AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



group of trees, able to hold their ground with the best inhabitants of 

 the forest. They were in the Rocky Mountains, and far north in 

 Alaska. They were in Europe also, or were represented there by some 

 very similar species. 



For some reason which is not definitely known, they lost out when 

 competition with other trees became keen, and in the course of long 

 periods of time they disappeared from their former ranges in the North 

 and West. They took to the swamps, just as the tribes of which Tacitus 

 spoke, took to the morasses when they could no longer face their enemies 

 on open ground. It was a far cry from Alaska to the Chattahoochee 

 swamps in Florida, yet that was where A. H. Curtis and Charles Mohr 

 went to procure typical planertree specimens for the tests which 

 Sargent made of American woods. 



It has been suggested that tree species which have lost out in 

 competition for ground, have been those which were at some decided 

 disadvantage in the matter of getting their seeds properly scattered and 

 planted. The case has not been proved, because there are as many facts 

 and as much argument against that hypothesis as for it. The bigtrees 

 of California are a noted example of a species which lost out and retreated 

 to a corner, yet their seeds fly like birds. Plainly, something besides 

 winged seeds is needed to keep the species in the fight. However, it is 

 not difficult to see that the planertree, with wingless seeds and of so 

 little use as food that no bird or rodent will carry them or bury them, has 

 been much handicapped in the long contest which has crowded it from 

 the arctic circle to the cotton belt. 



It has the habits of the subdued and conquered tree. It has adapt- 

 ed itself to swamps where few species can grow, and where competition 

 for light and room is reduced to a minimum. Yet, even there, it is con- 

 tent to take the leavings of more ambitious species. The crowns make 

 little effort to rise up to the light, for which many other trees battle 

 during their whole existence. The planertree 's low, broad top of con- 

 torted branches places it perpetually in the shade of any other trees 

 which overtop it. 



The wood of the planertree is lighter in weight, poorer in fuel value, 

 weaker, and more brittle than the poorest of the elms. The annual ring 

 lacks the rows of large open pores common in all the elms, but it has 

 many small pores scattered through the whole year's growth. It is not 

 easy to note a difference between the springwood and that which grows 

 later. The wood is soft, light brown in color, and the nearly white sap- 

 wood is thick. It is often, perhaps generally, a tree of fairly rapid 

 growth, and since it does not reach large size, it is probably short-lived, 

 but exact information along that line is lacking . 



