INDIGENOUS TREES AND SHRUBS. 21 



OUR OTIIER HICKORIES. 



In our Big Woods, extending north to Snake river, is the Pig-nut or 

 Broom Hickory, C. porcena. (Nutt.) Juglans Glabra. (Willd.) It grows to 

 a magnificent tree. Its wood is reputed to be the strongest and most 

 tenacious of all our hickories. We have also the Bitter-nut, C. amara, 

 more extensive than the former; found on the tributaries of the St. Croix, 

 St. Louis and along the water courses of the upper Mississippi. The 

 woodmen work up its wood into various tools for lumbering and farming 

 operations. Their nuts are inferior to the Shell-bark. Though all our 

 hickories are liable to be worm-eaten and easily decay, they are valuable 

 trees, hardy, and should have a deserving place in our forestry work. 



SALICACE/E. WILLOW FAHILY. 



Prof. J. H. Winchell in his Geological report of 1883, as compiled by 

 Prof. Warren Upham, enumerates fifteen species of native willows regis- 

 tered for Minnesota. Since then others have doubtless been discovered. 

 We have four as here given that grow to trees. Nearly all our willows 

 naturally grow in humid situations, along our water shores where they 

 serve the useful purpose of preventing the erosion and waste of the soil. 

 The bark of most of them contains a medical property about as effectual 

 in intermittent fevers as the Peruvian bark. Botanists find the willow 

 family as among the most difficult to discriminate. The distinction 

 obtains principally in the variability of their stamens, leaf appearances 

 and seed vessels. Their flowers are generally dioecious, that is, a class of 

 plants whose sex-flowers are on two different individuals, as opposed to 

 inonascia, with two sorts of flowers on different parts of the same plant. 

 Their seeds, developed in catkins, are very numerous; hence the willows 

 multiply very rapidly. 



black willow, Salix nigra. 



A river tree, growing thirty or more feet high; usually divides into large 

 limbs ?t a short distance up the trunk. Leaves long and narrow. A 

 decoction of the roots is pronounced a good purifier of the blood. 



The Myrtle Willow myrliliodes, has its merits, rare southward, frequent 

 northward, even north of Lake Superior. A good protection against Polar 

 winds. 



Long-Leaved Willow, S. longifolio. There seems to be some confusion 

 among botanists as to the identity of this willow. Gray mentions it as "a 

 low shrub or a low tree." Nuttall, dating from his observations in Oregon, 

 speaks of it as a large tree: "No willow on the American continent present? 

 remarkable and splendid an appearance." It has a very different aspect 

 from this in Minnesota, if indeed it is the same species. It is our Sand-bar 

 willow, common throughout the state. 



