The Dwarf SumachR. copallina, Linn.The black dwarf, or mountain sumach, is smaller, with softer, closer velvet coating its twigs and lining its leaves, than the burly staghorn sumach wears. It grows all over the eastern half of the United States, even to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and rises to thirty feet in height above a short, stout trunk in the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. Its leaves are the most beautiful in the sumach family. They are six to eight inches long, the central stalk bearing nine to twenty-one dark green leaflets, lustrous above, lined with silvery pubescence. A striking peculiarity is that the central leaf-stem is winged on each side with a leafy frill between the pairs of leaflets. In autumn, the foliage mass changes to varying shades of scarlet and crimson. The flower clusters are copious and loose, and the heavy fruits nod from their great weight and show the most beautiful shades, ranging from yellow to dull red. Sterile soil is often covered by extensive growths of this charming shrubby tree which spreads by underground root-stocks. It is the latest of all the sumachs to bloom.In the South the leaves are sometimes gathered in summer to be dried and pulverized for use in tanning leather. A yellow dyestuff is also extracted from them. It is a favorite sumach for ornamental planting in this country and in Europe.The Poison SumachR. Vernix, Linn.The poison sumach is a small tree with slender drooping branches, smooth, reddish brown, dotted on the twigs with orange-colored breathing holes, becoming orange-brown and gray as the bark thickens. The trunk is often somewhat fluted under a smooth gray rind. This is one of the most brilliant and beautiful of all the sumachs, butunfortunately it is deadly poisonous, more to be dreaded than the poison ivy of our woods, and the poisonwood of Florida, both of which are near relatives. By certain traits we may always know, with absolute certainty, a poison sumach when we find it.Look at the berries. If they droop and are grayish white, avoid touching the tree, no matter how alluring the wonderful scarlet foliage is.Poison sumachs grow only in the swamps. We should suspect any sumach that stands with its feet in the water, whether it bears flowers and fruit or not. The temptation is strongest when one is in the woods gathering brilliant foliage for decoration of the home for the holidays. The bitter poisonous juice that exudes from broken stems turns black almost at once. This warning comes late, however, for as it dries upon the hands it poisons the skin. Handled with care, this juice becomes a black, lustrous, durable varnish, but it is not in general use.The Smooth SumachR. glabra, Linn.The smooth sumach (see illustrations,pages 150-151) is quite as familiar as the staghorn, as a roadside shrub. Itforms thickets in exactly the same way, and its foliage, flowers and fruit make it most desirable for decorative planting, especially for glorious autumnal effects. The stems are smooth and coated with a pale bluish bloom. This is the distinguishing mark, at any season, of the sumach that often equals the other species in height, but does not belong in this book, for the reason that it never attains the stature of a tree.THE SMOKE TREEA favorite tree in American and European gardens is the smoke tree (Cotinus), a genus which has native representatives in both continents. The EuropeanC. Cotinus, Sarg., was brought to this country by early horticulturists and in some respects it is superior to our nativeC. Americanus, Nutt. Cultivation for centuries has given the immigrant species greater vigor and hardiness, which produces more exuberant growth throughout. Bring in a sapling of the native tree and it looks a starveling by comparison.The glory of the smoke tree is the utter failure of its clustered flowers to set seed. Branching terminal panicles of minute flowers are held high above the dark green simple leaves. As they change in autumn to brilliant shades of orange and scarlet, the seed clusters are held aloft. The seeds are few but the panicles have expanded and show a peculiar feathery development of the bracts that take the place of the fruits. The clusters take on tones of pink and lavender and in the aggregate they form a great cloud made up of graceful, delicate plumes. Ata little distance the tree appears as if a great cloud of rosy smoke rested upon its gorgeous foliage. Or the haze may be so pale as to look like mist. This wonderful development of the flower cluster is unique among garden shrubs and it placesCotinusin a class by itself. No garden with a shrubbery border is complete without a smoke tree, which is interesting and beautiful at any season.In its native haunts our American smoke tree is found in small isolated groves or thickets, along the sides of rocky ravines or dry barren hillsides in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas, and in eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama.THE HOLLIESThe holly family, of five genera, is distributed from the north to the south temperate zones, with representation in every continent. It includes trees and shrubs of one hundred and seventy-five species, seventy of which grow in northern Brazil. The dried and powdered leaves of two holly trees of Paraguay are commercially known as maté, or Paraguay tea, to which the people of South America are addicted, as we are to the tea of China. "Yerba maté" has a remarkable, stimulating effect upon the human system, fortifying it for incredible exertions and endurance. Indulged in to excess, it has much the effect of alcohol.China and Japan have thirty different species of holly. America has fourteen, four of which assume tree form; the rest are shrubby "winterberries."European HollyIlex aquifolium, Linn.The holly of Europe is perhaps the most popular ornamental tree in the world, cultivated in Europe through centuries, and now coming to be a favorite garden plant wherever hardy in the United States. Some indication of its popularity abroad is found in the fact that one hundred and fifty-three distinct horticultural varieties are in cultivation. The Englishman makes hedges of it, and depends upon it to give life and color to his lawn and flower borders in the winter. The fellfare or fieldfare, a little thrush, feeds upon the tempting red berries in winter; but even when these dashes of color are all gone, the brilliance of the spiny-margined leaves enlivens any landscape.Americans know the European holly chiefly through importations of the cut branches offered in the markets for Christmas decoration. The leaf is small, brilliantly polished, and very deeply indented between long, spiny tips, giving it a far more decorative quality than the native evergreen holly of the South.Many varieties of the European holly are found in American gardens, particularly near eastern cities. North of Washington they must be tied up in straw for the winter, and in the latitude of Boston it is a struggle to keep them alive. From southern California to Vancouver, no such precautions are necessary, and the little trees deserve a much wider popularity than they yet enjoy. Grown commercially, they are the finest of Christmas greens.American HollyI. Opaca, Ait.The American holly also yields its branches for Christmas greens. In the remotest village in the North one may now buy at any grocery store a sprig of red-berried holly to usher in the holiday season. The tree is a small one at best, slow-growing, pyramidal, twenty to forty feet in height, with short, horizontal branches and tough, close-grained white wood. It is rare to find so close an imitation of ivory, in color and texture, as holly wood supplies. It is the delight of the wood engraver, who uses it for his blocks. Scroll work and turnery employ it. It is used for tool handles, walking-sticks, and whip-stocks. Veneer of holly is used in inlay work.In southern woods and barren fallow fields where hollies grow, collectors, without discrimination, cut many trees each autumn, strip them of their branches, and leave the trunks to rot upon the ground. The increasing demand for Christmas holly seriously threatens the present supply, for no methods are being practised for its renewal. It will not be long before the wood engraver will have to buy his blocks by the pound, as he does the eastern boxwood.The range of this holly tree extends from southern Maine to Florida, throughout the Gulf states, and north into Indiana and Missouri.The YauponI. vomitoria, Ait.The yaupon is a shrubby tree of spreading habit, with very small, oval, evergreen leaves and red berries. Itgrows from Virginia to Florida and west to Texas and Arkansas. A nauseating beverage, made by boiling its leaves, was the famous "black drink" of the Indians. A yearly ceremonial, in which the whole tribe took part, was the persistent drinking of this tea for several days, the object being a thorough cleansing of the system.PART VWILD RELATIVES OF OUR ORCHARD TREESThe Apples—The Plums—The Cherries—The Hawthorns—The Service-berries—The Hackberries—The Mulberries—The Figs—The Papaws—The Pond Apples—The PersimmonsTHE APPLESThe chance apple tree beside the road, with fruit too gnarly to eat, is common on roadsides throughout New England. Occasionally one of these trees bears edible fruit, but this is not the rule. Perhaps the seed thus planted was from the core of a very delicious apple, nibbled close, and thrown away with regret. But trees thus planted are seedlings and seedling apple trees "revert" to the ancient parent of the race, the wild apple of eastern Asia. Horticulture began long ago to improve these wild trees, and