wings, and the wind is powerless to carry them. They are as bitter as quinine and no bird, squirrel, or mouse will plant, carry, or touch them. Nature appears to have forgotten to provide any other means for dispersing the seeds of this remarkable tree. When seeds are fully ripe, they drop away from the parent fruit—the cucumber—but the fall of each seed is arrested by a small thread which suspends it from one to three inches below the fruit. There the seeds hang, swinging and dangling in the wind. What part the threads play in the economy of nature is not apparent, unless their purpose is to expose the seeds to a chance of becoming entangled with the wings, feet, or feathers of flying birds, whereby they may be carried away and dropped in suitable places for growing. There can be no doubt that this happens occasionally, and constitutes one of the methods of seed dispersal. Others are transported by flowing water.The chances seem to be greatly against the survival of the cucumber tree in competition with maples, birches, pines, and cottonwoods, whose winged seeds are wind-borne; or with oaks, hickories, and walnuts whose heavy, wingless nuts are planted hither and thither by accommodating squirrels which are intent only on providing for their own winter wants, but in reality are industrious and effective forest planters. Notwithstanding the disadvantages under which the cucumber tree is placed, it has managed to hold its ground in the forest during immense periods of time, and it seems to be as firmly established now as ever.The leaves of this tree are from seven to ten inches long, and four to six wide. In autumn before they fall they turn a blotched yellow-brown color. The first severe frost brings them all down in a heap. At sunset the tree may be laden with leaves, and by the next noon all will be on the ground. They are so heavy that the wind does not movethem far, and they drop in heaps beneath the branches. In color they resemble owl feathers, and the suggestion that comes to one’s mind, who happens to pass under a cucumber tree the morning following the first frost, is that during the night some prowler picked a roost of owls and scattered the feathers on the ground.The range of cucumber extends from western New York to Alabama, following the Appalachian mountains; and westward to Illinois and Mississippi, appearing west of the Mississippi river in Arkansas. It occurs on low rocky slopes, the banks of mountain streams, and on rich bottom land. It is of largest size and is most abundant in the narrow valleys in eastern Tennessee and the western parts of the Carolinas. The tree is from two to four feet in diameter, and sixty to ninety feet high. The trunk is of good form for sawlogs. Among its local names are pointed-leaf magnolia, black lin, magnolia, and mountain magnolia.The wood of cucumber resembles that of yellow poplar in appearance and in physical properties, except that it is ten per cent heavier than poplar. It usually passes for that wood at sawmill and factory. The Federal census credits it with less than a million feet a year as lumber. That is much too small. It is valuable and finds ready sale. Manufacturers of wooden pumps regard it as the best material for the bored logs. It is worked into interior finish for houses, flooring for cars, interior parts of furniture, woodenware, boxes and crates, slack cooperage, including veneer barrels.The tree is planted for ornament in the northern states and Europe. The chief value lies in its large, green leaves and symmetrical crown. The red fruit adds to the tree’s attractiveness late in summer.Largeleaf Umbrella(Magnolia macrophylla) is valuable chiefly as a sort of ornamental curiosity, on account of its enormous leaves and flowers. The leaf is from twenty to thirty inches long and ten to twelve wide. It drops in autumn before its green color has undergone much change. The leaves lack toughness, and the wind whips them into strings long before the summer is ended. Thus what otherwise would be highly ornamental becomes somewhat unsightly. When well protected from wind by surrounding objects, the leaves fare better and last longer. The white, fragrant flowers are likewise remarkable on account of size. They are cup-shaped and some of them are almost a foot across. They pay a penalty no less severe than the leaves pay, on account of large size, and are liable to be thumped and bruised by swinging leaves and branches.The largeleaf umbrella is a tree of the southern Appalachian mountains although its range extends southwest to Louisiana, and northward from there to Arkansas. It is at its best in deep rich soil of sheltered valleys, occurring in isolated groups, but never in pure forests. It is known as large-leaved cucumber tree, great-leaved magnolia, large-leaved umbrella tree, and long-leaved magnolia. The fruit is nearly a sphere, from two to three inches in diameter, and bright rose color when fully ripe. The seeds are two-thirds of an inch long. The smooth, light gray bark is usually less than a quarter of an inch thick. Large trees are forty or fifty feet highand twenty inches in diameter. It is not considered valuable for lumber, because of scarcity and small size. The wood is considerably heavier than yellow poplar, and is hard but not strong; light brown in color with thick, light yellow sapwood. Reports do not show that the wood is put to any use. Planted trees are hardy as far north as Massachusetts, and success has attended the tree’s introduction in the parks and gardens of southern Europe.Yellow Flowered Cucumber Tree(Magnolia acuminata cordata) is usually considered a variety of the common cucumber tree, rather than a separate species. The most noticeable feature is the yellow blossom which gives the names by which it is generally known, among such being yellow-flowered magnolia, and yellow cucumber tree. It is not a garden variety, for it grows wild; but it has been cultivated during more than a century, and has undergone changes which are not matched by wild trees. The finest forms of the forest variety are found on the Blue Ridge in South Carolina, and in central Alabama. The cultivated tree is distinguished by its darker green leaves, and by its smaller, bright, canary-yellow flowers. The variety has no value as a timber tree, but is widely appreciated as an ornament. Cultivated trees generally remain small in size, and do not develop the long, clean trunks common with the cucumber tree under forest conditions.Umbrella Tree(Magnolia tripetala) is one of the magnolias and should not be confounded with the Asiatic umbrella tree often planted in yards. The flower is surrounded by a whorl of leaves resembling an umbrella, hence the name. It is also known as cucumber, magnolia, and elkwood. The range of the tree extends from Pennsylvania to Alabama and west to Arkansas. It prefers the margins of swamps and the rich soil along mountain streams. Leaves are eighteen inches long and half as wide. They fall in autumn. Flowers are cup-shaped and creamy-white. The fruit somewhat resembles that of the common cucumber tree, but is rose colored when fully ripe. Trees are thirty or forty feet high and a foot or more in diameter. The brown heartwood is light, soft, and weak, and is used little or not at all for commercial purposes. The tree is cultivated for ornament in the northern states and in Europe.Cucumber branch

This tree is a member of the magnolia family which has ten genera in North America, two of them, magnolia and liriodendron, being trees. The family has its name from Pierre Magnol, a French botanist who died in 1715. The genus magnolia has seven species in the United States, all of which are of tree size. They are evergreen magnolia (Magnolia fœtida), sweet magnolia (Magnolia glauca), cucumber (Magnolia acuminata), largeleaf umbrella (Magnolia macrophylla), umbrella tree (Magnolia tripetala), Fraser umbrella (Magnolia fraseri), and pyramidal magnolia (Magnolia pyramidata). The remaining member of the magnolia family is the yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera). Though of the same family it is of a different genus from the seven other magnolias.

