VIII. 1. THE BALM OF GILEAD. 245 



southward, somewhat abundantly, through the New England 

 States, and as far as West Chester County, in Pennsylvania. 



Sp. 3. The Balm of Gilead. P. cdndicans. Aiton. 



Leaf figured by Michaux, Sylva, II, Plate 98 ; and by Audubon, Birds, I, 



Plate 79. 



A handsome tree, attaining sometimes the height of sixty or 

 seventy feet, and usually, when full grown, fifty or sixty, even 

 on the poorest soils. It grows readily and rapidly every where, 

 and makes a tolerably sized tree sooner and more surely than 

 almost any other. It has hence been planted and is still found 

 growing, as an ornamental tree, in many situations where it is ex- 

 tremely difficult to make the other forest trees grow. The recent 

 shoots are stout and large, of a deep green, with long gray dots, 

 smooth and uniform above, ridged with strong ridges below the 

 leaves, and striate with light green towards the base. The 

 small trunks and branches are of a dark grayish green, of the 

 shade called French green, with occasional blotches of a darker 

 color; the stalk, on old trees, rough, with long, narrow clefts, 

 and often ridged with large, projecting ridges above the prin- 

 cipal roots. In moist situations, yellow and red lichens and 

 green mosses fill the cavities and invest the bark of the trunk. 



The leaves are very large, on footstalks less compressed than 

 in most poplars, and often somewhat hairy above, ovate, round, 

 or somewhat heart-shaped at base, acuminate, obtusely and 

 unequally hooked, serrate quite to the footstalk, somewhat three- 

 nerved, dark green, polished and shining on the upper surface, 

 whitish and with the veins reticulate beneath. Buds and sti- 

 pules very gummy. The branches are not angled. 



It throws its roots to a very great distance just beneath, and 

 in some instances far beneath the surface. In one instance, I 

 knew the roots to pass beneath and throw up suckers on the 

 other side of a house forty feet wide. 



This tree is desirable near habitations, on account of its agree- 

 able fragrance in spring, but the abundant cotton of the female 

 aments. and the appearance of the aments themselves, not unlike 

 a large caterpillar, on the ground, constitute an objection. A 