through the centuries improvement and variation have stocked the orchards of all temperate countries with the multitude of varieties we know. A visit in October to Nova Scotia or to the Yakima Valley in Washington, is an eye-opener. Thousands of acres of the choicest varieties of this most satisfying of all fruits show the debt we owe to patient scientists, whose work has so enriched the food supply of the world.The pear, the quince, and the curious medlar, with its core exposed at the blossom end—all relatives of the apple—trace their lineage to European and Asiatic wild ancestors. The Siberian crab, native of northern Asia, is the parent of our hard-fleshed, slender-stemmed garden crabapples. Japan has given us some wonderful apple trees, with fruit no larger than cherries, cultivated solely for their flowers. The ornamental flora of America has been greatly enriched by these varieties.Four native apples are found in American woods. Horticulturists have produced new varieties by crossing some of these sturdy natives with cultivated apples, or their seedling offspring.The Prairie CrabMalus Ioënsis, Britt.The prairie crabapple is the woolly twigged, pink-blossomed wild crab of the woods, from Minnesota and Wisconsin to Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. It has crossed with the roadside "wilding" trees and produced a hybrid known to horticulture as the Soulard apple, from its discoverer. These wild trees bear fruit that is distinctly an improvement upon that of either parent. It is regarded as a distinctly promising apple for the coldest of the prairie states, and has already become the parent of several improved varieties.The Wild CrabM. coronaria. Mill.Throughout the wooded regions, from the Great Lakes to Texas and Alabama, the wild crabapple brightens thespring landscape with its rose-colored, spicy-scented blossoms. The little trees huddle together, their flat tops often matted and reaching out sidewise from under the shade of the other forest trees. The twigs are crabbed indeed in winter, but they silver over with the young foliage in April. The coral flower buds sprinkle the new leaves, and through May a great burst of rose-colored bloom overspreads the tree-tops. It is not sweetness merely that these flowers exhale, but an exquisite, spicy, stimulating fragrance, by which one always remembers them.The pioneers made jellies and preserves out of the little green apples (see illustrations, pages150-151), which lost some of their acrid quality by hanging on until after a good frost. There are those who still gather these fruits as their parents and grandparents did. In their opinion the wild tang and the indescribable piquancy of flavor in jellies made from this fruit are unmatched by those of any other fruit that grows.THE PLUMSThe genusprunusbelongs to the rose family and includes shrubs and trees with stone fruits. Of the over one hundred species, thirty are native to North America; but ten of them assume tree form, and all but one are small trees. Related to them are the garden cherries and plums, native to other countries, and the peach, the apricot, and the almond, found in this country only in horticultural varieties. The wood ofprunusis close-grained, solid, and durable, and a few of the species are important timber trees. The simplest way to identify a member ofthe genus is to break a twig at any season of the year and taste the sap. If it is bitter and astringent with hydrocyanic acid (the flavor we get in fresh peach-pits and bitter almonds), we may be sure we have run the tree down to the genusprunus.The Wild Red PlumPrunus Americanus, Marsh.The wild red or yellow plum forms dense thickets in moist woods and along river banks from New York to Texas and Colorado. Its leafless, gnarled, and thorny twigs are covered in spring with dense clusters of white bloom, honey-sweet in fragrance, a carnival of pleasure and profit to bees and other insects. In hot weather this nectar often ferments and sours before the blossoms fall. The abundant dry pollen is scattered by the wind. The plum crop depends more upon wind than upon insects, for the pollination period is very brief.After the frost in early autumn, the pioneers of the prairie used always to make a holiday in the woods and bring home by wagon-loads the spicy, acid plums which crowded the branches and fairly lit up the thicket with the orange and red color of their puckery, thick skins. In a land where fruit orchards were newly planted, "plum butter" made from the fruit of nature's orchards was gratefully acceptable through the long winters. Even when home-grown sorghum molasses was the only available sweetening, the healthy appetites of prairie boys and girls accepted this "spread" on the bread and butter of noon-day school lunches, as a matter of course.Seepage 130FLOWERS, FRUIT, AND ODD LEAF PATTERNS OF THE SASSAFRAS TREESeepage 141FOLIAGE AND FLOWER CLUSTER OF THE SMOOTH SUMACHSeepage 148BUDS, LEAVES, AND FRUIT OF THE WILD CRABAPPLESeepage 151THE CANADA PLUMIts white, fragrant flowers turn pink in fading;and its stiff, zigzag branches are beset with spiny stubsThe Canada PlumP. nigra., Ait.The Canada plum (see illustration,page 151) whose range dips down into the northern tier of states, is so near like the previous species as to be called by Waugh a mere variety. Its leaves are broad and large, and the flowers and fruit larger. A peculiarity of blossoming time is that the petals turn pink before they fall. This tree furnished the settler with a relish for his hard fare, and the horticulturist a hardy stock on which to graft scions of tenderer and better varieties of plums. It is a tree well worth bringing in from the woods to set in a bare fence-corner that will be beautified by the blossoms in spring, and in late summer by the bright orange-colored fruit against the ruddy foliage.Exotic plums have greatly enriched our horticulture, giving us fruits that vie with the peach in size and lusciousness. In New-England gardens, the damsons, green gages and big red plums are imported varieties of the woolly twigged, thick-leaved European,P. domestica, which refused utterly to feel at home on its own roots in the great middle prairies of the country. These European plums have found a congenial home in the mild climate of the West Coast.Japan has furnished to the Middle West and South a hardy, prolific species,P. triflora, generally immune to the black knot, a fungous disease which attacks native plums. Crosses between the Japanese and American native plums promise well. California now ranks first in prune raising as an industry, with France a close second. Prunes are the dried fruit of certain sweet, fleshy kinds of plums. Manycultivated varieties of Japanese plums have enriched the horticulture of our West Coast.The almond, now grown commercially in California, is the one member of the genus prunus whose flesh is dry and woody, and whose pit is a commercial nut.THE CHERRIESSmall-fruited members of the genus prunus, wild and cultivated, are grouped under the popular name, cherries, by common consent. The pie cherry of New-England gardens isprunus cerasus, Linn. It often runs wild from gardens, forming roadside thickets, with small sour red fruits, as nearly worthless as at home in the wilds of Europe and Asia. This tree has, through cultivation, given rise to two groups of sour cherries cultivated in America. The early, light-red varieties, with uncolored juice, of which the Early Richmond is a familiar type, and the late, dark-red varieties, with colored juice, of which the English Morello is the type.The sweet cherry of Europe (P. Avium, Linn.) has given us our cultivated sweet cherries, whose fruit is more or less heart-shaped.Japan celebrates each spring the festival of cherry blossom time, a great national fête, when the gardens burst suddenly into the marvelous bloom ofSakura, the cherry tree, symbol of happiness, in which people of all classes delight. The native species (P. pseudo-Cerasus), has been cultivated by Japanese artist-gardeners in the one direction of beauty for centuries. Not in flowers alone, but in leaf, in branching habit, and even in bark, beauty has been theideal toward which patience and skill have striven successfully. "Spring is the season of the eye," says the Japanese poet. Of all their national flower holidays, cherry blossom time, in the third month, is the climax.The Wild CherryPrunus Pennsylvanica, Linn.The wild red, bird, or pin cherry grows in rocky woods, forming thickets and valuable nurse trees to hardwoods, from Newfoundland to Georgia, and west to the Rocky Mountains. The birds enjoy the ruddy little fruits and hold high carnival in June among the shining leaves. Many an ugly ravine is clothed with verdure and whitened with nectar-laden flowers by this comparatively worthless, short-lived tree; and in many burnt-over districts, the bird-sown pits strike root, and the young trees render a distinct service to forestry by this young growth, which is gone by the time the pines and hardwoods it has nursed require the ground for their spreading roots.The Wild Black CherryP. serotina, Ehrh.The wild black cherry or rum cherry (see illustration,page 166), is the substantial lumber tree of the genus, whose ponderous trunk furnishes cherry wood, vying with mahogany and rosewood in the esteem of the cabinet-maker, who uses cherry for veneer oftener than for solid furniture.The drug trade depends upon this tree for a tonic derived from its bark, roots, and fruit. Cherry brandies, cordials, and cherry bounce, that good old-fashioned home-brewedbeverage, are made from the heavy-clustered fruits that hang until late summer, turning