The cucumber is the hardiest member of the magnolia family. It is found in natural growth farther north than any other, yet it has the appearance of a southern tree. All magnolias look like trees belonging in the South. Their large leaves indicate as much, and some of them do not venture far outside of the warm latitudes. It is one of the oldest of all the families of broadleaf trees, and it has been a family that during an immense period of the earth’s history has clung near the old homestead where it came into existence countless ages ago. There were magnolias growing in the middle Appalachian region, and eastward to the present Atlantic coast, so far in the past that the time can be measured only by hundreds of thousands of years. Leaf prints in rocks, which were once mud flats, tell the story—though but a page here and there—of the magnolia’s ancient history, doubtless antedating by long periods the earliest appearance of man on earth.

Next to the yellow poplar, the cucumber tree is the most important species of the magnolia family, at least as a source of lumber. As an ornamental tree it may not equal some of the others, particularly certain of the southern species which are evergreen and produce large, showy flowers.

The cucumber tree receives its name from its fruit, which looks like a cucumber when seen at a distance, but it is far from being one. Its intense bitter makes it safe from the attacks of birds and beasts. So far as known, it is not eaten, tasted, or touched by any living creature—except man. Some of the pioneer settlers, in the days when there was precious little to eat on the frontiers, discovered a way of extracting the bitter from the wild cucumber, and making some sort of a pickle of theremainder; but the art seems to have been lost with the passing of the pioneers of the Daniel Boone type, and the wild cucumber now hangs untouched, and tempts nobody. It is three inches or less in length, generally slightly curved, and is green in color until fully ripe. Even the flowers which produce the fruit are green, with the merest suggestion of yellow. They are so inconspicuous that few persons ever notice them, even though cucumber trees stand in door yards. The ripe cucumbers are dark red or scarlet, or rather the seeds are, which grow on the surface like grains of corn on a cob, though fewer in number and farther apart. Something seems to be lacking in the machinery by which the flowers are fertilized, with the result that often nearly half the seeds which ought to cover the surface of the cucumber, fail to materialize. There are many blank spaces representing flowers which the pollen missed.

There is likewise something missing in the modus operandi of scattering the seeds. They have no wings, and the wind is powerless to carry them. They are as bitter as quinine and no bird, squirrel, or mouse will plant, carry, or touch them. Nature appears to have forgotten to provide any other means for dispersing the seeds of this remarkable tree. When seeds are fully ripe, they drop away from the parent fruit—the cucumber—but the fall of each seed is arrested by a small thread which suspends it from one to three inches below the fruit. There the seeds hang, swinging and dangling in the wind. What part the threads play in the economy of nature is not apparent, unless their purpose is to expose the seeds to a chance of becoming entangled with the wings, feet, or feathers of flying birds, whereby they may be carried away and dropped in suitable places for growing. There can be no doubt that this happens occasionally, and constitutes one of the methods of seed dispersal. Others are transported by flowing water.

The chances seem to be greatly against the survival of the cucumber tree in competition with maples, birches, pines, and cottonwoods, whose winged seeds are wind-borne; or with oaks, hickories, and walnuts whose heavy, wingless nuts are planted hither and thither by accommodating squirrels which are intent only on providing for their own winter wants, but in reality are industrious and effective forest planters. Notwithstanding the disadvantages under which the cucumber tree is placed, it has managed to hold its ground in the forest during immense periods of time, and it seems to be as firmly established now as ever.

The leaves of this tree are from seven to ten inches long, and four to six wide. In autumn before they fall they turn a blotched yellow-brown color. The first severe frost brings them all down in a heap. At sunset the tree may be laden with leaves, and by the next noon all will be on the ground. They are so heavy that the wind does not movethem far, and they drop in heaps beneath the branches. In color they resemble owl feathers, and the suggestion that comes to one’s mind, who happens to pass under a cucumber tree the morning following the first frost, is that during the night some prowler picked a roost of owls and scattered the feathers on the ground.

The range of cucumber extends from western New York to Alabama, following the Appalachian mountains; and westward to Illinois and Mississippi, appearing west of the Mississippi river in Arkansas. It occurs on low rocky slopes, the banks of mountain streams, and on rich bottom land. It is of largest size and is most abundant in the narrow valleys in eastern Tennessee and the western parts of the Carolinas. The tree is from two to four feet in diameter, and sixty to ninety feet high. The trunk is of good form for sawlogs. Among its local names are pointed-leaf magnolia, black lin, magnolia, and mountain magnolia.

The wood of cucumber resembles that of yellow poplar in appearance and in physical properties, except that it is ten per cent heavier than poplar. It usually passes for that wood at sawmill and factory. The Federal census credits it with less than a million feet a year as lumber. That is much too small. It is valuable and finds ready sale. Manufacturers of wooden pumps regard it as the best material for the bored logs. It is worked into interior finish for houses, flooring for cars, interior parts of furniture, woodenware, boxes and crates, slack cooperage, including veneer barrels.

The tree is planted for ornament in the northern states and Europe. The chief value lies in its large, green leaves and symmetrical crown. The red fruit adds to the tree’s attractiveness late in summer.

