PART VIIDECIDUOUS TREES WITH WINGED SEEDSThe Maples—The Ashes—The ElmsTHE MAPLESA single genus,acer, includes from sixty to seventy species, widely distributed over the Northern Hemisphere. A single species goes south of the equator, to the mountains of Java. All produce pale close-grained, fairly hard wood, valued in turnery and for the interior finish of houses. The clear sap of some American species is made into maple sugar.The signs by which we may know a member of the maple family are two: opposite, simple leaves, palmately veined and lobed; and fruits in the form of paired samaras, compressed and drawn out into large thin wings. No amount of improvement changes these family traits. No other tree has both leaves and fruits like a maple's.The distribution of genusaceris interesting. The original home of the family is in the Far East. In China and Japan we may reckon up about thirty indigo maples, while only nine are native to North America. Of these, five are in the eastern half of the continent, three in the West, and one grows indifferently on both sides of the Great Divide.The Sugar MapleAcer saccharum, Marsh.The sugar maple (see illustration,page 198-199) is economically the most important member of its family in this country. As an avenue and shade tree it is unsurpassed. It is the great timber maple, whose curly and bird's-eye wood is loved by the cabinet-maker; and whose sap boiled down, yields maple sugar—a delicious sweet, with the distinctive flavor beloved by all good Americans. In October the sugar maple paints the landscape with yellow and orange and red. Its firm broad leaves, shallowly cleft into five lobes, are variously toothed besides. The flowers open late, hanging on the season's shoots in hairy yellow clusters. The key fruits are smooth and plump, with wings only slightly diverging. They are shed in midsummer.Hard maple wood outranks all other maple lumber, though the curly grain and the bird's-eye are accidental forms rarely found. Flooring makes special demands upon this wood. Much is used in furniture factories; and small wares—shoe lasts, shoe pegs and the like—consume a great deal. As fuel, hard maple is outranked only by hickory. Its ashes are rich in potash and are in great demand as fertilizer in orchards and gardens.The living tree, in the park, on the street, casting its shade about the home, or glowing red among the trees of the woods, is more valuable than its lumber. Slow-growing, strong to resist damage by storm, clean in habit and beautiful the year round—this is our splendid rock maple. Rich, indeed, is the city whose early inhabitants chose it as the permanent street tree.The Black MapleA. nigrum, Michx.The black maple is so like the sugar maple that they are easily confused, but its stout branchlets are orange-colored, the leaves are smooth and green on both sides, scantly toothed, and they droop as if their stems were too weak to hold up the blades. The keys spread more widely than those of the sugar maple.The black maple is the sugar maple of South Dakota and Iowa. It becomes rarer as one goes east. It is an admirable lumber tree, as well as a noble street and shade tree.Two soft maples are found in the eastern part of the country, their sap less sweet, their wood softer than the hard maples, and their fitness for street planting correspondingly less.The Red MapleA. rubrum, Linn.The red maple is a lover of swamps. It thrives, however, on hillsides, if the soil be moist; and is planted widely in parks and along village streets. In beauty it excels all other maples. In early spring its swelling buds glow like garnets on the brown twigs (see illustrations,pages 198-199). The opening flowers have red petals, and the first leaves, which accompany the early bloom, are red. In May the dainty flat keys, in clusters on their long, flexible stems, are as red as a cock's comb, and beautiful against the bright green of the new foliage. In early September in New England, a splash of red in the woods,across a swamp, is sure to be a scarlet maple that suddenly declares its name. Against the green of a hemlock forest these maples show their color like a splash of blood. The tree is gorgeous.In winter the lover of the woods, re-visiting the scenes of his summer rambles, knows the scarlet maple by the knotty, full-budded twigs which gleam like red-hot needles set with coral beads, against the clean-limbed, gray-trunked tree. The red maple never quite forgets its name.As a street tree, it makes rapid progress when it once becomes established, though it is apt to stand still for a time after being transplanted. Its branches are short, numerous, and erect, making a round head, admirably adapted to the resistance of heavy winds. It is particularly suited to use in narrow streets.The Soft MapleA. saccharinum, Linn.The soft maple or silver maple (see illustration,page 199) has a white-lined leaf, cleft almost to the midrib and each division again deeply cut. It is quick and ready to grow, and has been widely planted as a street tree, especially in prairie regions of uncertain rainfall. It is one of the poorest of trees for street planting, because it has a sprawling habit and weak brittle wood. The heavy limbs have great horizontal spread, and are easily broken by ice and windstorms. When planted on streets, they require constant cutting back to make them even safe. Thick crops of suckers rise from the stubs of branches, but the top thus formed is neither beautiful nor useful.Wier's weeping maple, a cut-leaved, drooping varietyof this silver maple, is often seen as a lawn tree, imitating the habit of the weeping willow.The Oregon MapleA. macrophyllum, Pursh.The Oregon maple grows from southern Alaska to Lower California, along the banks of streams. The great leaves, often a foot in diameter, on blades of equal length, are the distinguishing marks of this stout-limbed tree, that grows in favorable soil to a height of a hundred feet. In southern Oregon it forms pure forest, its huge limbs forming magnificent, interlacing arches that shut out the sun and make a wonderful cover for ferns and mosses far below. The wood of this tree is the best hard-wood lumber on the West Coast.The Vine MapleA. circinatum, Pursh.The vine maple reminds one of the lianas of tropical woods, for it has not sufficient stiffness to stand erect. It grows in the bottom lands and up the mountain sides, but always following watercourses, from British Columbia to northern California. Its vine-like stems spring up in clusters from the ground, spreading in wide curves, and these send out long, slender twigs which root when they touch the ground, thus forming impenetrable thickets, often many acres in extent.The leaf is almost circular and cut into narrow equal lobes around the margin; green in midsummer, it changes to red and gold in autumn, and the woodsman, almostworn out with the labor of getting through the maze these trees form, must delight, when he stops to rest, in the autumn glory of this wonderful ground cover.These little maples lend a wonderful charm to the edges of forest highways in the Eastern states. Like the hornbeams, hazel bushes, and ground hemlock, they are lovers of the shade; and they fringe the forest with a shrubbery border.The Striped MapleA. Pennsylvanicum, Linn.The striped maple is quickly recognized by the pale white lines that streak in delicate patterns the smooth green bark of the branches. The leaves are large and finely saw-toothed, with three triangular lobes at the top. The yellowish bell-flowers hang in drooping clusters, followed by the smooth green keys, in midsummer. This tree is called "Moosewood," for moose browse upon it.The shrubbery border of parks is lightened in autumn by the yellow foliage of this little tree, and in winter the bark is very attractive. "Whistlewood" is the name the boys know this tree by, for in spring the bark slips easily, and they cut branches of suitable size for whistles.The Mountain MapleA. spicatum, Lam.The mountain maple is a dainty shrub with ruddy stems, large, three-lobed leaves, erect clusters of yellow flowers and tiny brown keys. It follows the mountains from New England to northern Georgia, and from the Great Lakes extends to the Saskatchewan.Seepage 178THE THORNY TRUNK OF THE HONEY LOCUST, AND THE FOLIAGE AND FLOWERS OF THE BLACK LOCUSTSeepage 194SUGAR MAPLEMaple sugar is made in February; the trees bloom in May; their seeds ripen in OctoberSeepage 195THE RED MAPLE'S PISTILLATE (left) AND STAMINATE (right) FLOWERSSeepage 196SEED KEYS AND NEW FOLIAGE OF THE SOFT OR SILVER MAPLEThe Dwarf MapleA. glabrum, Torr.The dwarf maple ranges plentifully from Canada to Arizona and New Mexico. Its leaves, typically three-lobed and cut-toothed, vary to a compound form of three coarse-toothed leaflets. The winged keys are ruddy in midsummer, lending an attractive dash of color to the woods that border high mountain streams.Very common in cultivation are the Japanese maples—miniature trees, bred and cultivated for centuries, wonderful in the variations in form and coloring of their leaves. Tiny maple trees in pots are often very old. Some leaves are mere skeletons.The Japanese people are worshippers of beauty and they delight particularly in garden shows. In the autumn, when the maples have reached perfection, the populace turns out in holiday attire to celebrate a grand national fête. A sort of æsthetic jubilee it is, like the spring jubilee of the cherry blossom. To each careful gardener who has patiently toiled to bring his maples to perfection, it is sufficient reward that the people make this annual pilgrimage to view them.The Box ElderA. Negundo, Linn.The box elder is the one maple whose leaves are always cleft to the stem, making it compound of irregularly toothed leaflets. The clusters of flattened keys, which hang all winter on the trees, declare the kinship of this tree to the maples.Fast-growing, hardy, willing to grow in treeless regions, this tree has spread from its eastern range throughout the plains, where shelter belts were the first needs of the settlers. Pretty at first, these box elders are soon broken down and unsightly. They should be used only as temporary trees, alternating with elms, hard