Chapter XVII: Part 17

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

CUCUMBER

CUCUMBER

(_Magnolia Acuminata_)

This tree is a member of the magnolia family which has ten genera in North America, two of them, magnolia and liriodendron, being trees. The family has its name from Pierre Magnol, a French botanist who died in 1715. The genus magnolia has seven species in the United States, all of which are of tree size. They are evergreen magnolia (_Magnolia fœtida_), sweet magnolia (_Magnolia glauca_), cucumber (_Magnolia acuminata_), largeleaf umbrella (_Magnolia macrophylla_), umbrella tree (_Magnolia tripetala_), Fraser umbrella (_Magnolia fraseri_), and pyramidal magnolia (_Magnolia pyramidata_). The remaining member of the magnolia family is the yellow poplar (_Liriodendron tulipifera_). Though of the same family it is of a different genus from the seven other magnolias.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

YELLOW POPLAR

YELLOW POPLAR

(_Liriodendron Tulipifera_)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EVERGREEN MAGNOLIA

EVERGREEN MAGNOLIA

(_Magnolia Fœtida_)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WAHOO

WAHOO

(_Evonymus Atropurpureus_)

No one seems to know what the original meaning of the word wahoo was. It is applied to no fewer than six different trees in this country, four of them elms, one a basswood, and one the tree now under consideration. The generic name, _Evonymus_, appears to be an effort to put somebody’s seal of approval on the name, for it means in the Greek language “of good name.”

It belongs to the family _Celastraceæ_, which means the staff family. Some designate members of this group as “Spindle trees,” because formerly in Europe the wood was employed for knitting needles, hooks for embroidering, spindles for spinning wheels, and the like. Unless the members of the family in Europe have wood quite different from that of the wahoo tree in this country, no adequate reason can be found for the use of the wood for spindles or staffs, because it is poor material for that purpose. It may be compared with basswood.

This beautiful little tree, scarcely more than a shrub in most regions of its growth, is a widely distributed species, its range extending through western New York to Nebraska, southeastern South Dakota and eastern Kansas, and in the valley of the upper Missouri river, Montana, southward to northern Florida, southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. In these localities it is generally a shrub, rarely reaching a height of more than nine or ten feet. It attains the proportions of a tree only in the bottom lands of southern Arkansas, Oklahoma, and in the lower Appalachian regions. The most favorable habitat of the tree is moist soil along the banks of streams. In the southern and western parts of its range, under favorable conditions of soil and climate, and when isolated from other species, the wahoo tree grows to rather large size and develops a wide flat top of slender spreading branches.

The largest and most beautiful specimens of wahoo grow in the mountainous regions of West Virginia, eastern Tennessee, and western North Carolina. In these sections it is no unusual thing for a tree of this species to attain a height of sixty or seventy feet and a diameter of twenty or twenty-four inches. It is never found in pure stands but is isolated along the edge of the forest, and thrives best near water courses.

The tree is known by a variety of names in the different parts of the country. The Indians are said to have called it wahoo. Burning bush, a very popular name, is especially appropriate, as no brighter dash of color is displayed by any tree than the scarlet fruit of this growth, which remains on the branches long after the leaves have fallen, often until the winter storms beat it to the ground. The growth is also called occasionally by the name bleeding-heart tree, in reference to the blood-red contents revealed by the bursting fruit.

The wahoo in the fall of the year may be identified by the flaming color of its fruit, or rather the seeds of the fruit. The hull bursts and exposes the bright red seeds within. These, contrary to the usual run of red fruits, are not of a glossy surface, and in this the tree is unique. During the summer season, however, identification is not such a simple matter, for the foliage is quite ordinary, and the flat, unassuming flowers have little that is distinctive about them; but as the autumn approaches and the leaves turn a pale yellow color, the tree becomes a conspicuous and beautiful object with its scarlet berries.

The bark of the wahoo is ashen gray, thin, furrowed, and divided into minute scales. On the branchlets it is a dark purplish-brown, later becoming brownish-gray.

The heartwood of wahoo is white, with a slight tinge of orange. The sapwood, scarcely distinguishable from the heartwood, is more nearly white in tone. The wood is heavy and close-grained but not very hard. It weighs when seasoned a little less than forty pounds to the cubic foot. Such of this wood as is sawed into lumber, which is but a small quantity, sells commercially with poplar saps, thus masquerading like its forest fellow, the cucumber tree. The character of the wood is such that it will not stand exposure to the weather any length of time. It is far from durable, but is remarkably clear from defects and answers admirably many purposes for which sap poplar is desirable.

