42 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



Nevada Mountains to the southern part of the state, growing in 

 bottom-lands and along the borders of streams. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood heavy, hard, quite strong, coarse- 

 grained, with thin medullary rays and with annual rings marked by a 

 conspicuous band of large open ducts. It is of a brownish color, with 

 abundant lighter sap-wood. Specific Gravity, 0.5731; Percentage 

 of Ash, 0.34; Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 0.5712; Coefficient 

 of Elasticity, 84818; Modulus of Rupture, 665; Resistance to 

 Longitudinal Pressure, 520; Resistance to Indentation, 166; 

 Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 35.72. 



USES. One of the most useful of the deciduous-leaved trees of 

 the Pacific states. The wood of the Oregon Ash is extensively used 

 in the manufacture of furniture and interior finishing, in cooperage, 

 for the frames of vehicles and for fuel. It is also of value as a shade 

 tree for street planting. 



ORDER SOLANACEJE : NIGHTSHADE FAMILY. 



Leaves alternate (the uppermost generally geminate), without stipules. Flowers 

 perfect and regular or nearly so, 5-numerous ; calyx-lobes persistent ; corolla 

 monopetalous. hypogenous ; stamens of the same number as the corolla-lobes and 

 inserted on them ; ovary 2-celled with very numerous ovules on axial placentae ; 

 style simple and with simple stigma. Fruit a 2-celled capsule or berry contain- 

 ing many amphitropous or campy lotropous seeds with fleshy albumen. 



A large and important order of mostly herbs but some shrubs (erect or climbing) 

 and fewer trees. Most of the representatives are pervaded by a narcotic poison, 

 yet some of the repsesentatives, as the potato, tomato, etc., are among our most 

 important food-plants. Some are of great medicinal value. 



GENUS NICOTIANA, TOURNEFORT. 



Leaves simple, entire or rarely siriuate-lobed. Flowers generally in terminal 

 racemes or panicles, the lowermost sometimes solitary in the axils ; calyx cam- 

 panulate or oblong, 5-cleft. persistent ; corolla various, funnel-form or salver- 

 form, usually with a long tube and the 5-toothed limb plaited and convoluted in 

 the bud ; stamens mostly included and with stout anthers opening lengthwise ; 

 pistil with long style and capitate or depressed stigma somewhat 2-lobed. Fruit 

 a smooth 2-celled capsule, closely invested by the persistent calyx, with broad 

 axial placentae bearing numerous minute seeds and dehiscent at maturity by two 

 to four valves from the apex. 



An extensive genus of mostly rank, viscid, pubescent, acrid-narcotic annual 

 herbs, but few somewhat w r oody at base, and one a glabrous small tree. The 

 name is after Jean Nicot who lived in the 16th century and is reported to have 

 sent the first tobacco to Queen Catherine de Medici who soon acquired a taste for it. 



