Part 44

A tree, 60°—70° high, with a trunk occasionally 2° in diameter, spreading branches forming a broad open flat-topped head, and stout branchlets bright green, scabrate, and coated with soft pale pubescence when they first appear, becoming light brown by midsummer, often roughened by small pale lenticels, and in their first winter ashy gray, orange color or light red-brown, and marked by large elevated semiorbicular leaf-scars showing the ends of 3 conspicuous equidistant fibro-vascular bundles, ultimately dark gray or brown. Winter-buds ovoid, obtuse, ¼′ long, with about 12 scales, the outer broadly ovate, rounded, dark chestnut-brown, and covered by long scattered rusty hairs, the inner when fully grown ½′ long, ⅛′—¼′ wide, light green, strap-shaped, rounded and tipped at the apex with tufts of rusty hairs, puberulous on the outer surface, slightly ciliate on the margins, gradually growing narrower and passing into the stipules of the upper leaves. Bark frequently 1′ thick, dark brown tinged with red, divided by shallow fissures and covered by large thick appressed scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, very close-grained, durable, easy to split, dark brown or red, with thin lighter colored sapwood; largely used for fence-posts, railway-ties, the sills of buildings, the hubs of wheels, and in agricultural implements. The thick fragrant inner bark is mucilaginous and demulcent, and is employed in the treatment of acute febrile and inflammatory affections.

Distribution. Banks of streams and low rocky hillsides in deep rich soil; comparatively common in the valley of the St. Lawrence River, Province of Quebec, and through Ontario to northern and eastern South Dakota, northeastern and eastern Nebraska, southeastern Kansas, and Oklahoma to the valley of the Canadian River (McClain County), and southward to western Florida, central Alabama and Mississippi, western Louisiana and the valley of the upper Guadalupe (Kerr County) and Leon Rivers (Comal County), Texas; in the South Atlantic states not common and mostly confined to the middle districts, ascending to altitudes of 2000° on the southern Appalachian foothills.

5. Ulmus crassifolia Nutt. Cedar Elm.

Leaves elliptic to ovate, acute or rounded at apex, unequally rounded or cuneate and often oblique at base, coarsely and unequally doubly serrate with callous-tipped teeth, when they unfold thin, light green tinged with red, pilose above and covered below with soft pale pubescence, at maturity thick and subcoriaceous, dark green, lustrous and roughened by crowded minute sharp-pointed tubercles on the upper surface and soft pubescent on the lower surface, 1′—2′ long, ½′—1′ wide, with a stout yellow midrib, and prominent straight veins connected by conspicuous more or less reticulate cross veinlets; usually turning bright yellow late in the autumn; petioles stout, tomentose, ¼′—½′ in length; stipules ½′ long, linear-lanceolate, red and scarious above, clasping the stem by their green and hairy bases, deciduous when the leaves are about half grown. Flowers usually opening in August and sometimes also in October, on slender pedicels ⅓′—½′ long and covered with white hairs, in 3—5-flowered pedunculate fascicles; calyx divided to below the middle into oblong pointed lobes hairy at base; ovary hirsute, crowned with two short slightly exserted stigmas. Fruit ripening in September and rarely also in November, oblong, gradually and often irregularly narrowed from the middle to the ends, short-stalked, deeply notched at apex, ⅓′ to nearly ½′ long, covered with soft white hairs, most abundant on the slightly thickened margin of the broad wing; seed oblique, pointed, and covered by a dark chestnut-brown coat.

A tree, often 80° high, with a tall straight trunk 2°—3° in diameter, sometimes free of branches for 30° or 40°, divided into numerous stout spreading limbs forming a broad inversely conic round-topped head of long pendulous branches, or while young or on dry uplands a compact round head of drooping branches, and slender branchlets, tinged with red and coated with soft pale pubescence when they first appear, becoming light reddish brown, puberulous and marked by scattered minute lenticels and by small elevated semiorbicular leaf-scars showing the ends of 3 small fibro-vascular bundles, and furnished with 2 corky wings covered with lustrous brown bark, about ¼′ broad and continuous except when abruptly interrupted by lateral branchlets, or often irregularly developed. Winter-buds broadly ovoid, acute, ⅛′ long, with closely imbricated chestnut-brown scales slightly puberulous on the outer surface, those of the inner ranks at maturity oblong, concave, rounded at apex, thin, bright red, sometimes ¾′ long. Bark sometimes nearly 1′ thick, light brown slightly tinged with red, and deeply divided by interrupted fissures into broad flat ridges broken on the surface into thick scales. Wood heavy, hard, strong, brittle, light brown tinged with red, with thick lighter colored sapwood; in central Texas used in the manufacture of the hubs of wheels, for furniture, and largely for fencing.

