228 THE MOUNTAIN. 



cial feature to its foliage, it bears a superb flower, as rich and 

 varied almost, in its tints and style, as the tulip of the gar- 

 dens. " Erect as a sunbeam" its stem sometimes shoots into a 

 splendid shaft, almost a hundred feet in height without a 

 limb, and then branches into a kingly diadem, or veritable 

 CROWN of leaves and flowers. This shape has been frequently 

 described already as peculiar to the trees growing in deep 

 forests. In the tulip-tree it is perhaps the most striking 

 of all. As its enormous trunk, fluted by a deeply-grooved 

 bark of a silver-gray color, carries an almost unaltering thick- 

 ness throughout its entire height, the imagination requires 

 no assistance to behold its mass of verdure and beauty grow- 

 ing from the summit of some majestic marble column " on 

 Grecian wold." It is one of the valuable lumber-trees of 

 the mountain. 



TiLiA Americana. — This is the linden or bass-wood, 

 "lime-tree," and "white wood," a beautiful and noble tree, 

 attaining to over 100 feet in height. In deep groves it 

 has also the characteristic form of mountain trees, that is, 

 with tall, straight, branchless stem, terminating in a mass of 

 boughs, spray, and leaves, which, together with its smooth^ 

 graceful trunk covered by white finely-ribbed bark, presents 

 one of the most striking and beautiful denizens of the woods. 

 The species " heterophylW^ is also found on the mountain. 

 The lumber of the linden sells under the name of "ivhite- 

 wood" with poplar and cucumber. 



Betula. — The Birch Family have several representatives 

 here. These are the Betula lenta, ^'' nigra, ''^ "excelsa," 

 and '' po^pyracea.''^ Some of them grow into large trees, as 

 the " lenta'^ and '^nigra,^^ which are often found ninety feet 

 high. The wood of the well-known sweet, or cherry-birch, 

 the " lenta,^^ is valuable, giving a fine-grained red lumber, 

 and good fuel. 



QuEROUS. — Several of the oak group are found here, and 

 among them the Quercus alba, or familiar and valuable 

 white oak. It does not grow in these localities, as in the 

 Appalachian valleys, in continuous groves, but is found 