Largeleaf Umbrella(Magnolia macrophylla) is valuable chiefly as a sort of ornamental curiosity, on account of its enormous leaves and flowers. The leaf is from twenty to thirty inches long and ten to twelve wide. It drops in autumn before its green color has undergone much change. The leaves lack toughness, and the wind whips them into strings long before the summer is ended. Thus what otherwise would be highly ornamental becomes somewhat unsightly. When well protected from wind by surrounding objects, the leaves fare better and last longer. The white, fragrant flowers are likewise remarkable on account of size. They are cup-shaped and some of them are almost a foot across. They pay a penalty no less severe than the leaves pay, on account of large size, and are liable to be thumped and bruised by swinging leaves and branches.The largeleaf umbrella is a tree of the southern Appalachian mountains although its range extends southwest to Louisiana, and northward from there to Arkansas. It is at its best in deep rich soil of sheltered valleys, occurring in isolated groups, but never in pure forests. It is known as large-leaved cucumber tree, great-leaved magnolia, large-leaved umbrella tree, and long-leaved magnolia. The fruit is nearly a sphere, from two to three inches in diameter, and bright rose color when fully ripe. The seeds are two-thirds of an inch long. The smooth, light gray bark is usually less than a quarter of an inch thick. Large trees are forty or fifty feet highand twenty inches in diameter. It is not considered valuable for lumber, because of scarcity and small size. The wood is considerably heavier than yellow poplar, and is hard but not strong; light brown in color with thick, light yellow sapwood. Reports do not show that the wood is put to any use. Planted trees are hardy as far north as Massachusetts, and success has attended the tree’s introduction in the parks and gardens of southern Europe.Yellow Flowered Cucumber Tree(Magnolia acuminata cordata) is usually considered a variety of the common cucumber tree, rather than a separate species. The most noticeable feature is the yellow blossom which gives the names by which it is generally known, among such being yellow-flowered magnolia, and yellow cucumber tree. It is not a garden variety, for it grows wild; but it has been cultivated during more than a century, and has undergone changes which are not matched by wild trees. The finest forms of the forest variety are found on the Blue Ridge in South Carolina, and in central Alabama. The cultivated tree is distinguished by its darker green leaves, and by its smaller, bright, canary-yellow flowers. The variety has no value as a timber tree, but is widely appreciated as an ornament. Cultivated trees generally remain small in size, and do not develop the long, clean trunks common with the cucumber tree under forest conditions.Umbrella Tree(Magnolia tripetala) is one of the magnolias and should not be confounded with the Asiatic umbrella tree often planted in yards. The flower is surrounded by a whorl of leaves resembling an umbrella, hence the name. It is also known as cucumber, magnolia, and elkwood. The range of the tree extends from Pennsylvania to Alabama and west to Arkansas. It prefers the margins of swamps and the rich soil along mountain streams. Leaves are eighteen inches long and half as wide. They fall in autumn. Flowers are cup-shaped and creamy-white. The fruit somewhat resembles that of the common cucumber tree, but is rose colored when fully ripe. Trees are thirty or forty feet high and a foot or more in diameter. The brown heartwood is light, soft, and weak, and is used little or not at all for commercial purposes. The tree is cultivated for ornament in the northern states and in Europe.

Largeleaf Umbrella(Magnolia macrophylla) is valuable chiefly as a sort of ornamental curiosity, on account of its enormous leaves and flowers. The leaf is from twenty to thirty inches long and ten to twelve wide. It drops in autumn before its green color has undergone much change. The leaves lack toughness, and the wind whips them into strings long before the summer is ended. Thus what otherwise would be highly ornamental becomes somewhat unsightly. When well protected from wind by surrounding objects, the leaves fare better and last longer. The white, fragrant flowers are likewise remarkable on account of size. They are cup-shaped and some of them are almost a foot across. They pay a penalty no less severe than the leaves pay, on account of large size, and are liable to be thumped and bruised by swinging leaves and branches.

The largeleaf umbrella is a tree of the southern Appalachian mountains although its range extends southwest to Louisiana, and northward from there to Arkansas. It is at its best in deep rich soil of sheltered valleys, occurring in isolated groups, but never in pure forests. It is known as large-leaved cucumber tree, great-leaved magnolia, large-leaved umbrella tree, and long-leaved magnolia. The fruit is nearly a sphere, from two to three inches in diameter, and bright rose color when fully ripe. The seeds are two-thirds of an inch long. The smooth, light gray bark is usually less than a quarter of an inch thick. Large trees are forty or fifty feet highand twenty inches in diameter. It is not considered valuable for lumber, because of scarcity and small size. The wood is considerably heavier than yellow poplar, and is hard but not strong; light brown in color with thick, light yellow sapwood. Reports do not show that the wood is put to any use. Planted trees are hardy as far north as Massachusetts, and success has attended the tree’s introduction in the parks and gardens of southern Europe.

Yellow Flowered Cucumber Tree(Magnolia acuminata cordata) is usually considered a variety of the common cucumber tree, rather than a separate species. The most noticeable feature is the yellow blossom which gives the names by which it is generally known, among such being yellow-flowered magnolia, and yellow cucumber tree. It is not a garden variety, for it grows wild; but it has been cultivated during more than a century, and has undergone changes which are not matched by wild trees. The finest forms of the forest variety are found on the Blue Ridge in South Carolina, and in central Alabama. The cultivated tree is distinguished by its darker green leaves, and by its smaller, bright, canary-yellow flowers. The variety has no value as a timber tree, but is widely appreciated as an ornament. Cultivated trees generally remain small in size, and do not develop the long, clean trunks common with the cucumber tree under forest conditions.

Umbrella Tree(Magnolia tripetala) is one of the magnolias and should not be confounded with the Asiatic umbrella tree often planted in yards. The flower is surrounded by a whorl of leaves resembling an umbrella, hence the name. It is also known as cucumber, magnolia, and elkwood. The range of the tree extends from Pennsylvania to Alabama and west to Arkansas. It prefers the margins of swamps and the rich soil along mountain streams. Leaves are eighteen inches long and half as wide. They fall in autumn. Flowers are cup-shaped and creamy-white. The fruit somewhat resembles that of the common cucumber tree, but is rose colored when fully ripe. Trees are thirty or forty feet high and a foot or more in diameter. The brown heartwood is light, soft, and weak, and is used little or not at all for commercial purposes. The tree is cultivated for ornament in the northern states and in Europe.

