HACKBERRY; NETTLE TREE; SUGAR BERRY (Celtis occi- 

 dentalis, Linn.). 50 to 125 feet. Round-topped tree, with 

 long, bare, slender trunk. Twigs abundant, bushy, slender, 

 on pendulous branches. Often bearing "witches' brooms." 

 Bark thick, brown or silvery gray, broken into scaly plates by 

 the shallow fissures, roughened by warty excrescences on trunk 

 and limbs. Wood soft, coarse-grained, weak, pale yellow, 

 used for fencing and for cheap furniture. Leaves broadly 

 ovate, the petiole branching into 3 main veins, 2 to 4 inches 

 long, oblique at base, serrate, above the middle, entire below; 

 thin, dark green, with downy lining. Autumn color yellow. 

 Flowers May, greenish; stamina te in clusters at base of sea- 

 son's growth; pistillate solitary, in axils of leaves, with spread- 

 ing, cleft stigmas, pale green. Fruit oblong, thin-fleshed berry, 

 purple, sweet, hangs all winter. Dist.: Moist land along 

 streams or swamps; southern Canada to Puget Sound; south 

 to Florida, Texas, Missouri, and New Mexico. 



The southern hackberry (C. Mississippiensis, Bosc.) is a 

 smaller, more dainty edition of the northern hackberry. Its 

 berry is orange, its leaves narrow, small-margined; its range 

 : s the valley of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. 



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