maples, and ashes. Where they are neglected, or continue to be planted, the character of the town or the premises must be cheap and ugly.The Norway MapleA. platanoides, Linn.The Norway maple is counted the best maple we have for street planting. Broad, thin leaves, three-lobed by wide sinuses, cover with a thick thatch the rounded head of the tree. Green on both sides, thin and smooth, these leaves seem to withstand remarkably the smoke, soot, and dust of cities, and also the attacks of insects. The keys are large, wide-winged, set opposite, the nutlets meeting in a straight line. These pale green key clusters are very handsome among the green leaves in summer—the tree's chief ornament until the foliage mass turns yellow in autumn. A peculiarity of the Norway maple is the milky juice that starts from a broken leaf-stem.The Sycamore MapleA. pseudo-platanus, Linn.The sycamore maple is another European immigrant, whose broad leaf is thick and leathery in texture, and pale underneath. Its late-opening flowers are borne inlong racemes, followed by the small key fruits which cling to the twigs over winter, making the tree look dingy and untidy. This tree has not the hardiness nor the compact form of the Norway maple, and it is subject to the attack of borers.It is the "sycamore" of Europe, famed as a lumber and an avenue tree abroad, but with us it proves short-lived, and we have no reason for choosing it. The copious seed production of the far preferable Norway maple puts it within the reach of all.THE ASHESFew large trees in our American woods have their leaves set opposite upon the twig. Still fewer of the trees with compound leaves show this arrangement. Consult the first broad-leaved tree you meet, and the chances are that its leaves are set alternately upon the twigs. There is a multitude of families in this class; but if the leaves are paired and set opposite, we narrow the families to a very few. Are the leaves simple? Then the tree may be a maple or a dogwood, or a viburnum. Are the leaves opposite and compound? Then you have one of two families. Are the leaflets clustered on the end of the leaf-stalk? Then the tree is a buckeye or a horse chestnut—members of the buckeye family. Are the leaflets set along the sides of the central stem? Then the tree is an ash. A few exceptions may be discovered, but the rule holds in the general forest area of North America.Ash trees have lance-shaped, winged seeds, borne in profuse clusters, and often held well into the winter. Butthere is no season when the leaf arrangement cannot be at once determined by the leaf scars, prominent upon the twigs; and under the tree there will always be remnants of the cast-off foliage, to show that it is compound.Ash trees are usually large and stately when full grown, with trunks clothed in smooth bark, checked into small, often diamond-shaped plates. This gives the trees a trim, handsome appearance in the winter woods. As shade trees, ashes are very desirable, and they are valuable for their timber.The near relatives of ashes surprise us. They belong to the olive family, whose type is the olive tree of the Mediterranean region, now extensively cultivated in California for its fruit. Privets, lilacs, and forsythias, favorites in the gardens of all countries that have temperate climates, are cousins to the ash tree. One of its most charming relatives is the little fringe tree of our own woods. Thirty species of ash are known; half of that number inhabit North America. There are ash trees in every section of our country except the extremes of latitude and altitude. Tropical ash trees are native to Cuba, North Africa, and the Orient.The White AshFraxinus Americana, Linn.The white ash is one of the noblest trees in the American forest, the peer of the loftiest oak or walnut. When young it is slim and graceful, but it grows sturdier as it approaches maturity, lifting stout, spreading branches above a tall, massive trunk. In the forest the head is narrow, but in the open the dome of a white ash is as broad and symmetrical as that of a white oak. A gray rind covers theyoung branches and the bark is gray. The foliage has white lining and each of the seven leaflets has a short stalk. These are all characters that distinguish the white ash from other species and enable one to name it at a glance. In the South the white ash is undersized and the wood is of poor quality. In the Northeastern and Central states it is one of the most important and largest of our timber trees, with wood more valuable than any other ash. Its uses are manifold: it is staple in the manufacture of agricultural implements, carriages, furniture, and in the interior finish of buildings. Tool handles and oars are made of white ash and it is superior as fuel. The reddish-brown heart-wood, with paler sap-wood, is tough, elastic, hard, and heavy. It is not durable in soil and becomes brittle with age.Ash trees are late in coming into leaf. When all the forest is green and full of blossoms, the ash trees are still naked. Not until May do the rusty yellow winter buds of the white ash swell and throw out on separate trees their staminate and pistillate flower clusters from the axils of last year's foliage. (See illustration,page 214.) Then the leaves unfold; downy at first, becoming bright and shiny above, but always with pale linings. On fertile trees the inconspicuous flowers mature into pointed fruits, one to two inches long. The wing is twice the length of the seed and is rounded to a blunt point. The seed itself is round and pointed, on branching stalks that form clusters from six to eight inches long.As a street tree the white ash deserves much more general favor in cities than it has yet achieved, for it is straight and symmetrical, and its light foliage grows in irregular, wavy masses, through which some sunlight canalways sift and let grass grow under the tree. This tree is a rapid grower, perfectly hardy in most sections of the country, and has no serious insect enemies. The foliage turns to brownish purple and yellow in the autumn.The Black AshF. nigra, Marsh.The black ash is a lover of marshes, found from Newfoundland to Manitoba, and from Virginia to Arkansas. Its blue-black winter buds, the sombre green of its foliage, and the dark hues of its bark and wood have justified the popular name of this handsome, slender tree. The leaflets, oval and long-pointed, are sessile on the hairy leaf stalk, except the terminal one. At maturity the leaves are a foot or more in length, of seven to eleven leaflets, that turn brown and fall early in autumn. The keys of the black ash are borne in open panicles, eight to ten inches long; each has a short, flat seed, with a broad blade, thin, rounded, and notched instead of pointed, at the extremity.The wood of black ash has the tough, heavy coarse-grained qualities of the white ash, but differs in being very durable and in being easily split into thin layers—each a year's growth. The Indians taught the early settlers to weave baskets out of black ash splints. These splints are easily separated by bending the split wood over a block. The strain breaks loose the tissue that forms the spring wood, and separates the bands of tough, dense summer wood into strips suitable for basket weaving. Black ash is used for chair seats, barrel hoops, furniture, and cabinet-work.The saplings are oftenest chosen for hop and bean poles.As a lawn tree, the black ash has little to recommend it for it often dies of thirst in the loam of a garden. At best it is short-lived. Planted in swampy ground, the tree spreads by seeds, and suckers from the roots, soon forming extensive thickets, and drinking up the moisture at a marvelous rate.The Red AshF. Pennsylvanica, Marsh.The red ash follows the courses of streams and lake margins from New Brunswick to the Black Hills and south into Florida, Alabama, and Nebraska. This tree is much planted for shade and ornament in New England, and in other Eastern sections. The tree is small, spreading into a compact though irregular head of twiggy, slender branches. The yellow-green foliage, a foot long, of seven to nine short, stalked, lustrous leaflets, is lightened by a pale pubescence on petioles and leaf-linings. The same velvety down covers the new shoots. Summer and winter this sign never fails.Red ash seeds are extremely long and slender, and have the most graceful outlines of all the darts that various ash trees bear. The heavy, round body has a wing twice its length by which the wind carries the seeds far away. Very gradually an ash tree launches its seeds. It is easy to understand why the family is so scattered through any woods, for the wind is the sower. The reddish bark of the twigs and trunk of this tree seems to be the justification for its name. Its brown wood is inferior to white ash.The Green AshF. Pennsylvanica, Varietylanceolata, Sarg.The green ash has narrower, shorter leaves than the parent species and usually more sharply saw-toothed margins. Instead of having pale linings, the leaflets are bright green on both surfaces. This is the ash tree of the almost treeless prairies from Dakota southward, where it not only lives, but flourishes as well as in its native habitat, the rich soil of stream banks farther east. Its range crosses the Rocky Mountains and reaches the slopes of the Wasatch Mountains in Utah. East of the Alleghanies the tree is little known. It is in the West that it is the dominant ash. It is one of the few important agencies which have turned the "Great American Desert" into a land of shady roads and comfortable, protected homesteads.The Blue AshF. quadrangulata, Michx.The blue ash has four-angled twigs, often winged at the corners with a thin plate of bark. The sap contains a substance that gives a blue dye when the inner bark is macerated in water. The tree reaches one hundred and twenty feet in height, above a slender trunk, and has small spreading branches that terminate in stout twigs, characteristically angled.The tree is occasionally cultivated in parks and gardens in the Eastern states where it is a distinct addition to the list of handsome shade trees. It is hardy, quick of growth, and unusually free from the ills that beset trees. In theforests it