Part 43

× _Quercus Sargentii_ Rehd., believed to be a hybrid of _Quercus montana_ and the European _Q. Robur_ L., has been growing for nearly a hundred years at what is now Holm Lea, Brookline, Norfolk County, Massachusetts.

54. Quercus Muehlenbergii Engelm. Yellow Oak. Chestnut Oak.

_Quercus acuminata_ Sarg.

Leaves usually crowded at the ends of the branches, oblong-lanceolate to broadly obovate, acute or acuminate with a long narrow or with a short broad point, abruptly or gradually narrowed and cuneate or slightly narrowed and rounded or cordate at base, equally serrate with acute and often incurved or broad and rounded teeth tipped with small glandular mucros, or rarely slightly undulate, when they unfold bright bronzy green and puberulous above, tinged with purple and coated below with pale tomentum, at maturity thick and firm, light yellow-green on the upper surface, pale often silvery white and covered with short fine pubescence on the lower surface, 4′—7′ long, 1′—5′ wide, with a stout yellow midrib and conspicuous primary veins running to the points of the teeth; turning in the autumn orange color and scarlet; petioles slender ¾′—1½′ in length. Flowers: staminate in pilose aments 3′—4′ long; calyx light yellow, hairy, deeply divided into 5 or 6 lanceolate ciliate segments; pistillate sessile or in short spikes coated like their involucral scales with thick white tomentum; stigmas bright red. Fruit sessile or raised on a short stout peduncle, solitary or often in pairs; nut broadly ovoid, narrowed and rounded at apex, ½′ to nearly 1′ long, light chestnut-brown, inclosed for about half its length in a thin cup-shaped light brown cup pubescent on the inner, hoary-tomentose on the outer surface, and covered by small obtuse scales more or less thickened and rounded on the back toward the base of the cup, the small free red-brown tips of the upper ranks forming a minute fringe-like border to its rim; seed sweet and sometimes edible.

A tree, 80°—100°, occasionally 160° high, with a tall straight trunk 3°—4° in diameter above the broad and often buttressed base, comparatively small branches forming a narrow shapely round-topped head, and slender branchlets, green more or less tinged with red or purple, pilose when they first appear, light orange color or reddish brown during their first winter, and ultimately gray or brown; east of the Alleghany Mountains and on dry hills often not more than 20°—30° tall. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, ⅛′—¼′ long, with chestnut-brown scales white and scarious on the margins. Bark rarely ½′ thick, broken on the surface into thin loose silvery white scales sometimes slightly tinged with brown. Wood heavy, very hard, strong, close-grained, durable, with thin light-colored sapwood; largely used in cooperage, for wheels, fencing, and railway-ties.

Distribution. Gardner’s Island, Lake Champlain, Vermont, western Massachusetts and Connecticut, near Newberg, Orange County, New York, westward through New York, southern Ontario and southern Michigan to northern Iowa, southeastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, and Oklahoma to the valley of the Washita River (Garvin County) and to the Devil’s Cañon near Hinton (Caddo County), and southward in the Atlantic states to the District of Columbia, eastern Virginia; sparingly on the eastern foothills of the Blue Ridge in North and South Carolina at altitudes between 1000° and 2000°; in central Tennessee and Kentucky, central and northeastern Georgia, western Florida, and through the Gulf states to the valley of the Guadalupe River, Texas; on the Guadalupe Mountains, Texas, and on the Capitan Mountains, New Mexico (Lincoln County); rare and comparatively local in the Atlantic states, usually on limestone soil; very abundant in the Mississippi basin, growing on ridges, dry flinty hills, deep rich bottom-lands and the rocky banks of streams; probably of its largest size on the lower Wabash River and its tributaries in southern Indiana and Illinois; on the Edwards Plateau (Kemble, Kerr, Uvalde, Bandera and Real Counties), Texas, a form occurs with nuts sometimes 1¼′ long with deeper cups up to 1′ in diameter (var. _Brayi_ Sarg.).

Section 2. Flowers unisexual (_usually perfect in Ulmus_); calyx regular; stamens as many as its lobes and opposite them; ovary superior, 1-celled (_rarely 2-celled in Ulmus_); seed 1.