Distribution. Valley of the Sunflower River, Mississippi (Morehead, Sunflower County), through southern Arkansas, and Texas to Nuevo Leon, ranging in western Texas from the coast to the valley of the Pecos River; in Arkansas usually on river cliffs and low hillsides, and in Texas near streams in deep alluvial soil and on dry limestone hills; the common Elm-tree of Texas and of its largest size on the bottom-lands of the Guadalupe and Trinity Rivers.

Occasionally planted as a shade-tree in the streets of the cities and towns of Texas.

6. Ulmus serotina Sarg. Red Elm.

Leaves oblong to oblong-obovate, acuminate, very oblique at base, coarsely and doubly crenulate-serrate, when they unfold coated below with shining white hairs and puberulous above, at maturity thin and firm in texture, yellow-green, glabrous and lustrous on the upper surface, pale and puberulous on the midrib and principal veins below, 2′—4′ long, 1′—1¾′ wide, with a prominent yellow midrib, about 20 pairs of primary veins extending obliquely to the points of the teeth and often forked near the margins of the leaf, and numerous reticular veinlets; turning clear orange-yellow in the autumn; petioles stout, about ¼′ in length; stipules abruptly narrowed from broad clasping bases, linear-lanceolate, usually about ¼′ long, persistent until the leaves are nearly fully grown. Flowers opening in September on slender conspicuously jointed pedicels often ⅛′ long, in many-flowered glabrous racemes from 1′—1½′ in length; calyx 6-parted to the base, with oblong-obovate red-brown divisions rounded at apex; ovary sessile, narrowed below, villose. Fruit ripening early in November, stipitate, oblong-elliptic, deeply divided at apex, fringed on the margins with long silvery white hairs, about ½′ long.

A tree, 50°—60° high, with a trunk 2°—3° in diameter, comparatively small spreading or pendulous branches often forming a broad handsome head, and slender pendulous branchlets glabrous or occasionally puberulous when they first appear, brown, lustrous, and marked by occasional oblong white lenticels during their first year, becoming darker the following season and ultimately dark gray-brown, and often furnished with 2 or 3 thick corky wings developed during their second or third years. Winter-buds ovoid, acute, ¼′ long, their outer scales oblong-obovate, dark chestnut-brown, glabrous, the inner often scarious on the margins, pale yellow-green, lustrous and sometimes ¾′ long when fully grown. Bark ¼′—⅜′ thick, light brown slightly tinged with red, and divided by shallow fissures into broad flat ridges broken on the surface into large thin closely appressed scales. Wood hard, close-grained, very strong and tough, light red-brown, with pale yellow sapwood.

Distribution. Limestone hills and river banks; rare and local; eastern (near Pikeville, Pike County) and southern Kentucky (Bowling Green, Warren County); banks of the Cumberland River, near Clarksville and Nashville, Tennessee; northeastern Georgia (cliffs of the Coosa River, near Rome, Floyd County); northern Alabama (Madison, Jefferson and Tuscaloosa Counties); valley of the Arkansas River (near Van Buren, Crawford County, _G. M. Brown_) and northwestern Arkansas (Sulphur Springs, Benton County, and Boston Mountains near Jasper, Newton County, _E. J. Palmer_); eastern Oklahoma (near Muskogee, Muskogee County, _B. H. Slavin_); southwestern (Grand Tower, Jackson County, _H. A. Gleason_) and southern Illinois (Richland County, _R. Ridgway_).

Occasionally planted as a shade-tree in the streets of cities in northern Georgia and northern Alabama; hardy in Eastern Massachusetts.

