PEA FAMILY 



in full leaf. The casual observer says it bears no winter 

 buds, but he is mistaken, a tiny pair, so minute that they 

 are detected only by careful searching, wrapped in down and 

 wool, lie sleeping in the axil of every last year's leaf. One 

 is foredoomed to die, but the other, if the fates agree, will 

 grow and develop a tuft of great leaves which will transform 

 the dead stump into a living tree. 



The leaves of the Kentucky Coffee-tree are doubly com- 

 pound and are often three feet long and two feet broad. 

 This form of leaf is not unusual among herbs, but is rare 

 among forest trees. In our northern flora there are but 

 three examples, the Kentucky Coffee-tree, the Honey Locust, 

 and the Hercules' Club. Notwithstanding the size of the 

 leaves the tree is sparingly clothed and the foliage effect is 

 scanty ; indeed, it has been said of it that the leaves filter the 

 light rather than cast a shadow. The expanding leaves are 

 conspicuous because of the varied colors of the leaflets ; the 

 youngest are bright pink, while those which are older vary 

 from green to bronze. 



HONEY LOCUST. HONEY SHUCKS 



Gleditsia triacdnthos. 



Gleditsia commemorates the labors of Gleditsch, a botanist con- 

 temporary with Linnaeus. 



A tree usually fifty to seventy-five feet high, with stout sturdy 

 trunk, slender spreading often pendulous branches forming a broad 

 flat top. Native to the Mississippi valley, it has become naturalized 

 in New England. Is tolerant of many soils, but in the bottom lands 

 of southern Indiana and Illinois attains the astonishing proportions of 

 one hundred and forty feet in height with a trunk six feet in diameter. 

 Roots thick and fibrous, trunk and branches spiny. 



Bark. Dark, deeply fissured, surface covered by small scales. 

 Branchlets light reddish brown at first, later grayish brown. 



Wood. Red brown ; hard, strong, coarse-grained, durable in con- 

 tact with the ground. Sp. gr., 0.6740 ; weight of cu. ft., 42.00 Ibs. 



XI2 