XI. ULMACEÆ.

Trees, with watery juice, scaly buds, terete branchlets prolonged by an upper lateral bud, and alternate simple serrate pinnately veined deciduous stalked 2-ranked leaves unequal and often oblique at base, conduplicate in the bud, their stipules usually fugaceous. Flowers perfect or monœciously polygamous, clustered, or the pistillate sometimes solitary; calyx 4—9-parted or lobed; stamens 4—6; filaments straight; anthers introrse, 2-celled, opening longitudinally; ovary usually 1-celled; ovule solitary, suspended from the apex of the cell, anatropous or amphitropous; styles 2. Fruit a samara, nut, or drupe; albumen little or none; embryo straight or curved; cotyledons usually flat or conduplicate. Five of the thirteen genera of the Elm family occur in North America. Of these four are represented by trees.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT GENERA.

Fruit a dry samara, or nut-like. Flowers perfect; fruit a samara. 1. Ulmus. Flowers polygamo-monœcious; fruit nut-like, tuberculate. 2. Planera. Fruit drupaceous. Pistillate flowers usually solitary. 3. Celtis. Pistillate flowers in dichotomous cymes. 4. Trema.

1. ULMUS L. Elm.

Trees, or rarely shrubs, with deeply furrowed bark, branchlets often furnished with corky wings, and buds with numerous ovate rounded chestnut-brown scales closely imbricated in two ranks, increasing in size from without inward, the inner accrescent, replacing the stipules of the first leaves, deciduous, marking the base of the branchlet with persistent ring-like scars. Leaves simply or doubly serrate; stipules linear, lanceolate to obovate, entire, free or connate at base, scarious, inclosing the leaf in the bud, caducous. Flowers from axillary buds near the ends of the branches similar to but larger than the leaf-buds, the outer scales sterile, the inner bearing flowers and rarely leaves. Flowers perfect, jointed on slender bibracteolate pedicels from the axils of linear acute scarious bracts, in pedunculate or subsessile fascicles or cymes sometimes becoming racemose, appearing in early spring before the leaves in the axils of those of the previous year, or autumnal in the axils of leaves of the year; calyx campanulate, 5—9-lobed, membranaceous, marcescent; stamens 5 or 6 inserted under the ovary; filaments filiform or slightly flattened, erect in the bud, becoming exserted; anthers oblong, emarginate, and subcordate; ovary sessile or stipitate, compressed, crowned by a simple deeply 2-lobed style, the spreading lobes papillo-stigmatic on the inner face, usually 1-celled by abortion, rarely 2-celled; ovule amphitropous; micropyle extrorse, superior. Fruit an ovoid or oblong, often oblique, sessile or stipitate samara surrounded at base by the remnants of the calyx, the seminal cavity compressed, slightly thickened on the margin, chartaceous, produced into a thin reticulate-venulose membranaceous light brown broad or rarely narrow wing naked or ciliate on the margin, tipped with the remnants of the persistent style, or more or less deeply notched at apex, and often marked by the thickened line of the union of the two carpels. Seed ovoid, compressed, without albumen, marked on the ventral edge by the thin raphe; testa membranaceous, light or dark chestnut-brown, of two coats, rarely produced into a narrow wing; embryo erect; cotyledons flat or slightly convex, much longer than the superior radicle turned toward the oblong linear pale hilum.

Ulmus, with eighteen or twenty species, is widely distributed through the boreal and temperate regions of the northern hemisphere with the exception of western North America, reaching in the New World the mountains of southern Mexico and in the Old World the Sikkim Himalaya, western China, and Japan. Of the exotic species, _Ulmus procera_ Salisb., the so-called English Elm, and _Ulmus glabra_, Huds., the Scotch Elm, and several of its varieties, have been largely planted for shade and ornament in the north Atlantic states, where old and large specimens of the former can be seen, especially in the neighborhood of Boston.

Ulmus produces heavy, hard, tough, light-colored wood, often difficult to split. The tough inner bark of some of the species is made into ropes or woven into coarse cloth, and in northern China nourishing mucilaginous food is prepared from the inner bark.

_Ulmus_ is the classical name of the Elm-tree.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.

