66 Trees' with* Simple Leaves. [AII 



Genus CARPINUS, L. (Hornbeam.) 



Fig. 33, a and b. Hornbeam, Ironwood, Water Beech, Blue 

 Beech. C. Caroliniana, Walt. 



Leaves, SIMPLE ; ALTERNATE ; EDGE VERY SHARPLY AND 



QUITE IRREGULARLY AND UNEVENLY TOOTHED. 



Outline, long egg-shape, or reverse long egg-shape. 

 Apex, taper-pointed. Base, rounded or slightly 

 heart-shaped. 



Leaf-stem, about one half inc^i long, slender and smooth, 

 or slightly hairy. 



Leaf, usually three to four inches long, and about half as 

 wide, but with many smaller leaves of varying size 

 on the same branch ; nearly smooth, slightly hairy on 

 the straight and distinct ribs and in their angles. 



Bark of trunk, a deep bluish-gray or slate ; smooth, but 

 often marked up and down with irregular ridges, 

 which run from each side of the lower branches. 

 The new shoots are somewhat hairy, and brownish 

 or purplish ; the older branchlets, an ashy-gray color, 

 with a pearly lustre. 



Fruit, in loose drooping cluster, with leaf-like scales that 

 are strongly three-lobed and placed in pairs base to 

 base. October. 



Found, along streams and in swamps. Quite common 

 North, South, and West ; northward often only as 

 a low shrub. 



A small tree or shrub, usually ten to twenty feet high, 

 but in the southern Alleghany Mountains sometimes 

 reaching a height of fifty feet. Its wood is white and 

 very compact and strong. 



