218 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



Sp. 1. The Common Alder. A. serrulata. Willdenow. 



Figured in Michaux, Sylva, II, Plate 75, a leaf which is found, but is not 

 characteristic of the species. Faithfully represented in Abbott's Insects of 

 Georgia, II, Plate 92, with the American Alder Dagger Moth, whose cater- 

 pillar feeds on the leaves. 



The common alder is a shrub or small tree, abounding along 

 brooks and in swamps, rarely erect, but bending upwards. The 

 branches are flexuose; when young, smooth or sometimes downy, 

 and dotted with gray or orange oblong dots, brownish green, 

 becoming afterwards a grayish or even a dark bottle green, 

 with the dots longer and horizontal, and often sprinkled with 

 a grayish dust, and here and there a thin lichen. 



The leaves are alternate, on short, dotted, scaly footstalks, 

 oval or obovate, rounded or somewhat acute or wedge-shaped 

 at base, rounded or with a blunt point at the extremity, irregu- 

 larly and slightly serrate, smooth and shining, with resinous 

 dots, which on the young leaves are glutinous ; they are some- 

 times sprinkled with white scales, and impressed at the veins 

 above; on the under surface they are paler and shining, with 

 the larger veins prominent, and with the veins downy while 

 young, but at last nearly smooth, and with a tuft of down 

 at the axils. They are coriaceous in texture, and from two 

 and a half to four and a half inches long, and one and a half 

 to three inches broad. The stipules form a purse enclosing the 

 unexpanded leaf. They are yellowish green, coriaceous, broad- 

 oval, rounded, half as long as the footstalk or more, falling off 

 when two or three leaves above are expanded. 



The flowers of the alder are among the earliest harbingers of 

 spring. The aments, which had begun to appear towards the 

 latter end of summer, had been perfectly formed before the close 

 of autumn, and had so remained, unprotected, during winter, 

 feel the first warmth, and expand early in April or even in the 

 last days of March. The aments of the male flowers are from 

 one to three inches long, beautiful tassels of purple and gold, 

 in clusters of three, four, or five together, on short, branching, 

 terminal footstalks. They are composed of a central stem or 

 rachis, to which are attached brown or purple, heart-shaped or 



