Chapter XXI: Part 21

KNOWLTON HORNBEAM (_Ostrya knowltoni_) is interesting chiefly on
account of its extremely limited range, and its far removal from all
its kin. It is an exile in a distant country. It has thus far been
found only on the southern slope of the canyon of the Colorado river
in Arizona, about seventy miles north of Flagstaff. It occurs at an
elevation of 6,000 or 7,000 feet above the sea. Trees are twenty or
thirty feet high and twelve or eighteen inches in diameter, and
trunks usually divide a foot or two above the ground into three or
more branches, which are often crooked and contorted. Such sizes and
forms could not be of much value for anything but fuel, even if
abundant. The heart is light reddish-brown, sapwood thin. The leaves
are round instead of pointed at the apex, as with the other
hornbeam; but the flowers and fruit are much the same. Botanists
speculate in vain as to how this species happens to be so far
removed from other members of its family.

SILVERBELL

SILVERBELL TREE

(_Mohrodendron Carolinum_)

This tree belongs to the storax family, which is not a very numerous family as forest families are generally counted, but it is old and highly respectable. Its members are found in the old world and the new in both North and South America, in Europe, Asia, and the Malay Archipelago. Trees of the storax family produce, or they are supposed to produce, resins and gums, balsams, and aromatic exudations, but some give little or none. The priests and soothsayers of idolatrous nations of ancient times laid great stress on storax. They insisted on having the resin as an adjunct to their superstitious rites. It was the incense offered in their worship, and they compassed sea and land to obtain it for that purpose. It is not improbable that the southern peninsulas of Asia and the far-off Molucca islands were visited in ancient times to procure the incense which ultimately found its way to the Mediterranean regions.

It is, therefore, interesting to find that two members of the old storax family are quietly living in the coast region and among the mountains of the southeastern part of the United States. No one has ever suspected that they might be capable of yielding resinous incense suitable for the altars of heathen gods. They are the silverbell tree, and its little cousin, the snowdrop tree (_Mohrodendron dipterum_). They have had common names a long time, but their botanical names are the result of a recent christening. They are named from Charles Mohr who wrote an interesting book on the flora of Alabama. The silverbell tree is the larger of the two and deserves first consideration.

It has a somewhat extensive range, but in some parts it is so scarce that few persons ever see it. It is found from the mountains of West Virginia to southern Illinois, south to middle Florida, northern Alabama, and Mississippi, and through Arkansas and western Louisiana to eastern Texas. Under cultivation, this tree is known as the snowdrop tree in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana. In Rhode Island, under cultivation, it is also sometimes known as the silverbell tree, and bears the same name in Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi. In parts of Tennessee it is known as the wild olive tree, and in other parts of the state as the bell tree. In various localities in Alabama it is referred to as the four-winged halesia; and in others as opossumwood. It is indiscriminately known in various sections of Texas as the rattlebox and calicowood, and some of the furniture manufacturers in North Carolina list it as box elder, though it is only distantly related to the true box elder. In the Great Smoky mountains in Tennessee, where the species reaches its greatest development, it bears a variety of names, among them being tisswood, peawood, bellwood, and chittamwood.

The tree varies in size from a shrubby form so small that it is scarcely entitled to the name of tree, up to a height of eighty, ninety, and even more than 100 feet with diameters up to nearly four feet. The largest sizes occur only among the ranges of the Great Smoky mountains in Blount, Sevier, and Monroe counties, Tennessee. No reason is known why this tree in that region should so greatly exceed its largest dimensions in other areas; but most species have a locality where the greatest development is reached, and this has found the favorable conditions in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. Some of the trees measure sixty feet or more to the first limbs.

Lumbermen of the country are not generally acquainted with silverbell, as is natural since its commercial range is so limited. It is not listed in statistics of sawmill cut or of veneer mills. The wood-using industries of the country do not report it, except in the one state, North Carolina, and there in very small amounts. Doubtless, it is occasionally used elsewhere, but it escapes mention in most instances. It has been made into mantels at Knoxville, Tennessee, and passes as birch.

The wood is light, soft, usually narrow-ringed, color light brown, the thick sapwood lighter. It weighs thirty-five pounds per cubic foot, and when burned it yields a low percentage of ash. The wood’s chief value is due to its color and figure. Best results are not obtained by sawing the logs into lumber, because the handsomest part of the figure is apt to be lost. It is preëminently suited to the cutting of rotary veneer. By that method of conversion the birdseye and the pitted and mottled effects are brought out in the best possible manner. Veneers so cut from logs selected for the figure, possess a rare beauty which no other American wood equals. There is a pleasing blend of tones, which are due to the direction in which the distorted grain is cut. This distinguishes the wood from all others and gives it an individuality. Much of the figure appears to be due to the presence of adventitious buds, similar to those supposed to be responsible for the birdseye effect in maple.

The leaves of silverbell are bright green at maturity and are from four to six inches long and two or three wide. They turn yellow before falling in autumn. The flowers give the tree its name, for they resemble delicate bells, about one inch in length. They appear in early spring when the leaves are one-third grown, on slender, drooping stems from one to two inches long. The trees are loaded throughout the whole crown, and present an appearance that is seldom surpassed for beauty in the forests of this country.

