Part 32

A tree, sometimes 40° high, with a trunk 7′—8′ in diameter, short small nearly horizontal branches forming a narrow crown, and slender slightly zigzag branchlets puberulous and very glandular when they first appear, bright orange-brown and lustrous and marked by numerous large pale lenticels during their first season, much roughened during their second year by the elevated crowded leaf-scars, becoming light gray. Winter-buds acuminate, dark purple, covered especially toward the apex with close fine pubescence, about ½′ long. Bark thin bluish gray, with bright red inner bark; often a shrub only a few feet tall spreading into broad thickets.

Distribution. Northwest coast from the borders of the Arctic Circle to the high mountains of northern California; common in the valley of the Yukon and eastward through British Columbia to Alberta, and through Washington and Oregon to the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains in Montana; at the north with dwarf Willows, forming great thickets; in southeastern Alaska often a tall tree on rich moist bottom-lands near the mouths of mountain streams, and at the upper limits of tree growth a low shrub; very abundant in the valley of the Yukon on the wet banks of streams and often arborescent in habit; in British Columbia and the United States generally smaller and a shrub, growing usually only at altitudes of more than 3000° above the sea, and often forming thickets on the banks of streams and lakes.

2. Alnus rubra Bong. Alder.

_Alnus oregona_ Nutt.

Leaves ovate to elliptic, acute, abruptly or gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, crenately lobed, dentate with minute gland-tipped teeth, and slightly revolute on the margins, covered when they unfold with pale tomentum, at maturity thick dark green and glabrous or pilose with scattered white hairs above, clothed below with short rusty pubescence, 3′—5′ long, 1¾′—3′ wide, or on vigorous branchlets sometimes 8′—10′ long, with a broad midrib and primary veins green on the upper side and orange-colored on the lower, the primary veins running obliquely to the points of the lobes and connected by conspicuous slightly reticulate cross veinlets; petioles orange-colored, nearly terete, slightly grooved, ¼′—¾′ in length; stipules ovate, acute, pale green flushed with red, tomentose, ⅛′—¼′ long. Flowers: staminate aments in red-stemmed clusters, during the winter 1¼′ long, ⅛′ thick, with dark red-brown lustrous closely appressed scales, becoming 4′—6′ long and ¼′ thick, with ovate acute orange-colored glabrous scales; calyx yellow, with ovate rounded lobes rather shorter than the 4 stamens; pistillate aments in short racemes usually inclosed during the winter in buds formed during the early summer and opening in the early spring, ⅓′—½′ long, about 1/16′ thick, with dark red acute scales; styles bright red. Fruit: strobiles raised on stout orange-colored peduncles sometimes ½′ in length, ovoid or oblong, ½′—1′ long, ⅓′—½′ thick, with truncate scales much thickened toward the apex; nut orbicular to obovoid, surrounded by a membranaceous wing.

A tree, usually 40°—50°, occasionally 90° high, with a trunk sometimes 3° in diameter, slender somewhat pendulous branches forming a narrow pyramidal head, and slender branchlets marked by minute scattered pale lenticels, light green and coated at first with hoary tomentum sometimes persistent until their second year, becoming during the first winter bright red and lustrous and ultimately ashy gray. Winter-buds about ⅓′ long, dark red, covered with pale scurfy pubescence. Bark rarely more than ¾′ thick, close, roughened by minute wart-like excrescences, pale gray or nearly white, with a thin outer layer, and bright red-brown inner bark. Wood light, soft, brittle, not strong, close-grained, light brown tinged with red, with thick nearly white sapwood; in Washington and Oregon largely used in the manufacture of furniture and for smoking salmon; by the Indians of Alaska the trunks are hollowed into canoes.

Distribution. Shores of Yakutat Bay, southeastern Alaska, southward near the coast to the cañons of the Santa Inez Mountains, Santa Barbara County, California; common along the banks of streams, and of its largest size near the shores of Puget Sound; in California most abundant in Mendocino, Humboldt and Marin Counties, forming groves on bottom-lands near the coast; often ranging inland for 20 or 30 miles, and occasionally ascending to altitudes of 2000° above the sea.

