10 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



AMERICAN FOREST TREES. 



-Britton. 



Silverbell-Tree. 

 Mohrod carolinum (Linn.) 



HaU sin tetraptera — Kills. 



The range of growth of this tree is from 

 the mountains of West Virginia to southern 

 Illinoi-. BOtith to middle Florida, northern 

 Alabama (Lauderdale, Cullman and Talladega 

 counties) and Mississippi, and through Ar- 

 kansas and western Louisiana to 

 eastern Texas. Under cultivation, 

 tins tree is known as the snowdrop 

 tree in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania 

 North Carolina, South Carolina. 

 Florida and Louisiana. In Rhode 

 Island, under cultivation, it is also 

 sometimes known as the silverbell- 

 ii.'. and bears the same name in 

 Alabama, Florida and Mississippi. 

 In parts of Tennessee it is known 

 as tin wild olive tree, and in other 

 tate as the belltree. 

 In various localities in Alabama it 

 is referred to as the four-winged 

 halesia; and in olliers as opossum- 

 wood. It is indiscriminately known 

 in various sections of Texas as the 

 rattleboi and calicowood. 



i >nh in Blount, Sevier and Mon- 



..on' os. Tennessee, in the 



highest ranges of the tireat Smoky 

 mountains -so far as the writer 



know in- gilverbell-tree at- 



tain any si..- or grow in sufficient 

 profusion -., make it of commi 

 value. There the tree bears a v.i 



riety of names: tisswood, pea« I, 



liellwo.nl and ehittamwood. 



The silver',' li tree or, as it is i om 

 nionlv known under cultivation, the 

 tour-wine.', | snowdrop i ree, is of t he 

 -torax family. In shape the head 

 is narrow and the branches 

 In height it ranees from a shrub to 

 more than loo feet. Its time of 

 bloom is March and April. The 

 brarn a reddish brown and 



ridged. The leaves are simple mil 

 alternate, with slender petioles; 

 ovate or oblong, with pointed apex, 

 and rounded or wedge-shaped base; 

 slightly serrate; bright green and 

 glabrous above; slightly pubescent 

 underneath; thin. The flowers grow- 

 in loo - oping i Insiei-s along 

 the branches, and appear with or 

 before the leaves. The calyx is 

 short OOthed. The corolla 



is camp: late and Eoui parted. There are 



eight to sixteen stamens; one pistil; the seed 

 vessels are long and oblong; four winged, and 

 conspicuously tipped with the remnant of the 

 style. 



: cultivation the tree, or more correctly 

 speaking shrub, is employed purely for orna- 

 mental purposes, and is found as far north 

 Rhode Nlaii'l and Pennsylvania, In its 



FIFTEENTH PAPER. 



natural state, it attains a sufficient size of 

 growth to render it valuable as a material for 

 lumber or veneers only in the lower Appalach- 

 ian range. The typical specimen of the sil- 

 verbell-tree of the Great Smoky mountains 

 herewith pictured, is forty-four inches in di- 

 ameter and sixty-five feet to the first limb, 

 and is typical of fully 30,000,000 feet of tim- 



TYPICAL GROWTH SILVERBELL TREE, FOREST LIT 

 RIVEB LUMBER COMPANY, TOWNSEND, TENN. 



I mi that abounds in the 93,000 acre forest of 

 the Little River Lumber Company of Town 

 send. Teiin. The silvcrboll t roe is little known 

 even to the lumbermen of the section in which 

 it attains a commercial size, and is practically 

 unknown to nearly all lumbermen throughout 

 the country. 



Charles S Sargent, professoi of arboricul- 

 ture at Harvard university, in his work on the 



forest trees of North America, which formed 

 such an important part of the report of the 

 tenth census, has only this to say concerning 

 the wood, which he botanizes as Halesia 

 >, traptera: 



"It grows from the mountains of West 

 Virginia to southern Illinois, and south to 

 middle Florida, central Alabama and Missis 

 sippi; through Arkansas to western 

 Louisiana and eastern Texas. It is 

 from ten to fifteen meters high, with 

 a trunk six-tenths of a meter in 

 size— a tall shrub. It is found along 

 streams in rich soil, and has its 

 greatest development in the southern 

 Appalachian range. It is common 

 in cultivation. The wood is light, 

 soft, close-grained and compact, 

 with medullary rays numerous but 

 thin; color, light brown; sapwood 

 lighter. Its specific gravity is 

 0.5628; slightly heavier than ash." 

 Alice Lounsberry, in her "Guide 

 to the Trees," a work which ordi- 

 narily contains considerable accurate 

 and interesting information concern- 

 ing American forest growth, has 

 "iily this short paragraph, devoted 

 largely to the leaves and flowers of 

 I he 1 n i- 



'•So few leaves- and flowers are 

 to be seen when these fair snow- 

 drops cover the tree that one is al- 

 io. .si inclined to look upon them with 

 suspicion and to wonder whether in 

 spite of their unsullied freshness 

 they have been desirous of taking a 

 peep at the earth before it was fully 

 clothed. But whatever may have 

 been their motives, it is truly a joy 

 to have them come forth so early in 

 the season and to feel that the back 

 of father Winter is broken. When 

 hung with them the tree is a most 

 pleasing sight. Often we then stop 

 and wonder to find it among the 

 hickories and buckeyes: it would 

 seem as though it should find the 

 company of the magnolias and cher- 

 ry trees more congenial. On moist, 



w led slopes, in woods or near the 



banks of streams it grows, and it 

 is hardy as far northward as east 

 era Massachusetts. It then, how- 

 ever, becomes a shrub." 



The foregoing from Sargent and 

 Lounsberry is practically all that is 

 contained within American forest literature 

 concerning the silverbell-tree. While commer- 

 cially it is a tree that is very exclusive in its 

 range of growth, yet in the Great Smoky 

 mountains, where it stands intermingled with 

 poplar, red oak, holly, sassafras, hickory, 

 cherry, cucumber, birch, chestnut, basswood, 

 ash, soft maple, hemlock and white pine, it 

 constitutes an important element of the forest 



TLB 



