246 Minnesota Plant Life. 



the beeches and chestnuts, not represented in Minnesota, and 

 the oaks which form a large and characteristic portion of the 

 hardwood forest of the state. 



Ironwoods. Of ironwoods there is a single species in Min- 

 nesota, known also as the water-beech or hornbeam. This 

 plant is a small tree with very strong, tough wood. It is 

 found principally along streams. It has the leaves of a birch, 

 but when in fruit displays each of its little nuts at the base of 

 a large three-lobed bract shaped somewhat like a spear-head. 

 By means of these bracts and also by the rough bark, quite 

 unlike birch-bark, the ironwoods may be distinguished. Re- 

 lated to them are the hop-hornbeams, the fruit clusters of which 

 look very much like hops, while the general appearance of the 

 tree is similar to that of the ironwood. An examination of 

 such an hop-like fruit cluster will show^ that it is an axis upon 

 w^hich little nuts are formed, each one inclosed in a membranous 

 sac structurally equivalent to the spear-shaped bract of the iron- 

 wood. 



The hazels. The hazels, of which there are two varieties in 

 the state, are shrubs with broad notched leaves. They pro- 

 duce their staminate flowers in catkins and the pistillate flowers 

 in very inconspicuous little buds from which the stigmas of the 

 pistils protrude as red threads. In the common hazelnut, which 

 is so abundant as underbrush in the woods, the nuts, when 

 mature, are inclosed in ragged scales not prolonged very much 

 beyond the ends of the nuts. In the beaked hazelnut, a some- 

 what larger bush, ten or fifteen feet in height, the nuts are in- 

 closed in scales which grow out into a long tubular beak, a 

 structure by which this plant is easily distinguished from the 

 more common variety. The nuts of the hazels are much larger 

 than those of the ironwoods and hornbeams, are edible and are 

 gathered in quantities in the autumn. 



Birches. Of birches there are six species in Minnesota, the 

 black birch, the canoe or paper birch, the river or red birch, 

 the yellow or gray birch, the low birch or tag-alder, and the 

 scrub or glandular birch. These plants range in size, in the 

 different species, from large trees to low bushes, but may be 

 recognized in most instances by their bark, which peels off in 

 thin layers, most easily in the canoe birch, but with very little 