The fruit is peculiar and is not particularly graceful. It has too much the appearance of the load carried by a well-fruited vine of hops. It ripens late in autumn and persists during most of the winter. There is nothing in its color, shape, or taste to tempt birds or other creatures to make food of it, though, under stress of circumstances, they may sometimes do so. The fruit is two inches or less in length and an inch wide, and has four wings, which seem to be practically useless for flight. The seed is about half an inch long.

The bark of the trunk is bright red-brown and about half an inch thick, with broad ridges which separate on the surface into thin papery scales. The young branches wear an early coat of thick, pale wool or hairs, light, reddish-brown during the first summer, but later changing to an orange color.

The botanical range of the species is extensive, though the tree-form is confined to a few counties among the southern Appalachian mountains. The northern limit of its range is in West Virginia where it is so scarce that many a woodsman never recognizes it. Unless it is caught while in the full glory of its bloom, it attracts no attention. It is not there a tree, but a shrub, hidden away among other growth, along mountain streams or on slopes where the soil is fertile. The blooming shrub might, at a distance, be mistaken for a dogwood in full blossom, but a closer inspection corrects the mistake.

It is true of this species as of many others that the range has been greatly extended by planting. The bell-like white flowers early drew attention of nurserymen who were on the lookout for trees for ornamental planting. It was carried to Europe long ago, and graces many a yard and park in the central and northern countries of that continent. It now grows and thrives in the United States six hundred miles northeast of its natural range, where it endures the winters of eastern Massachusetts, blooms as bounteously as in its native haunts among the shaded streams of the Alleghany mountains.

SNOWDROP TREE (_Mohrodendron dipterum_) is a near relative of the silverbell tree, and looks much like it, except that it is smaller, has larger leaves, and the flowers are creamy-white. The two occupy the same territory in part of their ranges, but they differ in one respect. The silverbell tree grows with great luxuriance among the mountains while the snowdrop tree keeps to the low country and is seldom or never found growing naturally at any considerable elevation. It prefers swamps or damp situations near the coast. While the silverbell tree’s range includes West Virginia, that of the snowdrop extends no farther north than South Carolina. It follows the coast to Texas, and runs north through Louisiana to central Arkansas. Its range has been greatly enlarged by planting, and the northern winters do not kill it on the southern shores of Lake Erie. The largest trees are about thirty feet high and six inches in diameter, but the growth in most places is shrubby. Leaves are four or five inches long and three or four wide. Flowers are one inch long and are borne in profusion. They constitute the tree’s chief value as an ornament, though the foliage is attractive. The bloom lasts a month or six weeks, from the middle of March till the last of April. The fruit has two wings instead of four, as with silverbell, but occasionally two rudimentary wings are present. The wood is light, soft, strong, color light brown, with thicker, lighter sapwood. The smallness of the trunks makes their use for lumber impossible. The species is valuable for ornamental purposes only, and has been planted both in this country and Europe. It has a number of names by which it is known in different localities, among them being cowlicks in Louisiana, and silverbell tree in the North where it has been planted outside of its natural range.

SYCAMORE

SYCAMORE

(_Platanus Occidentalis_)

Probably no person with a practical knowledge of trees ever mistakes sycamore for anything else. The tree stands clear-cut and distinct. Until the trunk becomes old, it sheds its outer layer of bark yearly, or at least frequently, and the exfoliation exposes the white, new bark below. The upper part of the trunk and the large branches are white and conspicuous in the spring, and are recognizable at a long distance. No other tree in the American forest is as white. The nearest approach to it is the paper birch of the North, or the white birch of New England.

Notwithstanding the tree’s individuality, it has a good many names. It is generally known as sycamore throughout the states of the Union, but it is frequently called buttonwood in Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Nebraska, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Ontario; buttonball tree in several of the eastern states and occasionally in Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, and Nebraska; the plane tree in Rhode Island, Delaware, South Carolina, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa; the water beech in Delaware; the platane, cottonier, and bois puant in Louisiana. Probably the finest growth of the sycamore ever encountered was in Ohio and Indiana, and these states still contain isolated patches of magnificent specimens of the wood. The Black Swamp of Ohio was originally a famous sycamore country, of which Defiance was the center of lumber manufacture. Many parts of Indiana produced a good sycamore growth, and a considerable amount of timber of excellent quality still exists, but is now largely owned by farmers who are generally holding it out of the market.

The range of sycamore extends from Maine to Nebraska, and south to Texas and Florida. It is one of the largest of American hardwoods, and in diameter of trunk it is exceeded by none. Trees are on record that were from ten to fourteen feet in diameter, and it was not unusual in the primeval forests for them to tower nearly or quite 125. In height a number of hardwoods exceed it, the yellow poplar in particular; but none of them has a larger trunk than the largest sycamores. However, the mammoths are generally hollow. The heart decays as rings of new growth are added to the outside of the shell. So large were the cavities in some of the sycamores in the original forests that more than one case is on record of their being used by early settlers as places of abode.