3. Alnus tenuifolia Nutt. Alder.

Leaves ovate-oblong, acute or acuminate, broad and rounded or cordate or occasionally abruptly narrowed and cuneate at base, usually acutely laciniately lobed and doubly serrate, when they unfold light green often tinged with red, pilose on the upper surface and coated on the lower with pale tomentum, at maturity thin and firm, dark green and glabrous above, pale yellow-green and glabrous or puberulous below, 2′—4′ long, 1½′—2½′ wide, with a stout orange-colored midrib impressed on the upper side, and slender primary veins running to the points of the lobes; petioles stout, slightly grooved, orange-colored, ½′—1′ in length; stipules ovate, acute, thin, and scarious, ½′ long, about ⅛′ wide, covered with pale pubescence. Flowers: staminate aments 3 or 4 in number in slender-stemmed racemes, nearly sessile or raised on stout peduncles often ½′ long, during the winter light purple, ¾′—1′ long and ¼′ thick, becoming 1½′—2′ in length; calyx-lobes rounded, shorter than the 4 stamens; pistillate aments naked during the winter, dark red-brown, nearly ¼′ long, with acute apiculate loosely imbricated scales, only slightly enlarged when the flowers open. Fruit: strobiles obovoid-oblong, ⅓′—½′ long, their scales much thickened, truncate and 3-lobed at apex; nut nearly circular to slightly obovoid, surrounded by a thin membranaceous border.

A tree, occasionally 30° tall, with a trunk 6′—8′ in diameter, small spreading slightly pendulous branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and slender branchlets marked at first by a few large orange-colored lenticels and coated with fine pale or rusty caducous pubescence, becoming light brown or ashy gray more or less deeply flushed with red in their first winter and ultimately paler; more often shrubby, with several spreading stems, and at the north and at high altitudes frequently only 4°—5° tall. Winter-buds ¼′—⅓′ long, bright red, and puberulous. Bark rarely more than ¼′ thick, bright red-brown and broken on the surface into small closely appressed scales.

Distribution. Banks of streams and mountain cañons from Francis Lake in latitude 61° north to the valley of the lower Fraser River, British Columbia, eastward along the Saskatchewan to Prince Albert, and southward through the Rocky Mountains to northern New Mexico; on the Sierra Nevada of southern California, and in Lower California; the common Alder of mountain streams in the northern interior region of the continent; very abundant on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains, and on the southern California Sierras; forming great thickets at 6000°—7000° above the sea along the headwaters of the rivers of southern California flowing to the Pacific Ocean; the common Alder of eastern Washington and Oregon, and of Idaho and Montana; very abundant and of its largest size in Colorado and northern New Mexico.

4. Alnus rhombifolia Nutt. White Alder. Alder.

Leaves ovate or oval or sometimes nearly orbicular, rounded or acute at apex, especially on vigorous shoots, gradually or abruptly narrowed and cuneate at base, finely or sometimes coarsely and occasionally doubly serrate, slightly thickened and reflexed on the somewhat undulate margins, when they unfold pale green and covered with deciduous matted white hairs, at maturity dark green and lustrous on the upper surface, frequently marked, especially on the midrib, with minute glandular dots, light yellow-green and slightly puberulous below, 2′—3′ long, 1½′—2′ wide, with a stout yellow midrib and primary veins; petioles slender, yellow, hairy, flattened and grooved on the upper side, ½′—¾′ long; stipules ovate, acute, scarious, puberulous, about ¼′ in length. Flowers: staminate aments in slender-stemmed pubescent clusters, usually short-stalked, during the summer dark olive-brown and lustrous, ¾′—1′ long and about 1/16′ thick, beginning to lengthen late in the autumn before the leaves fall, fully grown and 4′—6′ long and ¼′ thick in January, with dark orange-brown scales, and deciduous in February before the appearance of the new leaves; calyx yellow, 4-lobed, rather shorter than the 2 or occasionally 3 or rarely single stamen; pistillate aments in short pubescent racemes emerging from the bud in December, their scales broadly ovate and rounded. Fruit: strobiles oblong, ⅓′—½′ long, with thin scales slightly thickened and lobed at apex, fully grown at midsummer, remaining closed until the trees flower the following year; nut broadly ovoid, with a thin margin.