black and losing their astringency when dead ripe.From Ontario to Dakota, and south to Florida and Texas, this tree is found, reaching its best estate in moist, rich soil, but climbing mountain canyons at elevations of from five to seven thousand feet. A worthy shade and park tree, the black cherry is charmingly unconventional, carrying its mass of drooping foliage with the grace of a willow, its satiny brown bark curling at the edges of irregular plates like that of the cherry birch.The Choke CherryP. Virginiana, Linn.The choke cherry is a miniature tree no higher than a thrifty lilac bush, from the Eastern states to the Mississippi, but between Nebraska and northern Texas it reaches thirty-five feet in height. The trunk is always short, often crooked or leaning, and never exceeds one foot in diameter. Its shiny bark, long racemed flowers and fruit, and the pungent odor of its leaves and bark might lead one to confuse it with a black cherry sapling. But there is a marked difference between the two species. The choke cherry's odor is not only pungent, but rank and disagreeable besides. The leaf of the choke cherry is a wide and abruptly pointed oval. The fruit until dead ripe is red or yellow, and so puckery, harsh, and bitter that children, who eat the black cherries eagerly, cannot be persuaded to taste choke cherries a second time.Birds are not so fastidious; they often strip the trees before the berries darken. It is probably by these unconsciousagents of seed distribution that choke-cherry pits are scattered. From the Arctic Circle to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains this worthless little choke cherry is found in all wooded regions.THE HAWTHORNSIn the same rose family with apples, plums, cherries, and service-berries is listed the genusCrataegus, a shrubby race of trees, undersized as a rule, with stiff, zigzag branches set with thorns. Over one hundred species have been described by Charles Sargent in his "Manual of Trees of North America," published in 1905.The centre of distribution for the hawthorn is undoubtedly the eastern United States. From Newfoundland the woods are full of them. A few species belong to the Rocky Mountain region, a few to the states farther west. Europe and Asia each has a few native hawthorns.The English HawthornCrataegus oxyacantha, Linn.The English hawthorn is the best-known species in the world. When it first came into cultivation, no man knows. Englishmen will tell you it has always formed the hedge-rows of the countryside. This is the "blossoming May." The sweetness of its flowers, snowy white, or pink, or rose-colored, turns rural England into a garden, while linnets and skylarks fill the green lanes with music.American "forests primeval" were swept with the woodman's axe before the hawthorns had their chance to assert themselves sufficiently to attract the attention ofbotanists and horticulturists. The showy flowers and fruits, the vivid coloring of autumn foliage, and the striking picturesqueness of the bare tree, with its rigid branches armed with menacing thorns, give most of these little trees attractiveness at any season. They grow in any soil and in any situation, and show the most remarkable improvement when cultivated. Their roots thrive in heavy clay. When young the little trees may be easily transplanted from the wild. They come readily from seed, though in most species the seed takes two years to germinate.With few exceptions, the flowers of ourhawthornsare pure white, perfect, their parts in multiples of five—a family trait. Each flower is a miniature white rose. Rounded corymbs of these flowers on short side twigs cover the tree with a robe of white after the leaves appear. In autumn little fleshy fruits that look like apples, cluster on the twigs. Inside the thick skin, the flesh is mealy and sweetish around a few hard nutlets that contain the seed. As a rule, the fruits are red. In a few species they are orange; in still fewer, yellow, blue, or black.It is not practicable to describe the many varieties of our native hawthorns in a volume of the scope of this one. A few of the most distinctive species only can be included, but no one will ever confuse a hawthorn with any other tree.The Cockspur ThornC. Crus-galli, Linn.The cockspur thorn is a small, handsome tree, fifteen to twenty feet high, with stiff branches in a broad round head. The thorns on the sides of the twig are three tofour inches long, sometimes when old becoming branched, and reaching a length of six or eight inches. Stout and brown or gray, they often curve, striking downward as a rule, on the horizontal branches. The leaves, thick, leathery, lustrous, dark green above, pale beneath, one to four inches long, taper to a short stout stalk, seeming to stand on tiptoe, as if to keep out of the way of the thorns. From the ground up, the tree is clothed in bark that is bright and polished, shading from reddish brown to gray. The flowers come late, in showy clusters; and the fruit gleams red against the reddening leaves. As winter comes on the leaves fall and the branches are brightened by the fruit clusters which are not taken by the birds (see illustration,page 167). All the year long the cockspur thorn is a beautiful, ornamental tree and a competent hedge plant, popular alike in Europe and America.The Scarlet HawC. pruinosa, K. Koch.The scarlet haw found from Vermont to Georgia, and west to Missouri, prefers limestone soil of mountain slopes, and is more picturesque than beautiful. The foliage is distinctive; it is dark, blue-green, smooth, and leathery, pale beneath, and turns in autumn to brilliant orange. In summer the pale fruit wears a pale bloom but at maturity it is dark purplish red and shiny.The Red HawC. mollis, ScheeleThe red haw is the type of a large group, ample in size, fine in form and coloring, of fruit and foliage. This treereaches forty feet in height, its round head rising above the tall trunk, with stout branchlets and stubby, shiny thorns.The twigs are coated with pale hairs, the young leaves, and ultimately the leaf-linings and petioles are hairy, and the fruits are downy, marked with dark dots.The only fault the landscape gardener can find with this red haw, is that its abundant fruit, ripe in late summer, falls in September. The species is found from Ohio to Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas.The Scarlet HawC. coccinea, Linn.The scarlet haw, native of the Northeastern states, is one of the oldest native thorns in cultivation. It is a favorite in New England gardens, because of its abundant bloom, deep crimson fruit and vivid autumn foliage. It is a shrubby, round-headed tree, with stout ascending branches, set with thorns an inch or more in length.The Black HawC. Douglasii, Lindl.In the West the black haw is a round-headed, native tree found from Puget Sound southward through California and eastward to Colorado and New Mexico. It is a round-headed tree reaching forty feet in height, in moist soil. Its distinguishing feature is the black fruit, ripe in August and September, lustrous, thin-fleshed, sweet, one-half an inch long. The thorns are stout and sharp, rarely exceeding one inch in length. The leathery dark-greenleaves, one to four inches long, commend this black-fruited thorn of the West to the Eastern horticulturists. It has proved hardy in gardens to the Atlantic seaboard and in Nova Scotia.THE SERVICE-BERRIESA small genus of pretty, slender trees related to apples, and in the rose family, has representatives in every continent of the Northern Hemisphere, and also in North Africa. Their natural range is greatly extended by the efforts of horticulturists, for the trees are among the best flowering species.The Service-berryAmelanchier Canadensis, T. & G.The Eastern service-berry, June-berry, or shad-bush, is often seen in parks and on lawns; its delicate, purple-brown branches covered in April, before the oval leaves appear, with loose, drooping clusters of white flowers. (See illustration,page 182.) Under each is a pair of red silky bracts and the infant leaves are red and silky, all adding their warmth of color when the tree is white with bloom. The blossoms pass quickly, just about the time the shad run up the rivers to spawn. We may easily trace this common name to the early American colonists who frugally fished the streams when the shad were running, and noted the charming little trees lighting up the river banks with their delicate blossoms, when all the woods around them were still asleep. In June the juicy red berries call the birds to a feast. Then the little tree quite loses its identity, for theforest is roofed with green, and June-berries are quite overshadowed by more self-assertive species.The borders of woods in rich upland soil, from Newfoundland to the Dakotas and south to the Gulf, are the habitat and range of this charming little tree.The Western Service-berryA. alnifolia, Nutt.The Western service-berry grows over a vast territory which extends from the Yukon River south through the Coast Ranges to northern California and eastward to Manitoba and northern Michigan. In the rich bottom lands of the lower Columbia River, and on the prairies about Puget Sound, it reaches twenty feet in height, and its nutritious, pungent fruits are gathered in quantities and dried for winter food by the Indians. Indeed, the horticulturists consider this large juicy fine-flavored, black berry quite worthy of cultivation, as it grows in the wild to one inch in diameter—the average size of wild plums.THE HACKBERRIESFifty or sixty tropical and temperate-zone species of hackberries include two North American trees which have considerable value for shade