DECIDUOUS TREES. 



437 



THE HALESIA, SNOWDROP, OR SILVER-BELL TREE. 

 Halesia tetraptera. 



Low-spreading trees, blossoming FIG. 143. 



in April and May, with a profusion of 

 pure white pendant flowers resembling 

 those of the snowdrop. They are 

 about five-eighths of an inch in length, 

 and hang in clusters on the last year's 

 wood. 



Fig. 143 gives a good idea of the 

 form and style of a tree of this species 

 fifteen or twenty years old, and of the 

 forms of the leaves, flowers, and seed 

 capsules. The latter are shown one- 

 fifth the natural size, and the leaves 



one-twelfth. During the autumn, or last part of the summer, the 

 head is covered with the four-winged seeds or capsules that distin- 

 guish the tree at that season. The leaves are about the size of 

 those of the syringa, of a fine healthy color, without gloss, and, 

 when the tree is thrifty and mature, mass well. There is a fine old 

 specimen in the New York Central Park, near one of the walks to 

 the Ramble, that is about fifteen feet high and more than thirty 

 feet across the spread of its branches, which rest upon the ground. 



There is a large specimen on the grounds of Miss Price, near 



Germantown, Pa., which, though badly shaded by other trees, has a 

 trunk sixteen inches in diameter, top twenty-five feet high, and is 

 fifty feet across the greatest extension of its branches ! There are 

 higher trees of this species in England, but none on record of so 

 great diameter. 



THE TWO-WINGED FRUITED HALESIA OR SNOWDROP, H. diptera, 

 is a smaller tree, with larger leaves and flowers, and less hardy 

 than the preceding ; otherwise closely resembles it. 