A tree, frequently 70°—80° high, with a tall straight trunk 2°—3° in diameter, long slender branches pendulous at the ends, forming a wide round-topped open head, and slender branchlets marked by small scattered lenticels, at first light green and coated with pale caducous pubescence, soon becoming dark orange-red and glabrous, and darker during the winter and following summer. Winter-buds nearly ½′ long, very slender, dark red, and covered with pale scurfy pubescence. Bark on old trunks 1′ thick, dark brown, irregularly divided into flat often connected ridges broken into oblong plates covered with small closely appressed scales. Wood light, soft, not strong, brittle, close-grained, light brown, with thick lighter colored often nearly white sapwood.

Distribution. Banks of streams from northern Idaho to the eastern slope of the Cascade Mountains of Washington and southeastern Oregon, and southward from the valley of the Willamette River, Oregon (near Salem, Marion County, _J. C. Nelson_) over the coast ranges and along the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada to the mountains of southern California (San Bernardino, San Jacinto, and Cuyamaca Ranges); the common Alder of the valleys of central California, occasionally ascending on the southern Sierra Nevada to altitudes of 8000°, and the only species at low altitudes in the southern part of the state.

5. Alnus oblongifolia Torr. Alder.

_Alnus acuminata_ Sarg., not H. B. K.

Leaves oblong-lanceolate, acute; or rarely obovate and rounded at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, sharply and usually doubly serrate, more or less thickly covered, especially early in the season, with black glands, dark yellow-green and glabrous or slightly puberulous above, pale and glabrous or puberulous below, especially along the slender yellow midrib and veins, with small tufts of rusty hairs in the axils of the primary veins, 2′—3′ long, about 1½′ wide; petioles slender, grooved, pubescent, ¾′ long; stipules ovate-lanceolate, brown and scarious, about ¼′ in length. Flowers: staminate aments in short stout-stemmed racemes, during the winter light yellow, ½′—¾′ long and about 1/16′ thick, becoming when the flowers open at the end of February before the appearance of the leaves 2′—2½′ in length, with ovate pointed dark orange-brown scales; calyx 4-lobed; stamens 3 or occasionally 2, with pale red anthers soon becoming light yellow; pistillate aments naked during the winter, ⅛′ to nearly ¼′ long, with light brown ovate rounded scales; stigmas bright red. Fruit: strobiles ½′—1′ long, with thin scales slightly thickened and nearly truncate at apex; nut broadly ovoid, with a narrow membranaceous border.

A tree, in the United States rarely more than 20°—30° high, with a trunk sometimes 8′ in diameter, long slender spreading branches forming an open round-topped head, and slender branchlets slightly puberulous when they first appear, light orange-red and lustrous during their first winter, and marked by small conspicuous pale lenticels, becoming in their second year dark red-brown or gray tinged with red and much roughened by the elevated leaf-scars. Winter-buds acute, red, lustrous, glabrous, ½′ long. Bark thin, smooth, light brown tinged with red.

Distribution. Banks of streams in cañons of the mountains of southern New Mexico and Arizona at altitudes of 4000°—6000° above the sea; in Oak Creek Cañon near Flagstaff, northern Arizona (tree 100° × 3°, _P. Lowell_); and on the mountains of northern Mexico.

