The European CypressC. sempervirens, Linn.A tall, narrow pyramid of sombre green, the European cypress is found in cemeteries in south Europe and everywhere, planted for ornament. This is the classic cypress, a conventional feature of Italian gardens, the evergreen most frequently mentioned in classical literature. Slow-growing and noted for its longevity, it was the symbol of immortality. It is hardy in the South-Atlantic and Pacific-Coast states, and is a favorite evergreen for hedges in the Southwest.Three other members of the genus occur on mountain foothills—one in Arizona, two in California—all easily recognized by their scale-like leaves and button-like woody cones, which require two years to mature.The White CedarChamaecyparis Thyoides, Britt.The genuschamaecyparisincludes three American species, of tall, narrow pyramidal habit and flat leaf-spray like that of the arbor-vitae. Annual erect globular cones of few, woody scales, produce one to five seeds under each.This white cedar is the swamp-loving variety of the Atlantic seaboard—its range stretches from Maine to Mississippi. The durability of its white wood gives it considerable importance as a lumber tree. It is particularly dependable when placed in contact with water and exposed to weather. Cedar shingles, fence posts, railroad ties, buckets, and other cooperage consume quantities each year. The trees are important ornamental evergreens, planted for their graceful spray and their dull blue-green leaves. Their maximum height is eighty feet.The Lawson CypressC. Lawsoniana, A. Murr.The Lawson cypress lifts its splendid spire to a height of two hundred feet, on the coast mountains of Oregon and California, forming a nearly continuous forest belt twenty miles long, between Point Gregory and the mouth of the Coquille River. Spire-like, with short, horizontal branches, this species bears a leaf-spray of feathery lightness, bright green, from the multitude of minute paired leaf-scales, and adorned with the clustered pea-sized cones, which are blue-green and very pale until they ripen.The wood of this giant cypress is used in house-finishing and in boat-building; for flooring, fencing, and for railroad ties.The Bald CypressTaxodium distichum, Rich.The bald cypress is the one member of the cypress group that sheds its foliage each autumn, following the example of the tamarack. In the Far South, river swamps are oftencovered with a growth of these cypresses whose trunks are strangely swollen at the base, and often hollow. The flaring buttresses are prolonged into the main roots, which form humps that rise out of the water at some distance from the tree. These "cypress knees" are not yet explained, though authorities suspect that they have something to do with the aëration of the root system.Inundated nine or ten months of the year, these cypress swamps are often dry the remaining time, and it is a surprise to Southerners to find these trees comfortable and beautiful in Northern parks. Cleveland and New York parks have splendid examples.The leaves of the bald cypress are of two types. They are scale-like only on stems that bear the globular cones. On other shoots they form a flat spray, each leaf one-half to three-fourths of an inch long, pea-green in the Southern swamps, bright yellow-green on both sides in dry ground, turning orange-brown before they fall. The twigs that bear these two-ranked leaves are also deciduous, a unique distinction of this genus.Cypress wood is soft, light brown, durable, and easily worked. Quantities of it are shipped north and used in the manufacture of doors and interior finishing of houses, for fencing, railroad ties, cooperage, and shingles.THE JUNIPERSThe sign by which the junipers are most easily distinguished from other evergreens, is the juicy berries instead of cones. In some species these are red, but they are mostly blue or blue-black. Before they mature it is easy to seethe stages by which the cone-scales thicken and coalesce, instead of hardening and remaining separate, as in the typical fruit of conifers.Juniper leaves are of two types: scale-like in opposite pairs, pressed close to the twig, as in the cypresses; and stiff, spiny, usually channelled leaves, which stand out free from the twig in whorls of threes.The wood is red, fragrant, durable, and light.The Dwarf JuniperJuniperus