Flowers vernal, appearing before the leaves. Flowers on slender drooping pedicels; fruit ciliate on the margins. Wing of the fruit broad. Bud-scales and fruit glabrous; branchlets destitute of corky wings; leaves obovate-oblong to elliptic, usually smooth on the upper, soft-pubescent on the lower surface. 1. U. americana (A, C). Bud-scales puberulous; branches often furnished with corky wings; fruit hirsute; leaves obovate to oblong, smooth on the upper, soft-pubescent on the lower surface. 2. U. racemosa (A). Wing of the fruit narrow; bud-scales glabrous or slightly puberulous; branchlets usually furnished with broad corky wings; fruit hirsute, leaves ovate-oblong to oblong-lanceolate, smooth on the upper, soft-pubescent on the lower surface. 3. U. alata (A, C). Flowers on short pedicels; fruit naked on the margins; bud-scales coated with rusty hairs; fruit pubescent; leaves ovate-oblong, scabrous on the upper, pubescent on the lower surface. 4. U. fulva (A, C). Flowers autumnal, appearing in the axils of leaves of the year; branchlets furnished with corky wings; fruit hirsute. Bud-scales puberulous; flowers on short pedicels; leaves ovate, scabrous on the upper, soft-pubescent on the lower surface. 5. U. crassifolia (C). Bud-scales glabrous; flowers on long pedicels; leaves oblong to oblong-obovate, acuminate, glabrous on the upper, pale and puberulous on the lower surface. 6. U. serotina (C).

1. Ulmus americana L. White Elm.

Leaves obovate-oblong to elliptic, abruptly narrowed at apex into a long point, full and rounded at base on one side and shorter and cuneate on the other, coarsely doubly serrate with slightly incurved teeth, when they unfold coated below with pale pubescence and pilose above with long scattered white hairs, at maturity 4′—6′ long, 1′—3′ wide, dark green and glabrous or scabrate above, pale and soft-pubescent or sometimes glabrous below, with a narrow pale midrib and numerous slender straight primary veins running to the points of the teeth and connected by fine cross veinlets; turning bright clear yellow in the autumn before falling; petioles stout, ¼′ in length; stipules linear-lanceolate, ½′—2′ long. Flowers on long slender drooping pedicels sometimes 1′ in length, in 3 or 4-flowered short-stalked fascicles; calyx irregularly divided into 7—9 rounded lobes ciliate on the margins, often somewhat oblique, puberulous on the outer surface, green tinged with red above the middle; anthers bright red; ovary light green, ciliate on the margins with long white hairs; styles light green. Fruit on long pedicels in crowded clusters, ripening as the leaves unfold, ovoid to obovoid-oblong, slightly stipitate, conspicuously reticulate-venulose, ½′ long, ciliate on the margins, the sharp points of the wings incurved and inclosing the deep notch.

A tree, sometimes 100°—120° high, with a tall trunk 6°—11° in diameter, frequently enlarged at the base by great buttresses, occasionally rising with a straight undivided shaft to the height of 60°—80° and separating into short spreading branches, more commonly divided 30°—40° from the ground into numerous upright limbs gradually spreading and forming an inversely conic round-topped head of long graceful branches, often 100° or rarely 150° in diameter, and slender branchlets frequently fringing the trunk and its principal divisions, light green and coated at first with soft pale pubescence, becoming in their first winter light reddish brown, glabrous or sometimes puberulous and marked by scattered pale lenticels, and by large elevated semiorbicular leaf-scars showing the ends of three large equidistant fibro-vascular bundles, later becoming dark reddish brown and finally ashy gray. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, slightly flattened, about ⅛′ long, with broadly ovate rounded light chestnut-brown glabrous scales, the inner bright green, ovate, acute, becoming on vigorous shoots often nearly 1′ in length. Bark 1′—1½′ thick, ashy gray, divided by deep fissures into broad ridges separating on the surface into thin appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, tough, difficult to split, coarse-grained, light brown, with thick somewhat lighter colored sapwood; largely used for the hubs of wheels, saddle-trees, in flooring and cooperage, and in boat and shipbuilding.

Distribution. River-bottom lands, intervales, low rich hills, and the banks of streams; southern Newfoundland to the northern shores of Lake Superior and the headwaters of the Saskatchewan, southward to the neighborhood of Lake Istokpoga, De Soto County, Florida, westward in the United States to the Turtle Mountains of North Dakota, the Black Hills of South Dakota, western Nebraska, central Kansas and Oklahoma, and the valley of the upper Colorado River (Fort Chadbourne, Coke County), Texas; very common northward, less abundant and of smaller size southward; abundant on the banks of streams flowing through the midcontinental plateau.