Cucumber branch

YELLOW POPLARYellow poplarYellow Poplar

Yellow poplarYellow Poplar

Yellow Poplar

YELLOW POPLAR(Liriodendron Tulipifera)In diameter of trunk the yellow poplar is, next to sycamore, the largest hardwood tree of the United States, and if both height and trunk diameter are considered, it surpasses the sycamore in size. It belongs to a very old group of hardwoods which have come down from remote geological ages, and the species is now found only in the United States and China. Mature trees are from three to eight feet in diameter and from 90 to 180 in height.It has many names in different parts of its range, but it is never mistaken for any other tree. The peculiar notched leaf is a sure means of identification. The resemblance of the flower to the tulip has given it the name tulip tree in some localities, and botanists prefer that name. It is so called in Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, District of Columbia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Ontario. Wood users in New England and in some of the other northern states prefer the name whitewood and it is so known, in part at least, in New England, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, South Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois. Yellow poplar is the name preferred by lumbermen in nearly all regions where the tree is found in commercial quantities, notably in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee. The name is often shortened to poplar, which is used in Rhode Island, Delaware, North and South Carolina, Florida, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana. The name tulip poplar is less frequently heard, and blue poplar and hickory poplar are terms used in West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina, but generally under the impression that they refer to a different form or species. In Rhode Island it is called popple, in New York cucumber tree, and canoe wood in Tennessee and in the upper Ohio valley.The botanical range of yellow poplar is wider than its commercial range; that is, a few trees are found in regions surrounding the borders of the district where the tree is profitably lumbered. The boundaries of its range run from southwestern Vermont, westward to Lake Michigan near Grand Haven, southward to northern Florida, and west of the Mississippi river in Missouri and Arkansas. The productive yellow poplar timber belt has never been that large but has clung pretty closelyto the southern Appalachian mountain ranges and to certain districts lying both east and west of them. The best original stands were in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, western North Carolina, eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and in some parts of Ohio and Indiana. However, considerable quantities of good yellow poplar have been cut in other regions.The physical properties of the wood of yellow poplar fit it for many purposes but not for all. It is not very strong and is tolerably brittle. It is light in weight, medium soft, and is easily worked. The annual rings of growth are not prominent compared with some of the oaks, yet select logs show nicely in quarter-sawing. The medullary rays are numerous, but small and not prominent, for which reason bright streaks and flecks are not characteristic of the wood. Yellow poplar is fairly stiff and elastic, but is not often selected on account of those qualities. In color it is light yellow or brown. The color gives name to the tree. The sapwood is whiter, and it is the abnormally thick sapwood of some trees which causes them to be called white poplar. The wood has little figure, and it is seldom employed for fine work without stain or paint of some kind. It is not usually classed as long lasting when exposed to the weather, yet cases are known where weather boarding of houses, and bridge and mill timbers of yellow poplar have outlasted the generation of builders.The quantity of yellow poplar in the country is but a remnant of the former enormous supply that covered the rich valleys and fertile coves in a region exceeding 200,000 square miles. It occupied the best land, and much was destroyed by farmers in clearing fields. It was not generally found in groves or dense stands, but as solitary trees scattered through forests of other woods. The trunks are tall and shapely, the crowns comparatively small. The form is ideal for sawlogs, and very few trees of America produce a higher percentage of clear, first class lumber. That is because the forest-grown poplar early sheds its lower branches, and the trunks lay on nothing but clear wood. In the yellow poplar’s region it was the principal wood of which the pioneers made their canoes for crossing and navigating rivers. It is still best known by the name canoewood in some regions. It worked easily and was light, and a thin-shelled canoe lasted many years, barring floods and other accidents. Builders of pirogues, keelboats, barges, and other vessels for inland navigation in early times when roads were few and streams were the principal highways of commerce, found no timber superior to yellow poplar. It could be had in planks of great size and free from defects, and while not as strong as oak, it was strong enough to withstand the usual knocks and buffetings of river traffic.Yellow poplar sawlogs have probably exceeded in number any other wood, except white pine, floated down rivers and creeks to market. The wood floats well and lumbermen have usually pushed far up the rivers, ahead of other lumber operations, to procure it. Enormous drives have gone and are still going out of rivers in the Appalachian region.The uses of yellow poplar are so many that an enumeration is impracticable, except by general classes. These are boxes and woodenware, vehicles, furniture, interior finish, and car building. There is another class consisting of low-grade work, such as common lumber, pulpwood, and the like.There is a class of commodities which are usually packed in boxes and require a wood that will impart neither taste nor stain. That requirement is met by yellow poplar. It has been an important wood for boxes in which food products are shipped. It is so used less frequently now than formerly because of increased cost, but veneer is employed to a large extent, and while the total quantity of wood going into box factories is smaller than formerly, the actual number and contents of poplar boxes are perhaps about the same. It is a white wood and shows printing and stenciling clearly. That is an important point with many manufacturers who wish to print their advertisements on the boxes which they send out. Woodenware, particularly ironing boards, bread boards, and pantry and kitchen utensils, are largely made of poplar because it is light, attractive, and easily kept clean. It is popular as pumplogs for the same reason.As a vehicle wood, yellow poplar is not a competitor of oak and hickory. They are for running gear and frames; poplar for tops and bodies. No wood excels it for wide panels. It receives finish and paint so well that it is not surpassed by the smoothest metals. Many of the finest carriage and automobile tops are largely of this wood. In case of slight accidents it resists dints much better than sheet metal.Cheap furniture was once made of yellow poplar. It now enters into the best kinds, and is finished in imitation of costly woods, notably mahogany, birch, and cherry. No American wood will take a higher polish. It is also much employed as an interior wood by furniture manufacturers. It fills an important place as cores or backing over which veneers are glued.When used as an interior house finish and in car building, it is nearly always stained or painted. Many of the broad handsome panels in passenger cars, which pass for cherry, birch, mahogany, or rosewood, are yellow poplar, to which the finisher and decorator have given their best touches.All poplar lumber is not wide, clear stock, though much of it is. The lower grades go as common lumber and small trees are cut for pulpwood. A large part of the demand for high-grade yellow poplar is in foreign countries, and a regular oversea trade is carried on by exporters. Foreign manufacturers put the wood to practically the same uses as the best grades in this country.Yellow poplar seasons well, and is a satisfactory wood to handle. When thoroughly dry it holds its shape with the best of woods. Bluing is apt to affect the green wood if unduly exposed. Fresh poplar chips in damp situations sometimes change to a conspicuous blue color within a day or two. However, millmen do not experience much difficulty in preventing the bluing of the lumber.Gyminda(Gyminda grisebachii) is also called false boxwood, and belongs to the staff family. The name gyminda is artificial and meaningless. The genus has a single species which occurs in the islands of southern Florida where trees of largest size are scarcely twenty-five feet high and six inches in diameter. The wood is very heavy, hard, fine-grained, and is nearly black. It is suitable for small articles, but it is not known to be so used, and its scarcity renders improbable any important future use of the wood. The fruit is a small berry, ripening in November. The range of the species extends to Cuba, Porto Rico, and other islands of the West Indies.Yellow poplar branch

In diameter of trunk the yellow poplar is, next to sycamore, the largest hardwood tree of the United States, and if both height and trunk diameter are considered, it surpasses the sycamore in size. It belongs to a very old group of hardwoods which have come down from remote geological ages, and the species is now found only in the United States and China. Mature trees are from three to eight feet in diameter and from 90 to 180 in height.

It has many names in different parts of its range, but it is never mistaken for any other tree. The peculiar notched leaf is a sure means of identification. The resemblance of the flower to the tulip has given it the name tulip tree in some localities, and botanists prefer that name. It is so called in Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, District of Columbia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Ontario. Wood users in New England and in some of the other northern states prefer the name whitewood and it is so known, in part at least, in New England, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, South Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois. Yellow poplar is the name preferred by lumbermen in nearly all regions where the tree is found in commercial quantities, notably in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee. The name is often shortened to poplar, which is used in Rhode Island, Delaware, North and South Carolina, Florida, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana. The name tulip poplar is less frequently heard, and blue poplar and hickory poplar are terms used in West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina, but generally under the impression that they refer to a different form or species. In Rhode Island it is called popple, in New York cucumber tree, and canoe wood in Tennessee and in the upper Ohio valley.