communis, Linn.The dwarf juniper departs from the pyramidal pattern and forms a loose, open head above a short, stout trunk. The slender branchlets are clothed with boat-shaped leaves which spread nearly at right angles from the twigs in whorls of three. Each one is pointed and hollowed, dark green outside, snowy white inside, which is really the upper side of the leaf. It requires three years to mature the bright blue berries, and they hang on the tree two or three years longer. Each fruit contains two or three seeds, and these require three years to germinate.It is plain to see that time is no object to this slow-growing dwarf juniper, found in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, covering vast stretches of waste land. From Greenland to Alaska it is found and south along the highlands into Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and California. Its hardiness gives it importance as a cover for waste land on seashores and for hedges and wind-breaks in any exposed situation. It is a tree reaching thirty feet in height on the limestone hills of southern Illinois. In other situations it is usually a sprawling shrubby thing, the cringing parentof a race of dwarf junipers, known in many and various horticultural forms.The Western JuniperJ. occidentalis, Hook.The giant of its race is the Western juniper, one of the patriarchial trees of America, ranking in age with the sequoias. Never a tall tree, it yet attains a trunk diameter of ten feet, and an age that surely exceeds two thousand years. At elevations of seven to ten thousand feet this valiant red cedar is found clinging to the granite domes and bare glacial pavements where soil and moisture seem absolutely non-existent. Sunshine and thin air are abundant, however, and elbow room. Upon these commodities the tree subsists, crouching, stubbornly clinging, while a single root offers foothold, its gnarled branches picturesque and beautiful in their tufts of gray-green leaves. Avalanches have beheaded the oldest of these giants, but their denuded trunks throw out wisps of new foliage with each returning spring. When they succumb, their trunks last almost as long as the granite boulders among which they are cast by the wind or the ice-burden that tore them loose.The stringy bark is woven into cloth and matting by the Indians, and the fine-grained, hard, red wood finds no better use than for the mountaineer's fencing and fuel.The Eastern Red CedarJ. Virginiana, Linn.The Eastern red cedar is a handsome, narrow pyramid in its youth, often becoming broad and irregular, orround-topped above a buttressed, twisted trunk, as it grows old. The scale-like leaves are four-ranked, blue-green when young, spreading, and sometimes three fourths of an inch long, on vigorous new shoots. The dark blue berries are covered with a pale bloom and have a resinous, sweet flesh. This juniper is familiar in abandoned farms and ragged fence-rows, becoming rusty brown in foliage to match the stringy red bark in winter time. The durable red wood is used for posts and railroad ties, for cedar chests and pencils. The tree is profitably planted by railroad companies, as cedar ties are unsurpassed. In cultivation the tree forms an interesting, symmetrical specimen, adapted to formal gardens. (See illustration,page 230.)The Red JuniperJ. Barbadensis, Linn.The red juniper, much more luxuriant than its close relative of the North, is the handsomest juniper in cultivation. Its pyramid is robbed of a rigid formal expression by the drooping of its fern-like leaf-spray. The berries are silvery white and abundant. The wood is used principally for pencils. This species grows in the Gulf states.THE LARCHES, OR TAMARACKSThe notable characteristic of the small genus,larix, is that the narrow leaves are shed in the autumn. Here is a tall pyramidal conifer which is not evergreen. It bears an annual crop of small woody cones, held erecton the branches, and the leaves are borne in crowded clusters on short lateral spurs, except upon the terminal shoots, where the leaves are scattered remotely but follow the spiral plan. Larch wood is hard, heavy, resinous, and almost indestructible. The tall shafts are ideal for telegraph poles and posts.The TamarackLarix Americana, Michx.The tamarack or American larch (see illustration,page 263) goes farther north