2io TREES GROWING IN RICH SOIL. 



in little clusters, the long, sharply-pointed and richly-coloured 

 thorns appear. But they are not more curious to look at than 

 are the great pods which hang on the tree late in the season. 

 One is really inclined to wonder where they came from. As they 

 twist themselves like corkscrews in drying they produce an 

 eccentric effect. This is not their object, however ; they have 

 simply devised this plan as a means of securing a wider dis- 

 tribution of their seeds. 



The tree is now widely planted throughout the north, and it 

 is often chosen to form hedges. That it withstands the on- 

 slaught of insects and grows rapidly from the seed are strong 

 points in its favour. It comes into leaf, however, late in the 

 spring when nearly all the other trees are already clothed with 

 verdure. 



AMERICAN YELLOW-WOOD. KENTUCKY YELLOW- 

 WOOD. {Plate CXJI.) 



Cladrdstis littea. 



FAMILY SHAPE HEIGHT RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Pea. Head, broad; branches, 30-50 feet. Eastern Ky. to Tenn. May \ June, 



spreading. and North Carolina. 



Bark: silvery grey; close, something like that of the beech. Branches: 

 ashy. Leaves: compound; alternate; with stalks that are hollowed at their 

 bases and enclose the buds of the succeeding year; odd-pinnate; with from 

 seven to eleven oval or ovate leaflets ; pointed at the apex and rather blunt at 

 the base; entire; light green above; lighter below; glabrous. Flowers: white; 

 fragrant; hanging in full, terminal panicles often a foot or more long. Corolla: 

 white; papilionaceous; the standard large and turned backward. Fruit: 

 many linear flat pods which hang from short peduncles and contain from four 

 to six seeds. 



There is something mystical about the great bunches of this 

 tree's flowers when they unfold, and a strangeness lurks in 

 seeing things so purely white hanging from its boughs. When 

 the sun shines upon them after a shower, they sparkle as with 

 innumerable drops of crystallized dew, and tiny, round specks 

 of reflected sunshine gleam over their white petals. It is inter- 

 esting to notice their colours. Sometimes they blend crimson, 



