54 



8ILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. ulmace^. 



inches wide and are borne on stout pubescent petioles a third of an inch in length. The stipules of the 

 upper leaves are obovate-oblong to oblong-lanceolate, thin and scarious, coated with pale pubescence and 

 tipped with clusters of rusty brown hairs. The leaves turn to a dull yellow color before falling in the 

 autumn. The inflorescence-buds are larger and more obtuse than the leaf-buds, which they resemble 

 in the shape of the scales and their covering ; from each of the six or eight inner scales the two to 

 three-flowered short pedunculate clusters of flowers are produced. The flowers, which appear at the 

 south in February and March and at the north from the middle to the end of April, are borne on short 

 pedicels produced from the axils of minute linear green bracts with a few short white hairs at the 

 apex. The calyx is green, coated with pale hairs, and slightly divided into five to nine short rounded 

 thin and scarious equal lobes. The stamens are exserted, with slender light yellow slightly flattened 

 filaments and dark red anthers which do not shed their pollen until after the slightly exserted reddish 

 purple stigmas papillose with soft white hairs have begun to wither. The fruit, which ripens when the 

 leaves are about half grown, is semiorbicular, rounded, slightly emarginate or with the remains of one 

 or of both stigmas at the apex, rounded or wedge-shaped at the base, and half an inch broad ; the 

 seminal cavity is coated with thick rusty brown tomentum, and the broad thin wing is obscurely 

 reticulate-veined, naked on the thickened margin, and marked by the dark conspicuous horizontal line 

 of union of the two carpels. The seed is ovate, with a large oblique pale hilum, and is covered with 

 a light chestnut-brown coat produced into a thin wing which is wider below than above the middle of 



the seed. 



Uhnus fidva is distributed from the island of Orleans in the lower St. Lawrence River through 

 Ontario to North Dakota and eastern Nebraska,^ and southward to western Florida, central Alabama 

 and Mississippi, and the vaUey of the San Antonio River in Texas. 



A comparatively common tree, although everywhere less common than the White Elm, it inhabits 

 the banks of streams and low rocky hiUsides, where it grows in deep fertile soil. 



The wood of Ulmus fulva is heavy, hard, strong, very close-grained, durable in contact with the 

 soil, and easy to spht while green ; it contains numerous thin meduUary rays and broad bands of several 

 rows of large open ducts marking the layers of annual growth, and is dark brown or red, with thin 

 lighter colored sapwood. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.6956, a cubic foot 

 weighing 43.35 pounds. It is largely used for fence-posts and railway ties, for the siUs of buildings, 

 the hubs of wheels, and agricultural implements. 



The thick fragrant inner bark of the branches is mucilaginous, demulcent, and slightly nutritious ; 

 it is employed in the treatment of acute inflammatory and febrile affections, and is used in the form 

 of a powder externally in poultices.^ 



The SKppery Elm appears to have been first distinguished by Clayton,^ and what is probably the 

 earliest description of it appeared in his Flora Virginica,^ published in 1739. In cultivation it is a 

 handsome shapely fast-growing tree ; but in public parks and streets its use is to be avoided, for once 

 its identity is established it usually falls a prey to boys eager to devour the inner bark of the branches. 



^ Bessey, Rep. Nebraska State Board Agric. 1894, 105. & Hanbury, Pharmacographia, 501. — Johnson, Man. Med. Bot 



2 Raflnesque, Med. Bot. ii. 271. — Griffith, Med. Bot. 563. — N. A. 243.— f/. S. Dispens. ed. 16, 1549. 

 Poreher, Resources of Southern Fields and Forests, 310. — Fliickiger ^ See i. 8. 



* Ulmus fructu memhranaceo, foliis simplicissime serratis, 145. 