The tree thrives best in the immediate vicinity of rivers and creeks. It needs abundance of water for its roots, but is not insistent in its demand for deep, fertile soil, for it grows on gravel bars along water courses, provided some soil and sand are mixed with the gravel. Great age is doubtless attained, but records are necessarily lacking in cases where the annual rings of growth must be depended upon; because the hollow trunks have lost most of their rings by decay.

Sycamore bears abundance of light seed which is scattered short distances by wind and much farther by running water. Its ideal place for germinating is on muddy shores and wet flats. Here the seeds are deposited by wind and water, and in a short time multitudes of seedlings spring up. Though most of them are doomed to perish before they attain a height of a few feet, survivors are sufficient to assure thick stands on small areas. The trunks grow tall rapidly, and until they reach considerable size, they remain solid and make good sawlogs; but at an age of seventy-five or 100 years, deterioration is apt to set in; some die, others become hollow, and the result is a good stand of large sycamores is unusual. The veterans are generally scattered through forests of other species.

The statement has often been made in recent years that sycamore is becoming very scarce and that the annual output is rapidly declining. Statistics do not show a declining output. The cut of sycamore in 1909 was approximately twice as great as in 1899. It is true that the supply is not very large, and it never was large compared with some other hardwoods; but it appears to be holding its own as well as most forest trees. The cut in the United States in 1910 was 45,000,000, and it was credited to twenty-six states. Indiana was the largest contributor, and it had held that position a long time. States next below it in the order named were Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois. Doubtless some of the sycamore lumber now going to market has grown since old settlers cut the primeval stands when they cleared their fields. It will continue to grow, and since it usually occupies waste places, it may be depended upon to contribute pretty regularly year by year during time to come. It is one of the forest trees which have never suffered much from fires, because it grows in damp situations.

The wood of sycamore weighs 35.39 pounds per cubic foot, is hard, but not strong, difficult to split and work; the annual rings are limited by narrow bands of dark summerwood. The rings are very porous. The medullary rays are rather small, but can be easily seen without a glass. They run in regular, radial lines, close together, and the pores are in rows between. The rays of sycamore vary from the rule with most woods, in that they are darker than the body of the wood.

One of the earliest uses of sycamore was by farmers who cut hollow trunks, sawed them in lengths of three or four feet, nailed bottoms in them, and used them for barrels for grain. They were called gums. Solid logs two or three feet in diameter were cut in lengths of a foot or less, bored through the center, and used as wheels for ox carts. The ox yoke was often made of sycamore. Butchers used sycamore sections about three feet high for meat blocks. The wood is tough, and continual hacking fails to split it. The use for meat blocks continues at the present time. In Illinois 1,600,000 feet were so employed in 1910.

One of the earliest employments of the wood for commercial purposes was in the manufacture of boxes for plug tobacco; but it has now been largely replaced by cheaper woods. Its freedom from stain and odor is its chief recommendation for tobacco boxes. Some of it is in demand for cigar boxes.

The modern uses of sycamore are many. It is made into ordinary crates and shipping boxes in most regions where it grows. Rotary cut veneer is worked into berry crates and baskets, and into barrels. Ice boxes and refrigerators are among the products. Slack coopers are among the largest users, but some of the manufactured stave articles belong more properly to woodenware, such as tubs, washing machines, candy buckets, and lard pails.

Furniture makers demand the best grades, and most of the quarter-sawed stock goes to them, though the manufacturers of musical instruments buy some of the finest. Use is pretty general from pipe organs and pianos down to mandolins, guitars and phonographs. It enters extensively into the making of miscellaneous commodities. As small a toy as the stereoscope consumes much sycamore. Makers of trunks find it suitable for slats, and it serves as small squares and borders in parquetry. It is a choice wood for barber poles and saddle trees, and its fine appearance when worked in broad panels leads to its employment as interior finish for houses, boats, and passenger cars.

CALIFORNIA SYCAMORE (_Platanus racemosa_) is one of the three
species of sycamore now found growing naturally in the United
States. They are survivors of a very old family and appear to have
been crowded down from the far North by the cold, or to have made
their way south for some other reason. Sycamores flourished in
Greenland in the Cretaceous age, some millions of years ago, as is
shown by fossil remains dug up in that land of ice and eternal
winter. They grew in central Europe, about the same time, but long
ago disappeared from there. Sycamores were growing in the United
States an immense period of time ago, and were doubtless lifting
their giant white branches high above the banks of ancient rivers
while the gorgeous bloom of yellow poplars brightened the forests on
the rich bottom lands farther back. Several species of sycamores
which grew in the United States during the Tertiary age are now
extinct. All seem to have been much like those which have come down
to the present day.

