TREES GROWING IN MOIST SOIL. 



147 



and appears well in cultivation. 

 In the early spring when it is 

 covered with its yellow flowers 

 it seems to have suddenly be- 

 come quite frivolous. In the 

 southwest the tree is hardly more 

 than a shrub. Its wood is creamy 

 white, strong, and difficult to 

 split. 



A. octandra hybrida, purple 

 sweet buckeye, is readily dis- 

 tinguished from the preceding 

 species in its season of bloom, 

 as its flowers are purple or dull 

 red. The leaves, also, are very Ascuius octandra. 



downy on their under surface, and the bark of the tree is lighter 

 in colour. 



OHIO BUCKEYE. 



FETID BUCKEYE. 



AZsculus glabra . 



(Plate LX XIII.) 



FAMILY SHAPE HEIGHT RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Soap-berry, Spreading; branches, 18-35 feet, or Along the Alleghanies May. 



slender. higher. to Ala. and "westward. Fruit: Oct. 



Bark : grey; furrowed and separating into thin scales; odour, disagreeable. 

 Leaves: palmately-compound ; opposite; with slender petioles and five or seven 

 long oval leaflets, taper-pointed at the apex and base ; unequally serrate ; yel- 

 lowish green above, paler below ; almost glabrous at maturity. Flowers : not 

 showy ; pale yellow green ; growing in a short panicle ; pubescent. Corolla : 

 with four erect and rather uniform petals having claws. Fruit: two smooth 

 nuts, enclosed in a green round husk with prickles when young. 



Although this is not a common tree it has grown so exten- 

 sively in Ohio that the name "the Buckeye State " has been 

 the outcome. It is also hardy in New England, In low, moist 

 ground and river bottom lands it finds its natural habitat. For 

 almost every contrivance of man it seems as though there 