than any other tree, except dwarf willows and birches. Above these stunted, broad-leaved trees pure forests of tamarack rise, covering Northern swamps from Newfoundland and Labrador to Hudson Bay and west across the Rocky Mountains, the trees dwindling in size as they approach the arctic tundras, the limit of tree growth. The wood of these bravest of all conifers is a God-send over vast territories where other supply of timber is wanting. The tough roots of the larch tree supply threads with which the Indian sews his birch canoe.In cultivation the American species is too sparse of limb and foliage to compete with the more luxuriant European larch, yet it is often planted. Its fresh spring foliage is lightened by the pale yellow of the globular staminate flowers and warmed by the rosy tips of the cone flowers. In early autumn the plain, thin-scaled cones, erect and bright chestnut-brown, shed their small seeds while the yellow leaves are dropping, and the bare limbs carry the empty cones until the following year.The Western LarchL. occidentalis, Nutt.The Western larch is the finest tree in its genus, reaching six feet in trunk diameter and two hundred feet in height, in the Cascade forests from British Columbia to southern Oregon and across the ranges to western Montana. This tree has the unusual distinction of exceeding all conifers in the value of its wood, which is heavy, hard, strong, dense, durable, of a fine red that takes a brilliant polish. It is used for furniture and for the interior finish of houses. Quantities of it supply the demand for posts and railroad ties, in which use it lasts indefinitely, compared with other timber.PART IXTHE PALMSPalms are tropical plants related to lilies on one hand and grasses on the other. One hundred genera and about one thousand species compose a family in which tree forms rarely occur. A few genera grow wild in the warmest sections of this country, and exotics are familiar in cultivation, wherever they are hardy. The leaves are parallel-veined, fan-shaped, or feather-like, on long stalks that sheath the trunk, splitting with its growth. The flowers are lily-like, on the plan of three, and the fruits are clustered berries, or drupes.Sago, tapioca, cocoanuts, and dates are foods derived from members of this wonderful family. The fibres of the leaves supply thread for weaving cloth and cordage to the natives of the tropics, where houses are built and furnished throughout from the native palms.The royal palm, crowned with a rosette of feather-like leaves, each ten to twelve feet long, above the smooth, tall stems, is a favorite avenue tree in tropical cities. In Florida it grows wild in the extreme southwest, but is planted on the streets of Miami and Palm Beach. Its maximum height is one hundred feet.In California the favorite avenue palm of this feather-leaved type is the Canary Island palm, whose stout trunk, covered with interlacing leaf-bases, wears a crown ofplumes that reach fifteen feet in length and touch the ground with their drooping tips. Huge clusters of bright yellow, dry, olive-shaped berries ripen in midsummer.The date palm of commerce, once confined to the tropical deserts of Asia Minor and North Africa, has been successfully established by the Government in hot, dry localities of the Southwest. Fruit equal to any grown in plantations of the Old World is marketed now from the Imperial and Coachella valleys in California, and from orchards near Phoenix, Arizona. Dry air and a summer temperature far above the hundred degree mark is necessary to insure the proper sugar content and flavor in these fruits, which are borne in huge clusters and ripen slowly, one by one.Fan-shaped leaves plaited on the ends of long stalks that are usually spiny-edged are borne by the stocky Florida palmettos and the tall desert palm of California, planted widely in cities of the Southwest and in Europe. Several genera of this fan-leaved type are represented in palm gardens, and in the general horticulture of warm regions of this country.THE ENDGENERAL INDEXAbies balsamea,258Abies concolor,257Abies Fraseri,253Abies grandis,256Abies magnifica,254Abies nobilis,256Acacia dealbata,187Acacia Melanoxylon,186Acacia, Palo verde,190Acacias, The,184-187Acer circinatum,197Acer glabrum,199Acer macrophyllum,197Acer nigrum,195Acer Negundo,199Acer