The California sycamore is found in the southern half of that state,
and in Lower California. It grows from sea level up to 5,000 feet,
and has the same habits as the larger sycamore of the East, and
prefers the banks of streams and the wet land in the bottoms of
canyons. It attains a height of from forty to eighty feet, and a
diameter of from two to five. Some trees are larger, one in
particular near Los Angeles having a trunk diameter of nine feet.
The tree is usually extremely distorted and misshaped, leaning,
twisted, and forking and reforking until a practical lumberman would
pronounce it a hopeless proposition. This applies, however, to
trunks which grow in the open, and that is where most of them grow.
When they are found crowded in thick stands in the bottoms of
canyons, their trunks are shapely enough for short sawlogs. The wood
is very similar to that of eastern sycamore, and it is used for
similar purposes, when used at all. The balls are strung five on one
tough stem, which is from six to ten inches long. The eastern
sycamore usually has a stem for each ball. The seeding habits of
both trees are the same.

ARIZONA SYCAMORE (_Platanus wrightii_) has its range in southern New
Mexico, southern Arizona, and neighboring regions in Mexico, where
it grows in the bottoms of canyons up to 6,000 feet above sea. The
tree attains a height of from thirty to eighty feet, and a diameter
of two to five. The trunk is seldom shapely, but often divides in
large branches, some of which are fifty or sixty feet long. There
are usually three balls on a stem, and the leaf is shaped much like
the leaf of red gum, but there is considerable variation in form.
The wood resembles eastern sycamore in color and most other
features, but when quarter-sawed the flecks produced by the
medullary rays are generally smaller, and give a mottled effect. The
wood has not been much used, but apparently it is not inferior to
eastern sycamore.

BLACK CHERRY

BLACK CHERRY

(_Prunus Serotina_)

This widely distributed tree supplies the cherry wood of commerce. Its natural range extends from Nova Scotia westward through the Canadian provinces to the Kaministiquia river; south to Tampa bay in Florida and west to North Dakota, eastern Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and eastern Texas. The tree is known as wild black cherry, wild cherry, black cherry, rum cherry, whiskey cherry, and choke cherry.

Cherry belongs to a remarkably large family and the ordinary observer would never suspect the relationship that exists between it and other growths to which it bears little resemblance. It is in the rose family (_Rosaceæ_). It has multitudes of small and large cousins, most of them small, however. Among them are the crabapple, the serviceberry, the haws, thorns, plums, and the peach, besides plants which do not rise to the dignity of trees.

The crown of black cherry is narrow and the branches are horizontal. In height the tree ranges from fifty to one hundred or more feet. The bark is a dark reddish-brown, rough and broken into plates, becoming smoother toward the top. The branchlets are a rich reddish-brown, and are marked with tiny orange-colored dots. The leaves are small, alternate, oblong or oval lanceolate, taper-pointed at the apex and pointed or rounded at the base, finely serrate; at maturity glabrous, firm, glossy, the light colored midrib being very distinct. The flowers are white and grow on pedicels in long slender racemes, which terminate leafy shoots. The fruit is almost black, showing deep red coloring beneath and is a small round drupe; vinous, although not disagreeable to the taste. In most instances a liking for it must be acquired, but comparatively few people ever take the trouble to acquire it. The old settlers among the Alleghany mountains had a way of pressing the juice from the drupes and by some simple process converting it into “cherry bounce,” a beverage somewhat bitter but it never went begging when the old-time mountaineers were around. This was doubtless what persons had in mind who called it rum cherry. Few fruits, either wild or tame, contain more juice in proportion to bulk. Ripe fruit is employed as a flavor for alcoholic liquors. The bark contains hydrocyanic acid and is used in medicine. The peculiar odor of cherry bark is due to this acid.

In early years the ripening of the cherry crop among the ranges of the Appalachian mountains was a signal for bears to congregate where cherry trees were thickest. The cubs were then large enough to follow their mothers--in August--and it was considered a dangerous season in the cherry woods, because the old bears would grow fierce if molested while feeding. The mountaineers knew enough to stay away from the danger points at that time, unless they went there purposely to engage in a bear fight. It was a common saying among those people that “cherry bears” should be let alone.

The cherry’s chief importance in this country has been due to its lumber. Unfortunately, that value lies chiefly in the past, for the supply is running low. It never was very great, for, though the species has a large range, it is sparingly dispersed through the forests. In many parts of its range a person might travel all day in the woods and see few cherry trees, and perhaps none. The best stands hardly ever cover more than a few acres. Generally the trees grow singly or in clumps. It appears to be nearly wholly a matter of soil and light, for the seeds, which are carried by birds, are scattered in immense numbers, and only those grow which chance to find conditions just right. The tree wants rich ground and plenty of room, which is a combination not often found in primeval forest regions; but, since the country has been largely cleared, cherry trees spring up along fence rows and in nooks and corners. If let alone they grow rapidly, but trunks so produced are of little value for lumber, because too short and limby. In the forest the tree lifts its light crown high on a slender trunk to reach the sunshine, and such trunks supply the cherry lumber of commerce. Near the northern limit of its range it seems to abandon its demand for good soil and is content if it is supplied with light only. It betakes itself to the face of cliffs, sometimes overhanging the sea, and so near it that the branches are drenched in spray thrown up by breakers. It is needless to say that no good lumber is produced under such circumstances.

