146 TREES GROWING IN MOIST SOIL. 



ety called Mexicana differs from it in becoming arborescent in 

 its habit. It is a very ornamental tree, free from objectional 

 features, and about houses it is much planted for shade. Its fine 

 light foliage makes it desirable for the purpose. The Indians 

 and Mexicans assiduously gather its fruit every year and have 

 many ways of preparing it as food, which, it is said, they keenly 

 relish. 



S. Canad/nsis, sweet elder or elderberry, is a well known 

 woody shrub, which commonly grows from five to ten feet 

 high. Its flowers and cymes of deep purple fruit are possessed 

 of medicinal properties. The leaves when crushed emit a 

 heavy scent. 



SWEET BUCKEYE. BIG BUCKEYE. YELLOW 



BUCKEYE. {Plate LXXII) 



^Esculus octdndra. 



FAMILY SHAPE HEIGHT RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Soap-berry. Compact; branches, 3090 feet. Along the Allegkanies April-June, 



slightly pendulous. to Ga. westward to Iowa. 



Bark : dark brown ; separating into thin pieces. Branchlets : orange-brown 

 when young. Leaves : palmately-compound ; opposite, with usually five or some- 

 times seven long, oval, or elliptical leaflets, taper-pointed at the apex and base; 

 sharply serrate ; glabrous above and pubescent along the ribs underneath. 

 Flowers: pale yellow; growing on short pedicels in close panicles. Calyx: 

 oblong ; with five points. Corolla : with five petals, the lateral ones long, nar- 

 row at the ends and rounded. Stamens : shorter than the petals. Fruit : a 

 round, green husk ; uneven on the surface, but without prickles and enclosing 

 one or two large brown nuts. 



In the outline of the buckeyes there is something particularly 

 compact and well-regulated, and their symmetrical leaves 

 cling together as though to shut out the intrusion of other ideas 

 than their own. We can hardly fancy the boughs of these 

 trees waving poetically ; they are much too conventional. The 

 leaflets, as can be seen from a comparison of the illustrations, 

 are very differently shaped from those of the horse-chestnut, 

 which is an introduced tree. The sweet buckeye is so named 

 because the odour of the meat of its nut is not peculiar like 

 that of others of the genus. It is a handsome and shapely tree, 