reaches its best estate on the limestone hills of the Big Smoky Mountains. Its wood ranks with the best white ash and exceeds it in one particular; it is the most durable ash wood when exposed alternately to wet and dry conditions. It is used for vehicles, for flooring and for handles of tools especially pitchforks.The Oregon AshF. Oregona, Nutt.The Oregon ash follows the coast south from Puget Sound to San Francisco Bay, and from the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada to those of the mountains of southern California. In southwestern Oregon the tree reaches the height of eighty feet, with a trunk three to four feet in diameter. The stout branches form a broad crown where there is room, and the luxuriant foliage is wonderfully light in color, pale green above, with silvery pubescent leaf-linings. Of the five to seven leaflets, all are sessile or short-stalked, except the terminal one, which has a stem an inch long. All are oval and abruptly pointed, thick and firm in texture, turning yellow or russet brown in autumn. The lumber is counted equal to white ash and is one of the most valuable of deciduous timber trees in the western coast states.A number of little ash trees, distinct in species from those described already, are native to limited sections of the country. All have the family traits by which they are readily recognized, if seed form, leaf form, and leaf arrangement are kept in mind. In the corner where Colorado, Nevada, and Utah meet, is an ash with its leaf reduced to a single leaflet, but the seeds are profusely borne to declarethe tree's name to any one who visits its restricted territory. In rich soil, three leaflets are occasionally developed.The European AshF. Excelsior, Linn.TheEuropean ashis the large timber ash from the Atlantic Coast of Europe to western Asia. The earliest writers have ranked its wood next to oak in usefulness. It was known as "the husbandman's tree." Its uses were listed at interminable length, for "ploughs, axle-trees, wheel-rings, harrows, balls … oars, blocks for pulleys, tenons and mortises, poles, spars, handles, and stocks for tools, spade trees, carts, ladders…. In short, so good and profitable is this tree that every prudent Lord of a Manor should employ one acre of ground with Ash to every twenty acres of other land, since in as many years it would be more worth than the land itself."The saplings, cut when three to six years old, made excellent fork and spade handles on account of the toughness and pliability of their fibre. Crates for china were made of the branches. Steamed and bent, this wood lent itself to the making of hoops for barrels and kegs. The cutting off of the main trunk set the roots to sending up a forest of young shoots, ready for cutting again when they reached the size for walking-sticks and whip-stocks.Quite independent of its lumber value, but possibly correlated with it, was the great reputation the ash tree achieved in the myths and superstitions of widely separated peoples. In south Europe, tradition declared that a race of brazen men sprung from the ash tree. In the North, the Norse mythology madeIgdrasil, the ash, the "Worldtree," from whose roots the whole race of men sprung. The roots of this mythological tree penetrated the earth to its lowest depths and its giant top supported the heavens. Wisdom and knowledge gushed from its base as from a fountain, and underneath were the abodes of the gods, giants, and the Fates. Superstitions of all kinds have come down with the language of different peoples, making the history of the ash tree a most interesting study.A Chinese ash yields a valuable white wax which exudes from the bark of the twigs.F. ornus, Linn., native to south Europe and Asia Minor, exudes a waxy secretion from bark and leaves. This is the manna of commerce. Last but not least of the products of the ash tree are the curious and beautiful contortions of the grain found in "burls" on the trunks of old trees of many species. These warty excrescences are eagerly bought by special agents for cabinet-makers. Woodwork from these abnormal growths shows exquisitely waved lines when polished, as delicate as those in a banded agate. Fancy boxes, bowls, and other articles brought fancy prices when made of "ram's horn" or "fiddleback" ash, which often went under the trade name of green ebony. The black ash in America is particularly subject to contortions of the grain.THE ELMSElms of sixteen distinct species are native to boreal and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, with this single exception: western North America is without a representative. Europe has three species, two of which extendtheir range into eastern Asia and northern Africa. Southern and central Asia have their own species. Five are native to our Eastern states. Two European species are in cultivation in the North Atlantic states, especially in the neighborhood of Boston, where they are as familiar as the native species, in street planting.Elm trees are valuable for shade and for lumber; their wood is hard, heavy, tough, pale in color, often difficult to split. The trees are distinguished from others by their simple, unsymmetrical, strong-ribbed leaves, saw-toothed, short-stalked, always unequal and often oblique at the base of the blade. The flowers, usually perfect, are inconspicuous, and the seeds are flat, entirely surrounded by a thin papery wing, that forms two hooks at the tip. Wind-carried, these seeds have had much to do with the wide distribution of elms.The White ElmUlmus Americana, Linn.The white or American elm is widely known as a tall, graceful wide-spreading tree, usually of symmetrical, vase shape, with slender limbs and drooping twigs. (See illustration,page 215.) It has the rough furrowed bark characteristic of the genus, dark or light gray, with paler branches and red-brown twigs. The leaves are alternate, two to six inches long, broadest near the abruptly pointed apex. Distinctly one-sided at the tapering base, the leaves have a fashion of arranging themselves in a flat spray so as to present almost a continuous leaf area to the sun. One spray overlaps another,and leaves varying in size fit in to fill every little corner to which sunlight comes. This "leaf mosaic" is not confined to elms alone. It is especially noticeable on the southern border of any dense wood.Winter offers the best opportunity for the study of tree forms. Our common elm shows at least five different patterns. The first is the "vase form," the commonest and most beautiful. This is best realized by old trees which have had plenty of room. In it the branches spread gradually upward at first but at a considerable height sweep boldly out forming a broad, rounded, or flattened head. Second is the "plume form," in which two or three main limbs rise to a great height before branching, and then break into feathery spray. Trees crowded in woods are likely to take this form. Third, the "oak tree form" shows a horizontal habit of branching, and an angularity of limbs usually more noticeable among oaks. Fourth, the "weeping willow form," where trees have short trunks, from which the branches curve rapidly outward and end in long, drooping branchlets. Fifth is the "feathered elm," marked by a fringe of short twigs which outline the trunk and limbs. This "feathering" is caused by the late development of latent buds. It may occur in any of the tree types just mentioned, but it is more noticeable in individuals of the plume form.The American elm is very familiar for it grows everywhere east of the Rocky Mountains. Not to know this tree is a mark of indifference and ignorance. No village of any pride but plants it freely as a street tree. It is hardy and cheerful, reflecting the indomitable spirit of the pioneer, whom it accompanied by seed and sapling from the Eastern states into the treeless territories of theMiddle West. With him the tree seized the land and made it yield a living. Elms, which have outlived the cottonwoods and willows, are not so large yet as the patriarchal trees in old New-England villages, yet time alone is needed to match, in the valley of the Missouri, the elms in the valley of the Connecticut.I think, with due appreciation of its summer luxuriance of foliage, and the grace and strength of the elm's framework in winter, that the moment of greatest charm in the life of a roadside elm comes in the first warm days of late March. The brown buds on the sides of the twigs are swelling and a flush of purple overspreads the tree, while snow still covers the ground. A tremendous "fall of leaves" ensues, for the tiny bud scales that enclose the elm flowers are but leaves in miniature. The elms are in blossom! Each flower of each cluster has a calyx with scalloped edges, and a fringe of four to nine stamens hanging far out and surrounding the central solitary ovary. The color is in the yellow anthers and the dark red calyx lobes.Speedily, the stamens shrivel and pale green pendants, which are the seeds, cluster upon the twigs. Winged for flight, these ripen and are scattered before the leaves are fairly open, and the growth of the season's shoots begins. Only the pussy willow, the quaking asp, and the earliest maples bloom as early as the elm. How much they have missed, who never saw an elm tree in blossom!The hubs of the "one-hoss shay" were of "ellum," its interlacing fibres peculiarly fitting this wood for indestructibility. Saddle trees, boat timbers, cooperage, and flooring employ it in quantities. It is also used for flumes and piles, for it resists decay on exposure to water.The Slippery ElmU. fulva, Michx.The slippery elm is also known as the red elm and moose elm, because its wood is red and moose are fond of browsing its young shoots. In regions where moose are rarely seen, it is the small boy who browses and often utterly destroys every specimen of this valuable tree. Under the bark of young shoots a sweet substance is found, which gives the tree its common name. What man lives who in the heydey of youth has not had the spring craze for slippery elm bark, as surely as he had the fever for kite-flying and playing marbles? The trees in every fence row show the wounds of jack-knives; stripping the