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AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



The California sycamore is found in the southern half of that state, and in 

 Lower California. It grows from sea level up to 5,000 feet, and has the same habits as 

 the larger sycamore of the East, and prefers the banks of streams and the wet land in 

 the bottoms of canyons. It attains a height of from forty to eighty feet, and a 

 diameter of from two to five. Some trees are larger, one in particular near Los 

 Angeles having a trunk diameter of nine feet. The tree is usually extremely distorted 

 and misshaped, leaning, twisted, and forking and reforking until a practical lumber- 

 man would pronounce it a hopeless proposition. This applies, however, to trunks 

 which grow in the open, and that is where most of them grow. When they are found 

 crowded in thick stands in the bottoms of canyons, their trunks are shapely enough for 

 short sawlogs. The wood is very similar to that of eastern sycamore, and it is used 

 tor similar purposes, when used at all. The balls are strung five on one tough stem, 

 which is from six to ten inches long. The eastern sycamore usually has a stem for 

 each ball. The seeding habits of both trees are the same. 



ARIZONA SYCAMORE (Plalanus wrightif) has its range in southern New Mexico, 

 southern Arizona, and neighboring regions in Mexico, where it grows in the bottoms 

 of canyons up to 6,000 feet above sea. The tree attains a height of from thirty to 

 eighty feet, and a diameter of two to five. The trunk is seldom shapely, but often 

 divides in large branches, some of which are fifty or sixty feet long. There are 

 usually three balls on a stem, and the leaf is shaped much like the leaf of red gum, 

 but there is considerable variation in form. The wood resembles eastern sycamore 

 in color and most other features, but when quarter-sawed the flecks produced by the 

 medullary rays are generally smaller, and give a mottled effect. The wood has not 

 been much used, but apparently it is not inferior to eastern sycamore. 