Largely planted as an ornamental and shade tree in the northern states, and rarely in western and northern Europe.

2. Ulmus racemosa Thomas. Rock Elm. Cork Elm.

_Ulmus Thomasii_ Sarg.

Leaves obovate to oblong-oval, rather abruptly narrowed at apex into a short broad point, equally or somewhat unequally rounded, cuneate or subcordate at base, and coarsely doubly serrate, when they unfold pilose on the upper surface and covered on the lower with soft white hairs, at maturity 2′—2½′ long, ¾′—1′ wide, thick and firm, smooth, dark green and lustrous above, paler and soft-pubescent below, especially on the stout midrib and the numerous straight veins running to the point of the teeth and connected by obscure cross veinlets; turning in the autumn bright clear yellow; petioles pubescent, about ¼′ in length; stipules ovate-lanceolate, conspicuously veined, light green, marked with dark red on the margins above the middle, ⅔′ long, clasping the stem by their abruptly enlarged cordate base conspicuously dentate with 1—3 prominent teeth on each side, falling when the leaves are half grown. Flowers on elongated slender drooping pedicels often ½′ long, in 2—4, usually in 3-flowered, puberulous cymes becoming more or less racemose by the lengthening of the axis of the inflorescence, and when fully grown sometimes 2′ in length; calyx green, divided nearly to the middle into 7 or 8 rounded dark red scarious lobes; anthers dark purple; ovary coated with long pale hairs most abundant on the margins; styles light green. Fruit ripening when the leaves are about half grown, ovoid or obovoid-oblong, ½′ long, with a shallow open notch at the apex, obscurely veined, pale pubescent, ciliate on the slightly thickened border of the broad wing, the margin of the seminal cavity scarcely thickened.

A tree, 80°—100° high, with a trunk occasionally 3° in diameter, and often free of branches for 60°, short stout spreading branches forming a narrow round-topped head, and slender rigid branchlets, light brown when they first appear, and coated with soft pale pubescence often persistent until their second season, becoming light reddish brown, puberulous or glabrous and lustrous in their first winter, and marked by scattered oblong lenticels and large orbicular or semiorbicular leaf-scars displaying an irregular row of 4—6 fibro-vascular bundle-scars, ultimately dark brown or ashy gray, and usually furnished with 3 or 4 thick corky irregular wings often ½′ broad, and beginning to appear in their first or more often during their second year. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, ¼′ long, with broadly ovate rounded chestnut-brown scales pilose on the outer surface, ciliate on the margins, the inner scales becoming ovate-oblong to lanceolate, and ½′ long, often dentate at the base, with 1 or 2 minute teeth on each side, bright green below the middle, marked with a red blotch above, and white and scarious at the apex. Bark ¾′—1′ thick, gray tinged with red, and deeply divided by wide irregular interrupted fissures into broad flat ridges broken on the surface into large irregularly shaped scales. Wood heavy, hard, very strong and tough, close-grained, light clear brown often tinged with red, with thick lighter colored sapwood; largely employed in the manufacture of many agricultural implements, for the framework of chairs, hubs of wheels, railway-ties, the sills of buildings, and other purposes demanding toughness, solidity and flexibility.

Distribution. Dry gravelly uplands, low heavy clay soils, rocky slopes and river cliffs; Province of Quebec westward through Ontario, the southern peninsula of Michigan and central Wisconsin to northeastern Nebraska, western Missouri and eastern Kansas, and southward to northern New Hampshire, southern Vermont, western New York, (valley of the Genesee River), northern New Jersey, southern Ohio (near Columbus, Franklin County), and central Indiana; rare in the east and toward the extreme western and southern limits of its range.

Occasionally planted as a shade and ornamental tree in the northern states.

