Lake Maxinkuckee, Physical and Biological Survey 361 



established. In addition to the ordinary form, there is a variegated- 

 leaved variety in cultivation. 



The box elder has the peculiar habit of shedding the first- 

 formed leaves early in the year, the leaves turning golden and 

 often covering the ground about the base of the tree, making an 

 autumn in springtime. The staminate trees can be distinguished 

 from the pistillate even before they bloom, as the buds are single, 

 long and pointed, while those of the pistillate trees are rounded and 

 in bunches of three. Bees come in great numbers about the stami- 

 nate trees, filling the air with a continuous hum, but appear wholly 

 to neglect the pistillate trees. The tree yields a fair abundance of 

 sweet sap which boils down to an excellent maple syrup or to a 

 sugar, which unlike the sugar of the hard maple, is white instead 

 of brown. As the box elder grows quite rapidly in good ground 

 the establishment of a sugar camp by planting this species would 

 be a matter of comparatively few years. 



The seeds are borne in great profusion, and remain on the tree 

 late in the winter or until spring, making the tree picturesque 

 throughout the winte/. The seedlings come up in May very ro- 

 bust little trees the first set of leaves single, so that the tree looks 

 very much like the other maples at this stage. 



FAMILY 94. AESCULACE^E. BUCKEYE FAMILY 



504. BUCKEYE 



AESCULUS GLABRA Willd. 



Not common about the lake ; a few trees found on the east side 

 by Va jen's. The earliest of our trees to leaf out in spring, the 

 trees showing green when everything else is bare. By April 19, 

 1901, the leaf -buds had swelled and the leaves were nearly out, the 

 trees showing a rich purplish green some distance away. April 

 27 the leaves out, and the flower-buds showing. May 3, in flower. 

 September 26, 1906, fruit ripening. 



As it is the earliest tree to leaf out in spring, so it is the earliest 

 to assume autumn tints and shed its leaves, carrying the autumn 

 forward into the summer. In a trip on the Maumee River and an- 

 other on the Cumberland, early in August, the buckeye trees, 

 which were sprinkled among the other forest trees on the hills and 

 bluffs, could be picked out a half-mile away as patches of red 

 among the surrounding green, and on the trip last mentioned, about 

 the middle of August, some trees were seen wholly naked except 

 for the heavy crop of buckeyes. The fruit of the buckeye occa- 

 sionally poisons cattle. 



