294 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



forming a broad open flat-topped head, and stout branchlets bright green, scabrate, 

 and coated with soft pale pubescence when tliey first appear, becoming light brown 

 by midsun)mer, often roughened by small pale lenticels, and in their first winter 

 ashy gray, orange color, or light red-brown, and marked by large elevated semiorbicu- 

 lar leaf-scars showing the ends of 3 conspicuous equidistant fibro-vascular bundles, 

 ultimately dark gray or brown. Winter-buds ovate, obtuse, ^' long, with' about 

 12 scales, the outer broadl}' ovate, rounded, dark chestnut-brown, and covered by 

 long scattered rusty hairs, the inner when fully grown ^' long, ^'-\' wide, light green, 

 strap-shaped, rounded and tij)ped 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, rail- 

 way-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 treament of acute febrile and inflammatory affections. 



Distribution. Banks of streams and low rich rocky hillsides in deep fertile soil; 

 comparatively common from the valley of the St. Lawrence River through Ontario 

 to north Dakota, eastern Nebraska, and northern and western Kansas, and south- 

 ward to western Florida, central Alabama and Mississippi, and the valley of the 

 San Antonio River, Texas. 



2. Flowers autumnal, appearing in the axils of leaves of the year. 



5. Ulmus crassifolia, Nutt. Cedar Elm. 



Leaves oblong-oval, acute or rounded at the apex, unequally rounded or wedge- 

 shaped and often oblique at the 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, l'-2' long, ^'-V wide, 