The first loss of cherry occurred when the farms were cleared. It stood on the best ground, and the land-hungry Anglo-Saxon wanted that for himself. He cut the tall shapely cherry trees, built fences and barns of some of the logs, and burned the balance in the clearing. Then came the pioneer lumberman who did not take much, because his old up-and-down saw, which was run by water, would cut only about a thousand feet a day, and there was plenty of other kinds of timber. But when the steam mill put in its appearance, cherry went fast. Its price was high enough to pay for a long haul. From that day till this, cherry has gone to market as rapidly as millmen could get to it.

Next to walnut, it is the highest priced lumber produced in the United States. The average cut per mill, according to returns of those who sawed it in 1909, was only 11,200 feet, and the total output that year was only 24,594,000 feet, contributed by twenty-nine states. The five leading producers were, in the order named, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and Indiana. The next year the total output fell to 18,237,000 feet, and cherry went down to a place among the “minor species,” such as dogwood, alder, locust, and buckeye. The day of its importance in the lumber industry is past. It has become too scarce to attract much attention, but there will always be some cherry in the market, though veteran trunks, three and four feet through and good for four sixteen-foot logs, will be seldom seen in the years to come.

While good taste ordinarily dictates that cherry be finished in a tone approximating its natural color, it is quite frequent that it masquerades as mahogany. A well-known and perfect method of making cherry look like mahogany is to have the wood rubbed with diluted nitric acid, which prepares it for the materials to be subsequently applied; afterwards, to a filtered mixture of an ounce and a half of dragon’s blood dissolved in a pint of spirits of wine, is added one-third that quantity of carbonate of soda, the whole constituting a very thin liquid which is applied to the wood with a soft brush. This process is repeated at short intervals until the wood assumes the external appearance of mahogany. While cherry is employed as an imitation of mahogany, it is in its turn imitated also. Sweet birch is finished to look like cherry, and for that reason is sometimes known as cherry birch.

Cherry weighs 36.28 pounds per cubic foot; it is very porous, but the pores are small and are diffused through all parts of the annual ring. The wood has no figure. Its value is due to color and luster. The medullary rays are numerous but small, and in quarter-sawing they do not show as mirrors, like oak, but as a soft luster covering the whole surface.

The principal uses of cherry have always been in furniture and finish, but it has many minor uses, such as tool handles, boxes for garden seeds, spirit levels and other tools, and implements, patterns, penholders, actions for organs and piano players, baseblocks for electrotypes and other printing plates, and cores for high-class panels. Aside from its color, its chief value is due to its comparative freedom from checking and warping. This cherry is one of the few trees that cross the equator. It extends from Canada far down the west coast of South America.

CHOKE CHERRY (_Prunus virginiana_) is widely distributed in North
America from Canada to Mexico. It is said to attain its largest size
in the Southwest where trees are sometimes forty feet high and a
foot in diameter. The name is due to the astringency of the half
ripe fruit which can scarcely be eaten. When fully ripe it is a
little more tolerable, and is then black, but is red before it is
ripe. The color of immature cherries deceives the unsophisticated
into believing they are ripe. In Canada the fruit is made into pies
and jelly, and it is said the tree is occasionally planted for its
fruit. The Indians of former times made food of it. The tree is
small, and bruised branches emit a disagreeable odor; leaves contain
prussic acid, and when partly withered, they are poisonous to
cattle. The trunks are nearly always too small for commercial
purposes, and are apt to be affected with a fungous disease known as
black knot.

WESTERN CHOKE CHERRY (_Prunus demissa_) grows from the Rocky
Mountains to the Pacific in the United States. It is often regarded
as the western form of choke cherry, but it has more palatable
fruit, and trees are a little larger, while trunks are so crooked
that no user of wood cares to have anything to do with them. The
wood is weak, but is hard and heavy.

BITTER CHERRY (_Prunus emarginata_) belongs to the far West, and is
found from British Columbia to southern California. In size it
ranges from a low shrub to a tree a foot in diameter and forty feet
high. The largest sizes are found in western Washington and Oregon.
The wood is soft and brittle, brown streaked with green. It is not
known that any attempt has been made to put the wood of this tree to
any useful purpose. The bark and the leaves are exceedingly bitter.
Fruit ripens from June to August, depending on region and elevation,
and it is from one-fourth to one-half inch in diameter, black, and
intensely bitter.

HOLLYLEAF CHERRY (_Prunus ilicifolia_) is a California species
growing in the bottoms of canyons from San Francisco bay to the
Mexican line. It is rarely more than thirty feet high, but has a
large trunk, sometimes two feet in diameter. The wood is heavy,
hard, and strong, and it ought to be valuable in the manufacture of
small articles, but fuel is the only use reported for it. The fruit
is insipid, and ripens late in autumn. The foliage is much admired
and has led to the planting of the species for ornamental purposes.

WILD RED CHERRY

WILD RED CHERRY

(_Prunus Pennsylvanica_)

In addition to the name wild red cherry by which this tree is known in most parts of its range, it is called bird cherry in Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Iowa; red cherry in Maine and Rhode Island; fire cherry in New York and many other localities; pin cherry in Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Michigan, Iowa, and North Dakota; pigeon cherry in Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, Ontario, and North Dakota; and wild cherry in Tennessee and New York. Its range extends from Newfoundland to Hudson bay, west to British Columbia, south through the Rocky Mountains to Colorado, and in the East along the Appalachian ranges to North Carolina and Tennessee. It reaches its largest size among the Big Smoky mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina.

