36 Bulletin 73 



prove most interesting and most useful. A familiar acquaintance with the 

 common trees and other plants of the neighborhood, together with their 

 general characters and uses should be, and before long will be, an essential 

 part of the education of every school boy and school girl. 



Each should learn to recognize so many of the trees as occur commonly 

 in his vicinity by leaf, fruit or bark. Nor will this be found very difficult 

 if some study is given to the following pages. 



The use of technical botanical terms has been avoided. It is realized 

 that this has in some cases been attended by a loss of precision, but the 

 larger gains must outweigh such minor losses. In all cases the drawings 

 are intended to supplement the keys and descriptions. They were care- 

 fully made to scale, and the reduction from natural size is indicated by the 

 accompanying fraction. Thus white pine x j indicates that the illustration 

 shows the parts of this pine one-half natural size. 



It is highly desirable that there should be greater uniformity in the 

 popular use of plant names and especially of the names of trees. In order 

 to bring this about Mr. G. B. Sudworth recently prepared a list of the pre- 

 fei'red English names of the trees of the United States (U. S. Dept. Agr., 

 Div. Forestry, Bui. 17). The usage of this article is in accord with Sud- 

 worth' s recommendations and teachers are urged to follow it. Names, 

 other than the preferred one, which may be commonly used in the state 

 are included in parentheses. The Latin names are in general those of Sar- 

 gent's Sylva of North America. Where these differ essentially from those 

 of the botanical manuals in common use in the state the synonyms are 

 added. 



A practical difficulty was met in the deciding exactly what to include 

 under the name tree. Nature makes no sharp distinction between trees 

 and shrubs. Professor Sargent in the Sylva of North America considers as 

 trees all woody plants which grow up from the ground with a single stem, 

 excluding all such as habitually branch at the ground into a number of 

 stems. It did not seem expedient to follow exactly these lines in the pres- 

 ent publication. It may be useful, however, to add the names of the 

 species native to Vermont which are included as trees by Professor Sargent 

 in this Sylva, but which are not described in the following pages : 



The common juniper Juniperus communis ; four willows, Salix discolor, 

 S. rostrata, S- longifolia, S. lucida ; witch hazel, Hamamelis Virginiana ; two 

 sumachs, Rhus typhina and R. copallina ; flowering dogwood, Cornus florida ; 

 mountain laurel, Kalmia latifolia ; great rhododendron, Rhododendron maxi- 

 mum ; sheepberry, Viburnum lentago ; boar oak, quercus ilicifolia. 



Much help was received in the preparation of this article from Sargent's 

 Sylva of North America and from Emerson's Trees and Shrubs of Massachu- 

 setts. The first complete discussion of the occurrence and distribution of the 

 trees in the state is found in Oakes' list of Vermont plants, published in 



