THE LOCUSTS AND YELLOWWOOD 



wind. The yellowwood, or virgilia as it is 

 sometimes called, is extensively cultivated in 

 gardens and it is found growing wild in 

 Kentucky and Tennessee. Professor Sargent 

 says that it is one of the rarest and most local 

 trees of North America. 



Kentucky A lar S e tree ' 5 to 80 feet high, 

 Coffee Tree with rough bark. Large cane- 



Gymnocladus dioicus Uk ^ smoo ^ gray sJwots SQme _ 



what roughened by prominent lenticles. Large 

 U-shaped, alternate leaf-scars with three or five 

 bundle-scars. No terminal bud, the lateral 

 buds are {two or three) superposed, they are 

 inconspicuous, very silky to the touch, deep set 

 and surrounded by an incurved rim of the 

 bark. Large, wide, thick pods, 5 to 10 inches 

 long. 



The Kentucky coffee tree is entirely destitute 

 of small spray, and in winter its thick, cane-like 

 stems, without any perceptible buds, give it a 

 singular appearance of rigid bluntness. A 

 more striking contrast than the flat, fine sprayed 

 branches of the hop hornbeam and the stout, 

 upright stems of the Kentucky coffee tree 

 could not be imagined. The early settlers in 

 Kentucky made a drink from the seeds of this 

 tree, which they considered equal to coffee, but 

 later when communication with the seaport 



J 35 



