Part 34

Attempts to ascertain the meaning of the word _negundo_ which botanists apply to this species have not been crowned with entire success. It is known to be a word in the Malayalam language of the Malabar coast of India, and is there applied to a tree, apparently referring to a peculiar form of leaf. The name was transferred to the box elder by Moench, and has been generally adopted by botanists, although at least seven other scientific names have been given the tree. It bears ten or more English names in different regions. Among these names are ash-leaved maple, known from Massachusetts to Montana and Texas; cut-leaved maple in Colorado; three-leaved maple in Pennsylvania; black ash in Tennessee; stinking ash in South Carolina; sugar ash in Florida; water ash in the Dakotas; and box elder wherever it grows.

The tree’s geographical range does not fall much short of 3,000,000 square miles, and is equalled by few species of this country. It extends from New England across Canada to Alberta, thence to Arizona, and includes practically all the United States east and south of those lines. It thrives in hot and cold climates, and high and low elevations; in regions of much rain, and in those with little. That fact has been turned to account by tree planters, particularly in the years when the western plains were being settled by homesteaders. The box elder was the chief tree on many a timber claim where the letter of the law rather than the spirit was carried out. It afforded the earliest protection against scorching summer sun and the keen winds of winter about many a frontiersman’s cabin on the plains. It was the earliest street tree in many western towns. The people planted it because they knew it would grow, and they were not so sure of a good many other trees. Green ash was often its companion in pioneer plantings on the plains. Many towns which set box elders along the streets when they did not know of anything better, still have the trees, though they would willingly exchange them for something else. They are not ideal street and park trees; do not produce shapely trunks and crowns; and drop leaves all summer and seeds all winter. The tree is reputed to be short lived, yet some of those planted a generation or two ago show no symptoms of decline.

There is no good reason why this tree should be called an elder, or an ash, except that its leaves are compound. If that is a reason, it might be called a hickory or a walnut, since they bear compound leaves. It is clearly a maple. Its fruit shows it to be so, and Indians of the far Northwest who had no other maple, formerly manufactured sugar from this tree, collecting the sap in wood or bark troughs and boiling it with hot stones.

The compound leaf does not necessarily take it out of the maple group. It requires no great exercise of imagination to understand how a lobed leaf, by deepening the sinuses between the lobes, might become a compound leaf in the process of evolution. There may be no visible evidence that the box elder’s leaf reached its present form by that process, but there is another maple which is at the present time developing a compound leaf in that way, or seems to be doing so. It is the dwarf maple (_Acer glabrum_) of the Northwest coast. Lobed leaves and compound leaves may occur on the same tree.

The seeds of box elder resemble those of other maples. They ripen in the fall, and are blown off by wind, few at a time, during several months. The trees are from fifty to seventy feet high, and from one and a half to three feet in diameter. The trunk is apt to divide near the ground in several large branches, and is not of good form for sawlogs, being often crooked as well as short. The small branches, particularly those less than a year old, are usually nearly as green as the leaves. This fact may assist in identifying the tree when the leaves are off. The bark bears more resemblance to ash and basswood than to maple.

The wood is lightest of the maples. It weighs less than twenty-seven pounds to the cubic foot; has less than half the strength and about forty per cent of the stiffness of sugar maple; and is much inferior to it in most mechanical properties. It is equal, if not superior to most maples in whiteness. The pores are small, numerous, and scattered through all parts of the growth ring, as is characteristic of maple wood. The tree grows rapidly. The summerwood is a thin, dark line, separating one annual ring from another. The medullary rays are many and obscure, but when wood is sawed or split along a radial line, they are easily seen, and show the true maple luster.

The uses of box elder are similar to those of soft maple. The wood is seldom reported under its own name. In fact, an examination of wood-using reports of various states, shows that in only two states, Michigan and Texas, has box elder been listed separately. Its uses in the former state were for boxes, crates, flooring, handles, woodenware, and interior finish, while in Texas it was made into furniture. The tree is of commercial size in at least thirty states, and is cut and marketed in all of them. Tests of the wood for pulp are said to be satisfactory, and it finds its way in rather large amounts to cooper shops where it is made into slack barrels. It is cut as acid wood along with other maples, beech, and birch, and is converted into charcoal and other products of distillation.

It may be expected that box elder will exist in the United States as long as any other forest tree remains. It is willing to be crowded off good land into low places, which are almost swamps, and there it grows free from disturbance; but if given the opportunity it will appropriate the most fertile soil within reach of it; and by scattering seeds during four or five months of the year, it manages to do much effective planting.

