64 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



It is never a large tree, but grows tall and slender, frequently reacli- 

 iug 100 feet in height, though seldom over 2 feet in diameter, and with 

 a rather scant top. One tree, cut expressly for measurement, was 109 

 feet in length, 76 feet to the first limb, and only 20 inches in diameter 

 across the stump. The largest trunk was that of a tree growing in a 

 door-yard, and possibly a cultivated specimen. It was 8 feet in circum- 

 ference, but ramified at about 4 feet from the ground into several up- 

 right branches. The top was dense and symmetrical, the summit ele- 

 vated about 80 feet. 



17. (GQ.) Gleditschia monosperma. Water Locust. 



An abundant species in the cypress swamps in the lower part of Knox 

 County, Indiana, where it grows along with the Large-leafed Cottonwood 

 {Populus hef€roj)hylla), White Ash {Fraximts amerieana), Black Willow 

 {Salix nigra), and other swamp trees. It is a very much smaller tree 

 than G. triacanthos and of quite different appearance, having a smooth- 

 ish, dull-gray bark (much like that of the Hackberry, Celtis), and very 

 crooked, scraggy growth. The largest specimen measured was 7 feet 

 in circumference and 65 feet in height. 



18. (67.) Gleditschia triacanthos. Honey Locust. 



When growing to its full perfection, the Honey Locust is one of the 

 most majestic trees of the forest in whicli it is native. Many trees 

 occur which are 120 to nearly 140 feet high, with straight trunks of 50 to 

 70 feet clear, and 1 to 5, occasionally even 6, feet in diameter. There are 

 none of onr trees, excepting only the Bald Cypress and Catalpa, which 

 have a more thoroughly characteristic appearance, its tall, straight, but 

 usually inclined trunk of a dark iron-gray or nearly black color being 

 much darker than any other species, and thus easily identified at a con- 

 siderable distance, while the extremely delicate foliage renders its top 

 equally conspicuous by its contrast with the adjacent tree tops. The 

 Honey Locust usually, like very many other trees, occurs singly 

 throughout the richer woods, but it is occasionally multiplied so as to 

 torm the prevailing growth. It was found thus multiplied over an area 

 of a hundred acres or more in the AVhite Elver bottoms of Gibson 

 County, Indiana, where the trees of this species constituted more than 

 half the forest, and averaged 2 to 3 feet in diameter and 100 feet high, 

 with occasional specimens of considerably larger size. 



The fiuest tree of this species which I have ever seen was an isolated 

 oue standing near the roadside in Posey County, Indiana. It was tall 

 and straight, with a widely- spread, symmetrical top, the trunk measur- 

 ing 18 feet in circumference at a yard from the ground, and about 60 

 feet to the first limbs. It was apparently sound throughout, and was 

 not less than 120 feet high. 