The botanical range of yellow poplar is wider than its commercial range; that is, a few trees are found in regions surrounding the borders of the district where the tree is profitably lumbered. The boundaries of its range run from southwestern Vermont, westward to Lake Michigan near Grand Haven, southward to northern Florida, and west of the Mississippi river in Missouri and Arkansas. The productive yellow poplar timber belt has never been that large but has clung pretty closelyto the southern Appalachian mountain ranges and to certain districts lying both east and west of them. The best original stands were in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, western North Carolina, eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and in some parts of Ohio and Indiana. However, considerable quantities of good yellow poplar have been cut in other regions.

The physical properties of the wood of yellow poplar fit it for many purposes but not for all. It is not very strong and is tolerably brittle. It is light in weight, medium soft, and is easily worked. The annual rings of growth are not prominent compared with some of the oaks, yet select logs show nicely in quarter-sawing. The medullary rays are numerous, but small and not prominent, for which reason bright streaks and flecks are not characteristic of the wood. Yellow poplar is fairly stiff and elastic, but is not often selected on account of those qualities. In color it is light yellow or brown. The color gives name to the tree. The sapwood is whiter, and it is the abnormally thick sapwood of some trees which causes them to be called white poplar. The wood has little figure, and it is seldom employed for fine work without stain or paint of some kind. It is not usually classed as long lasting when exposed to the weather, yet cases are known where weather boarding of houses, and bridge and mill timbers of yellow poplar have outlasted the generation of builders.

The quantity of yellow poplar in the country is but a remnant of the former enormous supply that covered the rich valleys and fertile coves in a region exceeding 200,000 square miles. It occupied the best land, and much was destroyed by farmers in clearing fields. It was not generally found in groves or dense stands, but as solitary trees scattered through forests of other woods. The trunks are tall and shapely, the crowns comparatively small. The form is ideal for sawlogs, and very few trees of America produce a higher percentage of clear, first class lumber. That is because the forest-grown poplar early sheds its lower branches, and the trunks lay on nothing but clear wood. In the yellow poplar’s region it was the principal wood of which the pioneers made their canoes for crossing and navigating rivers. It is still best known by the name canoewood in some regions. It worked easily and was light, and a thin-shelled canoe lasted many years, barring floods and other accidents. Builders of pirogues, keelboats, barges, and other vessels for inland navigation in early times when roads were few and streams were the principal highways of commerce, found no timber superior to yellow poplar. It could be had in planks of great size and free from defects, and while not as strong as oak, it was strong enough to withstand the usual knocks and buffetings of river traffic.

Yellow poplar sawlogs have probably exceeded in number any other wood, except white pine, floated down rivers and creeks to market. The wood floats well and lumbermen have usually pushed far up the rivers, ahead of other lumber operations, to procure it. Enormous drives have gone and are still going out of rivers in the Appalachian region.

The uses of yellow poplar are so many that an enumeration is impracticable, except by general classes. These are boxes and woodenware, vehicles, furniture, interior finish, and car building. There is another class consisting of low-grade work, such as common lumber, pulpwood, and the like.

There is a class of commodities which are usually packed in boxes and require a wood that will impart neither taste nor stain. That requirement is met by yellow poplar. It has been an important wood for boxes in which food products are shipped. It is so used less frequently now than formerly because of increased cost, but veneer is employed to a large extent, and while the total quantity of wood going into box factories is smaller than formerly, the actual number and contents of poplar boxes are perhaps about the same. It is a white wood and shows printing and stenciling clearly. That is an important point with many manufacturers who wish to print their advertisements on the boxes which they send out. Woodenware, particularly ironing boards, bread boards, and pantry and kitchen utensils, are largely made of poplar because it is light, attractive, and easily kept clean. It is popular as pumplogs for the same reason.

As a vehicle wood, yellow poplar is not a competitor of oak and hickory. They are for running gear and frames; poplar for tops and bodies. No wood excels it for wide panels. It receives finish and paint so well that it is not surpassed by the smoothest metals. Many of the finest carriage and automobile tops are largely of this wood. In case of slight accidents it resists dints much better than sheet metal.

Cheap furniture was once made of yellow poplar. It now enters into the best kinds, and is finished in imitation of costly woods, notably mahogany, birch, and cherry. No American wood will take a higher polish. It is also much employed as an interior wood by furniture manufacturers. It fills an important place as cores or backing over which veneers are glued.

When used as an interior house finish and in car building, it is nearly always stained or painted. Many of the broad handsome panels in passenger cars, which pass for cherry, birch, mahogany, or rosewood, are yellow poplar, to which the finisher and decorator have given their best touches.

All poplar lumber is not wide, clear stock, though much of it is. The lower grades go as common lumber and small trees are cut for pulpwood. A large part of the demand for high-grade yellow poplar is in foreign countries, and a regular oversea trade is carried on by exporters. Foreign manufacturers put the wood to practically the same uses as the best grades in this country.

Yellow poplar seasons well, and is a satisfactory wood to handle. When thoroughly dry it holds its shape with the best of woods. Bluing is apt to affect the green wood if unduly exposed. Fresh poplar chips in damp situations sometimes change to a conspicuous blue color within a day or two. However, millmen do not experience much difficulty in preventing the bluing of the lumber.

Gyminda(Gyminda grisebachii) is also called false boxwood, and belongs to the staff family. The name gyminda is artificial and meaningless. The genus has a single species which occurs in the islands of southern Florida where trees of largest size are scarcely twenty-five feet high and six inches in diameter. The wood is very heavy, hard, fine-grained, and is nearly black. It is suitable for small articles, but it is not known to be so used, and its scarcity renders improbable any important future use of the wood. The fruit is a small berry, ripening in November. The range of the species extends to Cuba, Porto Rico, and other islands of the West Indies.