Pennsylvanicum,198Acer pseudo-platanus,200Acer rubrum,195Acer saccharinum,196Acer saccharum,194Acer spicatum,198Aesculus Californica,68Aesculus glabra,67Aesculus Hippocastanum,65Aesculus octandra,67"Ague tree",131Alder, Black,91Alder, Oregon,93Alder, Red,93Alder, Seaside,92Alders, The,91-93Alligator pear,129Almond,152Alnus glutinosa,91Alnus maritima,92Alnus Oregona,93Amelanchier alnifolia,160Amelanchier Canadensis,159American beech,42American elm,210American holly,145American hornbeam,85American larch,278American linden,70Annual rings,12Anona cherimolia,171Anona glabra,170Apples, The,147-149Arbor-vitaes, The,268-270Arboreta,xivArbutus Menziesii,121Arnold arboretum,xivAsh, Black,204Ash, Blue,206Ash, European,208Ash, Green,206Ash, Oregon,207Ash, Red,205Ash, White,202Ashes, Mountain,116-118Ashes, The,201-209Asimina triloba,168Aspen,78Assam rubber tree,166Autumn leaves,19Avocado,129Bald cypress,273Balm of Gilead,79Balsam fir,253Balsam poplar,79"Banana tree, Wild",169Banyan tree,166Bark, xv,23Basket oak,55Basswood, Downy,72Basswood, White,71Basswoods, The,68-74Bay, Red,129Bay, Rose,119Bay, Swamp,105Bee tree,71Beech, American,42"Beech, Blue",85"Beech, Water",85"Beetle-wood",86Betula lenta,90Betula lutea,89Betula nigra,90Betula papyrifera,88Betula populifolia,89"Big-cone" pine,240Big shellbark,38Big Tree,263Birch, Canoe,88Birch, Cherry,90Birch, Paper,88Birch, Red,90Birch, River,90Birch, White,89Birch, Yellow,89Birches, The,87-91Bird cherry,153"Bird's-eye" maplewood,15Black acacia,186Black alder,91Black ash,204Black cherry, Wild,153Black cottonwood,80Black dwarf sumach,140Black gum,96Black haw,115,158Black locust,178Black maple,195Black mulberry,165Black oak,58Black oak group,58-65Black poplar,77Black spruce,248Black walnut,31Blackwood-tree,186Blue ash,206"Blue beech",85Blue fir,257Blue spruce,250Box elder,199Buckeye, California,68Buckeye, Ohio,67Buckeye, Sweet,67Buds,3,23Bur oak,51Burning bush,136Butternut,30Buttonwoods, The,93-95California walnut,29California white oak,57Cambium,9,21Campbell's magnolia,103Camperdown elm,216Canada plum,151Canary island palm,280Canoe birch,88Canoe cedar,269Carica papaya,169Carolina poplar,78Carpinus Carolinianum,85Castanea dentata,44Castanea pumila,44-46Cedar, Canoe,269Cedar, Eastern red,276Cedar, Incense,270Cedar, Red,269Cedar, White,272Celtis Australis,162Celtis occidentalis,161Cercidium Torreyanum,190Cercis Canadensis,182Chamaecyparis Lawsoniana,273Chamaecyparis Thyoides,272Chemistry of trees,5-8Cherimoya,171Cherries, The,152-155Cherry birch,90Chestnut oak,53Chestnuts, The,44-47Chinquapin,44-46Chionanthus Virginica,126Chlorophyll, Breaking down of the,18Choke cherry,154Cladrastis lutea,183Clammy locust,179Cockspur thorn,156Coffee tree, Kentucky,181Colorado blue spruce,250Common lime,72Cone-bearing evergreens,217-279Conifers,217-279Coral-bean,192"Cork elm",215Cornel,113Cornus Florida,111Cornus mas,113Cornus Nuttallii,113Cotinus,142Cotton gum,97Cottonwood,77Cottonwood, Black,80Cottonwood, Lance-leaved,80Cottonwood, Mexican,80Cottonwood, Narrow-leaved,80Cottonwood, Swamp,81Crab, Prairie,148Crab, Wild,148Crataegus coccinea,158Crataegus Crus-galli,156Crataegus Douglasii,158Crataegus mollis,157Crataegus oxyacantha,155Crataegus pruinosa,157Cuban pine,236Cucumber tree,107Cucumber tree, Large-leaved,106Cupressus macrocarpa,271Cupressus sempervirens,272"Curly maplewood",15Custard-apple,168,170Cypresses, The,271-274Date palm,281Digger pine,239DiospyrosVirginiana,172Dogwood, European,113Dogwood, Flowering,111Dogwood, Jamaica,190Dogwood, Western,113Dogwoods, The,111-114Douglas spruce,258Downy basswood,72Dwarf juniper,275Dwarf maple,199Dwarf sumach,140Eastern arbor-vitae,268Eastern mountain ash,116Eastern red cedar,276Eastern service berry,159Ebony, Texas,191Elder, Box,199Elder-leaved mountain ash,117Elm, American,210Elm, Camperdown,216"Elm, Cork",215Elm, English,215Elm, Hickory,214Elm, Moose,213Elm, Mountain,215Elm, Red,213Elm, Rock,214Elm, Scotch,216Elm, Slippery,213Elm, Small-leaved,215Elm, White,210Elm, Winged,215Elm, Wych,216Elms, The,210-216"Encina",64Engelmann spruce,250English elm,215English hawthorn,155English walnut,33Euonymus atropurpureus,136European ash,208European cypress,272European dogwood,113European holly,144European mountain ash,117European nettle tree,162Evergreens, Cone-bearing,217-279Evergreens, Leaves of,20Fagus Americanus,42Fibres of wood,13Ficus