CALIFORNIA BOX ELDER (_Acer negundo californicum_) is a variety of box elder, and not a separate species. As the name implies, it is a California tree, and it occurs in the valleys and among the Coast Range mountains from the lower Sacramento valley to the western slopes of the San Bernardino mountains. The tree is from twenty to fifty feet high and from ten to thirty inches in diameter. The leaves and young twigs are hairy, in that respect differing from the eastern box elder. The seeds are scattered during winter. The wood is very pale lemon-yellow or creamy-white, the heart and sapwood hardly distinguishable. The wood is soft and brittle, but is suited to the same purposes as the eastern box elder. No reports of its uses appear to have been made. It is found on the borders of streams and in the bottoms of moist canyons. It is believed to be a short-lived tree.

STRIPED MAPLE (_Acer pennsylvanicum_) is usually thirty or forty feet high, and eight or ten inches in diameter. Its range extends from Quebec to northern Georgia, westward to Minnesota, and is of largest size on the slopes of Big Smoky mountains of Tennessee, and the Blue Ridge in North and South Carolina. It grows best in shade, but maintains itself in open ground; is generally shrubby in the northern part of its range. The name refers to the bark. The stripes are longitudinal and are caused by the parting of the outer bark and the exposure to view of the lighter colored inner layers. The bark of small trees is greenish, but later in life the color is darker, and the stripes largely disappear. Among its names are moosewood, so called because it is good browse for moose and other deer; goosefoot maple, a reference to the form of the leaf; whistlewood, an allusion to the ease with which the bark slips from young branches in spring when boys with jack-knives are on the search for whistle material. The names mountain alder and striped dogwood are based on misunderstanding of the tree’s family relations.

The young leaves are rose colored when they unfold, and when full grown are six inches wide. The wood is light and soft, and light brown in color, the thick sapwood lighter. The wood is liable to contain small brown pith flecks, which in longitudinal sections appear as brown streaks an inch or less in length and as thick as a pin, and in cross section they are brown dots. They are not natural to the wood but are caused by the larvæ of certain moths which burrow into the cambium layer, or soft inner bark, and excavate narrow galleries up and down the trunk. The galleries afterwards fill with dark material. The insects sometimes attack other maples, the birches, service, and other trees. The wood of striped maple is little used, because of the small size of the trees. The species is planted for ornament in this country and Europe.

BLACK MAPLE (_Acer nigrum_) has been by some considered a variety of sugar or hard maple, and by others a separate species. It is as large as the sugar maple and its range is much the same, but it is more abundant in the western part of its range than in the East. The name refers to the color of the bark of old trunks. If the name had considered the bark of young twigs it would have been yellow or orange maple, because the twigs are of that color. In summer the peculiar drooping posture of the leaves calls attention to this tree. However, the bark, twigs, and leaves combined are not sufficient to set it apart, in the eyes of most people, for it generally passes without question as sugar maple, even when it stands side by side with that tree. It yields sugar abundantly. The wood is a little heavier than that of sugar maple, but the difference cannot be noticed except when the two woods are weighed. Their uses are the same. No maker of furniture, flooring, or finish ever protests against black maple. The tree generally prefers lower and damper ground than sugar maple, and is often found along streams.

SERVICEBERRY

SERVICEBERRY

(_Amelanchier Canadensis_)

This tree will never be other than a minor species in the United States, but it is not a worthless member of the forest. It belongs to the rose family, and therefore is near akin to the haws, thorns, and crabapples. The genus is found in Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as in the United States. Two tree species occur in this country, or, according to some botanists, three, one west of the Rocky Mountains, two east.

The serviceberry has a number of names: June berry, service-tree, May cherry, Indian cherry, wild Indian pear, currant tree, shadberry, savice, and sarvice. The northern limit of its range is in Newfoundland, the southern in Florida. It grows westward to Minnesota and Arkansas; but it is not plentiful except in certain restricted localities. It is most abundant among the ranges of the Appalachian mountains, and of its largest size toward the south. It is dispersed through forests generally, a tree or bush here and there; but it prefers the borders of forests, the brinks of cliffs, banks of streams, or some other open space where light is abundant. It prospers most in rich soil but does fairly well in ground thin and dry.

The bloom, where it occurs, is a conspicuous feature of the landscape, though generally a tree on ten or twenty acres represents the density of its stand. The white, showy bloom comes early in spring, when most trees are yet bare of leaves. Occasionally, however, the serviceberry is more abundant, and the rows and clumps of blooming trees along creek banks or about the margins of glades or other openings in the forests, look like distant snowdrifts.

The fruit is a berry a half inch or less in diameter, bright red when fully grown in early summer, and changing to purple when ripe. The seeds are brown and very small, and each berry contains from five to ten. When circumstances are favorable, the tree is a prolific bearer, the slender branches bending beneath the weight. The tree need not reach any particular size before beginning to bear. On some of the severely burned summits of the Alleghany mountains in West Virginia, 4,000 feet or more above sea level, this tree, when only two or three feet high, bears abundantly. Such trees are probably sprouts from roots of older trunks destroyed by fire. At its best, it reaches a height of forty or fifty feet and a diameter of one or possibly two feet. Trunks of largest size occur among the southern Appalachian ranges.

