5C.S 



AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



such slow growth that few timber owners will be inclined to wait for a 

 second crop, after the old trees have been cut, since 150 years are 

 necessary under forest conditions to produce a merchantable tree. * 



SONORA IRONWOOD (Olneya tesota) is a desert tree, and the only representative 

 of the genus. It takes its name from the Mexican state where it is most abundant 

 and where it was discovered in 1852. It grows in southern California and Arizona, 

 and there it thrives in gulches and depressions in the desert, frequently associated 

 with mesquite. It is so heavy that perfectly dry wood will sink in water. The 

 heartwood is deep chocolate-brown, mottled with red, the thin sapwood is lemon- 

 yellow. Its hardness renders it difficult to work, and it can scarcely be split. The 

 wood is made into canes and other small articles of great beauty. It is not abundant, 

 and the small supply is remote from manufacturing centers; otherwise it would be 

 more valuable. It is excellent fuel, but it is burned chiefly by stockmen and miners 

 in their camps. The largest trees are thirty feet high and eighteen inches in diameter. 

 It is an evergreen, and its pea-like flowers brighten many a remote desert place. 



WILD TAMARIND (Lysiloma latisiliqua) is forty or fifty feet high, two or three 

 in diameter, grows in southern Florida, and has double-compound leaves, four or five 

 inches long. The fruit is a pod one inch wide and five or less in length. The wood 

 weighs forty pounds to the cubic foot, is neither strong nor tough, very low in elasti- 

 city, is rich dark brown tinged with red, the sapwood white. It has been reported 

 for boatbuilding, and claims have been made that it is equal to mahogany for that 

 purpose, but the claim is of doubtful validity, in view of the rather poor showing it 

 makes in several physical properties, though it takes good polish. 