aurea,167Ficus elasticus,166"Fiddleback" ash,209Figs, The,165-167Fir, Balsam,253Fir, Blue,257Fir, Noble,256Fir, Red,254Fir, Red (A. nobilis),256Fir, Silver,257Fir, White,256Fir, White (A. concolor),257Firs, The,251-257Flowering dogwood,111"Foxtail" pines, The,229Fraxinus Americana,202Fraxinus excelsior,208Fraxinus nigra,204Fraxinus Oregona,207Fraxinus ornus,209Fraxinus Pennsylvanica,205Fraxinus Pennsylvanica(lanceolata),206Fraxinus quadrangulata,206Frijolito,192Fringe tree,126Gerarde,73Gleditsia triacanthos,180Golden fig,167Grain of wood,13Gray pine,238Great laurel,119Great laurel magnolia,104Green ash,206"Grete Herball",73Gum, Cotton,97Gum, Sour or Black,96Gum, Sweet,97Gum trees, The,95-100Gymnocladus dioicus,181Gymnosperms,217-279Hackberries, The,160-162Hamamelis Virginiana,134"Hard-tack",86Haw, Black,115,158Haw, Red,157Haw, Scarlet,157-158Hawthorns, The,155-159Hazel, Witch,133Heath family,118Hemlocks, The,259-262Hicoria alba,40Hicoria glabra,41Hicoria lacinata,38Hicoria ovata,37Hicoria Pecan,38Hickories, The,36-41Hickory elm,214Hollies, The,143-146Holly, American,145Holly, European,144Honey locust,179Honey pod,188Hop hornbeam,86Hornbeam, American,85Hornbeam, Hop,86Horse bean,191Horse-chestnut foliage,17Horse-chestnuts, The,65-68"Horse sugar",125Icthyomethia Piscipula,190Ilex aquifolium,144Ilex Opaca,145Ilex vomitoria,145Incense cedar,270"Iron oak",52"Ironwood,"see alsoHornbeamIronwood, Knowlton's,87Jack pine,238Jamaica dogwood,190Japanese persimmon,175Japanese walnut,33"Judas-tree",183Juglans, Californica,29Juglans cinerea,30Juglans cordiformis,33Juglans nigra,31Juglans regia,33Juglans rupestris,29Juglans Sieboldiana,33June-berry,159Junipers, The,274-277JuniperusBarbadensis,277Juniperus communis,275Juniperus occidentalis,276Juniperus Virginiana,276Kaki,175Kalm, Peter,xxKalmia latifolia,120Kentucky coffee tree,181Knob-cone pine,240Knowlton's ironwood,87Lance-leaved Cottonwood,80"Langues de femmes",81Larches, The,277-279Large-leaved cucumber tree,106Larix Americana,278Larix occidentalis,279Laurel family,127-133Laurel, Great,119Laurel, Mountain,120Laurel oak,63
The European Cypress
C. sempervirens, Linn.
A tall, narrow pyramid of sombre green, the European cypress is found in cemeteries in south Europe and everywhere, planted for ornament. This is the classic cypress, a conventional feature of Italian gardens, the evergreen most frequently mentioned in classical literature. Slow-growing and noted for its longevity, it was the symbol of immortality. It is hardy in the South-Atlantic and Pacific-Coast states, and is a favorite evergreen for hedges in the Southwest.
Three other members of the genus occur on mountain foothills—one in Arizona, two in California—all easily recognized by their scale-like leaves and button-like woody cones, which require two years to mature.
The White Cedar
Chamaecyparis Thyoides, Britt.
The genuschamaecyparisincludes three American species, of tall, narrow pyramidal habit and flat leaf-spray like that of the arbor-vitae. Annual erect globular cones of few, woody scales, produce one to five seeds under each.
This white cedar is the swamp-loving variety of the Atlantic seaboard—its range stretches from Maine to Mississippi. The durability of its white wood gives it considerable importance as a lumber tree. It is particularly dependable when placed in contact with water and exposed to weather. Cedar shingles, fence posts, railroad ties, buckets, and other cooperage consume quantities each year. The trees are important ornamental evergreens, planted for their graceful spray and their dull blue-green leaves. Their maximum height is eighty feet.
The Lawson Cypress
C. Lawsoniana, A. Murr.
The Lawson cypress lifts its splendid spire to a height of two hundred feet, on the coast mountains of Oregon and California, forming a nearly continuous forest belt twenty miles long, between Point Gregory and the mouth of the Coquille River. Spire-like, with short, horizontal branches, this species bears a leaf-spray of feathery lightness, bright green, from the multitude of minute paired leaf-scales, and adorned with the clustered pea-sized cones, which are blue-green and very pale until they ripen.
The wood of this giant cypress is used in house-finishing and in boat-building; for flooring, fencing, and for railroad ties.
The Bald Cypress
Taxodium distichum, Rich.