and ornamental planting. One hardy Japanese species has been introduced; three exotic species are in cultivation in the South. One is from South Africa, a second from the Mediterranean basin, and a third from the Orient.It is easy to mistake the hackberry for an elm; the habits of the two trees lead the casual observer astray. The leafis elm-like, though smaller and brighter green than the foliage of the American elm. A peculiarity of the foliage is the apparent division of the petiole into three main ribs, instead of a single midrib. At base, the leaves are always unsymmetrical. The bark is broken into thick ridges set with warts, separated by deep fissures.The absence of terminal buds induces a forking habit, which makes the branches of a hackberry tree gnarled and picturesque. The hackberry is not familiarly known by the inhabitants of the regions where it grows, else it would more commonly be transplanted to adorn private grounds and to shade village streets.The HackberryCeltis occidentalis, Linn.The hackberry reaches one hundred and twenty-five feet in height in moist soil along stream borders or in marshes. It is distributed from Nova Scotia to Puget Sound, and south to Florida, Tennessee, Missouri, Texas, and New Mexico. The beauty of its graceful crown is sometimes marred by a fungus which produces a thick tufting of twigs on the ends of branches. The name, "witches' brooms" has been given to these tufts. Growths of similar appearance and the same name are produced by insect injury on some other trees.The fruit of the hackberry is an oblong, thin-fleshed sweet berry, purple in color, one fourth to one half inch long. It dries about the solitary seed and hangs on the tree all winter, to the great satisfaction of the birds. (See illustration,page 183.)Emerson says: "The wood is used for the shafts andaxle-trees of carriages, the naves of wheels, and for musical instruments. The root is used for dyeing yellow, the bark for tanning, and an oil is expressed from the stones of the fruit."The best use we can make of the hackberry tree is to plant it for shade and ornament. It is easily transplanted, for the roots are shallow and fibrous, so that well-grown trees may be moved in winter time. The autumn yellow of the foliage is wonderfully cheerful, and the warty bark, checked into small thick plates, is interesting at any season.European Nettle TreeC. AustralisThe European nettle tree is supposed to have been the famous "lotus" of classical literature. Homer tells of the lotus-eaters who, when they tasted the sweet fruit, straightway forgot their native land or could not be persuaded to return. This innocent tree, against which the charge has never been proved, bears a better reputation for the qualities of its wood. It is as hard as box or holly, and as beautiful as satin-wood when polished. Figures of saints and other images are carved out of it. Hay-forks are made of its supple limbs. Rocky worthless land is set apart by law in some countries for the growing of these trees. Suckers from the roots make admirable ramrods, coach-whip stocks and walking-sticks. Shafts and axle-trees of carriages are made of the larger shoots; oars and hoops are supplied from these coppiced trees. From northern Africa, throughout Europe, and on to India, the tree is planted for shade, and its foliage is used as fodder for cattle.THE MULBERRIESThe mulberry family includes fifty-five genera and nearly a thousand species of temperate-zone and tropical plants. The genusficusalone includes six hundred species. Hemp, important for its fibrous, inner bark, and the hop vine are well known herbaceous members of the mulberry family, which stands botanically between the elms and the nettles—strange company, it would seem, but justified by fundamental characteristics. Three genera of this family have tree forms in America—the mulberry, the Osage orange, and the fig. Two native mulberries and three exotic species are widely cultivated for their fruit, their wood, and as ornamental trees. Weeping mulberries are among the most popular horticultural forms.The Red MulberryMorus rubra, Linn.The red mulberry grows to be a large dense, round-headed tree, with thick fibrous roots and milky sap. Its alternate leaves, three to five inches long, are variable in form, often irregularly lobed, very veiny, usually rough, blue-green above, pale and pubescent beneath, turning yellow in early autumn. The inconspicuous flower spikes are succeeded by fleshy aggregate fruits like a blackberry, sweet, juicy, dark purple or red, each individual fruit single-seeded. Birds and boys alike throng the trees through the long period during which these berries ripen. They are hardly worthy to rank with the cultivated mulberries as a fruit tree. But planted in poultry yards and hog pastures thedropping fruits are eagerly devoured by the occupants of these enclosures.The chief value of the tree lies in the durability of its orange-yellow wood, which, though coarse-grained, soft and weak, is very durable in the soil and in contact with water. Hence it has always commended itself to fence- and boat-builder. It is sometimes planted for ornament, but its dropping fruit is a strong objection to it as a street or lawn tree.One of the mulberry's chief characteristics is its tenacity to life. Its seeds readily germinate and cuttings, whether from roots or twigs, strike root quickly. Indians discovered that rope could be made out of the bast fibre of mulberry bark. They even wove a coarse cloth out of the same material. The early settlers of Virginia, who found the red mulberry growing there in great abundance, dreamed in vain of silk culture as an industry based upon this native tree. Their hopes were not realized. Silk culture has never yet become a New-World industry.The White MulberryM. alba, Linn.The white mulberry is a native of northern China and Japan. From this region it has been extensively introduced into all warm temperate climates. Its white berries are of negligible character. It is the leaves that give this oriental mulberry a unique position in the economic world. They are the chosen food of silkworms. No substitute has ever robbed this tree of its preëminence, maintained for many centuries in its one field of usefulness.The hardy Russian mulberries are derived fromM. alba. These have done much to enrich the horticulture of our Northern states, but the parent tree, though it thrives in the eastern United States and in the South, has not been the means of establishing silk culture on a paying basis in this country.The Black MulberryM. nigra, Linn.The black mulberry, probably a native of Persia, has large, dark red, juicy fruits, for which it is extensively cultivated in Europe. In this country it is hardy only in the Southern and the Pacific Coast states. It is the best fruit tree of its family, yet no mulberry is able to take rank among profitable fruit trees. The fruits are too sweet and soft, and they lack piquancy of flavor. They ripen a few at a time and are gathered by shaking the trees.The dark green foliage of the black mulberry gives ample shade throughout the season. Planted in the garden or in the border of the lawn where no walk will be defaced by the dropping fruits, the mulberry is a particularly desirable tree because it attracts some of our most desirable song-birds to build on the premises. Given a mulberry tree and a bird-bath near by, and the smallest city lot becomes a bird sanctuary through the summer and a wayside inn for transients during the two migratory seasons.THE FIGSThe genusficusbelongs to all tropical countries, and this remarkable range accounts for the six hundred differentspecies botanists have identified. The rubber plant, popular in this country as a pot and tub plant, is one of the best-known species. In its East Indian forest home it is the "Assam Rubber Tree." It may begin life as an air plant, fixing its roots in the crotch of another tree, in which a chance seed has lodged. A shock of aërial roots strikes downward and reaches the ground. After this the tree depends upon food drawn from the earth. The supporting host tree is no longer needed. The young rubber tree has by this time a trunk stiff enough to stand alone.Assam rubber, which ranks in the market with the best Brazilian crude rubber, comes from the sap of this wild fig tree,Ficus elasticus. Clip off a twig of your leathery-leaved rubber plant and note the sticky white sap that exudes. In the highest priced automobile tires you find the manufactured product.Dried figs have always been an important commercial fruit. These imported figs are from trees that are horticultural varieties of a wild Asiatic species,Ficus Carica. Smyrna figs are best for drying. They form a delicious, wholesome sweet, which has high food value and is more wholesome than candy for children. Tons of this dried fruit are imported each year from the countries east of the Mediterranean Sea. Now California is growing Smyrna figs successfully.The banyan tree of India is famous, striking its aërial rootlets downward until they reach the ground and take root, and thus help support the giant, horizontal limbs. These amazing trees, members of the genusficus, sometimes extend to cover an acre or more of ground. To walk under one is like entering the darkness of a forest of young trees. By the clearing away of most of these aërial branches, a great arbor is made for the comfort of people in regions where the sun's rays are overpowering in the middle of the day.Our own fig trees in North America are but sprawling parasitic trees, unable to stand alone. They are found only in the south of Florida, and therefore are generally unknown.
