DECIDUOUS TREES, 421 



is fair to infer that the latitude of those States furnish a climate the 

 most congenial to it. It there becomes a tree from thirty to sixty 

 feet in height and of equal breadth. Hedges formed with it have 

 proved hardy as far north as Albany perhaps further north. It 

 may prove less hardy as a tree than in .clipped hedges, but on the 

 banks of the Hudson, near Albany, it is little injured by the winters, 

 and does equally well on the south shores of the great lakes. 



The growth of an Osage orange tree, in a deep rich soil, is 

 quite peculiar. It first sends out a multitude of shoots vertically, 

 horizontally, and at all angles and curves between. Its inherent 

 vitality is so great that it seems scarcely to have room enough upon 

 each preceding year's growth to push out the new growth that 

 struggles to expand its foliage. As the plant attains the dignity of 

 a tree-form, or at least of a distinct trunk, its different parts seem 

 to have various impulses ; one branch having shoots nearly all tend- 

 ing upwards, another with shoots crossing each other, with a variety 

 of curves reminding one of the intersections of fireworks projectiles, 

 and another with its rank growths all tending downward as humbly 

 as those of the Scamston elm. 



Fig. 136 is a portrait of a magnificent specimen crowded in 

 an obscure corner of the old Bartram garden on the Schuylkill 

 River, south of Philadelphia. It is about thirty feet high, and from 

 fifty to sixty feet across the spread of its branches, with a trunk 

 twenty inches in diameter one foot from the ground. H. W. Sar- 

 gent, Esq., mentions a tree growing in the grounds of Dr. Edmond- 

 ston, near Baltimore, which, when twenty-four years old, measured 

 one hundred and sixty-five feet in circumference " the limbs lying 

 about with a profusion of growth positively wonderful, and covered 

 with fruit." 



The leaves are single, alternate, in form something like those 

 of the lilac, but considerably more pointed and more glossy. 

 They are tardy in the spring, but remain late on the trees in au- 

 tumn. The flowers are inconspicuous. The fruit is about the size 

 and color of a large ripe orange, perhaps less bright, very showy on 

 the tree, but of no use for eating. Ripe in October. 



As the male and female blossoms are borne on different trees, 

 no fruit will be produced except on the trees with pistillate bios- 