Yellow poplar branch

EVERGREEN MAGNOLIAEvergreen magnoliaEvergreen Magnolia

Evergreen magnoliaEvergreen Magnolia

Evergreen Magnolia

EVERGREEN MAGNOLIA(Magnolia Fœtida)This is not a timber tree of first importance. A few years ago it was seldom cut except in very small quantities; but it was found to possess good qualities, and now it goes regularly to the mills which saw hardwoods in the region where it grows. The wood of different magnolia trees, or even the wood of the same tree, shows lack of uniformity. Some of it looks like yellow poplar and compares favorably with it in several particulars, while other of it is very dark, with hard flinty streaks which not only present a poor appearance, but dull the tools of the woodworking machines and create an unfavorable impression of the wood generally. This magnolia holds pretty closely to the damp lands in all parts of its range. The amount of the annual cut is not known, because it goes in with the minor species in most places and no separate account is taken. It is coming into more notice every year, and some manufacturers have been so successful in finding ways to make it serviceable that the best grades are easily sold. The wood does not hold its color very well. The light-colored sapwood is apt to become darker after exposure to the air, and the dark heartwood fades a little. The tree is so handsome in the forest that it is occasionally spared when the surrounding trees are removed.It is doubtful if any American tree surpasses it as an ornament when its leaves, trunk, flowers, and bark are considered. It is not perfect in all of these particulars; in fact, it possesses some serious faults. The crown is often too small for the tree’s height; the branches straggle, many on some parts of the trunk and few on others; the flowers are objectionable because of strong odor which is unpleasant to most people. But these shortcomings are more than compensated for by splendid qualities. The rich, dark green of the leaves, their size and profusion, their changeless luster, place them in a position almost beyond the reach of rivalry from any other tree.Those who see this splendid inhabitant of the forest only where it has been planted in northern states, and elsewhere outside of its natural range, miss much of the best it has to give. It belongs in the South. The wet lands, the small elevations in deep swamps, the flat country where forests are dense, are its home. The yellowish-green trunk rises through the tangled foliage that keeps near the ground, and towers fifty feet above, and there spreads in a crown of green so deep that it is almost black. It likes company, and seldom grows solitary. Its associates are the southern maples, red gum, tupelo, cypress, a dozen species of oak,and occasionally pines on nearby higher ground. Festoons of grayish-green Spanish moss often add to the tropical character of the scene. The moss seldom hangs on the magnolia, but is frequently abundant on surrounding trees.Lumbermen formerly left the evergreen magnolia trees on tracts from which they cut nearly everything else. Large areas which had once been regarded as swamps were thus converted into parks of giant magnolias, many of which towered seventy or eighty feet. The tracts were left wild, and those who so left them had no purpose of providing ornament, but they did so. Many a scene was made grand by its magnolias, after other forest growth had been cut away.The range of evergreen magnolia is from North Carolina to Florida and west to Arkansas and Texas. The species reaches largest size in the vicinity of the Mississippi, both east and west of it. Trees eighty feet high and four feet in diameter occur, and trunks are often without limbs one-half or two-thirds their length, when they grow in forests.The common name for the tree in most parts of its range is simply magnolia, though that name fails to distinguish it from several other species, some of which are associated with it. Occasionally it is called big laurel, great laurel magnolia, laurel-leaved magnolia, laurel, and laurel bay. Bull bay is a common name for it in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. It is called bat tree, but the reason for such a name is not known.Leaves are from five to eight inches long and two or three wide, and dark green above, but lighter below. They fall in the spring after remaining on the branches two whole years.The odor of the flowers is unpleasant, but they are attractive to the sight, being six or eight inches across, with purple bases. The flowering habit of this tree is all that could be desired. It is in bloom from April till August.The fruit resembles that of the other magnolias and is three or four inches long and two or less wide. Its color is rusty-brown. The ripe seeds hang awhile by short threads, according to the habit of the family. The wood is stronger than poplar, fully as stiff, and nearly fifty per cent heavier. The annual rings are rather vaguely marked by narrow bands of summerwood. Pores are diffuse, plentiful, and very small. Medullary rays are larger than those of yellow poplar, and show fairly well in quarter-sawed stock. The wood is compact and easily worked, except when hard streaks are encountered. The surface finishes with a satiny luster; color creamy-white, yellowish-white, or often light brown. Occasionally the wood is nearly diametrically the opposite of this, and is of all darker shades up to purple, black, and blue black. The appearance ofthe dark wood suggests decay, but those who pass it through machines, or work it by hand, consider it as sound as the lighter colored wood.The uses of magnolia are much the same in all parts of its range, and those of Louisiana, where the utilization of the wood has been studied more closely than in other regions, indicate the scope of its usefulness. It is there made into parts of boats, bar fixtures, boxes, broom handles, brush backs, crates, door panels, dugout canoes, excelsior, furniture shelving, interior finish, ox yokes, panels, and wagon boxes. In Texas where the annual consumption probably exceeds a million feet, it is employed by furniture makers, and appears in window blinds, packing boxes, sash, and molding. In Mississippi, fine mantels are made of carefully selected wood, quarter-sawed to bring out the small, square “mirrors” produced by radial cutting of the medullary rays.Evergreen magnolia has long been planted for ornament in this country and Europe. It survives the winters at Philadelphia. Several varieties have been developed by cultivation and are sold by nurseries.Southern forests have contributed, and still contribute, large quantities of magnolia leaves for decorations in northern cities during winter. The flowers are not successfully shipped because they are easily bruised, and they quickly lose their freshness and beauty.Sweet Magnolia(Magnolia glauca) ranges from Massachusetts to Texas and south to Florida. It reaches its largest size on the hummock lands of the latter state. Trees are occasionally seventy feet high and three or more in diameter, but in many parts of its range it is small, even shrubby. Among the names by which it is known are white bay, swamp laurel, swamp sassafras, swamp magnolia, white laurel, and beaver-tree. It inhabits swamps in the northern part of its range, hence the frequency of the word “swamp” in coining names for it. Beaver-tree as a name is probably due to its former abundance about beaver dams, where impounded water made the ground swampy. In the North, sweet magnolia’s chief value is in its flowers, which are two or three inches across, creamy-white, and fragrant. They were formerly very abundant near the mouth of the Susquehanna river in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and northward through New Jersey; but the traffic in the flowers has destroyed the growth in many places where once plentiful. It is not important as a timber resource, but it is employed for a number of useful purposes where logs of fair size may be had. The sapwood is creamy-white, but the heart is nearly as dark as mahogany, and in Texas it is used to imitate that wood. The brown and other shades combine with fine effect. One of its common uses is for broom handles. Heartwood is worked into high-grade chairs. It takes a beautiful polish.Fraser Umbrella(Magnolia fraseri) ranges south from the Virginia mountains to Florida and west to Mississippi. It is of largest size in South Carolina where trees are sometimes thirty feet high and a foot or more in diameter. The leaves fall in autumn of the first year; the creamy-white, sweetly-scented flowers are eight or ten inches in diameter, and the fruit resembles that of the other magnolias. The wood is weak, soft, and light. The heart is clear brown, the sapwood nearly white. It has not been reported in use for any commercial purpose. Among its other namesit is known as long-leaved cucumber tree, ear-leaved umbrella tree, Indian bitters, water lily tree, and mountain magnolia. In cultivation this species is hardy as far north as Massachusetts, and it is planted for ornament in Europe.Pyramid Magnolia(Magnolia pyramidata) seems to have generally escaped the notice of laymen, and it therefore has no English name except the translation of the Latin term by which botanists know it. Its habitat lies in southern Georgia and Alabama, and western Florida, and it is occasionally seen in cultivation in western Europe. It is a slender tree, twenty feet or more in height. Its flowers are three or four inches in diameter, and creamy-white in color. A tree so scarce cannot be expected to be commercially important.Western Black Willow(Salix lasiandra) is a rather large tree when at its best, reaching a diameter of two feet or more, and a height of fifty, but in other parts of its range it rarely exceeds ten feet in height. It follows the western mountain ranges southward from British Columbia into California. The wood is soft, light, and brittle, and is used little if at all. Lyall willow (Salix lasiandra lyalli) is a well marked variety of this species and is a tree of respectable size.Glossyleaf Willow(Salix lucida) is a far northern species which has its southern limit in Pennsylvania and Nebraska. It grows nearly to the Arctic circle. Trees twenty-five feet high and six or eight inches in diameter are the best this species affords.Longleaf Willow(Salix fluviatilis) is known also as sandbar willow, narrowleaf willow, shrub, white, red, and osier willow, and by still other names. It ranges from the Arctic circle to Mexico, reaching Maryland on the Atlantic coast, and California on the Pacific. In rare cases it is sixty feet high, and two in diameter, but it is usually less than twenty feet high.Evergreen magnolia branch