bark, the boys scrape from its inner surface the thick, fragrant mucilaginouscambium—a delectable substance that allays both hunger and thirst. Fortunately the bark of the limbs supplies the demand; many a veteran tree still suffers the pollarding process, serving one generation of schoolboys after another.The inner bark, dried and ground and mixed with milk, forms a valuable food for invalids. Poultices of slippery elm bark relieve throat and chest ailments. Fevers and acute inflammatory disorders are treated with the same bark, which has passed from the list of mere home remedies to an established place on the apothecary's shelf.How shall we tell a slippery elm tree from the American elm? By its leaf in summer. The roughness of the foliage is one of its striking characteristics. Crumple a leaf, and its surfaces grate harshly, for they are covered with stiff, tubercular hairs. The leaves are larger, often reachingseven inches in length. There is a reddish or tawny pubescence on all young shoots, and especially on the bud scales in winter. The tree itself, in winter or summer, is much more coarse than its cousin. It is also unsymmetrical in habit, each limb striking out for itself. Very often one meets a tree quite as one-sided in form as its leaf, and this without any apparent reason. But given a chance to grow without mutilation, the slippery elm attains a height of seventy feet, forming a broad, open head, in comparatively few years. It is well worth planting for its lumber and for shade.The Rock ElmU. Thomasi, Sarg.The rock elm or cork elm chooses dry, gravelly upland and low heavy clay soil, on rocky slopes and river cliffs, from Ontario and New Hampshire westward through northern New York, southern Michigan to Nebraska and Missouri. It is more abundant and of largest size in Ontario and in the southern peninsula of Michigan.Its leaf is small, thick, and firm, dark green, and turns to brilliant yellow in the autumn. Its flowers and fruits are borne in racemes. At any season, one knows this cork elm by the shaggy bark on its stout limbs that make the tree resemble a bur oak. "Rock elm" and "hickory elm" are names that refer to the hardness of the wood. The wheelwright counts it the best of all elms. Compact, with interlacing fibres, there are spring, strength, and toughness in this wood which adapt it for bridge timbers, heavy agricultural implements, wheel stocks, sills, and axe-handles. The name "cork elm" refers to the corky bark which runs out in winged ridges, even to the twigs.Seepage 202THE WHITE ASHWinter budsPistillate flowersStaminate flowerSeepage 222A GROUP OF WHITE PINESSeepage 235LEAVES AND CONES OF THE SHORTLEAF PINESeepage 210AMERICAN ELMThe Winged ElmU. alata, Michx.The winged elm, or wahoo, is dainty and small, its leaves and the two thin corky blades that arise on each twig befitting the smallest elm tree in the family. Despite its corky wings, it has none of the ruggedness of the cork elm, but is a pretty round-headed tree. It is distributed from Virginia to Florida and west to Illinois and Texas. "Mountain elm" and "small-leaved elm" are local names. "Wahoo" is local also, belonging chiefly to the South. Even the little seed of this tree is long and slender, its wing prolonged into two incurving hooks.The English ElmU. campestris, Linn.The English elm is often seen in the Eastern states, planted with the American elm in parks and streets, where the two species contrast strikingly. The English tree looks stocky, the American airily graceful. One stands heavily upon its heels, the other on tiptoe. One has a compact, pyramidal or oblong head, the other a loose open one. In October the superb English elms on Boston Common are still bright green, while their American cousins have passed into "the sere and yellow leaf."The Scotch ElmU. montana, Linn.The Scotch or wych elm is planted freely in parks and private grounds. It is a medium-sized tree of rather more strict habit of growth than the American elm. Before the leaves open the tree often looks bright green from a distance. This appearance is due to the winged seeds which are exceptionally large and crowd the twig in great rosettes.One horticultural variety of this species is the weeping form known as the Camperdown elm, which arches its limbs downward on all sides, forming when full-grown a natural arbor. One often sees this tree planted on lawns of limited extent, and so near the street as to render utterly absurd its invitation to privacy. To serve that reasonable and delightful end, the tree should be planted in a retired corner of one's grounds, where an afternoon siesta may be enjoyed undisturbed.PART VIIITHE CONE-BEARING EVERGREENSThe Pines—The Spruces—The Firs—The Douglas Spruce—The Hemlocks—The Sequoias—The Arbor-vitaes—The Incense Cedar—The Cypresses—The Junipers—The Larches, or TamaracksThe cone-bearers, or conifers, are a distinct race that we commonly call evergreens. They include pines, hemlocks, spruces, firs, sequoias, cypresses, cedars, and junipers. Besides these, the tamaracks and the bald cypress must be included, although their leaves are shed in the autumn. The term "evergreen" applies equally well to magnolias, laurels, and many oaks. Birches and alders and magnolias bear cone-like fruits. Notwithstanding such exceptions, the cone-bearing trees are mostly evergreen, and their family traits are so strongly marked that even the beginner in tree study eliminates the exceptional instances early in his studies.The pines and their relatives in the coniferous group are an ancient race, composed of proud old "first families." Along the shores of the Silurian seas they stood up, straight and tall, their only companions that stood erect, the giant horse-tails and tree ferns. This was long before modern tree families had any existence. There were no broad-leavedtrees. In the coal measures are found the mummied remains of these prehistoric conifers. The cycads in the Everglades of Florida are some of their surviving representatives. These are facing extinction, and the conifers, too, are declining. They had reached their prime as a race when the broad-leaved trees appeared upon the earth. The vigor of the new race enabled it to seize the richest, well-watered regions. They drove the conifers to seek the swamps, the exposed seacoasts, the barren and rocky mountain slopes. Man has ruthlessly destroyed for timber the coniferous forests of this country and much of the territory denuded by the axe is either devoted to agriculture or has been seized by broad-leaved species of trees, more tenacious of life and with seeds more quick and sure to germinate than those of the conifers. The time is not far distant, geologically speaking, when this ancient and declining family of trees will exist only as man fosters it by cultivation.The conifers have resinous wood, with stiff, needle-like or scale-like leaves, and inconspicuous flowers of two sorts, borne in clusters like catkins. The pistillate catkin matures into a woody cone made of overlapping scales attached to a central stem. On each scale are borne one or more winged seeds.The one character which is constant in the whole coniferous group and sets it apart from the rest of the plant kingdom, is expressed in the nameGymnosperm, applied to this botanical grand division. It means "naked seed." There is no ovary in the flower. The naked ovules are borne on the scales of the fertile spike or catkin, which is held apart and erect in blossoming time. They are pollinated by the wind, which sifts them with golden pollendust, abundant in the staminate catkins clustered on the same tree. Contact of pollen grains and naked ovules is followed by their coalescence—the "setting of seeds."The distinguishing trait of the higher plants that form the grand division known asAngiosperms, is that the ovules are borne in a closed ovary, and the pollen lodges on the end of a stigma. "Pollen tubes" grow down through the long style, finally reach the hidden ovule, and seed is set. This complicated process is found in the majority of flowers one studies in botany classes. Gymnosperms, and the still lower groups of flowerless ferns and mosses, are merely glanced at by amateur botanists. The more primitive plant forms are too difficult for beginners.The habit of the conifers is a character upon which we may depend. With rare exceptions, there is a central shaft, "the leader," and short horizontal branches in whorls forming platforms. The side branches, also whorled, are generally flattened into a horizontal spray. The leaves are narrow, needle-like, or scale-like, and waxy or resinous. The tough fibre of the wood enables the conifers to resist damage by wind and by ice. Snowflakes sift to the ground instead of accumulating upon the branches and breaking them by their cumulative weight. The wind, which pollinated the fertile flowers of coniferous forests long before nectar-gathering insects came upon the earth, is the harvester of their seeds. It scatters them far and wide; each seed has a wing that adapts it to long journeys in front of a gale.The resinous sap that courses through the veins of coniferous wood seals up the bark, leaves, and cones against the invasion of enemies, and acts as an antiseptic dressing for wounds. Without these special adaptations to a life ofhardship, the conifers would never have held their own as they have done. They inhabit regions where conditions discourage all but a few of the broad-leaved trees.
PART VII
DECIDUOUS TREES WITH WINGED SEEDS
The Maples—The Ashes—The Elms
THE MAPLES
A single genus,acer, includes from sixty to seventy species, widely distributed over the Northern Hemisphere. A single species goes south of the equator, to the mountains of Java. All produce pale close-grained, fairly hard wood, valued in turnery and for the interior finish of houses. The clear sap of some American species is made into maple sugar.
The signs by which we may know a member of the maple family are two: opposite, simple leaves, palmately veined and lobed; and fruits in the form of paired samaras, compressed and drawn out into large thin wings. No amount of improvement changes these family traits. No other tree has both leaves and fruits like a maple's.