It is ordinarily a tree thirty or forty feet high, and from eight to ten inches in diameter, though trunks are sometimes twenty inches through. It grows fast, but is very short-lived. Many stands disappear in thirty years or less, but individuals survive two or three times that long, if they stand in open ground. One of its names is fire cherry, and that fitly describes it. Like paper birch and lodgepole pine, it follows forest fires where the ground is laid bare by the burning. Nature seems to have made peculiar provisions whereby this tree clothes barren tracts which have been recently burned. In the first place, it is a prolific seeder. Its small, red cherries are borne by bushels on very young trees. Birds feed on them almost exclusively while they last, and the seeds are scattered over the surrounding country. They have such thick shells that few germinate unless they pass through a moderate fire, which cracks the shells, or at least they do not sprout until they come in direct contact with mineral soil. When a fire burns a forest, thousands of the cherry seedlings spring up. Many persons have wondered where they come from so quickly. They were already scattered among the forest leaves before the fire passed. The heat crazed their shells, and the burning of the leaflitter let them down on the mineral soil where they germinated and soon came up by thousands. The case is a little different with paper birch and with aspen, which are also fire trees. Their seeds cannot pass through fire without perishing, and when birches and aspens follow a fire it means that the seeds were scattered by the wind after the passing of the fire. Doubtless cherry seeds are often scattered after the fire has passed; but it is believed that most of those which spring up so quickly have passed through the fire without being destroyed.

This small cherry is one of the means by which damage by forest fires is repaired. The tree is of little value for lumber or even for fuel; but it acts as a nurse tree--that is, it shelters and protects the seedlings of other species until they obtain a start. By the time the cherry trees die, the seedlings which they have nursed are able to take care of themselves, and a young forest of valuable species is established.

Except in this indirect way, the wild red cherry is of little use to man. The wood is soft, light, and of pleasing color, but trees are nearly always too small to be worked into useful articles. About the only industry of which there is any record, which draws supplies from this source, is the manufacture of pipe stems. The straight, slender, bright-barked branches are cut into requisite lengths and bored endwise, and serve for stems of cheap pipes, and occasionally for those more expensive. The bark, like that of most cherries, is marked by dark bands running part way round the stems. These are known as lenticels, and exist in the bark of most trees, but they are usually less conspicuous in others than in cherry. It is this characteristic marking which gives the cherry pipe stem its value.

Wild red cherry blooms from May to July, depending on latitude and elevation, and the fruit ripens from July to September. The cherries hang in bunches, are bright red, quite sour, and the seed is the largest part. They are occasionally made into jelly, wine, and form the basis of certain cough syrups.

WEST INDIA CHERRY (_Prunus sphærocarpa_) grows near the shores of Biscayne bay, Florida. It there blooms in November and the fruit ripens the next spring. The tree attains a height of from twenty-five to thirty feet, and a diameter of five or six inches. When grown in the open at Miami, Florida, it is larger, and is much liked as an ornament. The thin, smooth bark is brown, tinged with red, and is marked by large conspicuous lenticels. The wood is hard and light, and of light clear red color. It is too scarce to be of much importance, but paper knives, napkin rings, and other novelties made of it are sold in souvenir stores in southern Florida. Its range extends south to Brazil.

WILLOWLEAF CHERRY (_Prunus salicifolia_) is a small tree, also called Mexican cherry, is more common south of the United States than in this country, ranging as far south as Peru. It is found on some of the mountains of southern New Mexico and Arizona.

LAUREL CHERRY (_Prunus caroliniana_) is a southern species which sticks close to the coast in most of its range from South Carolina to Texas. It has many names, among them wild peach, wild orange, mock orange, evergreen cherry, mock olive, and Carolina cherry. Leaves hang two years, and the fruit remains nearly one. The latter is black and about half an inch long. The withered leaves are poisonous if eaten by cattle. The tree is thirty or forty feet high, and eight or ten inches in diameter. The wood is heavy, hard, and strong, color light brown to dark, rich brown, sometimes of much beauty, but no record has been found of any use for it. The tree is often planted for ornament.