The wood is heavy and very hard and strong. It is liable to check and warp in seasoning, is satiny, and is susceptible of a good polish. Medullary rays are very numerous, but obscure; color, dark brown, often tinged with red. The wood is stronger, stiffer and heavier than white oak. It possesses most of the properties to make it a wood of great value, but its scarcity, and the usual small size of the trees, relegate it to the class of minor woods. Some use is made of it in turnery and for other small articles. It is frequently planted in gardens for its bloom and berries. In such situations it lacks some of the charm which it holds as part and parcel of the wildwoods where its early spring bloom is thrown against a background of leafless branches.

WESTERN SERVICEBERRY (_Amelanchier alnifolia_) is also called pigeonberry and sarvice. Its botanical name refers to the resemblance of its leaves to those of alder. Its range covers a million square miles, and the species reaches its best development on islands and rich bottom lands of the lower Columbia river. It is found as far south as California, north to Yukon territory, east to Lake Superior and northern Michigan. It is nowhere a tree of attractive size, and is usually a shrub about ten feet tall and one inch thick. Trees are sometimes thirty feet high and six or eight inches in diameter. The fruit is blue-black and sweet, and pleasant to the taste if not overripe. Indians in the northern and western range of this tree gather the berries industriously while they last, and many of the white settlers do likewise. The birds flock to the thickets for their share, and though the berries are small, the bears in the region consider them worthy of prompt and continued attention. The berries are generally a little more than half an inch in diameter, and ripen in July or August, depending on latitude. Cattle, sheep, goats, and deer find this small tree or bush a source of food. They do not object to eating the berries when obtainable, but their principal attack is on the leaves and tender shoots which afford excellent browse. Fortunately, the serviceberry is so tenacious of life that it is next to impossible to browse it to death. If eaten down to the ground, with little left but bare and barked trunks sticking up like bean poles, the roots will throw up sprouts year after year, making the service thicket a permanent browse-pasture. Fire is not able to destroy such a thicket, for, when the tops are burned off, the sprouts will quickly spring up with vigor unimpaired. As a source of food for insects, birds, beasts, and men, few trees, in proportion to size and quantity, are the equal of western serviceberry. Flowers, fruit, leaves and sprouts are all food for something.

LONGLEAF SERVICE TREE (_Amelanchier obovalis_) is by some regarded a variety rather than a species. It occupies in part the same range as serviceberry, but runs much farther north, reaching the valley of Mackenzie river in latitude 65. It is found in North Carolina and Alabama, but it is only a shrub in the extreme southern part of its range. The fruit ripens in early summer and is reddish purple. Trees are seldom more than thirty feet high and eight inches in diameter. A variety with large fruit is occasionally planted as an ornamental tree. Unless the crop of serviceberries is unusually plentiful in a locality, the most of it is eaten by birds which temporarily abandon nearly all other sources of food and give their undivided attention to the perishable harvest which must be garnered in at once or it will be lost.

NARROWLEAF CRAB (_Malus angustifolia_) is one of the wild crabapples of the United States. They are of the genus _Malus_ and the thousands of varieties of cultivated apples are derived from them, or from other species found in the old world which are very similar. They belong to the rose family. The narrowleaf crab is found from Pennsylvania to Florida and westward to Tennessee and Louisiana. It thrives best in open spaces in the forest and is often found in glades and along the banks of streams in the North, while in the South it occurs in depressions in the pine barrens. The flowers are much like those of apple, very fragrant, and in color are white, pink, or rose. When in full bloom, the tree is a beautiful object, and its odor is carried long distances. The fruit is an apple in all respects except size and taste. It is somewhat flattened, and is an inch or less across. It is fragrant when fully ripe, and many a person has been led by appearances to taste, only to meet disappointment. The flesh is hard and sour, and unfit for food in its natural state, but by cooking and artificial sweetening, it is made into preserves. The tree reaches a height of twenty or thirty feet and a diameter of eight or ten inches. It is smaller than the sweet crab. The wood is hard, heavy, light brown, tinged with red, with thick yellow sapwood. It is not put to many uses, but is occasionally made into small handles, and levers. It has been much used as stock on which to graft apples. Farmers who wanted orchards formerly dug up small crabapples in the surrounding woods and fields, planted them in an orchard, and when securely rooted, the apples of desired kinds were grafted on. If successful, the apple finally replaced the crab by spreading its own bark and wood over the entire trunk, until no part of the original stock remained visible. The sweet crab was also employed as a stock on which to graft apples.