The distribution of genusaceris interesting. The original home of the family is in the Far East. In China and Japan we may reckon up about thirty indigo maples, while only nine are native to North America. Of these, five are in the eastern half of the continent, three in the West, and one grows indifferently on both sides of the Great Divide.
The Sugar Maple
Acer saccharum, Marsh.
The sugar maple (see illustration,page 198-199) is economically the most important member of its family in this country. As an avenue and shade tree it is unsurpassed. It is the great timber maple, whose curly and bird's-eye wood is loved by the cabinet-maker; and whose sap boiled down, yields maple sugar—a delicious sweet, with the distinctive flavor beloved by all good Americans. In October the sugar maple paints the landscape with yellow and orange and red. Its firm broad leaves, shallowly cleft into five lobes, are variously toothed besides. The flowers open late, hanging on the season's shoots in hairy yellow clusters. The key fruits are smooth and plump, with wings only slightly diverging. They are shed in midsummer.
Hard maple wood outranks all other maple lumber, though the curly grain and the bird's-eye are accidental forms rarely found. Flooring makes special demands upon this wood. Much is used in furniture factories; and small wares—shoe lasts, shoe pegs and the like—consume a great deal. As fuel, hard maple is outranked only by hickory. Its ashes are rich in potash and are in great demand as fertilizer in orchards and gardens.
The living tree, in the park, on the street, casting its shade about the home, or glowing red among the trees of the woods, is more valuable than its lumber. Slow-growing, strong to resist damage by storm, clean in habit and beautiful the year round—this is our splendid rock maple. Rich, indeed, is the city whose early inhabitants chose it as the permanent street tree.
The Black Maple
A. nigrum, Michx.
The black maple is so like the sugar maple that they are easily confused, but its stout branchlets are orange-colored, the leaves are smooth and green on both sides, scantly toothed, and they droop as if their stems were too weak to hold up the blades. The keys spread more widely than those of the sugar maple.
The black maple is the sugar maple of South Dakota and Iowa. It becomes rarer as one goes east. It is an admirable lumber tree, as well as a noble street and shade tree.
Two soft maples are found in the eastern part of the country, their sap less sweet, their wood softer than the hard maples, and their fitness for street planting correspondingly less.
The Red Maple
A. rubrum, Linn.
The red maple is a lover of swamps. It thrives, however, on hillsides, if the soil be moist; and is planted widely in parks and along village streets. In beauty it excels all other maples. In early spring its swelling buds glow like garnets on the brown twigs (see illustrations,pages 198-199). The opening flowers have red petals, and the first leaves, which accompany the early bloom, are red. In May the dainty flat keys, in clusters on their long, flexible stems, are as red as a cock's comb, and beautiful against the bright green of the new foliage. In early September in New England, a splash of red in the woods,across a swamp, is sure to be a scarlet maple that suddenly declares its name. Against the green of a hemlock forest these maples show their color like a splash of blood. The tree is gorgeous.
In winter the lover of the woods, re-visiting the scenes of his summer rambles, knows the scarlet maple by the knotty, full-budded twigs which gleam like red-hot needles set with coral beads, against the clean-limbed, gray-trunked tree. The red maple never quite forgets its name.
As a street tree, it makes rapid progress when it once becomes established, though it is apt to stand still for a time after being transplanted. Its branches are short, numerous, and erect, making a round head, admirably adapted to the resistance of heavy winds. It is particularly suited to use in narrow streets.
The Soft Maple
A. saccharinum, Linn.
The soft maple or silver maple (see illustration,page 199) has a white-lined leaf, cleft almost to the midrib and each division again deeply cut. It is quick and ready to grow, and has been widely planted as a street tree, especially in prairie regions of uncertain rainfall. It is one of the poorest of trees for street planting, because it has a sprawling habit and weak brittle wood. The heavy limbs have great horizontal spread, and are easily broken by ice and windstorms. When planted on streets, they require constant cutting back to make them even safe. Thick crops of suckers rise from the stubs of branches, but the top thus formed is neither beautiful nor useful.
Wier's weeping maple, a cut-leaved, drooping varietyof this silver maple, is often seen as a lawn tree, imitating the habit of the weeping willow.
The Oregon Maple
A. macrophyllum, Pursh.
The Oregon maple grows from southern Alaska to Lower California, along the banks of streams. The great leaves, often a foot in diameter, on blades of equal length, are the distinguishing marks of this stout-limbed tree, that grows in favorable soil to a height of a hundred feet. In southern Oregon it forms pure forest, its huge limbs forming magnificent, interlacing arches that shut out the sun and make a wonderful cover for ferns and mosses far below. The wood of this tree is the best hard-wood lumber on the West Coast.
The Vine Maple
A. circinatum, Pursh.
The vine maple reminds one of the lianas of tropical woods, for it has not sufficient stiffness to stand erect. It grows in the bottom lands and up the mountain sides, but always following watercourses, from British Columbia to northern California. Its vine-like stems spring up in clusters from the ground, spreading in wide curves, and these send out long, slender twigs which root when they touch the ground, thus forming impenetrable thickets, often many acres in extent.
The leaf is almost circular and cut into narrow equal lobes around the margin; green in midsummer, it changes to red and gold in autumn, and the woodsman, almostworn out with the labor of getting through the maze these trees form, must delight, when he stops to rest, in the autumn glory of this wonderful ground cover.
These little maples lend a wonderful charm to the edges of forest highways in the Eastern states. Like the hornbeams, hazel bushes, and ground hemlock, they are lovers of the shade; and they fringe the forest with a shrubbery border.
The Striped Maple
A. Pennsylvanicum, Linn.
The striped maple is quickly recognized by the pale white lines that streak in delicate patterns the smooth green bark of the branches. The leaves are large and finely saw-toothed, with three triangular lobes at the top. The yellowish bell-flowers hang in drooping clusters, followed by the smooth green keys, in midsummer. This tree is called "Moosewood," for moose browse upon it.
The shrubbery border of parks is lightened in autumn by the yellow foliage of this little tree, and in winter the bark is very attractive. "Whistlewood" is the name the boys know this tree by, for in spring the bark slips easily, and they cut branches of suitable size for whistles.
The Mountain Maple
A. spicatum, Lam.
The mountain maple is a dainty shrub with ruddy stems, large, three-lobed leaves, erect clusters of yellow flowers and tiny brown keys. It follows the mountains from New England to northern Georgia, and from the Great Lakes extends to the Saskatchewan.
Seepage 178THE THORNY TRUNK OF THE HONEY LOCUST, AND THE FOLIAGE AND FLOWERS OF THE BLACK LOCUST
Seepage 178
THE THORNY TRUNK OF THE HONEY LOCUST, AND THE FOLIAGE AND FLOWERS OF THE BLACK LOCUST
Seepage 194SUGAR MAPLEMaple sugar is made in February; the trees bloom in May; their seeds ripen in October
Seepage 194
SUGAR MAPLEMaple sugar is made in February; the trees bloom in May; their seeds ripen in October
Seepage 195THE RED MAPLE'S PISTILLATE (left) AND STAMINATE (right) FLOWERS
Seepage 195
THE RED MAPLE'S PISTILLATE (left) AND STAMINATE (right) FLOWERS
Seepage 196SEED KEYS AND NEW FOLIAGE OF THE SOFT OR SILVER MAPLE
Seepage 196
SEED KEYS AND NEW FOLIAGE OF THE SOFT OR SILVER MAPLE
The Dwarf Maple
A. glabrum, Torr.
The dwarf maple ranges plentifully from Canada to Arizona and New Mexico. Its leaves, typically three-lobed and cut-toothed, vary to a compound form of three coarse-toothed leaflets. The winged keys are ruddy in midsummer, lending an attractive dash of color to the woods that border high mountain streams.
Very common in cultivation are the Japanese maples—miniature trees, bred and cultivated for centuries, wonderful in the variations in form and coloring of their leaves. Tiny maple trees in pots are often very old. Some leaves are mere skeletons.
The Japanese people are worshippers of beauty and they delight particularly in garden shows. In the autumn, when the maples have reached perfection, the populace turns out in holiday attire to celebrate a grand national fête. A sort of æsthetic jubilee it is, like the spring jubilee of the cherry blossom. To each careful gardener who has patiently toiled to bring his maples to perfection, it is sufficient reward that the people make this annual pilgrimage to view them.
The Box Elder
A. Negundo, Linn.
The box elder is the one maple whose leaves are always cleft to the stem, making it compound of irregularly toothed leaflets. The clusters of flattened keys, which hang all winter on the trees, declare the kinship of this tree to the maples.
