190 



Minnesota Plant Life. 



is not strong and is little used as lumber, though it is cut for 

 firewood in some parts of the state and occasionally employed 

 in the manufacture of posts or ties. This pine is particularly 

 abundant in the region around Brainerd, where it covers hun- 

 dreds of square miles in an almost unbroken forest. 



The white cedar. The white cedar or arbor-vitre is a tree 

 fifty or sixty feet high with a short, thick trunk. It is especially 

 abundant in the far northern region of the state, not coming 

 south so readily as the pines. It is prominent along lake shores 

 on the international boundary and its branches jutting out over 

 the water make picturesque scenery on the shores of most lakes 

 east of Rainy lake. The leaves are large and remote on older 

 shoots, but on the younger, which are arranged in flat, fern- 

 like groups, they are short and tightly lapped over each other 

 like shingles. The flowers, opening in the spring, are purple 

 in color and the fruits ripen in a single year. The seeds are 

 winged along both margins, thus differing from the pines in 

 which the wings are principally terminal, and are only an eighth 

 of an inch long. Seedling plants of the white cedar have but 

 two seed-leaves, in this respect resembling most higher seed- 

 plants. The wood is very light and peculiarly durable, sweet- 

 scented and l)rown in color. It is highly prized for railway ties, 

 shingles and fencing lumber and is used by the Indians in the 

 manufacture of paddles and as ribs for their canoes. They em- 

 ploy also the inner bark in the manufacture of mats, cutting it 

 up into strips which they dye and plait elaborately in quaint 

 and traditional jiatterns. Young arbor-vitcC plants are used in 

 iMinnesota for hedges. 



The hemlock. The hemlock is a tree sometimes 110 feet in 

 height with a trunk four feet in diameter, but in Minnesota, in 

 the two small patches where it is known, it does not reach this 

 size. The lower branches are generally drooping and the leaves 

 are short and tlat, dark-green above and lighter below. The 

 cones are slightly longer than the leaves. The wood is soft 

 and light, brown or white in color and the general appearance 

 of the twigs with their foliage is quite similar to that of the 

 ground-licmlock — hence the common name of the latter. The 

 two plants, however, are really members of different families. 

 Hemlocks are of much economic importance from their bark, 



