52 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



.V tree occasionally attaining the height of 100 ft. (30 m.), with 

 rather open broad head of stout spreading branches and short trunk 5 

 or 6 ft. (1.50 in.) in diameter, having light gray bark, furrowed with 

 linn rounded longitudinal and obliquely connecting ridges which 

 finally exfoliate in small scales. 



HABITAT. The Fremont Cotton wood is found in California from 

 the head waters of the Sacramento River southward and eastward 

 through Kevada into Utah, marking the courses of streams and moist 

 bottom-lands, and is especially abundant in central California, where 

 it attains its largest size. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood soft, light, close-grained, not 

 strong, of a light reddish-brown color with nearly white sap-wood. 

 Specific Gravity, 0.4914; Percentage of Ash, 0.77; Relative Approx- 

 imate Fuel Value, 0.4876; Coefficient of Elasticity, 105116; 

 Modulus of Rujpture, 698; Resistance to Longitudinal Pressure, 

 378; Resistance to Indentation, 86; Weight of a Cubic Foot in 

 Pounds, 30.62. 



FSKS. The wood of this tree is extensively used for fuel, it beinof 

 the chief source of supply in some localities and by pollarding the 

 trees a crop of branches may be gathered for that use every four or 

 live years. The tree is extensively planted along street-sides, etc., for 

 shade and ornamental purposes. The inner bark was formerly used, 

 it is said, by Indians of the southwest for making petticoats. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES, though not specifically mentioned of this 

 tree, are doubtless the same as those mentioned of the Populus 

 monilifera, Part II., p. 39. 



GYMNOSPERMvE. 



Flowering, exogenous plants with leaves chiefly parallel-veined and cotyledons 

 frequently more than two. Flowers diclinous and very incomplete ; pistil repre- 

 sented by an open scale or leaf, or altogether wanting, with ovules naked, fertil- 

 ized by direct contact with the pollen, and seeds at maturity naked without a 

 true pericarp. 



ORDER CONIFER2E : PINE FAMILY. 



Leaves mostly awl-shaped or needle-shaped, evergreen, entire and parallel- 

 veined. Flowers monoecious, or rarely dioecious, in catkins or cones, destitute 

 of both calyx; and corolla ; stamens one or several (usually united) ; ovary, style 

 and stigma wanting ; ovules one or several at the base of a scale, which serves as 

 a carpel, or on an open disk Fruit a cone, woody and with distinct scales, or 

 somewhat berry-like, and with fleshy coherent scales, seeds orthotropous, embryo 

 in the axis of the albumen. 



Trees or shrubs with a resinous juice. 



GENUS CUPRESSUS, TOURNEFORT. 



Leaves persistent, small, scale-like, decussately opposite, thick, rounded or 

 keeled, adnate to and decurrent upon the stem, usually glandular-pitted on the 

 back, appressed or slightly spreading at the pointed or rounded apex, margin 