The Dwarf Sumach
R. copallina, Linn.
The black dwarf, or mountain sumach, is smaller, with softer, closer velvet coating its twigs and lining its leaves, than the burly staghorn sumach wears. It grows all over the eastern half of the United States, even to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and rises to thirty feet in height above a short, stout trunk in the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. Its leaves are the most beautiful in the sumach family. They are six to eight inches long, the central stalk bearing nine to twenty-one dark green leaflets, lustrous above, lined with silvery pubescence. A striking peculiarity is that the central leaf-stem is winged on each side with a leafy frill between the pairs of leaflets. In autumn, the foliage mass changes to varying shades of scarlet and crimson. The flower clusters are copious and loose, and the heavy fruits nod from their great weight and show the most beautiful shades, ranging from yellow to dull red. Sterile soil is often covered by extensive growths of this charming shrubby tree which spreads by underground root-stocks. It is the latest of all the sumachs to bloom.
In the South the leaves are sometimes gathered in summer to be dried and pulverized for use in tanning leather. A yellow dyestuff is also extracted from them. It is a favorite sumach for ornamental planting in this country and in Europe.
The Poison Sumach
R. Vernix, Linn.
The poison sumach is a small tree with slender drooping branches, smooth, reddish brown, dotted on the twigs with orange-colored breathing holes, becoming orange-brown and gray as the bark thickens. The trunk is often somewhat fluted under a smooth gray rind. This is one of the most brilliant and beautiful of all the sumachs, butunfortunately it is deadly poisonous, more to be dreaded than the poison ivy of our woods, and the poisonwood of Florida, both of which are near relatives. By certain traits we may always know, with absolute certainty, a poison sumach when we find it.Look at the berries. If they droop and are grayish white, avoid touching the tree, no matter how alluring the wonderful scarlet foliage is.Poison sumachs grow only in the swamps. We should suspect any sumach that stands with its feet in the water, whether it bears flowers and fruit or not. The temptation is strongest when one is in the woods gathering brilliant foliage for decoration of the home for the holidays. The bitter poisonous juice that exudes from broken stems turns black almost at once. This warning comes late, however, for as it dries upon the hands it poisons the skin. Handled with care, this juice becomes a black, lustrous, durable varnish, but it is not in general use.
The Smooth Sumach
R. glabra, Linn.
The smooth sumach (see illustrations,pages 150-151) is quite as familiar as the staghorn, as a roadside shrub. Itforms thickets in exactly the same way, and its foliage, flowers and fruit make it most desirable for decorative planting, especially for glorious autumnal effects. The stems are smooth and coated with a pale bluish bloom. This is the distinguishing mark, at any season, of the sumach that often equals the other species in height, but does not belong in this book, for the reason that it never attains the stature of a tree.
THE SMOKE TREE
A favorite tree in American and European gardens is the smoke tree (Cotinus), a genus which has native representatives in both continents. The EuropeanC. Cotinus, Sarg., was brought to this country by early horticulturists and in some respects it is superior to our nativeC. Americanus, Nutt. Cultivation for centuries has given the immigrant species greater vigor and hardiness, which produces more exuberant growth throughout. Bring in a sapling of the native tree and it looks a starveling by comparison.
The glory of the smoke tree is the utter failure of its clustered flowers to set seed. Branching terminal panicles of minute flowers are held high above the dark green simple leaves. As they change in autumn to brilliant shades of orange and scarlet, the seed clusters are held aloft. The seeds are few but the panicles have expanded and show a peculiar feathery development of the bracts that take the place of the fruits. The clusters take on tones of pink and lavender and in the aggregate they form a great cloud made up of graceful, delicate plumes. Ata little distance the tree appears as if a great cloud of rosy smoke rested upon its gorgeous foliage. Or the haze may be so pale as to look like mist. This wonderful development of the flower cluster is unique among garden shrubs and it placesCotinusin a class by itself. No garden with a shrubbery border is complete without a smoke tree, which is interesting and beautiful at any season.
In its native haunts our American smoke tree is found in small isolated groves or thickets, along the sides of rocky ravines or dry barren hillsides in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas, and in eastern Tennessee and northern Alabama.
THE HOLLIES
The holly family, of five genera, is distributed from the north to the south temperate zones, with representation in every continent. It includes trees and shrubs of one hundred and seventy-five species, seventy of which grow in northern Brazil. The dried and powdered leaves of two holly trees of Paraguay are commercially known as maté, or Paraguay tea, to which the people of South America are addicted, as we are to the tea of China. "Yerba maté" has a remarkable, stimulating effect upon the human system, fortifying it for incredible exertions and endurance. Indulged in to excess, it has much the effect of alcohol.
China and Japan have thirty different species of holly. America has fourteen, four of which assume tree form; the rest are shrubby "winterberries."
European Holly
Ilex aquifolium, Linn.
The holly of Europe is perhaps the most popular ornamental tree in the world, cultivated in Europe through centuries, and now coming to be a favorite garden plant wherever hardy in the United States. Some indication of its popularity abroad is found in the fact that one hundred and fifty-three distinct horticultural varieties are in cultivation. The Englishman makes hedges of it, and depends upon it to give life and color to his lawn and flower borders in the winter. The fellfare or fieldfare, a little thrush, feeds upon the tempting red berries in winter; but even when these dashes of color are all gone, the brilliance of the spiny-margined leaves enlivens any landscape.
Americans know the European holly chiefly through importations of the cut branches offered in the markets for Christmas decoration. The leaf is small, brilliantly polished, and very deeply indented between long, spiny tips, giving it a far more decorative quality than the native evergreen holly of the South.
Many varieties of the European holly are found in American gardens, particularly near eastern cities. North of Washington they must be tied up in straw for the winter, and in the latitude of Boston it is a struggle to keep them alive. From southern California to Vancouver, no such precautions are necessary, and the little trees deserve a much wider popularity than they yet enjoy. Grown commercially, they are the finest of Christmas greens.
American Holly
I. Opaca, Ait.
The American holly also yields its branches for Christmas greens. In the remotest village in the North one may now buy at any grocery store a sprig of red-berried holly to usher in the holiday season. The tree is a small one at best, slow-growing, pyramidal, twenty to forty feet in height, with short, horizontal branches and tough, close-grained white wood. It is rare to find so close an imitation of ivory, in color and texture, as holly wood supplies. It is the delight of the wood engraver, who uses it for his blocks. Scroll work and turnery employ it. It is used for tool handles, walking-sticks, and whip-stocks. Veneer of holly is used in inlay work.
In southern woods and barren fallow fields where hollies grow, collectors, without discrimination, cut many trees each autumn, strip them of their branches, and leave the trunks to rot upon the ground. The increasing demand for Christmas holly seriously threatens the present supply, for no methods are being practised for its renewal. It will not be long before the wood engraver will have to buy his blocks by the pound, as he does the eastern boxwood.
The range of this holly tree extends from southern Maine to Florida, throughout the Gulf states, and north into Indiana and Missouri.
The Yaupon
I. vomitoria, Ait.
The yaupon is a shrubby tree of spreading habit, with very small, oval, evergreen leaves and red berries. Itgrows from Virginia to Florida and west to Texas and Arkansas. A nauseating beverage, made by boiling its leaves, was the famous "black drink" of the Indians. A yearly ceremonial, in which the whole tribe took part, was the persistent drinking of this tea for several days, the object being a thorough cleansing of the system.
PART V
WILD RELATIVES OF OUR ORCHARD TREES
The Apples—The Plums—The Cherries—The Hawthorns—The Service-berries—The Hackberries—The Mulberries—The Figs—The Papaws—The Pond Apples—The Persimmons
THE APPLES
The chance apple tree beside the road, with fruit too gnarly to eat, is common on roadsides throughout New England. Occasionally one of these trees bears edible fruit, but this is not the rule. Perhaps the seed thus planted was from the core of a very delicious apple, nibbled close, and thrown away with regret. But trees thus planted are seedlings and seedling apple trees "revert" to the ancient parent of the race, the wild apple of eastern Asia. Horticulture began long ago to improve these wild trees, and through the centuries improvement and variation have stocked the orchards of all temperate countries with the multitude of varieties we know. A visit in October to Nova Scotia or to the Yakima Valley in Washington, is an eye-opener. Thousands of acres of the choicest varieties of this most satisfying of all fruits show the debt we owe to patient scientists, whose work has so enriched the food supply of the world.
The pear, the quince, and the curious medlar, with its core exposed at the blossom end—all relatives of the apple—trace their lineage to European and Asiatic wild ancestors. The Siberian crab, native of northern Asia, is the parent of our hard-fleshed, slender-stemmed garden crabapples. Japan has given us some wonderful apple trees, with fruit no larger than cherries, cultivated solely for their flowers. The ornamental flora of America has been greatly enriched by these varieties.