The leaves of the tree are waxy in appearance, opposite, entire, elliptical or ovate in shape, from two to four inches long, one to two broad. They are finely serrate and pointed at both apex and base, and the stems are short and stout.

The flowers, which appear in May and June, are definitely four-parted, presenting a Maltese cross in shape. They are half an inch across, and their rounded petals are deep purple in color. The fruit which succeeds these flowers and which ripens in October is also four-parted. It is about half an inch across, a pale purple when full size, and hangs on long slender stems. When ripe the purple husk bursts and reveals the seed enveloped in a scarlet outer coat that fits it loosely. The leaves, bark, and fruit of the wahoo are acrid and are reputed to be poisonous.

The wood is one-third heavier than that of yellow poplar, and it is evident that it would not pass as poplar with any one disposed to reject it. It is also much harder than poplar, and is more difficult to season, as it checks badly. The medullary rays are so thin as to be scarcely discernible. The wood contains many very small pores. The bark is said to possess some value for medicinal purposes. No special uses for the wood have been reported, and it is too scarce to be of much value. The tree’s principal importance is as an ornament, and it shows well in winter borders where the bright colors of the seeds are exposed. It is planted both in this country and in Europe. The plantings seldom or never reach tree size.

FLORIDA BOXWOOD (_Schæfferia frutescens_) is of the same family as wahoo but of another genus, and is quite a different kind of tree. The generic name is in honor of Jakob Christian Schaeffer, a distinguished German naturalist who died in 1790. Two species of this tree occur in the United States, one the Florida boxwood, the other a small, shrubby growth in the dry regions of western Texas and northern Mexico. Florida boxwood is a West Indies tree which flourishes in the Bahamas and southward along the other islands to Venezuela. It has gained a foothold on the islands of southern Florida where it has found conditions favorable and it grows to a height of thirty or forty feet, and reaches a trunk diameter of ten inches, but such are trees of the largest size. The leaves are bright yellow-green, about two inches long, and one or less in width. They appear in Florida in April and persist a full year, until the foliage of the succeeding crop displaces them. The flowers which are small and inconspicuous, open about the same time as the leaves. The fruit is a scarlet berry which ripens in November, and has a decidedly disagreeable flavor. The bark is very thin.

When sound wood in sufficiently large pieces is obtainable it is valuable for a number of purposes, but chiefly as a substitute for Turkish boxwood as engraving blocks. The trees are always small in Florida, which is the only place in the United States where they occur, and the largest are often hollow or otherwise defective. The wood weighs 48.27 pounds per cubic foot, thoroughly dry, which is about two pounds heavier than white oak. It is rich in ashes, having about four times as much as white oak. The color of the heartwood is a bright, clear yellow to which is due the name yellow-wood occasionally applied to the tree in the region where it grows, as well as in markets where it is sold. This is not the tree known in commerce as West Indies boxwood, though it may be an occasional substitute. It is said that Florida boxwood was formerly much more abundant in this country than it is now. It was lumbered for the European market at about the same time that the south of Florida was stripped of its mahogany. It is suitable for many small articles where a hard, even-grained wood is wanted.

IRONWOOD (_Cyrilla racemiflora_) ranges from the coast region of North Carolina to Florida, and west near the coast to Texas. It is known as leatherwood, burnwood, burnwood bark, firewood, red titi, and white titi. Ten woods besides this are called ironwood in some parts of this country. The name is applied because the hardness of the wood suggests iron. It is not remarkable for its weight nor its strength. The medullary rays are thin and inconspicuous. In color it is brown, tinged with red. It is not apparent why it is a favorite fire wood, for its fuel value does not rate high theoretically, being much below many species with which it is associated. The largest trees rarely exceed a height of thirty feet and a diameter of twelve inches. They flourish in shady river bottoms and along the borders of sandy swamps and shallow ponds.

The tree occasionally assumes the form of a bush and sends up many stems which produce almost impenetrable thickets. Aside from its use as fuel, it is in small demand anywhere. In Texas it is sometimes made into wedges, and similar uses for it are doubtless found in other regions where it is abundant. It is named from Domenico Cirillo, an Italian naturalist who died in 1799.

