THE ALDER, ETC. 107 



Chinquapin. The chinquapin is a small variety of 

 Castanea pumiia. the chestnut, common in the South, 

 which grows from 7 to 35 feet high. The bur, about 

 an inch wide, bears a single small nut rounder than a 

 chestnut. The leaf is like that of the chestnut, but 

 has a downy or woolly appearance beneath, is usually 

 less distinctly toothed, and is seldom over five inches 

 long. The tree grows wild in southern New Jersey, 

 Pennsylvania, Ohio, and southward. Its foliage is 

 whitish olive-green. 



Beech ^he beech tree is common in all our 



Fagusferruginea. woods North and South ; it extends 

 Fagus grandifoUa. wes t wa rd to Missouri and south- 

 ward to Florida and Texas, and attains its finest 

 growth in the southern Mississippi River Valley. 

 In the middle of winter, when the forest is bare of 

 leaves, we ought to be able to recognize the beech 

 at a glance : no other tree has the same smooth, light 

 gray, spotty bark ; no other the same smooth, round- 

 ish curves on long, low branches which extend hori- 

 zontally a good distance from the trunk. The bark 

 of trees may easily be grouped under three classes : 

 first, perpendicularly ridged; second, horizontally 

 striped ; and, third, round spotted. To the first class 

 belong a great number of trees, including the elms ; 

 to the second belongs the birch; and to the third 

 belongs the beech, almost alone. I think, then, there 