SWEET CRAB (_Malus coronaria_) is the wild crab of the northeastern states, although it intrudes on the region to the southwest to a limited extent. It finds use in ornamental planting in the region of best growth. It is known as American crab, sweet scented crab, crab apple, wild crab, crab, American crab apple, and fragrant crab. Its range extends from the shores of Lake Erie in Canada, south through New York and Pennsylvania, along the Alleghany mountains to Alabama; west to Minnesota, eastern Nebraska, Kansas, Louisiana, and eastern Texas. It needs moist soil for good growth and the best types are found in the lower Ohio basin. In height this tree rarely exceeds thirty feet and it is bushy, having short rigid limbs. The leaves are rounded and sharply toothed, the blossoms generally white and very fragrant; the fruit small, dry, yellow, tinged with red. The wood is heavy, not strong, heart light red, sapwood yellow. It is used for tool handles, small turned articles, and for carving and engraving.

OREGON CRABAPPLE (_Malus rivularis_) grows wild from the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, southward to central California, and is of largest size in Washington and Oregon where trees are occasionally forty feet high and eighteen inches in diameter, but they are generally about ten feet high and form dense thickets. The fruit is oblong, ripens late in autumn, is greenish, or reddish, or clear lemon yellow in color, and rather pleasant to the taste. The tree grows slowly, the wood is hard, and light reddish-brown in color, and is suitable for tool handles.

IOWA CRAB (_Malus ioensis_) grows from Minnesota to Texas and is the common crabapple of the Mississippi basin. Large trees are twenty-five feet high and a foot in diameter. It is believed that this tree crosses with the common apple, and produces a variety known as the soulard apple (_Malus soulardi_). Wild apple (_Malus malus_) is a European species introduced into this country and now running wild.

MOUNTAIN ASH (_Pyrus americana_) is closely related to the crabs. It occurs from Newfoundland to Manitoba, and southward along the mountains to North Carolina. Trees have compound leaves, red berries the size of small cherries, and reach a height of thirty feet and a diameter of a foot or more. There are several forms or varieties, among them the small fruit mountain ash (_Pyrus americana microcarpa_) of the Alleghany mountains.

RED HAW

RED HAW

(_Cratægus Coccinea_)

This tree belongs to the rose family, and the genus _Cratægus_ consists of a large group of small, thorny trees, scattered through many parts of the world. They are known by their thorns, but comparatively few of them are known by name to the ordinary observer, and they afford a perpetual source of study, victory, and bewilderment to the trained botanist. “No other group of American trees,” says Sudworth, “presents such almost insurmountable difficulties in point of distinctive characters. It is impossible, and fortunately unnecessary, for the practical forester to know them all, and exceedingly difficult even for the specialist.” More than one hundred species of these thorn trees occur in the United States, exclusive of shrubs. Their bloom resembles that of apple and pear trees. Bees and insects swarm round the flowering trees, assisting in cross fertilization. The various species are aggressive. They force their way into vacant spaces, and their thorns protect them against browsing animals. The wood is sappy and heavy, and for most of the species it is valueless. The growing brambles, however, perform an important service in forest economy. Seeds of various valuable trees are blown by wind or carried by birds and mammals into the thickets where they germinate and get a start under the protecting shelter of the thorns. Finally the seedlings overtop the brambles, gain the mastery, shade the thorns to death, and develop valuable forests. The thorn trees shed their leaves annually. Their seeds are slow to germinate, some not sprouting until the second year. The fruit is worthless for human consumption, but some of it has a tart and not unpleasant taste. It is of many colors and sizes, depending on species.

No attempt is here made to name or to list the species. Such a list would, for most people, be a dull catalogue of names, and many of them in Latin because there are no English equivalents. A few representative species are given. The red haw, though not the most abundant, is widely distributed, and is probably as well known as any. Its range extends from Newfoundland westward through southern Canada to the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains, thence south to Texas and Florida. It covers one-half of the United States. In the northern part of its range the red haw is confined to the slopes of low hills and along water courses, but south in the Appalachian mountains it grows at an elevation of several thousand feet.

It has various names in different regions. It is called scarlet haw, red haw, white thorn, scarlet thorn, scarlet-fruited thorn, red thorn, thorn, thorn bush, thorn apple, and hedge thorn. The fact is worthy of note that it is well known and is clearly recognized in every region where it grows, though various names are given it.

The red haw never reaches large size. In rare cases it may attain a height of thirty feet and a diameter of ten inches, but it is usually less than half that size. Where it grows in the open it develops a round crown. The branches are armed with chestnut-brown thorns from an inch to an inch and a half in length. The bright scarlet color of the fruit gives name to the tree. It ripens late in September or in October, and at that time the tree presents a beautiful appearance. The branches frequently remain laden with fruit after the leaves have fallen.