Four native apples are found in American woods. Horticulturists have produced new varieties by crossing some of these sturdy natives with cultivated apples, or their seedling offspring.
The Prairie Crab
Malus Ioënsis, Britt.
The prairie crabapple is the woolly twigged, pink-blossomed wild crab of the woods, from Minnesota and Wisconsin to Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. It has crossed with the roadside "wilding" trees and produced a hybrid known to horticulture as the Soulard apple, from its discoverer. These wild trees bear fruit that is distinctly an improvement upon that of either parent. It is regarded as a distinctly promising apple for the coldest of the prairie states, and has already become the parent of several improved varieties.
The Wild Crab
M. coronaria. Mill.
Throughout the wooded regions, from the Great Lakes to Texas and Alabama, the wild crabapple brightens thespring landscape with its rose-colored, spicy-scented blossoms. The little trees huddle together, their flat tops often matted and reaching out sidewise from under the shade of the other forest trees. The twigs are crabbed indeed in winter, but they silver over with the young foliage in April. The coral flower buds sprinkle the new leaves, and through May a great burst of rose-colored bloom overspreads the tree-tops. It is not sweetness merely that these flowers exhale, but an exquisite, spicy, stimulating fragrance, by which one always remembers them.
The pioneers made jellies and preserves out of the little green apples (see illustrations, pages150-151), which lost some of their acrid quality by hanging on until after a good frost. There are those who still gather these fruits as their parents and grandparents did. In their opinion the wild tang and the indescribable piquancy of flavor in jellies made from this fruit are unmatched by those of any other fruit that grows.
THE PLUMS
The genusprunusbelongs to the rose family and includes shrubs and trees with stone fruits. Of the over one hundred species, thirty are native to North America; but ten of them assume tree form, and all but one are small trees. Related to them are the garden cherries and plums, native to other countries, and the peach, the apricot, and the almond, found in this country only in horticultural varieties. The wood ofprunusis close-grained, solid, and durable, and a few of the species are important timber trees. The simplest way to identify a member ofthe genus is to break a twig at any season of the year and taste the sap. If it is bitter and astringent with hydrocyanic acid (the flavor we get in fresh peach-pits and bitter almonds), we may be sure we have run the tree down to the genusprunus.
The Wild Red Plum
Prunus Americanus, Marsh.
The wild red or yellow plum forms dense thickets in moist woods and along river banks from New York to Texas and Colorado. Its leafless, gnarled, and thorny twigs are covered in spring with dense clusters of white bloom, honey-sweet in fragrance, a carnival of pleasure and profit to bees and other insects. In hot weather this nectar often ferments and sours before the blossoms fall. The abundant dry pollen is scattered by the wind. The plum crop depends more upon wind than upon insects, for the pollination period is very brief.
After the frost in early autumn, the pioneers of the prairie used always to make a holiday in the woods and bring home by wagon-loads the spicy, acid plums which crowded the branches and fairly lit up the thicket with the orange and red color of their puckery, thick skins. In a land where fruit orchards were newly planted, "plum butter" made from the fruit of nature's orchards was gratefully acceptable through the long winters. Even when home-grown sorghum molasses was the only available sweetening, the healthy appetites of prairie boys and girls accepted this "spread" on the bread and butter of noon-day school lunches, as a matter of course.
Seepage 130FLOWERS, FRUIT, AND ODD LEAF PATTERNS OF THE SASSAFRAS TREE
Seepage 130
FLOWERS, FRUIT, AND ODD LEAF PATTERNS OF THE SASSAFRAS TREE
Seepage 141FOLIAGE AND FLOWER CLUSTER OF THE SMOOTH SUMACH
Seepage 141
FOLIAGE AND FLOWER CLUSTER OF THE SMOOTH SUMACH
Seepage 148BUDS, LEAVES, AND FRUIT OF THE WILD CRABAPPLE
Seepage 148
BUDS, LEAVES, AND FRUIT OF THE WILD CRABAPPLE
Seepage 151THE CANADA PLUMIts white, fragrant flowers turn pink in fading;and its stiff, zigzag branches are beset with spiny stubs
Seepage 151
THE CANADA PLUMIts white, fragrant flowers turn pink in fading;and its stiff, zigzag branches are beset with spiny stubs
The Canada Plum
P. nigra., Ait.
The Canada plum (see illustration,page 151) whose range dips down into the northern tier of states, is so near like the previous species as to be called by Waugh a mere variety. Its leaves are broad and large, and the flowers and fruit larger. A peculiarity of blossoming time is that the petals turn pink before they fall. This tree furnished the settler with a relish for his hard fare, and the horticulturist a hardy stock on which to graft scions of tenderer and better varieties of plums. It is a tree well worth bringing in from the woods to set in a bare fence-corner that will be beautified by the blossoms in spring, and in late summer by the bright orange-colored fruit against the ruddy foliage.
Exotic plums have greatly enriched our horticulture, giving us fruits that vie with the peach in size and lusciousness. In New-England gardens, the damsons, green gages and big red plums are imported varieties of the woolly twigged, thick-leaved European,P. domestica, which refused utterly to feel at home on its own roots in the great middle prairies of the country. These European plums have found a congenial home in the mild climate of the West Coast.
Japan has furnished to the Middle West and South a hardy, prolific species,P. triflora, generally immune to the black knot, a fungous disease which attacks native plums. Crosses between the Japanese and American native plums promise well. California now ranks first in prune raising as an industry, with France a close second. Prunes are the dried fruit of certain sweet, fleshy kinds of plums. Manycultivated varieties of Japanese plums have enriched the horticulture of our West Coast.
The almond, now grown commercially in California, is the one member of the genus prunus whose flesh is dry and woody, and whose pit is a commercial nut.
THE CHERRIES
Small-fruited members of the genus prunus, wild and cultivated, are grouped under the popular name, cherries, by common consent. The pie cherry of New-England gardens isprunus cerasus, Linn. It often runs wild from gardens, forming roadside thickets, with small sour red fruits, as nearly worthless as at home in the wilds of Europe and Asia. This tree has, through cultivation, given rise to two groups of sour cherries cultivated in America. The early, light-red varieties, with uncolored juice, of which the Early Richmond is a familiar type, and the late, dark-red varieties, with colored juice, of which the English Morello is the type.
The sweet cherry of Europe (P. Avium, Linn.) has given us our cultivated sweet cherries, whose fruit is more or less heart-shaped.
Japan celebrates each spring the festival of cherry blossom time, a great national fête, when the gardens burst suddenly into the marvelous bloom ofSakura, the cherry tree, symbol of happiness, in which people of all classes delight. The native species (P. pseudo-Cerasus), has been cultivated by Japanese artist-gardeners in the one direction of beauty for centuries. Not in flowers alone, but in leaf, in branching habit, and even in bark, beauty has been theideal toward which patience and skill have striven successfully. "Spring is the season of the eye," says the Japanese poet. Of all their national flower holidays, cherry blossom time, in the third month, is the climax.
The Wild Cherry
Prunus Pennsylvanica, Linn.
The wild red, bird, or pin cherry grows in rocky woods, forming thickets and valuable nurse trees to hardwoods, from Newfoundland to Georgia, and west to the Rocky Mountains. The birds enjoy the ruddy little fruits and hold high carnival in June among the shining leaves. Many an ugly ravine is clothed with verdure and whitened with nectar-laden flowers by this comparatively worthless, short-lived tree; and in many burnt-over districts, the bird-sown pits strike root, and the young trees render a distinct service to forestry by this young growth, which is gone by the time the pines and hardwoods it has nursed require the ground for their spreading roots.
The Wild Black Cherry
P. serotina, Ehrh.
The wild black cherry or rum cherry (see illustration,page 166), is the substantial lumber tree of the genus, whose ponderous trunk furnishes cherry wood, vying with mahogany and rosewood in the esteem of the cabinet-maker, who uses cherry for veneer oftener than for solid furniture.
