l84 FORES! TREES. 



more costly article. It is by such simple exi>edients that savings are 

 made in the Canadian backwoods — or it was so in the early days of the 

 Colony. 



The Blue Beech is a tree of small size, rarely exceeding 20 feet, 

 often not more than 10 or 15. The bark is smooth and grey, most like 

 that of the Beech, and the foliage resembles that of the Birch. The 

 little nutlets are borne on large foliaceous bractlets, not so large nor so 

 showy as in the 



Iron'wood — Hop Hornbeam — Leverwood — Ostrya Virgintca, (VVilld.) 



This is a well known forest tree, valuable for many uses. The 

 wood is hard, with a metallic lustre, fine grained and very heavy. The 

 tree is never very large, seldom more than forty to fifty feet in height, 

 and from eight to twelve inches in diameter. The bark is divided into 

 long straight lines. The wood is used for handspikes, levers, reaches 

 of waggons, and rafters, and burns well as firewood. When found 

 growing in open cleared places and copses, it forms a more bushy and 

 shrubby tree, very ornamental through the Summer from the elegant 

 white involucres of the Hop-like seed clusters ; the seed itself is hard, 

 nut-like and bony. These Hop-like appendages hanging from every 

 spray, have a very pretty effect. The tree is easily raised from seed, 

 and might be introduced into shrubberies and groves with good effect. 

 In its native woods the Ironwood is found scattered among the other 

 deciduous trees, where it grows straight upwards, making but small head. 

 The foliage is oblong-taper-pointed, sharply and doubly serrate, buds 

 acute, involucre sacs hairy at the base, becoming much inflated by the 

 month of August, when they become bruwn and shrivelled as the seed 

 hardens and ripens. 



American Beech — Fagtis ferruginea, (Ait.) 



" Where feathering down the turf to meet 

 Their shadowing arms the Beeches spread." 



Of the Beech we occasionally see two varieties mentioned in books 

 and hear them spoken of as the "White Beech" and the "Red Beech." 



We have, however, only one species of Fagus in Canada. The 

 Blue Beech, commonly so called, not being properly a Beech. To the 



N()TK— Professor Lindley, in Ins intoresting work " Natural Hystciii of Kotaiiy," jilaccs the 

 Ironwooil (()sU!ia) in tlie sa'nii' natiiriil older as tin- Oak, IJcecli and /'licstnut, while sonic of the 

 older writf-rs class it with tlio Bill li, under thr generic name of Jietnlu. The generic name of the 

 Blue Beech — Ciirpiniis—ia derived Ironi the Celtic words car (wood) and jiimlo (head), in allusion 

 to the fitness of the wood for making head-gear, or yokes for oxen. It is curious to trace the 

 meaning of some of the classical names given to jdants, which were as familiar to the ancients in 

 former times, jiossilily two thousand years ago, as are the simple nann's hy which we now cull 

 them. Some, indeed, of the old Greek or Saxon names, were very fanciful, and had reference to 

 heathen deities or gome strange idea or fancied rcseniManee to things, the likeness to which we 

 '•annot now see. 



