702 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



brella sticks. Rusty nannyberry (Viburnum rufotomentosum) is a 

 similar species, but attains a larger size, and grows from Virginia to 

 Texas. The wood may be known by its disagreeable odor. Sheepberry 

 (Vibernum lentago) has a more northern range, from Quebec 

 to Saskatchewan, and south along the mountains to Georgia. 



BLUB ELDER (Sambucus glauca) is one of three tree elders in the 

 United States, the others being Mexican elder (Sambucus mexicana) and 

 red-berried elder (Sambucus callicarpa}. They are ornamental rather 

 than useful. The three species occur on the Pacific coast. The largest 

 recorded size of an elder was forty feet high and twenty-eight inches in 

 diameter. Its age was about fifty years. 



FRINGE TREE (Chionanthus mrginica} is known also as white fringe, 

 American fringe, white ash, old man's beard, flowering ash, and sun- 

 flower tree. Its natural range extends from Pennsylvania to Florida 

 and west to Texas, but it has been widely planted in this country and 

 Europe. It is seldom more than twenty feet high and eight inches in 

 diameter. The bark possesses medicinal value. Devilwood (Osman- 

 thus americanus) belongs to the same family, but to a different genus. 

 It grows from North Carolina to Florida and west to Louisiana. The 

 largest trunks are a foot in diameter and forty feet high. The wood is 

 strong, heavy, hard, dark brown, and difficult to work. 



BLACK IRONWOOD (Rhamnid ium ferr eum) of Florida is among the 

 heaviest, probably is the heaviest, wood of the United States. It 

 weighs 81.14 pounds per cubic foot, and when a hundred pounds of the 

 wood is burned, it leaves eight pounds of ashes the highest in ash of all 

 woods of the United States. Its fuel value is very high. Trees are 

 small, seldom more than thirty feet high and six inches in diameter. 

 Bluewood (Condalia obovata) is a related Texas species, called also log- 

 wood and purple haw. It produces heavy, hard, close-grained wood, 

 light red in color. Trees six inches in diameter and twenty-five feet 

 high are fully up to the average. Along the lower Rio Grande it forms 

 dense, tangled thickets. Red ironwood (Reynosia latifolia) of southern 

 Florida belongs to a related species, and is sometimes called darling 

 plum, because its purple fruit is edible. The tree is small, the wood 

 heavy, hard, strong, and of rich brown color. White ironwood (Hypelate 

 trijoliaia) belongs to a different family. It occurs in Florida where trees 

 are sometimes thirty-five feet high and eighteen inches in diameter. 

 The heavy, hard, rich brown wood is durable in contact with the ground, 

 and is used for fence posts, handles, and boats. Inkwood (Exothea 

 paniculata) is of the same family as white ironwood but of a different 

 genus. It is also a Florida species and is known in some localities as 

 ironwood. The tree is occasionally a foot in diameter and forty feet 