The drug trade depends upon this tree for a tonic derived from its bark, roots, and fruit. Cherry brandies, cordials, and cherry bounce, that good old-fashioned home-brewedbeverage, are made from the heavy-clustered fruits that hang until late summer, turning black and losing their astringency when dead ripe.
From Ontario to Dakota, and south to Florida and Texas, this tree is found, reaching its best estate in moist, rich soil, but climbing mountain canyons at elevations of from five to seven thousand feet. A worthy shade and park tree, the black cherry is charmingly unconventional, carrying its mass of drooping foliage with the grace of a willow, its satiny brown bark curling at the edges of irregular plates like that of the cherry birch.
The Choke Cherry
P. Virginiana, Linn.
The choke cherry is a miniature tree no higher than a thrifty lilac bush, from the Eastern states to the Mississippi, but between Nebraska and northern Texas it reaches thirty-five feet in height. The trunk is always short, often crooked or leaning, and never exceeds one foot in diameter. Its shiny bark, long racemed flowers and fruit, and the pungent odor of its leaves and bark might lead one to confuse it with a black cherry sapling. But there is a marked difference between the two species. The choke cherry's odor is not only pungent, but rank and disagreeable besides. The leaf of the choke cherry is a wide and abruptly pointed oval. The fruit until dead ripe is red or yellow, and so puckery, harsh, and bitter that children, who eat the black cherries eagerly, cannot be persuaded to taste choke cherries a second time.
Birds are not so fastidious; they often strip the trees before the berries darken. It is probably by these unconsciousagents of seed distribution that choke-cherry pits are scattered. From the Arctic Circle to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains this worthless little choke cherry is found in all wooded regions.
THE HAWTHORNS
In the same rose family with apples, plums, cherries, and service-berries is listed the genusCrataegus, a shrubby race of trees, undersized as a rule, with stiff, zigzag branches set with thorns. Over one hundred species have been described by Charles Sargent in his "Manual of Trees of North America," published in 1905.
The centre of distribution for the hawthorn is undoubtedly the eastern United States. From Newfoundland the woods are full of them. A few species belong to the Rocky Mountain region, a few to the states farther west. Europe and Asia each has a few native hawthorns.
The English Hawthorn
Crataegus oxyacantha, Linn.
The English hawthorn is the best-known species in the world. When it first came into cultivation, no man knows. Englishmen will tell you it has always formed the hedge-rows of the countryside. This is the "blossoming May." The sweetness of its flowers, snowy white, or pink, or rose-colored, turns rural England into a garden, while linnets and skylarks fill the green lanes with music.
American "forests primeval" were swept with the woodman's axe before the hawthorns had their chance to assert themselves sufficiently to attract the attention ofbotanists and horticulturists. The showy flowers and fruits, the vivid coloring of autumn foliage, and the striking picturesqueness of the bare tree, with its rigid branches armed with menacing thorns, give most of these little trees attractiveness at any season. They grow in any soil and in any situation, and show the most remarkable improvement when cultivated. Their roots thrive in heavy clay. When young the little trees may be easily transplanted from the wild. They come readily from seed, though in most species the seed takes two years to germinate.
With few exceptions, the flowers of ourhawthornsare pure white, perfect, their parts in multiples of five—a family trait. Each flower is a miniature white rose. Rounded corymbs of these flowers on short side twigs cover the tree with a robe of white after the leaves appear. In autumn little fleshy fruits that look like apples, cluster on the twigs. Inside the thick skin, the flesh is mealy and sweetish around a few hard nutlets that contain the seed. As a rule, the fruits are red. In a few species they are orange; in still fewer, yellow, blue, or black.
It is not practicable to describe the many varieties of our native hawthorns in a volume of the scope of this one. A few of the most distinctive species only can be included, but no one will ever confuse a hawthorn with any other tree.
The Cockspur Thorn
C. Crus-galli, Linn.
The cockspur thorn is a small, handsome tree, fifteen to twenty feet high, with stiff branches in a broad round head. The thorns on the sides of the twig are three tofour inches long, sometimes when old becoming branched, and reaching a length of six or eight inches. Stout and brown or gray, they often curve, striking downward as a rule, on the horizontal branches. The leaves, thick, leathery, lustrous, dark green above, pale beneath, one to four inches long, taper to a short stout stalk, seeming to stand on tiptoe, as if to keep out of the way of the thorns. From the ground up, the tree is clothed in bark that is bright and polished, shading from reddish brown to gray. The flowers come late, in showy clusters; and the fruit gleams red against the reddening leaves. As winter comes on the leaves fall and the branches are brightened by the fruit clusters which are not taken by the birds (see illustration,page 167). All the year long the cockspur thorn is a beautiful, ornamental tree and a competent hedge plant, popular alike in Europe and America.
The Scarlet Haw
C. pruinosa, K. Koch.
The scarlet haw found from Vermont to Georgia, and west to Missouri, prefers limestone soil of mountain slopes, and is more picturesque than beautiful. The foliage is distinctive; it is dark, blue-green, smooth, and leathery, pale beneath, and turns in autumn to brilliant orange. In summer the pale fruit wears a pale bloom but at maturity it is dark purplish red and shiny.
The Red Haw
C. mollis, Scheele
The red haw is the type of a large group, ample in size, fine in form and coloring, of fruit and foliage. This treereaches forty feet in height, its round head rising above the tall trunk, with stout branchlets and stubby, shiny thorns.
The twigs are coated with pale hairs, the young leaves, and ultimately the leaf-linings and petioles are hairy, and the fruits are downy, marked with dark dots.
The only fault the landscape gardener can find with this red haw, is that its abundant fruit, ripe in late summer, falls in September. The species is found from Ohio to Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas.
The Scarlet Haw
C. coccinea, Linn.
The scarlet haw, native of the Northeastern states, is one of the oldest native thorns in cultivation. It is a favorite in New England gardens, because of its abundant bloom, deep crimson fruit and vivid autumn foliage. It is a shrubby, round-headed tree, with stout ascending branches, set with thorns an inch or more in length.
The Black Haw
C. Douglasii, Lindl.
In the West the black haw is a round-headed, native tree found from Puget Sound southward through California and eastward to Colorado and New Mexico. It is a round-headed tree reaching forty feet in height, in moist soil. Its distinguishing feature is the black fruit, ripe in August and September, lustrous, thin-fleshed, sweet, one-half an inch long. The thorns are stout and sharp, rarely exceeding one inch in length. The leathery dark-greenleaves, one to four inches long, commend this black-fruited thorn of the West to the Eastern horticulturists. It has proved hardy in gardens to the Atlantic seaboard and in Nova Scotia.
THE SERVICE-BERRIES
A small genus of pretty, slender trees related to apples, and in the rose family, has representatives in every continent of the Northern Hemisphere, and also in North Africa. Their natural range is greatly extended by the efforts of horticulturists, for the trees are among the best flowering species.
The Service-berry
Amelanchier Canadensis, T. & G.
The Eastern service-berry, June-berry, or shad-bush, is often seen in parks and on lawns; its delicate, purple-brown branches covered in April, before the oval leaves appear, with loose, drooping clusters of white flowers. (See illustration,page 182.) Under each is a pair of red silky bracts and the infant leaves are red and silky, all adding their warmth of color when the tree is white with bloom. The blossoms pass quickly, just about the time the shad run up the rivers to spawn. We may easily trace this common name to the early American colonists who frugally fished the streams when the shad were running, and noted the charming little trees lighting up the river banks with their delicate blossoms, when all the woods around them were still asleep. In June the juicy red berries call the birds to a feast. Then the little tree quite loses its identity, for theforest is roofed with green, and June-berries are quite overshadowed by more self-assertive species.
The borders of woods in rich upland soil, from Newfoundland to the Dakotas and south to the Gulf, are the habitat and range of this charming little tree.
The Western Service-berry
A. alnifolia, Nutt.
The Western service-berry grows over a vast territory which extends from the Yukon River south through the Coast Ranges to northern California and eastward to Manitoba and northern Michigan. In the rich bottom lands of the lower Columbia River, and on the prairies about Puget Sound, it reaches twenty feet in height, and its nutritious, pungent fruits are gathered in quantities and dried for winter food by the Indians. Indeed, the horticulturists consider this large juicy fine-flavored, black berry quite worthy of cultivation, as it grows in the wild to one inch in diameter—the average size of wild plums.
