82 Flora of the Western States. [February, 



green leaf appears. Numerous wild plums, and wild crabs also, with 

 flowers of varying shades of whiteness, perfume the gay forests in spring. 

 Nor must we omit to mention the buff-colored clusteis of the buckeye,"' 

 nor the glorious tulips of the liriodendron. 



As we remarked in our former article, this tree is highly character- 

 istic of the Western forests, and foremost in value for lumber. A single 

 tree, of the largest dimensions, might yield thirty thousand feet of inch 

 boards, easily wrought, but inferior to pine for durability. But this is 

 by no means the ouly tree of stately dimensions, and of real value. 

 Yonder stands a forest giant, with a straight and cylindrical trunk sixty 

 feet in hight without a branch, and there surmounted by a leafy summit 

 of an oval outline, rising some forty feet higher. The pinnated leaves 

 constitute a light, pale green foliage, among which are concealed, in 

 spring, strings of small, green flowers. AYe might despise these 

 unsightly things but for the drupaceous fruit which follows — large, 

 round, oily nuts. Then, how beautiful the wood ! Scarcely inferior to 

 the mahogany of Yucatan. Of a fine chocolate brown in its native state, 

 black-walnutf asks no coloring, but polish only, when wrought into some 

 of the most costly furniture in the parlors of the rich. This noble tree 

 ivas universally abundant here, but, like meaner trees, it has been reck- 

 lessly sacrificed to clear the way for corn, and desecrated, as it were, 

 from the higher uses to which its beauty entitles it, to the common pur- 

 poses of fuel or rail fence. But now, let the woodman forbear, for the 

 time is approaching when every black-walnut tree will be a treasure to 

 its possessor. 



The oaks and hickories constitute the commoners of our forests, often 

 to the exclusion of nearly every other genus. Indeed, there are exten- 

 sive regions peopled by oaks alone. But as if, in these oak forests, to 

 compensate the want of variety in genera, the sj^ecies are multi})lied to 

 such a degree that the botanist still finds scope for his most active and 

 interested observation. Besides the red | and the white § oak, well known 

 also to the New Englander, we have the huge and stately black oak,|l 

 looking as sturdy as Atlas, able to sustain a world upon its shoulders. 

 The pin oak,-"'' whose dead limbs, projecting from its trunk, li]cen it to 

 a ladder, with its light and open foliage ; the iron oak,-j"j- with cross- 

 shaped (hardly stillatc), leaves ; the black-jack, with dark green, massy 

 foliage, are also among our characteristic species. But the fiiirest among 

 the oaks as an ornamental tree, is the laurel oak, called also shingle oak,j| 



*'jEscu1us flava. f Juglans nigra. | Quercus rubra. § Q. alba. || Q. Unctoria. 

 '^'•' Q. palustris. ft Q- stellata. |J Q. imbricaria, 