2. PLANERA Gmel.

A tree, with scaly puberulous branchlets roughened by scattered pale lenticels, and at the end of their first season by small nearly orbicular leaf-scars marked by a row of fibro-vascular bundle-scars, minute subglobose winter-buds covered by numerous thin closely imbricated chestnut-brown scales, the outer more or less scarious on the margins, the inner accrescent, becoming at maturity ovate-oblong, scarious, bright red, ⅓′—½′ long, marking in falling the base of the branchlet with pale ring-like scars. Leaves alternate, 2-ranked, ovate-oblong, acute or rounded at the narrowed apex, unequally cuneate or rounded at base, coarsely crenately serrate with unequal gland-tipped teeth, with numerous straight conspicuous veins forked near the margin and connected by cross reticulate veinlets more conspicuous below than above, when they unfold puberulous on the lower and pilose on the upper surface, at maturity thick or subcoriaceous and scabrate; petiolate with slender terete puberulous petioles; stipules lateral, free, ovate, scarious, bright red. Flowers polygamo-monœcious, the staminate fascicled in the axils of the outer scales of leaf-bearing buds, short-pedicellate, the pistillate or perfect on elongated puberulous pedicels in the axils of the leaves of the year in 1—3-flowered fascicles; pedicels without bracts; calyx campanulate, divided nearly to the base into 4 or 5 lobes rounded at apex, greenish yellow often tinged with red; stamens inserted under the ovary in the pistillate flower, sometimes few or 0; filaments filiform, erect, exserted; anthers broadly ovate, emarginate, cordate; ovary ovoid, stipitate, glandular-tuberculate, narrowed into a short style divided into 2 elongated reflexed stigmas papillo-stigmatic on the inner face, 0 in the staminate flower; ovule anatropous; micropyle extrorse, superior. Fruit an oblong oblique drupe, narrowed below into a short stipe, inclosed at the base by the withered calyx, crowned by the remnants of the style, its pericarp crustaceous, prominently ribbed on the anterior and posterior faces, irregularly tuberculate with elongated projections, and light chestnut-brown; seed ovoid, oblique, pointed at apex, rounded below, without albumen; testa thin, lustrous, dark brown or nearly black, of two coats; raphe inconspicuous; embryo erect; cotyledons thick, unequal, bright orange color, the apex of the larger hooded and slightly infolding the smaller, much longer than the minute radicle turned toward the linear pale hilum.

The genus is represented by a single species.

The generic name is in memory of Johann Jacob Planer, a German botanist and physician of the eighteenth century.

1. Planera aquatica Gmel. Water Elm.

Leaves 2′—2½′ long, ¾′—1′ wide, on petioles varying from ⅛′—¼′ in length, dark dull green on the upper surface, paler on the lower surface, with a yellow midrib and veins. Flowers appearing with the leaves. Fruit ripening in April, ⅓′ long.

A tree, 30°—40° high, with a short trunk rarely exceeding 20′ in diameter, rather slender spreading branches forming a low broad head, and branchlets brown tinged with red when they first appear, dark red in their first winter, and ultimately reddish brown or ashy gray. Bark about ¼′ thick, light brown or gray, separating into large scales disclosing in falling the red-brown inner bark. Wood light, soft, not strong, close-grained, light brown, with thick nearly white sapwood of 20—30 layers of annual growth.

Distribution. Swamps covered with water during several months of the year, or low river banks; valley of the Cape Fear River, North Carolina, southward to northern Florida (Bradford County) and westward usually not far from the coast through the Gulf states to the valleys of the Navasota (Brazos County) and of the Colorado (Matagorda County) Rivers, Texas, and northward through western Louisiana, eastern Oklahoma, and Arkansas to southeastern Missouri, northeastern Mississippi (near Iuka, Tishomingo County, _T. G. Harbison_), northern Kentucky (Henderson County), and the valley of the lower Wabash River, Illinois; comparatively rare and confined to the coast plain in the Atlantic states; abundant and of its largest size in western Louisiana and southern Arkansas.

3. CELTIS L.

Trees or shrubs, with thin, smooth often more or less muricate bark, unarmed or spinose branchlets, and scaly buds. Leaves serrate or entire, 3-nerved in one species, membranaceous or subcoriaceous, deciduous; stipules lateral, free, usually scarious, inclosing their leaf in the bud, caducous. Flowers polygamo-monœcious or rarely monœcious, appearing soon after the unfolding of the leaves, minute, pedicellate, on branches of the year, the staminate cymose or fascicled at their base, the pistillate solitary or in few-flowered fascicles from the axils of upper leaves; calyx divided nearly to the base into 4 or 5 lobes, greenish yellow, deciduous; stamens inserted on the margin of the discoid torus; filaments subulate, incurved in the bud, those of the sterile flower straightening themselves abruptly and becoming erect and exserted, shorter and remaining incurved in the perfect flower; anthers ovoid, attached on the back just above the emarginate base; ovary ovoid, sessile, green and lustrous, crowned with a short sessile style divided into diverging elongated reflexed acuminate entire lobes papillo-stigmatic on the inner face and mature before the anthers of the sterile flower, deciduous; minute and rudimentary in the staminate flower; ovule anatropous. Fruit an ovoid or globose drupe tipped with the remnants of the style, with thin flesh covered by a thick firm skin, and a thick-walled bony nutlet, reticulate-pitted in the American species. Seed filling the seminal cavity; albumen scanty, gelatinous, nearly inclosed between the folds of the cotyledons, or 0; testa membranaceous, of 2 confluent coats; chalaza colored, close to the minute hilum; embryo curved; cotyledons broad, foliaceous, conduplicate or rarely flat, variously folded, corrugate, incumbent, or inclosing the short superior ascending radicle.

