64 Trees with Simple Leaves. [AII 



Genus OSTRYA, Scop. (Hop- Hornbeam.) 



Fig. 32, a and b. Hop-Hornbeam, Ironwood, Leverwood. 



O. Virginicina (Mill), Willd. 



Leaves, SIMPLE ; ALTERNATE ; EDGE VERY SHARPLY AND 



SLIGHTLY IRREGULARLY AND UNEQUALLY TOOTHED. 



Outline, long oval or long egg-shape. Apex, taper- 

 pointed. Base, slightly heart-shaped. 



Leaf -stem, about one fourth inch long, and often rough. 



Leaf, usually three to four inches long, and about half as 

 wide, but with many smaller leaves of varying size on 

 the same branch ; smoothish above, paler and some- 

 what downy below. The straight ribs and their 

 angles hairy. 



Bark of trunk, brownish or dark gray, and remarkable for 

 being finely furrowed up and down, with the ridges 

 broken into three- to four-inch lengths. These divi- 

 sions are narrower than on any other rough-barked 

 tree, and they become narrower and finer as the tree 

 grows older. The new shoots are reddish green and 

 dotted with brown ; the younger branches purplish- 

 brown and dotted with white or gray. When the 

 branch is two to three inches thick, its bark becomes 

 grayish and begins to crack. 



Fruit, in long oval, drooping clusters, resembling those of 

 the hop-vine, with long, unlobed scales that lap each 

 other like shingles. August, September. 



Found, oftenest on dry hill-sides. Common North, South, 

 and West, especially in Southern Arkansas. 



A tree twenty to thirty feet high, with white, very 

 strong, and compact wood. It would be very valuable, if 

 it were more abundant and of larger growth. 