THE HACKBERRIES
Fifty or sixty tropical and temperate-zone species of hackberries include two North American trees which have considerable value for shade and ornamental planting. One hardy Japanese species has been introduced; three exotic species are in cultivation in the South. One is from South Africa, a second from the Mediterranean basin, and a third from the Orient.
It is easy to mistake the hackberry for an elm; the habits of the two trees lead the casual observer astray. The leafis elm-like, though smaller and brighter green than the foliage of the American elm. A peculiarity of the foliage is the apparent division of the petiole into three main ribs, instead of a single midrib. At base, the leaves are always unsymmetrical. The bark is broken into thick ridges set with warts, separated by deep fissures.
The absence of terminal buds induces a forking habit, which makes the branches of a hackberry tree gnarled and picturesque. The hackberry is not familiarly known by the inhabitants of the regions where it grows, else it would more commonly be transplanted to adorn private grounds and to shade village streets.
The Hackberry
Celtis occidentalis, Linn.
The hackberry reaches one hundred and twenty-five feet in height in moist soil along stream borders or in marshes. It is distributed from Nova Scotia to Puget Sound, and south to Florida, Tennessee, Missouri, Texas, and New Mexico. The beauty of its graceful crown is sometimes marred by a fungus which produces a thick tufting of twigs on the ends of branches. The name, "witches' brooms" has been given to these tufts. Growths of similar appearance and the same name are produced by insect injury on some other trees.
The fruit of the hackberry is an oblong, thin-fleshed sweet berry, purple in color, one fourth to one half inch long. It dries about the solitary seed and hangs on the tree all winter, to the great satisfaction of the birds. (See illustration,page 183.)
Emerson says: "The wood is used for the shafts andaxle-trees of carriages, the naves of wheels, and for musical instruments. The root is used for dyeing yellow, the bark for tanning, and an oil is expressed from the stones of the fruit."
The best use we can make of the hackberry tree is to plant it for shade and ornament. It is easily transplanted, for the roots are shallow and fibrous, so that well-grown trees may be moved in winter time. The autumn yellow of the foliage is wonderfully cheerful, and the warty bark, checked into small thick plates, is interesting at any season.
European Nettle Tree
C. Australis
The European nettle tree is supposed to have been the famous "lotus" of classical literature. Homer tells of the lotus-eaters who, when they tasted the sweet fruit, straightway forgot their native land or could not be persuaded to return. This innocent tree, against which the charge has never been proved, bears a better reputation for the qualities of its wood. It is as hard as box or holly, and as beautiful as satin-wood when polished. Figures of saints and other images are carved out of it. Hay-forks are made of its supple limbs. Rocky worthless land is set apart by law in some countries for the growing of these trees. Suckers from the roots make admirable ramrods, coach-whip stocks and walking-sticks. Shafts and axle-trees of carriages are made of the larger shoots; oars and hoops are supplied from these coppiced trees. From northern Africa, throughout Europe, and on to India, the tree is planted for shade, and its foliage is used as fodder for cattle.
THE MULBERRIES
The mulberry family includes fifty-five genera and nearly a thousand species of temperate-zone and tropical plants. The genusficusalone includes six hundred species. Hemp, important for its fibrous, inner bark, and the hop vine are well known herbaceous members of the mulberry family, which stands botanically between the elms and the nettles—strange company, it would seem, but justified by fundamental characteristics. Three genera of this family have tree forms in America—the mulberry, the Osage orange, and the fig. Two native mulberries and three exotic species are widely cultivated for their fruit, their wood, and as ornamental trees. Weeping mulberries are among the most popular horticultural forms.
The Red Mulberry
Morus rubra, Linn.
The red mulberry grows to be a large dense, round-headed tree, with thick fibrous roots and milky sap. Its alternate leaves, three to five inches long, are variable in form, often irregularly lobed, very veiny, usually rough, blue-green above, pale and pubescent beneath, turning yellow in early autumn. The inconspicuous flower spikes are succeeded by fleshy aggregate fruits like a blackberry, sweet, juicy, dark purple or red, each individual fruit single-seeded. Birds and boys alike throng the trees through the long period during which these berries ripen. They are hardly worthy to rank with the cultivated mulberries as a fruit tree. But planted in poultry yards and hog pastures thedropping fruits are eagerly devoured by the occupants of these enclosures.
The chief value of the tree lies in the durability of its orange-yellow wood, which, though coarse-grained, soft and weak, is very durable in the soil and in contact with water. Hence it has always commended itself to fence- and boat-builder. It is sometimes planted for ornament, but its dropping fruit is a strong objection to it as a street or lawn tree.
One of the mulberry's chief characteristics is its tenacity to life. Its seeds readily germinate and cuttings, whether from roots or twigs, strike root quickly. Indians discovered that rope could be made out of the bast fibre of mulberry bark. They even wove a coarse cloth out of the same material. The early settlers of Virginia, who found the red mulberry growing there in great abundance, dreamed in vain of silk culture as an industry based upon this native tree. Their hopes were not realized. Silk culture has never yet become a New-World industry.
The White Mulberry
M. alba, Linn.
The white mulberry is a native of northern China and Japan. From this region it has been extensively introduced into all warm temperate climates. Its white berries are of negligible character. It is the leaves that give this oriental mulberry a unique position in the economic world. They are the chosen food of silkworms. No substitute has ever robbed this tree of its preëminence, maintained for many centuries in its one field of usefulness.
The hardy Russian mulberries are derived fromM. alba. These have done much to enrich the horticulture of our Northern states, but the parent tree, though it thrives in the eastern United States and in the South, has not been the means of establishing silk culture on a paying basis in this country.
The Black Mulberry
M. nigra, Linn.
The black mulberry, probably a native of Persia, has large, dark red, juicy fruits, for which it is extensively cultivated in Europe. In this country it is hardy only in the Southern and the Pacific Coast states. It is the best fruit tree of its family, yet no mulberry is able to take rank among profitable fruit trees. The fruits are too sweet and soft, and they lack piquancy of flavor. They ripen a few at a time and are gathered by shaking the trees.
The dark green foliage of the black mulberry gives ample shade throughout the season. Planted in the garden or in the border of the lawn where no walk will be defaced by the dropping fruits, the mulberry is a particularly desirable tree because it attracts some of our most desirable song-birds to build on the premises. Given a mulberry tree and a bird-bath near by, and the smallest city lot becomes a bird sanctuary through the summer and a wayside inn for transients during the two migratory seasons.
THE FIGS
The genusficusbelongs to all tropical countries, and this remarkable range accounts for the six hundred differentspecies botanists have identified. The rubber plant, popular in this country as a pot and tub plant, is one of the best-known species. In its East Indian forest home it is the "Assam Rubber Tree." It may begin life as an air plant, fixing its roots in the crotch of another tree, in which a chance seed has lodged. A shock of aërial roots strikes downward and reaches the ground. After this the tree depends upon food drawn from the earth. The supporting host tree is no longer needed. The young rubber tree has by this time a trunk stiff enough to stand alone.
Assam rubber, which ranks in the market with the best Brazilian crude rubber, comes from the sap of this wild fig tree,Ficus elasticus. Clip off a twig of your leathery-leaved rubber plant and note the sticky white sap that exudes. In the highest priced automobile tires you find the manufactured product.
Dried figs have always been an important commercial fruit. These imported figs are from trees that are horticultural varieties of a wild Asiatic species,Ficus Carica. Smyrna figs are best for drying. They form a delicious, wholesome sweet, which has high food value and is more wholesome than candy for children. Tons of this dried fruit are imported each year from the countries east of the Mediterranean Sea. Now California is growing Smyrna figs successfully.
The banyan tree of India is famous, striking its aërial rootlets downward until they reach the ground and take root, and thus help support the giant, horizontal limbs. These amazing trees, members of the genusficus, sometimes extend to cover an acre or more of ground. To walk under one is like entering the darkness of a forest of young trees. By the clearing away of most of these aërial branches, a great arbor is made for the comfort of people in regions where the sun's rays are overpowering in the middle of the day.
Our own fig trees in North America are but sprawling parasitic trees, unable to stand alone. They are found only in the south of Florida, and therefore are generally unknown.