8 FUSTIC WOOD: ITS SUBSTITUTES AND ADULTERANTS. 



A comparison of transverse sections of smoke-tree and fustic wood 

 (figs. 1 and 2) clearly distinguishes one from the other. Instead of 

 being diffuse porous l with indistinct annual layers of growth, as old 

 fustic, smoke-tree wood is ring porous 2 and has distinct annual lay- 

 ers of growth with a preponderance of large pores in the early wood 

 (inner part of the layer), which gradually diminish in number and 

 size toward the outside of the layer. In smoke-tree wood the vessels 

 and tracheids have large simple pits, 3 side by side, together with tran- 

 sitional forms merging into true bordered pits, 3 but never bordered 

 pits alone. The markings on the walls of vessels in true fustic con- 

 sist of round bordered pits only. The simple pits in the vessels of 

 smoke-tree are in most cases elliptical, lying parallel to one another, 

 and transversely to the longitudinal axis of the elements, so that 

 collectively they resemble the scalariform perforations of vessels. 

 The wood fibers of the smoke-tree vary from 0.60 to 0.94 millimeter 4 

 in length, with an average of 0.78 millimeter, about 0.15 millimeter 

 shorter than those of fustic. 



OSAGE ORANGE. 



(Toxylon pomiferum Raf.) 



Osage orange is known also as osage, bois d'arc, bodock, bowwood, 

 yellowwood, and hedge tree, and is native to the rich bottom lands 

 of southern Arkansas and westward to Oklahoma and Texas. It has 

 been planted extensively throughout the eastern and central United 

 States, and is largely cultivated for hedges. By some it is claimed to 

 be superior to fustic as a dyewood. The wood, which is yellowish, 

 hard, heavy, and strong, is distinctly ring-porous and may readily 

 be distinguished from that of smoke tree and true fustic by the con- 

 spicuous tangential bands of wood-parenchyma tissue near the outer 

 boundaries of the layers of growth (fig. 3) . The early wood begins 

 with a more or less broad zone of greatly flattened wood-par- 

 enchyma fibers, among which are scattered large pores. The pores 

 toward the outside of the annual ring of growth are very small 

 and are within the tangential bands of wood-parenchyma fibers that 



1 In a diffuse-porous wood the pores are approximately the same size throughout the annual layers of 

 growth and quite evenly distributed; this results in a wood of homogeneous structure, such as is shown in 

 figures 1 and 4. 



2 In a ring-porous wood the pores are largest and most numerous in that portion of the annual layer of 

 growth first formed; as a result, the annual layers are sharply defined, as seen in figures 2 and 3. 



s Pits are un thickened portions in the walls of wood elements. They are either round, elliptical, or slit- 

 like, and are further divided into simple and bordered pits. Whether a pit is simple or 

 bordered is determined by the character of the canals which extend from the middle 

 lamella, or common wall of two adjacent elements, to the cavity of the cell. When a trans- 

 verse or longitudinal section is prepared, a so-called profile view of pits will be seen, and if 

 the walls of the canal are nearly parallel or diverge only slightly toward the common wall, 

 as shown in figure a, it is a simple pit. If the walls of the canal make a distinct angle just 

 inside the pit opening, as shown in figure b, it is known as a bordered pit. 



4 A millimeter is about one twenty-fifth of an inch. 