The bald cypress is the one member of the cypress group that sheds its foliage each autumn, following the example of the tamarack. In the Far South, river swamps are oftencovered with a growth of these cypresses whose trunks are strangely swollen at the base, and often hollow. The flaring buttresses are prolonged into the main roots, which form humps that rise out of the water at some distance from the tree. These "cypress knees" are not yet explained, though authorities suspect that they have something to do with the aëration of the root system.
Inundated nine or ten months of the year, these cypress swamps are often dry the remaining time, and it is a surprise to Southerners to find these trees comfortable and beautiful in Northern parks. Cleveland and New York parks have splendid examples.
The leaves of the bald cypress are of two types. They are scale-like only on stems that bear the globular cones. On other shoots they form a flat spray, each leaf one-half to three-fourths of an inch long, pea-green in the Southern swamps, bright yellow-green on both sides in dry ground, turning orange-brown before they fall. The twigs that bear these two-ranked leaves are also deciduous, a unique distinction of this genus.
Cypress wood is soft, light brown, durable, and easily worked. Quantities of it are shipped north and used in the manufacture of doors and interior finishing of houses, for fencing, railroad ties, cooperage, and shingles.
THE JUNIPERS
The sign by which the junipers are most easily distinguished from other evergreens, is the juicy berries instead of cones. In some species these are red, but they are mostly blue or blue-black. Before they mature it is easy to seethe stages by which the cone-scales thicken and coalesce, instead of hardening and remaining separate, as in the typical fruit of conifers.
Juniper leaves are of two types: scale-like in opposite pairs, pressed close to the twig, as in the cypresses; and stiff, spiny, usually channelled leaves, which stand out free from the twig in whorls of threes.
The wood is red, fragrant, durable, and light.
The Dwarf Juniper
Juniperus communis, Linn.
The dwarf juniper departs from the pyramidal pattern and forms a loose, open head above a short, stout trunk. The slender branchlets are clothed with boat-shaped leaves which spread nearly at right angles from the twigs in whorls of three. Each one is pointed and hollowed, dark green outside, snowy white inside, which is really the upper side of the leaf. It requires three years to mature the bright blue berries, and they hang on the tree two or three years longer. Each fruit contains two or three seeds, and these require three years to germinate.
It is plain to see that time is no object to this slow-growing dwarf juniper, found in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, covering vast stretches of waste land. From Greenland to Alaska it is found and south along the highlands into Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and California. Its hardiness gives it importance as a cover for waste land on seashores and for hedges and wind-breaks in any exposed situation. It is a tree reaching thirty feet in height on the limestone hills of southern Illinois. In other situations it is usually a sprawling shrubby thing, the cringing parentof a race of dwarf junipers, known in many and various horticultural forms.
The Western Juniper
J. occidentalis, Hook.
The giant of its race is the Western juniper, one of the patriarchial trees of America, ranking in age with the sequoias. Never a tall tree, it yet attains a trunk diameter of ten feet, and an age that surely exceeds two thousand years. At elevations of seven to ten thousand feet this valiant red cedar is found clinging to the granite domes and bare glacial pavements where soil and moisture seem absolutely non-existent. Sunshine and thin air are abundant, however, and elbow room. Upon these commodities the tree subsists, crouching, stubbornly clinging, while a single root offers foothold, its gnarled branches picturesque and beautiful in their tufts of gray-green leaves. Avalanches have beheaded the oldest of these giants, but their denuded trunks throw out wisps of new foliage with each returning spring. When they succumb, their trunks last almost as long as the granite boulders among which they are cast by the wind or the ice-burden that tore them loose.
The stringy bark is woven into cloth and matting by the Indians, and the fine-grained, hard, red wood finds no better use than for the mountaineer's fencing and fuel.
The Eastern Red Cedar
J. Virginiana, Linn.
The Eastern red cedar is a handsome, narrow pyramid in its youth, often becoming broad and irregular, orround-topped above a buttressed, twisted trunk, as it grows old. The scale-like leaves are four-ranked, blue-green when young, spreading, and sometimes three fourths of an inch long, on vigorous new shoots. The dark blue berries are covered with a pale bloom and have a resinous, sweet flesh. This juniper is familiar in abandoned farms and ragged fence-rows, becoming rusty brown in foliage to match the stringy red bark in winter time. The durable red wood is used for posts and railroad ties, for cedar chests and pencils. The tree is profitably planted by railroad companies, as cedar ties are unsurpassed. In cultivation the tree forms an interesting, symmetrical specimen, adapted to formal gardens. (See illustration,page 230.)