Celtis is widely distributed through the temperate and tropical regions of the world, fifty or sixty species being distinguished.

Trees of the American species are often disfigured by gall-making insects which distort the buds and cause the production of dark broom-like clusters of short slender branchlets at the end of the branches.

_Celtis_ was the classical name of a species of Lotus.

CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES.

Fruit on pedicels much longer than the petioles. Leaves not covered below with conspicuous reticulate veinlets, green on both surfaces, smooth or rough above; fruit dark purple. 1. C. occidentalis. Leaves covered below with a network of prominent veinlets, usually rough above. Leaves pale on the lower surface. Leaves broadly ovate, obliquely rounded at base, coarsely serrate, glabrous or slightly pilose below along the midrib and veins; fruit light orange-brown, the pedicels often 3 or 4 times longer than the petioles. 2. C. Douglasii. Leaves oblong-ovate, mostly cordate or occasionally rounded at base, entire or slightly serrate toward the apex, covered below with pilose pubescence; fruit dark reddish brown, the pedicels usually not more than twice as long as the petioles. 3. C. Lindheimeri. Leaves green on the lower surface, broadly ovate, obliquely rounded at base, entire, pubescent along the midrib and veins below, rarely smooth on the upper surface; fruit dark orange-red, the pedicels usually not more than twice as long as the petioles. 4. C. reticulata. Fruit on pedicels shorter or only slightly longer than the petioles. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, long-acuminate, unsymmetrically cuneate at base, often falcate, entire or more or less serrate, smooth or rarely roughened on the upper surface; fruit orange color or yellow, the pedicels shorter or somewhat longer than the petioles. 5. C. laevigata. Leaves ovate-lanceolate, acute or acuminate, obliquely rounded at base, coarsely serrate or nearly entire, smooth or in var. _georgiana_ roughened on the upper surface; fruit dark orange red, the pedicels usually shorter than the petioles. 6. C. pumila.

1. Celtis occidentalis L. Hackberry. Sugarberry.

Leaves ovate, short-acuminate or acute at apex, obliquely rounded at base, sharply serrate often only above the middle, thin, slightly pubescent below on the slender midrib and veins early in the season, becoming glabrous or nearly glabrous, 2½′—3½′ long, 1½′—2′ wide; turning yellow late in the autumn; petioles slender, glabrous, ⅓′—½′ in length. Flowers on drooping pedicels; calyx divided usually into 5 linear acute thin and scarious lobes rounded on the back, more or less laciniately cut, and often furnished with a tuft of pale hairs at apex; torus hoary-tomentose. Fruit on stems ½′—¾′ long, ripening in September and October and often remaining on the branches during the winter, subglobose, ovoid or obovoid, dark purple, ⅓′ in diameter, with a thick tough skin, dark orange-colored flesh and a thick-walled oblong pointed light brown slightly rugose nutlet; seed pale brown.

A tree, rarely more than 40°—50° high with a trunk usually not more than 2° in diameter, spreading often pendulous branches forming a round-topped head, and slender ridged light brown glabrous branchlets marked by oblong pale lenticels, and by horizontal semioval or oblong leaf-scars showing the ends of three fibro-vascular bundles, becoming darker and in their second or third year often dark red-brown. Winter-buds ovoid, pointed, flattened, about ¼′ long, with three pairs of chestnut-brown ovate acute pubescent caducous scales closely imbricated in two ranks, increasing in size from without inward. Bark 1′—1½′ thick, smooth, dark brown, and more or less thickly covered and roughened by irregular, wart-like excrescences or by long ridges also found on the large branches. Wood heavy, rather soft, not strong, coarse-grained, clear light yellow, with thick lighter-colored sapwood; used for fencing and in the manufacture of cheap furniture.