This is not a timber tree of first importance. A few years ago it was seldom cut except in very small quantities; but it was found to possess good qualities, and now it goes regularly to the mills which saw hardwoods in the region where it grows. The wood of different magnolia trees, or even the wood of the same tree, shows lack of uniformity. Some of it looks like yellow poplar and compares favorably with it in several particulars, while other of it is very dark, with hard flinty streaks which not only present a poor appearance, but dull the tools of the woodworking machines and create an unfavorable impression of the wood generally. This magnolia holds pretty closely to the damp lands in all parts of its range. The amount of the annual cut is not known, because it goes in with the minor species in most places and no separate account is taken. It is coming into more notice every year, and some manufacturers have been so successful in finding ways to make it serviceable that the best grades are easily sold. The wood does not hold its color very well. The light-colored sapwood is apt to become darker after exposure to the air, and the dark heartwood fades a little. The tree is so handsome in the forest that it is occasionally spared when the surrounding trees are removed.

It is doubtful if any American tree surpasses it as an ornament when its leaves, trunk, flowers, and bark are considered. It is not perfect in all of these particulars; in fact, it possesses some serious faults. The crown is often too small for the tree’s height; the branches straggle, many on some parts of the trunk and few on others; the flowers are objectionable because of strong odor which is unpleasant to most people. But these shortcomings are more than compensated for by splendid qualities. The rich, dark green of the leaves, their size and profusion, their changeless luster, place them in a position almost beyond the reach of rivalry from any other tree.

Those who see this splendid inhabitant of the forest only where it has been planted in northern states, and elsewhere outside of its natural range, miss much of the best it has to give. It belongs in the South. The wet lands, the small elevations in deep swamps, the flat country where forests are dense, are its home. The yellowish-green trunk rises through the tangled foliage that keeps near the ground, and towers fifty feet above, and there spreads in a crown of green so deep that it is almost black. It likes company, and seldom grows solitary. Its associates are the southern maples, red gum, tupelo, cypress, a dozen species of oak,and occasionally pines on nearby higher ground. Festoons of grayish-green Spanish moss often add to the tropical character of the scene. The moss seldom hangs on the magnolia, but is frequently abundant on surrounding trees.

Lumbermen formerly left the evergreen magnolia trees on tracts from which they cut nearly everything else. Large areas which had once been regarded as swamps were thus converted into parks of giant magnolias, many of which towered seventy or eighty feet. The tracts were left wild, and those who so left them had no purpose of providing ornament, but they did so. Many a scene was made grand by its magnolias, after other forest growth had been cut away.

The range of evergreen magnolia is from North Carolina to Florida and west to Arkansas and Texas. The species reaches largest size in the vicinity of the Mississippi, both east and west of it. Trees eighty feet high and four feet in diameter occur, and trunks are often without limbs one-half or two-thirds their length, when they grow in forests.

The common name for the tree in most parts of its range is simply magnolia, though that name fails to distinguish it from several other species, some of which are associated with it. Occasionally it is called big laurel, great laurel magnolia, laurel-leaved magnolia, laurel, and laurel bay. Bull bay is a common name for it in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. It is called bat tree, but the reason for such a name is not known.

Leaves are from five to eight inches long and two or three wide, and dark green above, but lighter below. They fall in the spring after remaining on the branches two whole years.

The odor of the flowers is unpleasant, but they are attractive to the sight, being six or eight inches across, with purple bases. The flowering habit of this tree is all that could be desired. It is in bloom from April till August.

The fruit resembles that of the other magnolias and is three or four inches long and two or less wide. Its color is rusty-brown. The ripe seeds hang awhile by short threads, according to the habit of the family. The wood is stronger than poplar, fully as stiff, and nearly fifty per cent heavier. The annual rings are rather vaguely marked by narrow bands of summerwood. Pores are diffuse, plentiful, and very small. Medullary rays are larger than those of yellow poplar, and show fairly well in quarter-sawed stock. The wood is compact and easily worked, except when hard streaks are encountered. The surface finishes with a satiny luster; color creamy-white, yellowish-white, or often light brown. Occasionally the wood is nearly diametrically the opposite of this, and is of all darker shades up to purple, black, and blue black. The appearance ofthe dark wood suggests decay, but those who pass it through machines, or work it by hand, consider it as sound as the lighter colored wood.

The uses of magnolia are much the same in all parts of its range, and those of Louisiana, where the utilization of the wood has been studied more closely than in other regions, indicate the scope of its usefulness. It is there made into parts of boats, bar fixtures, boxes, broom handles, brush backs, crates, door panels, dugout canoes, excelsior, furniture shelving, interior finish, ox yokes, panels, and wagon boxes. In Texas where the annual consumption probably exceeds a million feet, it is employed by furniture makers, and appears in window blinds, packing boxes, sash, and molding. In Mississippi, fine mantels are made of carefully selected wood, quarter-sawed to bring out the small, square “mirrors” produced by radial cutting of the medullary rays.

Evergreen magnolia has long been planted for ornament in this country and Europe. It survives the winters at Philadelphia. Several varieties have been developed by cultivation and are sold by nurseries.

Southern forests have contributed, and still contribute, large quantities of magnolia leaves for decorations in northern cities during winter. The flowers are not successfully shipped because they are easily bruised, and they quickly lose their freshness and beauty.

