163. ALNUS RHOMBIFOLIA CALIFORNIA ALDER. 41 



through Washington and Oregon on the eastern slope of the Cascade 

 Mountains, and into Idaho, southward to southern California, ascending 

 the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to an altitude of 

 nearly 4,000 ft. It grows along the banks of streams and is the com- 

 mon Alder of central California, shading its mountain torrents more 

 largely perhaps than any other tree. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. The wood of the Alder is light, soft, 

 brittle, close-grained, with numerous fine and obscure medullary rays 

 and occasional widely-dispersed, large, conspicuous rays. It is of a 

 light-brown color, with abundant buff -white sap-wood which is nearly 

 white when freshly cut, but almost immediately upon exposure to the 

 air assumes a markedly reddish tint, as does also the cut surface of the 

 bark. Specific Gravity, 0.4127; Percentage of Ash, 0.31; Relative 

 Approximate Fuel Value, 0.4104; Coefficient of Elasticity, 84580; 

 Modulus of Rupture, 683 ; Resistance to Longitudinal Pressure, 

 356; Resistance to Indentation, 78; Weight of a Cubic Foot in 

 Pounds, 25.72. 



USES. The wood of this species is not extensively used, though, 

 were it in a section not favored with more useful timbers, it would 

 doubtless be considered useful for various purposes, and the bark, 

 etc., might be used for dyeing and tanning purposes. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES are those common to the genus and due to 

 the astringent and alterative principles of the leaves and bark. They 

 may be extracted by means of decoctions, and are used in domestic 

 practice for purifying the blood, in intermittent fevers, in diarrhoea, 

 hgematuria, etc. , and as a gargle. The bruised leaves are used as a 

 topical remedy for wounds, ulcers, etc.* 



ORDER MYRICAOEJE: SWEET-GALE FAMILY. 



Leaves alternate, resinous or waxy-dotted, generally fragrant and without sty- 

 pules or with caducous stypules. ^Flowers monoecious or dioecious with both 

 staminate and pistillate flowers in scaly catkins, calyx and corolla wanting; 

 stamens usually 4-6 (2 to 16) sessile or with filaments united into a sort of stipe; 

 ovary inferior/1-celled, with single erect orthotropous ovules, styles two filiform, 

 stigmatose along the inner sides. Fruit, drupaceous, often waxy-coated and 

 containing a single exalbuminous seed. 



GENUS MYRICA, LINNEAUS. 



Leaves alternate, evergreen or deciduous, resinous-dotted, irregularly dentate 

 or lobed (rarely entire) pinnately veined, without stipules or stipules falling away 

 early. Flowers monoecious or dioecious in aments which form in the summer in 

 the 'axils of the leaves of the year (the staminate from axils below those produc- 

 ing the pistillate when both are borne on the same plant), and remaining over 

 winter open the next spring, the small, naked flow-ers appearing in the axils of 

 the scales of the ament. Staminate aments oblong-cylindrical, dense; stamens 



* T. S. Di-'pematory , 16th ed., p. 1705. 