The Red Juniper
J. Barbadensis, Linn.
The red juniper, much more luxuriant than its close relative of the North, is the handsomest juniper in cultivation. Its pyramid is robbed of a rigid formal expression by the drooping of its fern-like leaf-spray. The berries are silvery white and abundant. The wood is used principally for pencils. This species grows in the Gulf states.
THE LARCHES, OR TAMARACKS
The notable characteristic of the small genus,larix, is that the narrow leaves are shed in the autumn. Here is a tall pyramidal conifer which is not evergreen. It bears an annual crop of small woody cones, held erecton the branches, and the leaves are borne in crowded clusters on short lateral spurs, except upon the terminal shoots, where the leaves are scattered remotely but follow the spiral plan. Larch wood is hard, heavy, resinous, and almost indestructible. The tall shafts are ideal for telegraph poles and posts.
The Tamarack
Larix Americana, Michx.
The tamarack or American larch (see illustration,page 263) goes farther north than any other tree, except dwarf willows and birches. Above these stunted, broad-leaved trees pure forests of tamarack rise, covering Northern swamps from Newfoundland and Labrador to Hudson Bay and west across the Rocky Mountains, the trees dwindling in size as they approach the arctic tundras, the limit of tree growth. The wood of these bravest of all conifers is a God-send over vast territories where other supply of timber is wanting. The tough roots of the larch tree supply threads with which the Indian sews his birch canoe.
In cultivation the American species is too sparse of limb and foliage to compete with the more luxuriant European larch, yet it is often planted. Its fresh spring foliage is lightened by the pale yellow of the globular staminate flowers and warmed by the rosy tips of the cone flowers. In early autumn the plain, thin-scaled cones, erect and bright chestnut-brown, shed their small seeds while the yellow leaves are dropping, and the bare limbs carry the empty cones until the following year.
The Western Larch
L. occidentalis, Nutt.
The Western larch is the finest tree in its genus, reaching six feet in trunk diameter and two hundred feet in height, in the Cascade forests from British Columbia to southern Oregon and across the ranges to western Montana. This tree has the unusual distinction of exceeding all conifers in the value of its wood, which is heavy, hard, strong, dense, durable, of a fine red that takes a brilliant polish. It is used for furniture and for the interior finish of houses. Quantities of it supply the demand for posts and railroad ties, in which use it lasts indefinitely, compared with other timber.
PART IX
THE PALMS
Palms are tropical plants related to lilies on one hand and grasses on the other. One hundred genera and about one thousand species compose a family in which tree forms rarely occur. A few genera grow wild in the warmest sections of this country, and exotics are familiar in cultivation, wherever they are hardy. The leaves are parallel-veined, fan-shaped, or feather-like, on long stalks that sheath the trunk, splitting with its growth. The flowers are lily-like, on the plan of three, and the fruits are clustered berries, or drupes.
Sago, tapioca, cocoanuts, and dates are foods derived from members of this wonderful family. The fibres of the leaves supply thread for weaving cloth and cordage to the natives of the tropics, where houses are built and furnished throughout from the native palms.
The royal palm, crowned with a rosette of feather-like leaves, each ten to twelve feet long, above the smooth, tall stems, is a favorite avenue tree in tropical cities. In Florida it grows wild in the extreme southwest, but is planted on the streets of Miami and Palm Beach. Its maximum height is one hundred feet.
In California the favorite avenue palm of this feather-leaved type is the Canary Island palm, whose stout trunk, covered with interlacing leaf-bases, wears a crown ofplumes that reach fifteen feet in length and touch the ground with their drooping tips. Huge clusters of bright yellow, dry, olive-shaped berries ripen in midsummer.
The date palm of commerce, once confined to the tropical deserts of Asia Minor and North Africa, has been successfully established by the Government in hot, dry localities of the Southwest. Fruit equal to any grown in plantations of the Old World is marketed now from the Imperial and Coachella valleys in California, and from orchards near Phoenix, Arizona. Dry air and a summer temperature far above the hundred degree mark is necessary to insure the proper sugar content and flavor in these fruits, which are borne in huge clusters and ripen slowly, one by one.
Fan-shaped leaves plaited on the ends of long stalks that are usually spiny-edged are borne by the stocky Florida palmettos and the tall desert palm of California, planted widely in cities of the Southwest and in Europe. Several genera of this fan-leaved type are represented in palm gardens, and in the general horticulture of warm regions of this country.
THE END
GENERAL INDEX