CUCUMBER : Magnolia acuminata 



NOTWITHSTANDING that this tree has several names, it is 

 best known by the one here given this, no doubt, because 

 the shape and color of its fruit, when green, somewhat re- 

 semble a cucumber. There are seven species of Magnolias 

 growing naturally in the United States, but this is the only 

 one producing timber of any commercial value. Its natural 

 range is not very extended. It is largely confined to the Ap- 

 palachian Mountains, and their eastern and western slopes, 

 from central New York to central Georgia and Alabama, 

 spreading out, however, to southern Illinois, and into Ken- 

 tucky and Tennessee. It has never been found abundant in 

 any one locality, and frequently is entirely absent from 

 sections surrounded by regions where it is to be found. 

 This is, no doubt, because the percentage of fertility of 

 its seeds is very low and both fruit and seeds are extremely 

 bitter and obnoxious to the taste of man and brutes ; and, as 

 the seeds have no wings to enable them to be carried by the 

 wind, they are not widely scattered. 



Its best development is at the base of the mountains of 

 eastern Tennessee and Kentucky and in West Virginia. It 

 prefers a rich and rather moist soil, but thrives well in the 

 not very fertile soils of the carboniferous formation in West 

 Virginia and Pennsylvania. When grown in the open, its 

 crown forms a fine pyramid, with limbs from near the 

 ground up to a sharp apex ; but being light-demanding it 

 will, when crowded, produce a straight, slightly tapering, 

 smooth stem, sometimes fifty or more feet without a limb, 

 and with a diameter of three and one half to four feet, and 

 a total height of one hundred feet. 



The wood is light, soft, brittle, straight- and fine-grained, 

 easily worked, and does not warp or split when seasoning. 

 The heartwood varies in color from a light yellow-brown to 

 a dark reddish brown, with frequent streaks quite like pale 



