3. TILIA AMERICANA BASSWOOD. 43 



HABITAT. North-eastern United States and, less abundantly, 

 Canada, westward to Nebraska and Kansas, and southward along the 

 Alleganies to the Gulf States. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood light, soft, quite tough, close-grained, 

 compact and easily worked. Sap-wood, when properly seasoned, is very 

 light colored, nearly white, but as more often seen is tinted with a brown 

 or yellowish color; heart, light brown. Specific Gravity, 0.4525; Per- 

 centage of Ash, 0.55; Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 0.4500; Coeffi- 

 cient of Elasticity, 84010; Modulus of Rupture, 589; Resistance to 

 Longitudinal Pressure, 348; Resistance to Indentation, 63; Weight of a 

 Cubic Foot in Pounds, 28.20. 



USES. This timber is useful for many purposes, taking the place of 

 pine in some localities, and very largely the place of the tulip and 

 cucumber wood north of the range of those timbers. It is extensively used 

 for furniture, especially drawer-backs and sides, sometimes for interior- 

 finishing, for wooden- ware, etc., and to some extent for paper pulp and 

 charcoal. A use for which it is particularly adapted on account of its 

 toughness is the manufacture of panels, carriage and cutter boxes, dashes, 

 etc. For getting out lumber for this latter use, we have recently seen a 

 new and very ingeniously devised machine, used at first at least with this 

 kind of timber exclusively. It is for sawing around the log, thus making 

 a board as long as the log and perhaps a hundred feet broad, when the 

 log is very large a curious looking board as it stands on end (of the 

 grain), coiled up like a huge roll of carpeting. 



The inner bark of this wood, known as bast, whence the name Bast- 

 wood or Basswood, is very fibrous and used, after macerating, in the 

 manufacture of matting and an inferior cordage. 



A by no means unimportant point of value in connection with this 

 tree is the most excellent honey which its flowers yield in abundance, and 

 so active are the myriads of bees and other insects in gathering this dur- 

 ing the flowering season that the din of their humming may be heard 

 some yards from the tree. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES. None are omcinally recognized in this 

 country. In Europe, however, Aqua Tilice, which is an infusion of the 

 flowers, buds and leaves of the various species of Tilia, is said to possess 

 anti-spasmodic and cephalic properties. It is used as a domestic remedy 

 in cases of indigestion, nervousness, etc. (Nat. Dispensatory, 2d ed., 

 1429.)* 



ORDER SIMARUBACEJE. 



Leaves generally compound and alternate, inodorous and not bearing pellucid dots. 

 Flowers polypetalous, regular, 3-5-numerous, hypogenous, perfect or polygamous; 



*U. S. Census, 1880, vol. IX, p. 27. 