6. Alnus maritima Nutt. Alder.

Leaves oblong-ovate, or obovate, acute, acuminate or rounded at apex, gradually narrowed and cuneate at base, remotely serrate with minute incurved glandular teeth, and somewhat thickened on the slightly undulate margins, when they unfold, light green tinged with red, hairy on the midrib, veins, and petioles, and coated above with pale scurfy pubescence, at maturity dark green, very lustrous, and covered below by minute pale glandular dots, 3′—4′ long, 1½′—2′ wide, with a stout yellow midrib and primary veins prominent and glandular on the upper side and slightly puberulous below; petioles stout, yellow, glandular, flattened and grooved on the upper side, ½′—¾′ in length; stipules oblong, acute, about ⅛′ long, dark reddish brown, caducous. Flowers opening in the autumn: aments appearing in July on branches of the year and fully grown in August or early in September; staminate in short scurfy-pubescent glandular-pitted racemes on slender peduncles sometimes 1′ in length from the axils of upper leaves, covered at first with ovate acute dark green very lustrous scales slightly ciliate on the margins and furnished at apex with minute red points, at maturity 1½′—2½′ long, ¼′ to nearly ½′ thick, with dark orange-brown scales raised on slender stalks, and 4 bright orange-colored stamens; pistillate usually solitary from the axils of the lower leaves on stout pubescent peduncles, bright red at apex and light green below before opening, with ovate acute scales slightly ciliate on the margins, about ⅛′ long when the styles protrude from between the scales, beginning to enlarge the following spring. Fruit attaining full size at midsummer and then raised on a stout peduncle, broadly ovoid, rounded and depressed at base, gradually narrowed to the rather obtuse apex, about ⅝′ long and ½′ broad, with thin lustrous scales slightly thickened and crenately lobed at apex, turning dark reddish brown or nearly black and opening late in the autumn and remaining on the branches until after the flowers open the following year; nut oblong-obovoid, gradually narrowed and apiculate at apex, with a thin membranaceous border.

A tree, occasionally 30° high, with a tall straight trunk 4′—5′ in diameter, small spreading branches forming a narrow round-topped head, slender slightly zigzag branchlets, light green and hairy at first, pale yellow-green, very lustrous, slightly puberulous, marked with occasional small orange-colored lenticels, and glandular with minute dark glandular dots during their first summer, becoming dull light orange or reddish brown in the winter, and ashy gray often slightly tinged with red the following season; more often shrubby, with numerous slender spreading stems 15°—20° tall. Winter-buds acute, dark red, coated with pale lustrous scurfy pubescence, about ¼′ long. Bark ⅛′ thick, smooth, light brown or brown tinged with gray. Wood light, soft, close-grained, light brown, with thick hardly distinguishable sapwood.

Distribution. Banks of streams and ponds in southern Delaware and Maryland, and in south central Oklahoma (Johnson and Bryan Counties).

Occasionally cultivated as an ornamental tree in the eastern states and hardy as far north as Massachusetts.

X. FAGACEÆ.

Trees, with watery juice, slender terete branchlets marked by numerous usually pale lenticels, alternate stalked penniveined leaves, and narrow mostly deciduous stipules. Flowers monœcious, the staminate in unisexual heads or aments, composed of a 4—8-lobed calyx, and 4 or 8 stamens, with free simple filaments and introrse 2-celled anthers, the cells parallel and contiguous, opening longitudinally; the pistillate solitary or clustered, in terminal unisexual or bisexual spikes or heads, subtended by an involucre of imbricated bracts becoming woody and partly or entirely inclosing the fruit, and composed of a 4—8-lobed calyx adnate to the 3—7-celled ovary with as many styles as its cells and 1 or 2 pendulous anatropous or semianatropous ovules in each cell. Fruit a nut 1-seeded by abortion, the outer coat cartilaginous, the inner membranaceous or bony. Seed filling the cavity of the nut, without albumen; seed-coat membranaceous; cotyledons fleshy, including the minute superior radicle; hilum, basal, minute.

The six genera of this widely distributed family occur in North America with the exception of Nothofagus, separated from Fagus to receive the Beech-trees of the southern hemisphere.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN GENERA.

Staminate flowers fascicled in globose-stalked heads; the pistillate in 2—4-flowered clusters. 1. Fagus. Staminate flowers in slender aments. Pistillate flowers in 2—5-flowered clusters below the staminate, in bisexual aments. Nut inclosed in a prickly burr. Leaves deciduous; ovary 6-celled; nut maturing in one season; branchlets lengthening by an upper axillary bud; bud-scales 4. 2. Castanea. Leaves persistent; ovary 3-celled; nut maturing at the end of the second season; branchlets lengthening by a terminal bud; bud-scales numerous. 3. Castanopsis. Nut inclosed only partly in a shallow cup covered by slender recurved scales united only at the base, free above. 4. Lithocarpus. Pistillate flowers solitary, in few-flowered unisexual spikes; nut more or less inclosed in a cup covered by thin or thickened scales, closely appressed or often free toward its rim. 5. Quercus.

