220 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



"In Scotland, the leaves of that alder have been used to tan 

 leather and as food for sheep, and in France as winter food for 

 cattle. Ulcers have been healed by them, and a decoction has 

 been found efficacious in the cure of sore throats. The bark, 

 which is astringent, is used by fishermen to stain their nets ; 

 with copperas it forms a black dye, and, when concentrated, an 

 ink ; and it is used by the Laplanders to stain their shoes, gir- 

 dles, and other articles of skin." — Flora Lond'mensis, Art. Alnus. 



" The bark on the young wood, and the wood itself, is used for 

 tanning, and the young shoots to die red, yellow and green." — 

 Loudon. 



Sp. 2. The Speckled Aldek. A. incana. Willdenow. 

 The leaf of the glaucous variety is figured in Michaux, II, Plate 75, figure 2. 



This alder is found in every part of Massachusetts, and in 

 Maine and New Hampshire. 



The recent shoots and fruit-stalks are brown and downy, 

 dotted with orange dots. They gradually become of an ashen 

 or grayish brown where exposed to light, and on the larger 

 branches and trunk, in the shade, the bark is of a reddish or 

 bottle-green color, speckled with conspicuous light gray dots, 

 whence its common name of speckled alder. The stem is 

 usually eight or ten feet high and from one to three inches in 

 diameter, but it is sometimes much larger and higher, — twenty 

 feet high and five or six inches in diameter. 



The leaves are from three to five inches long and two to four 

 inches wide, broad oval, rounded or somewhat cordate at base, 

 pointed at the end, doubly serrate or denticulate-serrate, (each of 

 the larger veins usually forming a tooth with several serratures 

 between,) smooth and conspicuously impressed at the veins and 

 veinlets above ; of a soft coriaceous texture ; covered with abund- 

 ant, soft, often ferruginous pubescence beneath, with the veins 

 and veinlets strikingly prominent. The opening leaves are very 

 downy. The footstalk stout, half an inch long, and downy. 

 Stipules lanceolate, downy, as long as the footstalk, soon falling. 



The speckled alder is easily distinguished by the brilliant, 

 polished, reddish green color of its stem-bark, and the size, reg- 

 ularity, impressed reticulations and the downy under surface of 