TITI (_Cliftonia monophylla_) is of the _cyrilla_ family and is one of three species which occasionally pass under that name. It sometimes reaches a height of fifty feet and a diameter of one or more. Its range follows the coast region from South Carolina to Louisiana. It betakes itself to swamps and flourishes in situations that would be fatal to many species. Half under water during many months of the year it is placed at no disadvantage. It grows equally well in shallow swamps which are rarely overflowed. Near the southern limits of its range in Florida it is reduced to a shrub. It is known as ironwood and buckwheat tree. The last name is due to its seeds which are about the size of a buckwheat grain and otherwise resemble it. The flowers appear in early spring on long racemes, and are very fragrant. The wood weighs about thirty-nine pounds per cubic foot, is not strong, but is moderately hard. It is valuable as fuel and burns with a clear, bright flame.

MOUNTAIN LAUREL

MOUNTAIN LAUREL

(_Kalmia Latifolia_)

This tree belongs to the heath family and not to the laurels, as the name seems to imply. The same is true of rhododendron. The kalmia genus has five or six species in this country, but only one of tree size, and then only when at its best. Mountain laurel reaches its best development in North and South Carolina in a few secluded valleys between the Blue Ridge and the western mountains of the Appalachian ranges. The largest specimens are forty or fifty feet high and a foot or a foot and a half in diameter. Trunks are contorted and unshapely, and lumber is never sawed from them.

The tree has many names, most of them, however, are applied to the species in its shrubby form. A common name is simply laurel, but that does not distinguish it from the great laurel which is often associated with it. Calico bush is one of its names, and is supposed to be descriptive of the flowers. Spoonwood is one of its northern names, dating back to the times when early settlers, who carried little silverware with them to their frontier homes, augmented the supply by making spoons and ladles of laurel roots. Ivy is a common name, sometimes mountain ivy, or poison ivy. Poison laurel and sheep laurel are among the names also. The leaves are poisonous, and if sheep feed on them, death is apt to follow. The exact nature of the poison is not understood. Sheep seldom feed on the leaves, and do so only when driven by hunger. Other names are small laurel, wood laurel, and kalmia. The last is the name of the genus, and is in honor of Peter Kalm, a Swedish naturalist.

The species is found from New Brunswick to Louisiana, but principally among the ranges of the Appalachian mountains. Its thin bark makes it an easy prey to fire and the top is killed by a moderate blaze. The root generally remains uninjured and sends up sprouts in large numbers. Thickets almost impenetrable are sometimes produced in that way.

Flowers and foliage of mountain laurel are highly esteemed as decorations, foliage in winter, and the flowers in May and June. The bloom appears in large clusters, and various colors are in evidence, white, rose, pink, and numerous combinations. The seeds are ripe in September, and the pods which bear them burst soon after.

The wood of mountain laurel weighs 44.62 pounds per cubic foot. It is hard, strong, rather brittle, of slow growth, brown in color, tinged with red, with lighter colored sapwood. This description applies to the wood of the trunk; but in nearly all cases where mention is made of the wood of this tree, it refers to the roots. These consist of enlargements or stools, often protruding considerably above the ground. If the area has been visited repeatedly by fire, the roots are generally out of proportion to the size of the tops. In that respect they resemble mesquite, except that the enlarged root of mesquite penetrates far beneath the surface while that of mountain laurel remains just below the surface or rises partly above it.

The utilization of mountain laurel is not confined to the trunks which reach tree size. Generally it is the root that is wanted. Roots are usually sold by weight, because of the difficulty of measuring them as lumber or even by the cord. The annual product of this material in North Carolina alone amounts to about 85,000 pounds, all of which goes to manufacturers of tobacco pipes and cigar holders. The use of the laurel root for pipes is as old as its use for spoons. Pioneers who raised and cured their own tobacco smoked it in pipes which were their own handiwork. The laurel root was selected then as now because it carves easily, is not inclined to split, does not burn readily, and darkens in color with age. It is cheap material, is found throughout an extensive region, and the supply is so large that exhaustion in the near future is not anticipated.

The wood is employed in the manufacture of many small articles other than tobacco pipes. Paper knives, small rulers, turned boxes for pins and buttons, trays, plaques, penholders, handles for buckets, dippers, and firewood, are among the uses for which laurel is found suitable.

It is of no small importance for ornamental purposes, and is often seen growing in clumps and borders in public parks and private yards, where its evergreen foliage and its bloom make it a valuable shrub. It is planted in Europe as well as in this country.

