SOME TREES YOU MAY KNOW. 275 



Its leaves are flat, but when they fall off they leave a rough twig, and 

 there are no sacks of pitch in the bark. 



The CEDARS have very small, scale-shaped leaves, differing greatly 

 from those of pines, spruces, firs or hemlocks. Many people who look at 

 the cedars do not look closely enough to see the myriads of minute leaves 

 that completely cover the twigs, and it will surprise many a reader of 

 this article when he takes his first close look at these trees. There are 

 two principal kinds of cedars grown in Nebraska and popularly dis- 

 tinguished as White and Red Cedar, 



1. Leaves in 4 rows; flat: cones oblong and woody, nearly half an 



inch long Arbor Vitae or White Cedar {Thuya occidentalism 



2. Leaves in 3 rows, rounded dorsally; cones round, berry-like, fleshy, 



about one-fourth of an inch in diameter. 



Red Cedar {Jxmiperus virginiana) 



Here I may put a couple of relatives of the foregoing evergreens, that 

 drop their leaves in the fall, and so are not "evergreen" in the strict 

 sense of the term. In a few places in the state people have been able to 

 grow the larch (often called tamarack). All summer long it looks 

 much like a cross between a pine and a spruce, and has needle-shaped 

 leaves, an inch or so long, but when fall comes all drop off and leave the 

 twigs bare. If you look closely you will find that on the new shoots the 

 leaves stand one in a place, as they do in spruces, while on older shoots 

 they are in clusters of a dozen or two as though trying to imitate the 

 pines. If you can find the cones you may be able to distinguish two 

 kinds of larches, as follows: 



1. Cones small, less than an inch long. .American Larch (Larix laricina) 



2. Cones large, more than an inch long. .European Larch {Larix decidua) 



Have you seen the ginkgo tree? It is a distant relative of the pines 

 that have been brought from Japan, and is grown successfully in some 

 places in eastern Nebraska. Its leaves are shaped like a three-cornered 

 fan and are a couple of inches broad at the widest part. The veins run 

 from the bottom up to the wide margin. It will interest you to know 

 that Ginkgo trees were once abundant in many places in the world, but 

 in geologic times all perished except this species that grows in Japan, so 

 that now we are restocking the world from this Japanese remnant. 



Deciduous Trees. 



The trees with deciduous leaves may be distinguished in a general 

 way by the following outline key. When you use it always start at the 

 top and work down, being careful to verify each step, making no guesses, 

 nor skipping any point. 



A. Leaves opposite, that is two or three at the same joint of the twig. 



1. Leaves in threes, large, heart-shaped Catalpas {Catalpa) 



We have two or three kinds of catalpa trees growing in our 

 parks, but it takes an expert to distinguish them. 



2. Leaves in twos, large, divided into 5 or 9 radiating leaflets. 



Horsechestnuts {Aesculus) 