WILD PLUM (_Prunus americana_) is found from New Jersey to Montana,
southward to New Mexico and Texas, and extends to Florida and
Mexico. Its range covers about a million square miles. There are
seven or more species of wild plums in the United States. The fruit
of all of them is edible. They have been planted accidentally or
otherwise in many localities where they were not found before the
country was settled. The plum was an important fruit in the
country’s early history. The pioneers gathered wild fruits before
planted orchards came into bearing, and the plum was one of the best
which nature supplied. Early travelers among the Indians in the
South frequently spoke of Indian peaches. Such references have led
some to believe that the peach was native in that region, but it is
safe to conclude that what was called the peach was really some
species of wild plum. These fruits were among the earliest to become
domesticated. In fact, they were abundant about the sites of Indian
towns and old fields, where the savages had scattered seeds without
any purpose on their part of planting trees; and early settlers
imitated the Indians, and plums were soon growing in the vicinity of
most of the cabins. As a forest tree, it usually thrived best on the
banks of streams, for there it could find more sunshine than in the
deep woods, and it bore much more fruit. The ranges of several
species of plums overlapped, and different sizes and colors of fruit
were found in the same locality even before white men assisted the
spread of species. The common plum, known to botanists as _Prunus
americana_, is recognized under many names among laymen; among these
names are yellow plum, red plum, horse plum, hog plum, August plum,
native plum, and goose plum. Usually the plum’s skin is red, and the
flesh yellow, which accounts for its names, both red and yellow. The
tree ranges in height from twenty to thirty-five feet, and from five
to ten inches in diameter. The wood is heavy, hard, and strong, and
dark rich-brown. It is suitable for turnery and small novelties, but
little of it has been used.

CANADA PLUM (_Prunus nigra_) appears to be the most northern member
of the plum group. It grows from Newfoundland to Manitoba, and south
into the northern tier of states. Its range has been much extended
by planting, and a number of varieties have appeared. It is twenty
or thirty feet high, and five to eight inches in diameter. Flowers
appear in April and May, and the fruit is ripe in September and
October. The plums are about an inch long, orange-red in color, with
yellow flesh. The wood is heavy, hard, and strong. Those who
cultivate this tree often do so for the beauty of the flowers,
rather than for the value of the fruit. The wood is not used for
commercial purposes.

BLACK SLOE (_Prunus umbellata_), known also as southern bullace
plum, hog plum, and wild plum, ranges from South Carolina, round the
coast through Florida, to Louisiana and up the Mississippi valley
into Arkansas. The tree is fifteen or twenty feet high and from six
to ten inches in diameter. The fruit ripens from July to September,
is black when ripe, and often nearly an inch long. The people where
it grows use it for jelly. It is not reported that the wood is used
for any purpose.

WESTERN PLUM (_Prunus subcordata_) grows west of the Cascade
mountains from southern Oregon to central California. It is often a
low bush, but at its best forms a tree twenty feet high and six
inches in diameter, but its wood is of no economic importance. Its
deep, purple-red plums ripen in autumn and are an excellent wild
fruit, juicy and tart. During the fruit season the plum thickets
were formerly infested by both bears and Indians, and many a fight
for possession took place, with victory sometimes on one side,
sometimes on the other. The white inhabitants now make jam and jelly
of the fruit.

ALLEGHANY SLOE (_Prunus allegheniensis_) is so named because it is
best developed among the Alleghany mountains of Pennsylvania. The
tree is eighteen or twenty feet high and six or eight inches in
diameter. The wood is without value for commercial purposes, but the
tree’s fruit has some local importance. It ripens about the middle
of August, and is somewhat less than an inch in diameter, with dark,
reddish-purple skin, covering yellow flesh.

CHICKASAW PLUM (_Prunus angustifolia_) is a well-known wild plum of
the South from Delaware to Texas, and north to Kansas. Its natural
range is not known, because it has been so widely planted,
accidentally or otherwise, near farm houses and in fence corners.
Its bright, red fruit goes only to local markets. Negroes gather
most of the crop in the South. The wood is not considered to have
any value, but, in common with other plums, it possesses qualities
which fit it for many small articles.

GARDEN WILD PLUM (_Prunus hortulana_) is supposed to have originated
in Kentucky from a cross between the Chickasaw plum and the common
wild plum (Prunus americana). It has spread from Virginia to Texas.
The largest trees are thirty feet high and a foot in diameter. The
fruit ripens in September and October, is deep red or yellow, with
hard, austere, thin flesh, quite sour. The fruit is called wild
goose or simply goose plum in Tennessee and Kentucky.
Horticulturists have made many experiments with this plum.

COCOA PLUM (_Chrysobalanus icaco_), also called gopher plum, grows
in southern Florida, and its insipid fruit is seldom eaten except by
negroes and Seminole Indians. There is little sale for it in the
local markets. Trees are sometimes thirty feet high and a foot in
diameter. The light brown wood is heavy, hard, and strong, but it is
seldom used. The tree grows in Africa and South America as well as
in Florida.

BEECH

BEECH

(_Fagus Atropunicea_)

There is only one beech in the United States, and four or five in Europe and Asia. The southern portion of South America has several species which usually pass for beech. One or more of them are evergreen. Old world species are sometimes planted in parks and cemeteries in this country, but as forest trees they have no importance in the United States and probably never will have. It becomes a simple matter, therefore, to deal with the tree in this country. It is alone, and has no nearer relatives than the chestnuts, chinquapins, and the oaks, all of which are members of the same family, and the beech gives the name to the family--_Fagaceæ_. The blue beech, which is common in most states east of the Mississippi river and in some west, is not a member of the same family, though it looks enough like beech to be closely related to it.

