22 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



being very abundant and well developed in western "Washington and 

 Oregon. It is less common to the southward and often no more than 

 a shrub. It nourishes in the low-lands and to an altitude of about 

 4,000 ft., beautifying the banks of streams and adorning the stately 

 evergreen forests in which it makes its home. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. The wood of the Vine Maple is heavy, 

 hard, not very strong, close-grained and containing very line medul- 

 lary rays. It is of a light-brown color with abundant light buff sap- 

 wood, the heart-wood, indeed, only appearing in very old trees. 

 Specific Gravity, 0.6660; Percentage of Ash, 0.39; Relative Approxi- 

 mate Fuel Value, 0.6634; Coefficient of Elasticity, 71810; Modulus 

 of Rupture, 766; Resistance to Longitudinal Pressure, 459; Resist- 

 ance to Indentation, 200; Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 41.51. 



U SES . it is used for fuel and in the manufacture of tool handles, 

 and by the Indians for the horns of their fish-nets, etc. The tree has 

 been introduced into cultivation for ornamental purposes, which the 

 beauty of its foliage, flowers and fruit well deserves, and is said to 

 adapt itself -better to our eastern conditions of climate than any other 

 Pacific coast tree. 



ORDER LEGUMINOSJE: PULSE FAMILY. 



Leaves alternate, usually compound, entire and furnished with stipules. Flowers 

 with 5 sepals more or less united at the base; petals 5, papilionaceous or regular; 

 stamens diadelphous, monadelphous or distinct and with versatile anthers; pis- 

 tils single, simple and free. Fruit a legume (pod) with mostly albumenless seeds. 



GENUS PARKINSONIA, LINNAEUS. 



Leaves alternate or fascicled, with short spinescent persistent or cadu- 

 cous stipules, evenly bipinnate with short obsolete or spinescent rachis, the 

 one or two pairs of pinnae bearing numerous minute opposite entire leaflets with- 

 out stipels. Flowers perfect in slender axillary racemes: calyx campanulate, 

 with five narrow lobes reflaxed at maturity, deciduous, valvate in the bud; pet- 

 als, five, yellow, unguiculate, spreading, the upper broader, within the others and 

 glandular a base of claw; stamens ten, free, slightly declinate, filaments pilose 

 below the middle and the upper one gibbous on the outside: anthers uniform, ver- 

 satile, with two cells longitudinally dehiscent; pistil inserted at base of calyx tube, 

 with minute terminal stigma, slender filiform incurved style and shortly stipi- 

 tate ovary containing several anatropous ovules suspended in two ranks from its 

 inner angle. Fruit a linear torulose legume, somewhat contracted between the 

 seeds, accuminate at both ends, longitudinally striated, with two, thin coriaceous 

 valves and containing light-brown oblong seeds with slender funicle thin testa 

 and horny albumen. 



A genus of three species of trees or shrubs often armed with spines and dedi- 

 cated to John Parkinson, an English botanist and horticulturist of the seventeenth 

 century. 