GREAT LAUREL (_Rhododendron maximum_) is also in the heath family. More than two hundred species of _rhododendron_ are known, and seventeen are in this country, but only one attains tree size. The generic name means “rose tree,” and the name is well selected. The flowers are the most conspicuous feature belonging to this species, and few wild trees or shrubs equal it for beauty. It is not native much west of the Alleghany mountains, but grows north and east to Nova Scotia. It is at its best among the mountains, thrives in deep ravines where the shade is dense, and on steep slopes and stony mountain tops. It forms extensive thickets which are often so deep and tangled that it is difficult to pass through them. This laurel is seldom found growing on limestone. It reaches its largest size in the South. Trees thirty or forty feet high and a foot in diameter occur in favored localities. It grows on the Alleghany mountains in West Virginia at an elevation exceeding 4,000 feet and there forms vast thickets. Some use is made of the wood for engraving blocks and as tool handles. It is hard, strong, brittle, of slow growth, and light clear brown. It is frequently planted in parks in this country and Europe, and three or more varieties are distinguished in cultivation. This laurel’s leaves have a peculiar habit of shrinking and rolling up when the thermometer falls to zero or near it. Among the names applied to it are great laurel, rose bay, dwarf rose bay tree, wild rose bay, bigleaf laurel, deer tongue, laurel, spoon hutch, and rhododendron.

CATAWBA RHODODENDRON (_Rhododendron catawbiense_) is a rare, large-flowered species of the mountain regions from West Virginia southward to Georgia and Alabama. The wood is not put to use, and the species is chiefly valuable as an ornamental shrub. It seldom reaches large size.

SOURWOOD (_Oxydendrum arboreum_) follows the Alleghany mountain ranges south from Pennsylvania, and extends into Florida, reaching the Atlantic coast in Virginia, and Indiana, Tennessee, and Louisiana westward. The best development of the species is found among the western slopes of the Big Smoky mountains in Tennessee. It is called sorrel-tree, sour gum, and sour gum bush, on account of the acidity of the leaves when chewed. Arrow-wood, another name, refers to the long, straight stems between the whorls of branches of young trees--those three or four feet high. The stems are of proper size for arrows, and amateur bowmen use them. Those who designate the tree as lily-of-the-valley have in mind the flowers. The shape suggests an opening lily, but the size does not. The flower is about one-third of an inch long, but panicles several inches long are covered with them. They open in July and August, and in September the fruit is ripe. The seed is pale brown and one-eighth of an inch long.

The sourwood tree at its best is fifty or sixty feet high and from twelve to eighteen inches in diameter. The bark of young trees is smooth, but on mature trunks it resembles the exceedingly rough bark of an old black gum. In fact, many people suppose this tree to be black gum, never having noticed the difference of leaf, fruit, and flower. The genus consists of a single species. The wood is heavy, hard, compact, and it takes good polish. The medullary rays are numerous, but thin, and they contribute little or nothing to the figure of the wood. The annual rings show little difference between springwood and summerwood, and consequently produce poor figure when the lumber is sawed tangentially. The pores are many and small and are regularly distributed through the yearly ring. Heartwood is brown, tinged with red, the sapwood lighter. The strength and elasticity of sourwood are moderate. The wood is made into sled runners in some of the mountain districts where it occurs, but no particular qualities fit it for that use. It is occasionally employed for machinery bearings. It has been reported for mallets and mauls, but since it is not very well suited for those articles, the conclusion is that those who so report it have confused it with black gum which it resembles in the living tree, but not much in the wood. Small handles are made of it, and it gives good service, provided great strength and stiffness are not required. Sourwood is not abundant anywhere, and seldom are more than a few trees found in a group.

TREE HUCKLEBERRY (_Vaccinium arboreum_) is the only tree form of
twenty-five or thirty species of huckleberry in this country. The
cranberry is one of the best known species. The range of tree
huckleberry extends from North Carolina to Texas, and it reaches its
largest size in the latter state where trunks thirty feet high and
ten inches in diameter occur, but not in great abundance. The fruit
which this tree bears has some resemblance to the common
huckleberry, but is inferior in flavor, besides being dry and
granular. It ripens in October and remains on the branches most of
the winter. The fruit is about a quarter of an inch in diameter,
dark and lustrous, and is a conspicuous and tempting bait for
feathered inhabitants of swamp and forest. The bark of the roots is
sometimes used for medicine, and that from the trunk for tanning,
but it is too scarce to become important in the leather industry.
The tree is known in different parts of its range as farkleberry,
sparkleberry, myrtle berry, bluet, and in North Carolina it is known
as gooseberry. The wood is hard, heavy, and very compact; is liable
to warp, twist, and check in drying; polishes with a fine, satiny
finish. Medullary rays are numerous, broad, and conspicuous; wood
light brown, tinged with red. Small articles are turned from it.

OSAGE ORANGE

OSAGE ORANGE

(_Toxylon Pomiferum_)