Sweet Magnolia(Magnolia glauca) ranges from Massachusetts to Texas and south to Florida. It reaches its largest size on the hummock lands of the latter state. Trees are occasionally seventy feet high and three or more in diameter, but in many parts of its range it is small, even shrubby. Among the names by which it is known are white bay, swamp laurel, swamp sassafras, swamp magnolia, white laurel, and beaver-tree. It inhabits swamps in the northern part of its range, hence the frequency of the word “swamp” in coining names for it. Beaver-tree as a name is probably due to its former abundance about beaver dams, where impounded water made the ground swampy. In the North, sweet magnolia’s chief value is in its flowers, which are two or three inches across, creamy-white, and fragrant. They were formerly very abundant near the mouth of the Susquehanna river in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and northward through New Jersey; but the traffic in the flowers has destroyed the growth in many places where once plentiful. It is not important as a timber resource, but it is employed for a number of useful purposes where logs of fair size may be had. The sapwood is creamy-white, but the heart is nearly as dark as mahogany, and in Texas it is used to imitate that wood. The brown and other shades combine with fine effect. One of its common uses is for broom handles. Heartwood is worked into high-grade chairs. It takes a beautiful polish.Fraser Umbrella(Magnolia fraseri) ranges south from the Virginia mountains to Florida and west to Mississippi. It is of largest size in South Carolina where trees are sometimes thirty feet high and a foot or more in diameter. The leaves fall in autumn of the first year; the creamy-white, sweetly-scented flowers are eight or ten inches in diameter, and the fruit resembles that of the other magnolias. The wood is weak, soft, and light. The heart is clear brown, the sapwood nearly white. It has not been reported in use for any commercial purpose. Among its other namesit is known as long-leaved cucumber tree, ear-leaved umbrella tree, Indian bitters, water lily tree, and mountain magnolia. In cultivation this species is hardy as far north as Massachusetts, and it is planted for ornament in Europe.Pyramid Magnolia(Magnolia pyramidata) seems to have generally escaped the notice of laymen, and it therefore has no English name except the translation of the Latin term by which botanists know it. Its habitat lies in southern Georgia and Alabama, and western Florida, and it is occasionally seen in cultivation in western Europe. It is a slender tree, twenty feet or more in height. Its flowers are three or four inches in diameter, and creamy-white in color. A tree so scarce cannot be expected to be commercially important.Western Black Willow(Salix lasiandra) is a rather large tree when at its best, reaching a diameter of two feet or more, and a height of fifty, but in other parts of its range it rarely exceeds ten feet in height. It follows the western mountain ranges southward from British Columbia into California. The wood is soft, light, and brittle, and is used little if at all. Lyall willow (Salix lasiandra lyalli) is a well marked variety of this species and is a tree of respectable size.Glossyleaf Willow(Salix lucida) is a far northern species which has its southern limit in Pennsylvania and Nebraska. It grows nearly to the Arctic circle. Trees twenty-five feet high and six or eight inches in diameter are the best this species affords.Longleaf Willow(Salix fluviatilis) is known also as sandbar willow, narrowleaf willow, shrub, white, red, and osier willow, and by still other names. It ranges from the Arctic circle to Mexico, reaching Maryland on the Atlantic coast, and California on the Pacific. In rare cases it is sixty feet high, and two in diameter, but it is usually less than twenty feet high.

Sweet Magnolia(Magnolia glauca) ranges from Massachusetts to Texas and south to Florida. It reaches its largest size on the hummock lands of the latter state. Trees are occasionally seventy feet high and three or more in diameter, but in many parts of its range it is small, even shrubby. Among the names by which it is known are white bay, swamp laurel, swamp sassafras, swamp magnolia, white laurel, and beaver-tree. It inhabits swamps in the northern part of its range, hence the frequency of the word “swamp” in coining names for it. Beaver-tree as a name is probably due to its former abundance about beaver dams, where impounded water made the ground swampy. In the North, sweet magnolia’s chief value is in its flowers, which are two or three inches across, creamy-white, and fragrant. They were formerly very abundant near the mouth of the Susquehanna river in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and northward through New Jersey; but the traffic in the flowers has destroyed the growth in many places where once plentiful. It is not important as a timber resource, but it is employed for a number of useful purposes where logs of fair size may be had. The sapwood is creamy-white, but the heart is nearly as dark as mahogany, and in Texas it is used to imitate that wood. The brown and other shades combine with fine effect. One of its common uses is for broom handles. Heartwood is worked into high-grade chairs. It takes a beautiful polish.

Fraser Umbrella(Magnolia fraseri) ranges south from the Virginia mountains to Florida and west to Mississippi. It is of largest size in South Carolina where trees are sometimes thirty feet high and a foot or more in diameter. The leaves fall in autumn of the first year; the creamy-white, sweetly-scented flowers are eight or ten inches in diameter, and the fruit resembles that of the other magnolias. The wood is weak, soft, and light. The heart is clear brown, the sapwood nearly white. It has not been reported in use for any commercial purpose. Among its other namesit is known as long-leaved cucumber tree, ear-leaved umbrella tree, Indian bitters, water lily tree, and mountain magnolia. In cultivation this species is hardy as far north as Massachusetts, and it is planted for ornament in Europe.

Pyramid Magnolia(Magnolia pyramidata) seems to have generally escaped the notice of laymen, and it therefore has no English name except the translation of the Latin term by which botanists know it. Its habitat lies in southern Georgia and Alabama, and western Florida, and it is occasionally seen in cultivation in western Europe. It is a slender tree, twenty feet or more in height. Its flowers are three or four inches in diameter, and creamy-white in color. A tree so scarce cannot be expected to be commercially important.

Western Black Willow(Salix lasiandra) is a rather large tree when at its best, reaching a diameter of two feet or more, and a height of fifty, but in other parts of its range it rarely exceeds ten feet in height. It follows the western mountain ranges southward from British Columbia into California. The wood is soft, light, and brittle, and is used little if at all. Lyall willow (Salix lasiandra lyalli) is a well marked variety of this species and is a tree of respectable size.

Glossyleaf Willow(Salix lucida) is a far northern species which has its southern limit in Pennsylvania and Nebraska. It grows nearly to the Arctic circle. Trees twenty-five feet high and six or eight inches in diameter are the best this species affords.

Longleaf Willow(Salix fluviatilis) is known also as sandbar willow, narrowleaf willow, shrub, white, red, and osier willow, and by still other names. It ranges from the Arctic circle to Mexico, reaching Maryland on the Atlantic coast, and California on the Pacific. In rare cases it is sixty feet high, and two in diameter, but it is usually less than twenty feet high.

Evergreen magnolia branch

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