Distribution. Rocky hills and ridges; New England (rare) to Virginia and westward to Iowa, eastern North Dakota, southwestern Missouri and northwestern Kansas.

Often planted in some of its forms as a shade and ornamental tree in the towns of the Mississippi valley and occasionally in the eastern states and in Europe.

Well distinguished by its large dark fruit, _Celtis occidentalis_ is so variable in the shape of its leaves that two principal varieties are described as follows:

Celtis occidentalis var. canina Sarg. Hackberry.

_Celtis canina_ Raf.

Leaves oblong-ovate, gradually narrowed into a long acuminate point, obliquely rounded or unsymmetrically cuneate at base, finely serrate, glabrous or rarely pilose along the midrib and veins below, 2½′—6′ long and ¾′—2½′ wide; petioles slender, glabrous or rarely pubescent, ½′—¾′ long.

A tree, often 80°—100° high; more common than the other forms of _Celtis occidentalis_.

Distribution. Rich wooded slopes and bottoms, or eastward on rocky ridges; Province of Quebec to eastern Nebraska, and southward to the coast of Massachusetts, western New York, southern Ohio, southern Indiana and Illinois, southwestern Missouri, southwestern Oklahoma (Snyder, Kiowa County), and in northwestern Georgia.

Celtis occidentalis var. crassifolia A. Gray. Hackberry.

_Celtis crassifolia_ Lam.

Leaves thicker, long-acuminate, obliquely rounded at base, usually more coarsely serrate, rarely nearly entire, rough on the upper surface, pilose below along the prominent midrib and veins, 3½′—5′ long, 2′—2½′ wide, much smaller in the Rocky Mountain region; petioles villose-pubescent, rarely glabrous, ¼′—½′ in length, much shorter than the pubescent pedicels of the fruit.

A tree, 100°—120° high; with pubescent or glabrous branchlets; rarely shrubby. The most widely distributed form of _Celtis occidentalis_.

Distribution. Wooded slopes and rich bottoms; Virginia and along the Appalachian Mountains to North Carolina and westward to southern Minnesota, Missouri, central Kansas, eastern and northwestern Oklahoma, central Nebraska, North and South Dakota, cañons of the Big Horn Mountains, Wyoming, and northwestern Idaho, and southward to Dallas County, Alabama, and eastern Texas.

Often cultivated in towns of the Mississippi Valley and in western Europe, and occasionally in the eastern states.

2. Celtis Douglasii Plan. Hackberry.

_Celtis rugulosa_ Rydb.

Leaves broadly ovate to oblong-ovate, acuminate, obliquely rounded or unsymmetrically subcordate at base, coarsely serrate, rough on the upper surface, pale and covered below with a network of reticulate veinlets inconspicuous early in the season, later becoming prominent, glabrous or sparingly pilose along the under side of the stout midrib and primary veins, 2′—2½′ long, 1′—2′ wide; petioles stout, slightly pubescent, ¼′—½′ in length. Flowers on slender pubescent pedicels; calyx divided into five linear acute scarious lobes laciniately cut at apex; torus hoary-tomentose. Fruit on slender drooping slightly pubescent or glabrous pedicels, ⅓′—½′ in length, subglobose to ellipsoid, light orange-brown, lustrous, ⅓′ in diameter.

A small tree or shrub rarely more than 20′ high, with slender slightly pubescent or glabrous red-brown branchlets marked by small pale lenticels, becoming ashy gray in their second or third year. Bark rough, red-brown or gray.

Distribution. Dry hillsides and rocky river banks; eastern Oregon from the valley of the Deschutes and Columbia Rivers to the cañon of Snake River, Whitman County, Washington, and to Big Willow Creek, Cañon County, western Idaho; on the western foothills of the Wasatch Mountains, in the cañon of Grand River, and in Diamond Valley, Utah; southern California, near Independence, Inyo County, Hackberry Cañon, Kern County, and Things Valley at base of Laguna Mountain, near Campo, southern San Diego County; on Cedros Island, and in northern Lower California; rim of the Grand Cañon, Arizona, and on the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

Occasionally planted in the towns of western Washington, and when cultivated said to grow in good soil into a larger and more shapely tree with thinner leaves.

3. Celtis Lindheimeri K. Koch. Palo Blanco.

_Celtis Helleri_ Small.