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TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



base, glandular and sticky as they unfold, at maturity thin, yellow-green and rugose above, 

 pale and soft-pubescent below; turning yellow or brown and falling early in the autumn. 

 Flowers: staminate in thick aments 3'-5' long; calyx usually 6-lobed, light yellow-green, 

 puberulous on the outer surface, f long, its bract rusty-pubescent, acute at apex; 

 stamens 8-12, with nearly sessile dark brown anthers and slightly lobed connectives; 

 pistillate in 6-8-flowered spikes, constricted above the middle, about %' long, its bract 

 and bractlets coated with sticky white or pink glandular hairs and rather shorter than 

 the linear-lanceolate calyx-lobes; stigmas bright red, \' long. Fruit in 3-5 fruited droop- 

 ing clusters, obscurely 2 or rarely 4-ridged, ovoid-oblong, coated with rusty clammy 

 matted hairs, l^'-2^' long with a thick husk; nut ovoid, abruptly contracted and acu- 

 minate at apex, with 4 prominent and 4 narrow less conspicuous ribs, light brown, deeply 

 sculptured between the ribs into thin broad irregular longitudinal plates, 2-celled at the 

 base and 1-celled above the middle; seed sweet, very oily, soon becoming rancid. 



A tree, occasionally 100 high, with a tall straight trunk 2-3 in diameter, and some- 

 times free of branches for half its height; more frequently divided 20 or 30 above the 

 ground into many stout limbs spreading horizontally and forming a Moad low symmetrical 



Ffe. 163 



round-topped head, and dark orange-brown or bright green rather lustrous branchlets 

 coated at first with rufous pubescence, covered more or less thickly with pale lenticels, 

 gradually becoming puberulous, brown tinged with red or orange in their second year and 

 marked by light gray leaf-scars with large black fibro-vascular bundle-scars and elevated 

 bands of pale tomentum separating them from the lowest axillary bud. Winter-buds: 

 terminal ^'-f long, |' wide, flattened and obliquely truncate at apex, their outer scales 

 coated with short pale pubescence; axillary buds ovoid, flattened, rounded at apex, ' long, 

 covered with rusty brown or pale pubescence. Bark of young stems and of the branches 

 smooth and light gray, becoming on old trees f'-l' thick, light brown, deeply divided into 

 broad ridges separating on the surface into small appressed plate-like scales. Wood 

 light, soft, not strong, coarse-grained, light brown, turning darker with exposure, with 

 thin light-colored sapwood composed of 5 or 6 layers of annual growth ; largely employed 

 in the interior finish of houses, and for furniture. The inner bark possesses mild cathartic 

 properties. Sugar is made from the sap, and the green husks of the fruit are used to dye 

 cloth yellow or orange color. 



Distribution. Rich moist soil near the banks of streams and on low rocky hills, southern 

 New Brunswick to the valley of the St. Lawrence River in Ontario, the northern penin- 

 sular of Michigan, southern Minnesota, eastern South Dakota, eastern Iowa, southeastern 

 Nebraska, and southward to central Kansas, northern Arkansas, Delaware, eastern 