The name has come down from remote antiquity. It is one of the oldest names in use. It is said to have descended through thousands of years from old Aryan tribes of Asia which were among the earliest to use a written language. For the want of better material, they cut the letters on beech bark, and a piece of such writing was called “boc.” It was but a step from that word to book--a collection of writings. Both beech and book came from the same word “boc” and the connection between them is very evident. The pronunciation has been little changed by the Germanic races during thousands of years, but the Romans translated it into Latin and called it “liber,” from which we have the word library. Doubtless in very ancient times, say 5,000 years before the building of Solomon’s temple, the libraries beyond the Euphrates river consisted of several cords of trimmed and lettered beech bark. Such material being perishable, it has wholly disappeared. The matter is not now directly connected with the lumber interests, but it increases one’s respect for beech to know how important a part it must have played in the ancient world, whereby it stamped its name so indelibly upon the language of the most intelligent portion of the human race.

The word buckwheat has the same origin. It means beech wheat, so named because the grains are triangular like beech nuts. The tree is always known as beech in this country, though it may have a qualifying word such as red, white, ridge.

It usually grows in mixed forests of hardwoods, but it is often found in the immediate presence of hemlock and spruce, grows from Maine to Florida, and west to Arkansas. Considerable areas are often occupied by little else. This is attested by the frequency with which such names as “beech flat,” “beech ridge,” “beech woods,” and “beech bottom” are encountered in local geography. Perhaps the finest examples of beech growth in the United States occur in the higher altitudes of the lower Appalachian range in eastern Tennessee, and western North Carolina, where trees are frequently encountered, showing a bole of perfectly symmetrical form, of from three to more than four feet in diameter, and of a sheer height of seventy feet before a limb is encountered. The wood which grows in this section is nearly as hard as that of the North, but that growing on lower levels in the South is of a much softer texture and lighter color, the heart being pinkish rather than reddish-brown.

Beech is one of the truly beautiful trees of the forest. In the eyes of many, the beech is as much to be admired as the American elm or sugar maple. Certainly in spring when it is covered with its staminate blossoms, it is a splendid sight, and its perfect leaves are seldom spotted or eaten by insects. In winter, it is particularly interesting. Its beautiful bark then appears very bright. After its fine leaves have fallen, though many of them, pale and dry, cling to the branches throughout the winter, the structure of its massive head is seen to advantage. In the Canadian markets and those of many of the middle and western states, its nuts are gathered and sold in considerable quantities. These nuts are favorite food of both the red and gray squirrel and these rodents collect them in considerable quantities during the late fall, and store them in tree hollows for their winter’s supply of food. It often happens, in felling beech trees in the winter, that shelled beech nuts to the quantity of a quart or more will be found secreted in some hollow by these provident little animals.

Formerly beech was little used for lumber, but was long ago given an important place as firewood and material for charcoal. Its excellent qualities as lumber have now made it popular in most markets. The sapwood is comparatively thin and the heart is very much esteemed for many purposes. Many millions of feet of it are converted into flooring and the “pure red” product is very highly esteemed for ornamental floors. It has not as good working qualities as maple, but still it stays in place even better than does that famous flooring material. Nearly all the large flooring factories of the North, whose principal output is maple, have a side line of beech flooring, and in the South, notably in Nashville, a considerable quantity of the wood is made into flooring. In full growth this beautiful tree is round topped, with wide spreading and horizontal branches, and shows a normal altitude of about sixty feet. In this form of growth branches appear on the body very close to the ground, and their ends often trail upon it. In its forest form, where trees of any sort are of commercial importance, it often attains a height of ninety or 100 feet, with smooth rounded bole as symmetrical as the pillar of a cathedral, with a diameter of from two to four feet. Its time to bloom is April or May, and its nuts ripen in October. The bark is a light bluish-gray, and remarkably smooth; the leaves are simple, alternate, with very short petioles, oblong with pointed apex and rounded or narrowed base. The ribs are straight, unbranching, and terminate in remote teeth. The fruit is a pair of three-sided nuts with a sweet and edible kernel which grows in a four-celled prickly burr, splitting when ripe.

Beech is an excellent fuel and it has long been used for that purpose. It is so regularly dispersed over the country that most neighborhoods were able to get it in the years when families cut their own firewood. Later, when charcoal was burned to supply primitive iron furnaces, before coke could be had, beech was always sought for. Still later, when large commercial plants were built to carry on destructive distillation of wood, beech was still a favorite. Its modern uses are many. There is scarcely a plant east of the Rocky Mountains, engaged in the manufacture of hardwood commodities, which does not use beech. In Michigan alone nearly 30,000,000 feet a year are demanded by box makers, and more than that much more by manufacturers of other commodities. It is widely employed for furniture, filing cabinets, vehicles, interior finish, agricultural implements, woodenware, and musical instruments. It is one of the heaviest and strongest of the common hardwoods, and gives long service when kept dry, but does not last well in damp situations.

Beech is strictly a forest tree. This does not mean that it will not grow in the open, but when it does grow there it makes poor lumber, short and limby. The seedlings must have shade if they are to do any good, but after they attain a certain size they can endure the light. The roots lie close to the surface of the ground, and the trampling of cattle often kills large trees.