Handbook of Tke.es of the Northern States and Canada. 301 



The Wafer Ash is more often a shrub thin 

 a tree, but is occasionally found attaining the 

 height of 20 or 25 ft. with broad or rounded 

 top, and trunk sometimes 10 or 12 in. in diame 

 ter. I have seen it in southern Ontario witli 

 a short trunk 16 in. in diameter, but such a 

 Bize is very exceptional. Its dark green tri 

 foliate leaves and conspicuous bunches of light 

 green wafer-like fruit make it an ornamental 

 object in late summer, and in winter, it is 

 hardly less conspicuous on account of the fruit 

 which persists seared and dry upon its naked 

 branches long after the leaves have fallen. 

 The flavor and odor of its leaves and bark 

 when bruised is very similar to that of the 

 hop for which it is sometimes used as a sub- 

 stitute in brewing beer, and it is from th-.it 

 fact that it takes its name Hop-tree. 



The wood is rather heavy, a cu. ft. when 



absolutely dry weighing 51.84 lbs., hard and 



close-grained. 1 An extract from its bark is 



sometimes used as a tonic in medicine. 



Leaves with 3 subsesslle ovate to oblong leaflets, 

 varj'ing from rounded to cuneate at base, acumi- 

 nate at apex, remotely crenulate, pubescent at 

 first but flnall.y lustrous dark green above, glandu- 

 lar-dotted beneath. Flowers in mid-summer, of 

 disagreeable odor. Fruit flat, similar to that of an 

 elm but larger-winged all around in dense clusters 

 and ])ersisting on the branches nearly all winter. - 



1. A. W., IV, 77. 



2. For gonus see p. 444. 





