TREES OF AMERICA. 209 



and grows in every part of North America ; 

 the leaves are four or five inches long, and 

 very beautiful, from their regular shape, and 

 the evenness of the teeth into which the edges 

 are notched ; the flowers are small, and grow 

 in handsome purple clusters ; the seeds are 

 shaped something like pumpion-seeds, and 

 consist of a sort of brown pip with a green 

 fringe round it, and they hang in bunches of 

 three or four together. The white elm is a 

 large tree, sometimes four feet thick, and very 

 lofty ; the trunk is p erfectly straight, and 

 shoots up thirty or forty feet before it begins 

 to divide into branches. There is one pecu- 

 liarity about the white elm that I have not 

 noticed in any other tree ; I scarcely ever 

 saw one that had not two of its lowest 

 branches growing downwards towards the 

 ground. The arrangement of the branches 

 generally in the white elm is very striking 

 and beautiful. The bark is white, tender, 

 and deeply grooved or furrowed. The wood 

 is dark brown, but is neither as hard nor as 

 tough as the European elm. It is used for 

 making coach-wheels and the keels of ships. 

 The bark, soaked in water and made supple 



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