Fast-growing, hardy, willing to grow in treeless regions, this tree has spread from its eastern range throughout the plains, where shelter belts were the first needs of the settlers. Pretty at first, these box elders are soon broken down and unsightly. They should be used only as temporary trees, alternating with elms, hard maples, and ashes. Where they are neglected, or continue to be planted, the character of the town or the premises must be cheap and ugly.
The Norway Maple
A. platanoides, Linn.
The Norway maple is counted the best maple we have for street planting. Broad, thin leaves, three-lobed by wide sinuses, cover with a thick thatch the rounded head of the tree. Green on both sides, thin and smooth, these leaves seem to withstand remarkably the smoke, soot, and dust of cities, and also the attacks of insects. The keys are large, wide-winged, set opposite, the nutlets meeting in a straight line. These pale green key clusters are very handsome among the green leaves in summer—the tree's chief ornament until the foliage mass turns yellow in autumn. A peculiarity of the Norway maple is the milky juice that starts from a broken leaf-stem.
The Sycamore Maple
A. pseudo-platanus, Linn.
The sycamore maple is another European immigrant, whose broad leaf is thick and leathery in texture, and pale underneath. Its late-opening flowers are borne inlong racemes, followed by the small key fruits which cling to the twigs over winter, making the tree look dingy and untidy. This tree has not the hardiness nor the compact form of the Norway maple, and it is subject to the attack of borers.
It is the "sycamore" of Europe, famed as a lumber and an avenue tree abroad, but with us it proves short-lived, and we have no reason for choosing it. The copious seed production of the far preferable Norway maple puts it within the reach of all.
THE ASHES
Few large trees in our American woods have their leaves set opposite upon the twig. Still fewer of the trees with compound leaves show this arrangement. Consult the first broad-leaved tree you meet, and the chances are that its leaves are set alternately upon the twigs. There is a multitude of families in this class; but if the leaves are paired and set opposite, we narrow the families to a very few. Are the leaves simple? Then the tree may be a maple or a dogwood, or a viburnum. Are the leaves opposite and compound? Then you have one of two families. Are the leaflets clustered on the end of the leaf-stalk? Then the tree is a buckeye or a horse chestnut—members of the buckeye family. Are the leaflets set along the sides of the central stem? Then the tree is an ash. A few exceptions may be discovered, but the rule holds in the general forest area of North America.
Ash trees have lance-shaped, winged seeds, borne in profuse clusters, and often held well into the winter. Butthere is no season when the leaf arrangement cannot be at once determined by the leaf scars, prominent upon the twigs; and under the tree there will always be remnants of the cast-off foliage, to show that it is compound.
Ash trees are usually large and stately when full grown, with trunks clothed in smooth bark, checked into small, often diamond-shaped plates. This gives the trees a trim, handsome appearance in the winter woods. As shade trees, ashes are very desirable, and they are valuable for their timber.
The near relatives of ashes surprise us. They belong to the olive family, whose type is the olive tree of the Mediterranean region, now extensively cultivated in California for its fruit. Privets, lilacs, and forsythias, favorites in the gardens of all countries that have temperate climates, are cousins to the ash tree. One of its most charming relatives is the little fringe tree of our own woods. Thirty species of ash are known; half of that number inhabit North America. There are ash trees in every section of our country except the extremes of latitude and altitude. Tropical ash trees are native to Cuba, North Africa, and the Orient.
The White Ash
Fraxinus Americana, Linn.
The white ash is one of the noblest trees in the American forest, the peer of the loftiest oak or walnut. When young it is slim and graceful, but it grows sturdier as it approaches maturity, lifting stout, spreading branches above a tall, massive trunk. In the forest the head is narrow, but in the open the dome of a white ash is as broad and symmetrical as that of a white oak. A gray rind covers theyoung branches and the bark is gray. The foliage has white lining and each of the seven leaflets has a short stalk. These are all characters that distinguish the white ash from other species and enable one to name it at a glance. In the South the white ash is undersized and the wood is of poor quality. In the Northeastern and Central states it is one of the most important and largest of our timber trees, with wood more valuable than any other ash. Its uses are manifold: it is staple in the manufacture of agricultural implements, carriages, furniture, and in the interior finish of buildings. Tool handles and oars are made of white ash and it is superior as fuel. The reddish-brown heart-wood, with paler sap-wood, is tough, elastic, hard, and heavy. It is not durable in soil and becomes brittle with age.
Ash trees are late in coming into leaf. When all the forest is green and full of blossoms, the ash trees are still naked. Not until May do the rusty yellow winter buds of the white ash swell and throw out on separate trees their staminate and pistillate flower clusters from the axils of last year's foliage. (See illustration,page 214.) Then the leaves unfold; downy at first, becoming bright and shiny above, but always with pale linings. On fertile trees the inconspicuous flowers mature into pointed fruits, one to two inches long. The wing is twice the length of the seed and is rounded to a blunt point. The seed itself is round and pointed, on branching stalks that form clusters from six to eight inches long.
As a street tree the white ash deserves much more general favor in cities than it has yet achieved, for it is straight and symmetrical, and its light foliage grows in irregular, wavy masses, through which some sunlight canalways sift and let grass grow under the tree. This tree is a rapid grower, perfectly hardy in most sections of the country, and has no serious insect enemies. The foliage turns to brownish purple and yellow in the autumn.
The Black Ash
F. nigra, Marsh.
The black ash is a lover of marshes, found from Newfoundland to Manitoba, and from Virginia to Arkansas. Its blue-black winter buds, the sombre green of its foliage, and the dark hues of its bark and wood have justified the popular name of this handsome, slender tree. The leaflets, oval and long-pointed, are sessile on the hairy leaf stalk, except the terminal one. At maturity the leaves are a foot or more in length, of seven to eleven leaflets, that turn brown and fall early in autumn. The keys of the black ash are borne in open panicles, eight to ten inches long; each has a short, flat seed, with a broad blade, thin, rounded, and notched instead of pointed, at the extremity.
The wood of black ash has the tough, heavy coarse-grained qualities of the white ash, but differs in being very durable and in being easily split into thin layers—each a year's growth. The Indians taught the early settlers to weave baskets out of black ash splints. These splints are easily separated by bending the split wood over a block. The strain breaks loose the tissue that forms the spring wood, and separates the bands of tough, dense summer wood into strips suitable for basket weaving. Black ash is used for chair seats, barrel hoops, furniture, and cabinet-work.The saplings are oftenest chosen for hop and bean poles.
As a lawn tree, the black ash has little to recommend it for it often dies of thirst in the loam of a garden. At best it is short-lived. Planted in swampy ground, the tree spreads by seeds, and suckers from the roots, soon forming extensive thickets, and drinking up the moisture at a marvelous rate.
The Red Ash
F. Pennsylvanica, Marsh.
The red ash follows the courses of streams and lake margins from New Brunswick to the Black Hills and south into Florida, Alabama, and Nebraska. This tree is much planted for shade and ornament in New England, and in other Eastern sections. The tree is small, spreading into a compact though irregular head of twiggy, slender branches. The yellow-green foliage, a foot long, of seven to nine short, stalked, lustrous leaflets, is lightened by a pale pubescence on petioles and leaf-linings. The same velvety down covers the new shoots. Summer and winter this sign never fails.
Red ash seeds are extremely long and slender, and have the most graceful outlines of all the darts that various ash trees bear. The heavy, round body has a wing twice its length by which the wind carries the seeds far away. Very gradually an ash tree launches its seeds. It is easy to understand why the family is so scattered through any woods, for the wind is the sower. The reddish bark of the twigs and trunk of this tree seems to be the justification for its name. Its brown wood is inferior to white ash.
The Green Ash
F. Pennsylvanica, Varietylanceolata, Sarg.
The green ash has narrower, shorter leaves than the parent species and usually more sharply saw-toothed margins. Instead of having pale linings, the leaflets are bright green on both surfaces. This is the ash tree of the almost treeless prairies from Dakota southward, where it not only lives, but flourishes as well as in its native habitat, the rich soil of stream banks farther east. Its range crosses the Rocky Mountains and reaches the slopes of the Wasatch Mountains in Utah. East of the Alleghanies the tree is little known. It is in the West that it is the dominant ash. It is one of the few important agencies which have turned the "Great American Desert" into a land of shady roads and comfortable, protected homesteads.
The Blue Ash
F. quadrangulata, Michx.
The blue ash has four-angled twigs, often winged at the corners with a thin plate of bark. The sap contains a substance that gives a blue dye when the inner bark is macerated in water. The tree reaches one hundred and twenty feet in height, above a slender trunk, and has small spreading branches that terminate in stout twigs, characteristically angled.