3. Ulmus alata Michx. Wahoo. Winged Elm.

Leaves ovate-oblong to oblong-lanceolate, often somewhat falcate, acute or acuminate, unequally cuneate or rounded or subcordate at base, and coarsely doubly serrate with incurved teeth, when they unfold pale green often tinged with red, coated on the lower surface with soft white pubescence and glabrous or nearly so on the upper surface, at maturity thick and firm or subcoriaceous, dark green and smooth above, pale and soft-pubescent below, especially on the stout yellow midrib and numerous straight prominent veins often forked near the margins of the leaf and connected by rather conspicuous reticulate veinlets; turning yellow in the autumn; their petioles stout, pubescent, ⅓′ in length; stipules linear-obovate, thin and scarious, tinged with red above the middle, often nearly 1′ long. Flowers on drooping pedicels, in short few-flowered fascicles; calyx glabrous and divided nearly to the middle into 5 broad ovate rounded lobes as long as the hoary-tomentose ovary raised on a short slender stipe. Fruit ripening before or with the unfolding of the leaves, oblong, ⅓′ in length, contracted at base into a long slender stalk, gradually narrowed and tipped at apex with long incurved awns, and covered with long white hairs most numerous on the thickened margin of the narrow wing; seed ovoid, pointed, ⅛′ long, pale, chestnut-brown, slightly thickened into a narrow wing-like margin.

A tree, occasionally 80°—100° but usually not more than 40°—50° high, with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter, short stout straight or erect branches forming a narrow oblong rather open round-topped head, and slender branchlets glabrous or puberulous and light green tinged with red when they first appear, becoming light reddish brown or ashy gray and glabrous, or on vigorous individuals frequently pilose in their first winter, marked by occasional small orange-colored lenticels and by small elevated horizontal semiorbicular leaf-scars, sometimes naked, more often furnished with usually 2 thin corky wings beginning to grow during their first or more often during their second season, abruptly arrested at the nodes, often ½′ wide, and persistent for many years. Winter-buds slender, acute, ⅛′ long, dark chestnut-brown, with glabrous or puberulous scales, those of the inner ranks becoming oblong or obovate, rounded and tipped with a minute mucro, thin and scarious, light red, especially above the middle, and ½′ long. Bark rarely exceeding ¼′ in thickness, light brown tinged with red, and divided by irregular shallow fissures into flat ridges covered by small closely appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, not strong, close-grained, difficult to split, light brown, with thick lighter colored sapwood; sometimes employed for the hubs of wheels and the handles of tools. Ropes used for fastening the covers of cotton bales are sometimes made from the inner bark.

Distribution. Usually on dry gravelly uplands, less commonly in alluvial soil on the borders of swamps and the banks of streams, and occasionally in inundated swamps; southeastern Virginia, southwestern Indiana, southern Illinois (Richland and Johnson Counties) and southern Missouri, and southward to central Florida (Lake County), and the valley of the Guadalupe River, Texas; ranging westward in Oklahoma to Garfield County (near Kingfisher, _G. W. Stevens_).

Often planted as a shade-tree in the streets of towns and villages of the southern states.

4. Ulmus fulva Michx. Slippery Elm. Red Elm.

Leaves ovate-oblong, abruptly contracted into a long slender point, rounded at base on one side and short-oblique on the other, and coarsely doubly serrate with incurved callous-tipped teeth, when they unfold thin, coated below with pale pubescence, pilose above with scattered white hairs, at maturity thick and firm, dark green and rugose with crowded sharp-pointed tubercles pointing toward the apex of the leaf above, soft, smooth, and coated below, especially on the thin midrib and in the axils of the slender straight veins with white hairs, 5′—7′ long, 2′—3′ wide; turning a dull yellow color in the autumn; petioles stout, pubescent, ⅓′ in length; stipules obovate-oblong to oblong-lanceolate, thin and scarious, pale-pubescent, and tipped with clusters of rusty brown hairs. Flowers on short pedicels, in crowded fascicles; calyx green, covered with pale hairs, divided into 5—9 short rounded thin equal lobes; stamens with slender light yellow slightly flattened filaments and dark red anthers; stigmas slightly exserted, reddish purple, papillose with soft white hairs. Fruit ripening when the leaves are about half grown, semiorbicular, rounded and bearing the remnants of the styles or slightly emarginate at apex, rounded or cuneate at base, ½′ broad, the seminal cavity coated with thick rusty brown tomentum, the broad thin wing obscurely reticulate-veined, naked on the thickened margin, and marked by the dark conspicuous horizontal line of union of the two carpels; seed ovoid, with a large oblique pale hilum, a light chestnut-brown coat produced into a thin border wider below than above the middle of the seed.