FOREST TREES IN THEIR WINTER CONDITION 131 



brown or bluish-gray ; on young trees it is pale, smooth or 

 only slightly fissured. 



The branchlets of the last season are orange-brown, marked 

 with numerous pale lenticels, and quite lustrous. 



The winter buds are dull brown, not covered with resin or 

 varnish, and along the sides of branchlets you will always 

 find two buds opposite each other, while a strong bud ter- 

 minates each branchlet. 



Compare the buds of maples with the buds of poplars. 



The sugar maple produces the most valuable wood of all 

 the maples. It is used much for flooring and inside finish- 

 ing, and makes excellent fuel. It is scarcely necessary to 

 state that this is the tree to which boys and girls are in- 

 debted for the much-relished maple sugar. Let a boy who 

 has assisted in making maple sugar or maple syrup describe 

 the process to the class. 



5. The White Ash. Fraxinus Americana. ' 



A large tree, fifty to seventy feet high ; with stout, up- 

 right, spreading branches, forming a broad, round-topped, 

 pyramidal head, when growing free, but only a small, nar- 

 row crown in the forest. Bark, dark brown, or gray tinged 

 with red, separated into broad, flat ridges by deep, narrow 

 fissures. Twigs, gray, stout, two opposite each other; buds, 

 rusty-brown and felty, leaf-scars semicircular. 



Habitat. Rich or moist wood. 



6. The Paper Birch, or Canoe Birch. Betula papyri/era. 



Tree fifty to seventy feet high, forming, while young, a 

 narrow, pyramidal head of short, slender, spreading branches, 

 with long, drooping branchlets ; old trees often supporting 

 a round-topped, airy head of pendulous branches. 



Bark on young stems and large limbs creamy white, easily 

 splitting into thin, paper-like layers, of which the inner 