The tree is occasionally cultivated in parks and gardens in the Eastern states where it is a distinct addition to the list of handsome shade trees. It is hardy, quick of growth, and unusually free from the ills that beset trees. In theforests it reaches its best estate on the limestone hills of the Big Smoky Mountains. Its wood ranks with the best white ash and exceeds it in one particular; it is the most durable ash wood when exposed alternately to wet and dry conditions. It is used for vehicles, for flooring and for handles of tools especially pitchforks.
The Oregon Ash
F. Oregona, Nutt.
The Oregon ash follows the coast south from Puget Sound to San Francisco Bay, and from the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada to those of the mountains of southern California. In southwestern Oregon the tree reaches the height of eighty feet, with a trunk three to four feet in diameter. The stout branches form a broad crown where there is room, and the luxuriant foliage is wonderfully light in color, pale green above, with silvery pubescent leaf-linings. Of the five to seven leaflets, all are sessile or short-stalked, except the terminal one, which has a stem an inch long. All are oval and abruptly pointed, thick and firm in texture, turning yellow or russet brown in autumn. The lumber is counted equal to white ash and is one of the most valuable of deciduous timber trees in the western coast states.
A number of little ash trees, distinct in species from those described already, are native to limited sections of the country. All have the family traits by which they are readily recognized, if seed form, leaf form, and leaf arrangement are kept in mind. In the corner where Colorado, Nevada, and Utah meet, is an ash with its leaf reduced to a single leaflet, but the seeds are profusely borne to declarethe tree's name to any one who visits its restricted territory. In rich soil, three leaflets are occasionally developed.
The European Ash
F. Excelsior, Linn.
TheEuropean ashis the large timber ash from the Atlantic Coast of Europe to western Asia. The earliest writers have ranked its wood next to oak in usefulness. It was known as "the husbandman's tree." Its uses were listed at interminable length, for "ploughs, axle-trees, wheel-rings, harrows, balls … oars, blocks for pulleys, tenons and mortises, poles, spars, handles, and stocks for tools, spade trees, carts, ladders…. In short, so good and profitable is this tree that every prudent Lord of a Manor should employ one acre of ground with Ash to every twenty acres of other land, since in as many years it would be more worth than the land itself."
The saplings, cut when three to six years old, made excellent fork and spade handles on account of the toughness and pliability of their fibre. Crates for china were made of the branches. Steamed and bent, this wood lent itself to the making of hoops for barrels and kegs. The cutting off of the main trunk set the roots to sending up a forest of young shoots, ready for cutting again when they reached the size for walking-sticks and whip-stocks.
Quite independent of its lumber value, but possibly correlated with it, was the great reputation the ash tree achieved in the myths and superstitions of widely separated peoples. In south Europe, tradition declared that a race of brazen men sprung from the ash tree. In the North, the Norse mythology madeIgdrasil, the ash, the "Worldtree," from whose roots the whole race of men sprung. The roots of this mythological tree penetrated the earth to its lowest depths and its giant top supported the heavens. Wisdom and knowledge gushed from its base as from a fountain, and underneath were the abodes of the gods, giants, and the Fates. Superstitions of all kinds have come down with the language of different peoples, making the history of the ash tree a most interesting study.
A Chinese ash yields a valuable white wax which exudes from the bark of the twigs.F. ornus, Linn., native to south Europe and Asia Minor, exudes a waxy secretion from bark and leaves. This is the manna of commerce. Last but not least of the products of the ash tree are the curious and beautiful contortions of the grain found in "burls" on the trunks of old trees of many species. These warty excrescences are eagerly bought by special agents for cabinet-makers. Woodwork from these abnormal growths shows exquisitely waved lines when polished, as delicate as those in a banded agate. Fancy boxes, bowls, and other articles brought fancy prices when made of "ram's horn" or "fiddleback" ash, which often went under the trade name of green ebony. The black ash in America is particularly subject to contortions of the grain.
THE ELMS
Elms of sixteen distinct species are native to boreal and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, with this single exception: western North America is without a representative. Europe has three species, two of which extendtheir range into eastern Asia and northern Africa. Southern and central Asia have their own species. Five are native to our Eastern states. Two European species are in cultivation in the North Atlantic states, especially in the neighborhood of Boston, where they are as familiar as the native species, in street planting.
Elm trees are valuable for shade and for lumber; their wood is hard, heavy, tough, pale in color, often difficult to split. The trees are distinguished from others by their simple, unsymmetrical, strong-ribbed leaves, saw-toothed, short-stalked, always unequal and often oblique at the base of the blade. The flowers, usually perfect, are inconspicuous, and the seeds are flat, entirely surrounded by a thin papery wing, that forms two hooks at the tip. Wind-carried, these seeds have had much to do with the wide distribution of elms.
The White Elm
Ulmus Americana, Linn.
The white or American elm is widely known as a tall, graceful wide-spreading tree, usually of symmetrical, vase shape, with slender limbs and drooping twigs. (See illustration,page 215.) It has the rough furrowed bark characteristic of the genus, dark or light gray, with paler branches and red-brown twigs. The leaves are alternate, two to six inches long, broadest near the abruptly pointed apex. Distinctly one-sided at the tapering base, the leaves have a fashion of arranging themselves in a flat spray so as to present almost a continuous leaf area to the sun. One spray overlaps another,and leaves varying in size fit in to fill every little corner to which sunlight comes. This "leaf mosaic" is not confined to elms alone. It is especially noticeable on the southern border of any dense wood.
Winter offers the best opportunity for the study of tree forms. Our common elm shows at least five different patterns. The first is the "vase form," the commonest and most beautiful. This is best realized by old trees which have had plenty of room. In it the branches spread gradually upward at first but at a considerable height sweep boldly out forming a broad, rounded, or flattened head. Second is the "plume form," in which two or three main limbs rise to a great height before branching, and then break into feathery spray. Trees crowded in woods are likely to take this form. Third, the "oak tree form" shows a horizontal habit of branching, and an angularity of limbs usually more noticeable among oaks. Fourth, the "weeping willow form," where trees have short trunks, from which the branches curve rapidly outward and end in long, drooping branchlets. Fifth is the "feathered elm," marked by a fringe of short twigs which outline the trunk and limbs. This "feathering" is caused by the late development of latent buds. It may occur in any of the tree types just mentioned, but it is more noticeable in individuals of the plume form.
The American elm is very familiar for it grows everywhere east of the Rocky Mountains. Not to know this tree is a mark of indifference and ignorance. No village of any pride but plants it freely as a street tree. It is hardy and cheerful, reflecting the indomitable spirit of the pioneer, whom it accompanied by seed and sapling from the Eastern states into the treeless territories of theMiddle West. With him the tree seized the land and made it yield a living. Elms, which have outlived the cottonwoods and willows, are not so large yet as the patriarchal trees in old New-England villages, yet time alone is needed to match, in the valley of the Missouri, the elms in the valley of the Connecticut.
I think, with due appreciation of its summer luxuriance of foliage, and the grace and strength of the elm's framework in winter, that the moment of greatest charm in the life of a roadside elm comes in the first warm days of late March. The brown buds on the sides of the twigs are swelling and a flush of purple overspreads the tree, while snow still covers the ground. A tremendous "fall of leaves" ensues, for the tiny bud scales that enclose the elm flowers are but leaves in miniature. The elms are in blossom! Each flower of each cluster has a calyx with scalloped edges, and a fringe of four to nine stamens hanging far out and surrounding the central solitary ovary. The color is in the yellow anthers and the dark red calyx lobes.
Speedily, the stamens shrivel and pale green pendants, which are the seeds, cluster upon the twigs. Winged for flight, these ripen and are scattered before the leaves are fairly open, and the growth of the season's shoots begins. Only the pussy willow, the quaking asp, and the earliest maples bloom as early as the elm. How much they have missed, who never saw an elm tree in blossom!
The hubs of the "one-hoss shay" were of "ellum," its interlacing fibres peculiarly fitting this wood for indestructibility. Saddle trees, boat timbers, cooperage, and flooring employ it in quantities. It is also used for flumes and piles, for it resists decay on exposure to water.
