III. 2. THE HOP HORNBEAM. 177 



II F. 2. THE HOP HORNBEAM. OSTRYA. L. 



To this genus belong low trees or shrubs of the temperate 

 zones in both hemispheres. The sterile flowers are in cylindri- 

 cal, pendent aments ; the fertile, in short, slender aments, which, 

 when mature, have a striking resemblance to a hop, and are 

 made up of inflated sacks containing a brown nut. There are 

 few species, of which one is a native of the south of Europe, 

 and one only, of this country. 



The American Hop Hornbeam. O. Virginica. Willdenow. 



Figured in Michaux ; Sylva, Plate 109 ; in Abbott's Insects, II, Plate 76 ; and 

 poorly in Audubon's Birds, Plate 40. 



The hop hornbeam is a handsome, small, slender tree, easily 

 distinguished when in fruit by the resemblance of its spike of 

 seed-vessels to a hop. The leaves are similar to those of the 

 black birch and of the hornbeam, from the former of which 

 they may be distinguished by the absence of the chequer-berry 

 taste, and from the latter, by being more elliptical. The twigs 

 are distinguished from both by their extreme toughness. The 

 bark on the trunk is dark grayish, and is remarkable for being 

 divided into very fine portions, three or four inches long, easily 

 scaling off, narrower than the divisions on any other rongh- 

 barked tree, and continuing to become finer and narrower as 

 the tree grows older. 



The branches are rather small, long and slender, and make 

 a large angle with the stem, forming an open head. The bark 

 on the younger ones is smooth, and of a reddish copper or 

 bronze or dark purplish brown color, like the cherry tree, dotted 

 with white or gray. These dots lengthen horizontally, as on 

 the bark of the birch, and the smoothness and deep color con- 

 tinue till the branch or stem is two or three inches thick, when 

 the bark begins to crack and become grayish. 



The recent shoots are very slender, of a reddish green dotted 

 with brown ; the older shoots are small and tapering, giving, 

 with the leaves expanding in the same plane, great softness of 

 appearance to one of the toughest trunks of the woods. 

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