1. FAGUS L. Beech.

Trees, with smooth pale bark, hard close-grained wood, and elongated acute bright chestnut-brown buds, their inner scales accrescent and marking the base of the branchlets with persistent ring-like scars. Leaves convex and plicate along the veins in the bud, thick and firm, deciduous; petioles short, nearly terete, in falling leaving small elevated semioval leaf-scars, with marginal rows of minute fibro-vascular bundle-scars; stipules linear-lanceolate, infolding the leaf in the bud. Flowers vernal after the unfolding of the leaves; staminate short-pedicellate, in globose many-flowered heads on long drooping bibracteolate stems at base of shoots of the year or from the axils of their lowest leaves, and composed of a subcampanulate 4—8-lobed calyx, the lobes imbricated in æstivation, ovate and rounded, and 8—16 stamens inserted on the base of and longer than the calyx, with slender filaments and oblong green anthers; pistillate in 2—4-flowered stalked clusters in the axils of upper leaves of the year, surrounded by numerous awl-shaped hairy bracts, the outer bright red, longer than the flowers, deciduous, the inner shorter and united below into a 4-lobed involucre becoming at maturity woody, ovoid, thick-walled, and covered by stout recurved prickles, inclosing or partly inclosing the usually 3 nuts, and ultimately separating into 4 valves; calyx urn-shaped, villose, divided into 4 or 5 linear-lanceolate acute lobes, its 3-angled tube adnate to the 3-celled ovary surmounted by 3 slender recurved pilose styles green and stigmatic toward the apex and longer than the involucre; ovules 2 in each cell. Nut ovoid, unequally 3-angled, acute or winged at the angles, concave and longitudinally ridged on the sides, chestnut-brown and lustrous, tipped with the remnants of the styles, marked at the base by a small triangular scar, with a thin shell covered on the inner surface with rufous tomentum. Seed dark chestnut-brown, suspended with the abortive ovules from the tip of the hairy dissepiment of the ovary pushed by the growth of the seed into one of the angles of the nut; cotyledons sweet, oily, plano-convex.

Fagus as here limited is confined to the northern hemisphere, with a single American species and seven Old World species; of these one is widely distributed through Europe, another is found in the Caucasus, and the others are confined to eastern temperate Asia. Of exotic species, the European _Fagus sylvatica_ L., an important timber-tree, is frequently planted for ornament in the eastern states in several of its forms, especially those with purple leaves, and with pendulous branches. The wood of Fagus is hard and close-grained. The sweet seeds are a favorite food of swine, and yield a valuable oil.

_Fagus_ is the classical name of the Beech-tree.

1. Fagus grandifolia Ehrh. Beech.

_Fagus americana_ Sweet.

Leaves remote at the ends of the branches and clustered on short lateral branchlets, oblong-ovate, acuminate with a long slender point, coarsely serrate with spreading or incurved triangular teeth except at the gradually narrowed generally cuneate base, when they unfold pale green and clothed on the lower surface and margins with long pale lustrous silky hairs, at maturity dull dark bluish green above, light yellow-green, very lustrous, and glabrous or rarely pilose below (f. _pubescens_ Fern. & Rehd.) with tufts of long pale hairs in the axils of the veins, 2½′—5′ long, 1′—3′ wide, with a slender yellow midrib covered above with short pale hairs, and slender primary veins running obliquely to the points of the teeth; turning bright clear yellow in the autumn; very rarely deeply laciniate; petioles hairy, ¼′—½′ length; stipules ovate-lanceolate on the lower leaves, strap-shaped to linear-lanceolate on the upper, brown or often red below the middle, membranaceous, lustrous, 1′—1½′ long. Flowers opening when the leaves are about one third grown; staminate in globose heads 1′ in diameter, on slender hairy peduncles about 2′ long; pistillate in usually 2-flowered clusters, on short clavate hoary peduncles ½′—¾′ long. Fruit: involucres ½′—¾′ in length often shorter than the nuts, on stout hairy club-shaped peduncles ¼′—¾′ long, fully grown at midsummer, and then puberulous, dark orange-green, and covered by long slender recurved prickles red above the middle, becoming at maturity in the autumn light brown and tomentose, with crowded much recurved pubescent prickles, persistent on the branch after opening late into the winter; nut about ¾′ long.