The Slippery Elm
U. fulva, Michx.
The slippery elm is also known as the red elm and moose elm, because its wood is red and moose are fond of browsing its young shoots. In regions where moose are rarely seen, it is the small boy who browses and often utterly destroys every specimen of this valuable tree. Under the bark of young shoots a sweet substance is found, which gives the tree its common name. What man lives who in the heydey of youth has not had the spring craze for slippery elm bark, as surely as he had the fever for kite-flying and playing marbles? The trees in every fence row show the wounds of jack-knives; stripping the bark, the boys scrape from its inner surface the thick, fragrant mucilaginouscambium—a delectable substance that allays both hunger and thirst. Fortunately the bark of the limbs supplies the demand; many a veteran tree still suffers the pollarding process, serving one generation of schoolboys after another.
The inner bark, dried and ground and mixed with milk, forms a valuable food for invalids. Poultices of slippery elm bark relieve throat and chest ailments. Fevers and acute inflammatory disorders are treated with the same bark, which has passed from the list of mere home remedies to an established place on the apothecary's shelf.
How shall we tell a slippery elm tree from the American elm? By its leaf in summer. The roughness of the foliage is one of its striking characteristics. Crumple a leaf, and its surfaces grate harshly, for they are covered with stiff, tubercular hairs. The leaves are larger, often reachingseven inches in length. There is a reddish or tawny pubescence on all young shoots, and especially on the bud scales in winter. The tree itself, in winter or summer, is much more coarse than its cousin. It is also unsymmetrical in habit, each limb striking out for itself. Very often one meets a tree quite as one-sided in form as its leaf, and this without any apparent reason. But given a chance to grow without mutilation, the slippery elm attains a height of seventy feet, forming a broad, open head, in comparatively few years. It is well worth planting for its lumber and for shade.
The Rock Elm
U. Thomasi, Sarg.
The rock elm or cork elm chooses dry, gravelly upland and low heavy clay soil, on rocky slopes and river cliffs, from Ontario and New Hampshire westward through northern New York, southern Michigan to Nebraska and Missouri. It is more abundant and of largest size in Ontario and in the southern peninsula of Michigan.
Its leaf is small, thick, and firm, dark green, and turns to brilliant yellow in the autumn. Its flowers and fruits are borne in racemes. At any season, one knows this cork elm by the shaggy bark on its stout limbs that make the tree resemble a bur oak. "Rock elm" and "hickory elm" are names that refer to the hardness of the wood. The wheelwright counts it the best of all elms. Compact, with interlacing fibres, there are spring, strength, and toughness in this wood which adapt it for bridge timbers, heavy agricultural implements, wheel stocks, sills, and axe-handles. The name "cork elm" refers to the corky bark which runs out in winged ridges, even to the twigs.
Seepage 202THE WHITE ASHWinter budsPistillate flowersStaminate flower
Seepage 202
THE WHITE ASHWinter budsPistillate flowersStaminate flower
Seepage 222A GROUP OF WHITE PINES
Seepage 222
A GROUP OF WHITE PINES
Seepage 235LEAVES AND CONES OF THE SHORTLEAF PINE
Seepage 235
LEAVES AND CONES OF THE SHORTLEAF PINE
Seepage 210AMERICAN ELM
Seepage 210
AMERICAN ELM
The Winged Elm
U. alata, Michx.
The winged elm, or wahoo, is dainty and small, its leaves and the two thin corky blades that arise on each twig befitting the smallest elm tree in the family. Despite its corky wings, it has none of the ruggedness of the cork elm, but is a pretty round-headed tree. It is distributed from Virginia to Florida and west to Illinois and Texas. "Mountain elm" and "small-leaved elm" are local names. "Wahoo" is local also, belonging chiefly to the South. Even the little seed of this tree is long and slender, its wing prolonged into two incurving hooks.
The English Elm
U. campestris, Linn.
The English elm is often seen in the Eastern states, planted with the American elm in parks and streets, where the two species contrast strikingly. The English tree looks stocky, the American airily graceful. One stands heavily upon its heels, the other on tiptoe. One has a compact, pyramidal or oblong head, the other a loose open one. In October the superb English elms on Boston Common are still bright green, while their American cousins have passed into "the sere and yellow leaf."
The Scotch Elm
U. montana, Linn.
The Scotch or wych elm is planted freely in parks and private grounds. It is a medium-sized tree of rather more strict habit of growth than the American elm. Before the leaves open the tree often looks bright green from a distance. This appearance is due to the winged seeds which are exceptionally large and crowd the twig in great rosettes.
One horticultural variety of this species is the weeping form known as the Camperdown elm, which arches its limbs downward on all sides, forming when full-grown a natural arbor. One often sees this tree planted on lawns of limited extent, and so near the street as to render utterly absurd its invitation to privacy. To serve that reasonable and delightful end, the tree should be planted in a retired corner of one's grounds, where an afternoon siesta may be enjoyed undisturbed.
PART VIII
THE CONE-BEARING EVERGREENS
The Pines—The Spruces—The Firs—The Douglas Spruce—The Hemlocks—The Sequoias—The Arbor-vitaes—The Incense Cedar—The Cypresses—The Junipers—The Larches, or Tamaracks
The cone-bearers, or conifers, are a distinct race that we commonly call evergreens. They include pines, hemlocks, spruces, firs, sequoias, cypresses, cedars, and junipers. Besides these, the tamaracks and the bald cypress must be included, although their leaves are shed in the autumn. The term "evergreen" applies equally well to magnolias, laurels, and many oaks. Birches and alders and magnolias bear cone-like fruits. Notwithstanding such exceptions, the cone-bearing trees are mostly evergreen, and their family traits are so strongly marked that even the beginner in tree study eliminates the exceptional instances early in his studies.
The pines and their relatives in the coniferous group are an ancient race, composed of proud old "first families." Along the shores of the Silurian seas they stood up, straight and tall, their only companions that stood erect, the giant horse-tails and tree ferns. This was long before modern tree families had any existence. There were no broad-leavedtrees. In the coal measures are found the mummied remains of these prehistoric conifers. The cycads in the Everglades of Florida are some of their surviving representatives. These are facing extinction, and the conifers, too, are declining. They had reached their prime as a race when the broad-leaved trees appeared upon the earth. The vigor of the new race enabled it to seize the richest, well-watered regions. They drove the conifers to seek the swamps, the exposed seacoasts, the barren and rocky mountain slopes. Man has ruthlessly destroyed for timber the coniferous forests of this country and much of the territory denuded by the axe is either devoted to agriculture or has been seized by broad-leaved species of trees, more tenacious of life and with seeds more quick and sure to germinate than those of the conifers. The time is not far distant, geologically speaking, when this ancient and declining family of trees will exist only as man fosters it by cultivation.
The conifers have resinous wood, with stiff, needle-like or scale-like leaves, and inconspicuous flowers of two sorts, borne in clusters like catkins. The pistillate catkin matures into a woody cone made of overlapping scales attached to a central stem. On each scale are borne one or more winged seeds.
The one character which is constant in the whole coniferous group and sets it apart from the rest of the plant kingdom, is expressed in the nameGymnosperm, applied to this botanical grand division. It means "naked seed." There is no ovary in the flower. The naked ovules are borne on the scales of the fertile spike or catkin, which is held apart and erect in blossoming time. They are pollinated by the wind, which sifts them with golden pollendust, abundant in the staminate catkins clustered on the same tree. Contact of pollen grains and naked ovules is followed by their coalescence—the "setting of seeds."
The distinguishing trait of the higher plants that form the grand division known asAngiosperms, is that the ovules are borne in a closed ovary, and the pollen lodges on the end of a stigma. "Pollen tubes" grow down through the long style, finally reach the hidden ovule, and seed is set. This complicated process is found in the majority of flowers one studies in botany classes. Gymnosperms, and the still lower groups of flowerless ferns and mosses, are merely glanced at by amateur botanists. The more primitive plant forms are too difficult for beginners.
The habit of the conifers is a character upon which we may depend. With rare exceptions, there is a central shaft, "the leader," and short horizontal branches in whorls forming platforms. The side branches, also whorled, are generally flattened into a horizontal spray. The leaves are narrow, needle-like, or scale-like, and waxy or resinous. The tough fibre of the wood enables the conifers to resist damage by wind and by ice. Snowflakes sift to the ground instead of accumulating upon the branches and breaking them by their cumulative weight. The wind, which pollinated the fertile flowers of coniferous forests long before nectar-gathering insects came upon the earth, is the harvester of their seeds. It scatters them far and wide; each seed has a wing that adapts it to long journeys in front of a gale.
The resinous sap that courses through the veins of coniferous wood seals up the bark, leaves, and cones against the invasion of enemies, and acts as an antiseptic dressing for wounds. Without these special adaptations to a life ofhardship, the conifers would never have held their own as they have done. They inhabit regions where conditions discourage all but a few of the broad-leaved trees.